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sirsystemerror) wrote2015-04-18 07:03 pm
sirsystemerror) wrote2015-04-18 07:03 pm
Pokemon Card GB1: Mono-Fire
Here's another monotype Card GB challenge. The Fire type in the TCG is characterized by many of them requiring you to discard Energy to use their stronger attacks. Because of this, it can be difficult to get more than one Pokemon at a time going. It felt like the next logical step, being better than Grass types and not having to worry about Resistances.
For this playthrough, I decided I would fight every duelist only once, and see where it takes me. There is an exception to this of course: and that is I do need the Energy I need to actually run the deck to begin with. Since I didn't want another lengthy annoying tutorial grind for Energy (the lack of could make this impossible), I just hacked in enough to fill my deck out and get rid of those unwanted cards and start the variant right away!
Let's go over the key Pokemon of this run in-superbrief.
- Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard: Our tactical nuke!
- Ponyta/Rapidash Our defensive powerhouse!
- Base Magmar: Our Basic destroyer! Not to be confused with the tankier but weaker Fossil Magmar.
__________
So I went around to all the clubs and fought whoever I could to get something of a deck going. In this duration, I also earned the Lightning, Science, Grass, and Fire medals in that order. I suffered a few defeats here and there, but was generally able to get my Pokemon up and running, after which I rolled whatever was in my way from there. I soon ditched the Growlithes and Arcanines from the deck's original configuration: they're nice and all, and I even got enough for a 4/4 split, but they're a bit cumbersome.
Also, behold the biggest jerk of the run: Lickitung. They barely do any damage, but have tons of HP and had an annoying habit of stunlocking me.
Irritably, I didn't get any Base Magmar cards. While having only 50HP, they're a Basic Pokemon that can do 30 damage for 2 Energy without even needing to discard any, nigh unheard of for a Fire type. Instead, I decided to settle on a team of Charmander's line and Ponya's line, due to picking up an extra Charizard.
Rapidash and Charizard actually synergized quite well. Let's talk about them a bit. The latter is one of the most famous Pokemon Cards: 120HP, and a 100-damage Fire Spin attack that, at the time and even for several sets after, would one-shot anything in the game except Chansey and other Charizard. However, it requires discarding two Energy Cards - even if you have two Double Colorless Energies to use with Energy Burn, you need to discard both.
Meanwhile, Rapidash has a zero Retreat Cost, and an 30-damage attack that requires discarding no Energy and can even make itself invincible on when Agility rolls Heads. The strategy is obvious: use Rapidash when things are fine, and if something big and scary comes out, use the Charizard nuke.
All in all, my deck looked something like this by the time I got most of what I wanted, and was able to move onto the Club Leaders as well as what I had forgotten (Rock Club)/wouldn't immediately fight me (Psychic Club). It was nice ending up with four Energy Removals.
There were a few interesting fights through all this, mostly among the Club leaders. I actually lost to Isaac the first time, because the AI was smart enough to Selfdestruct his Magnemite when I only had up a Ponyta.
Ken, the Fire Club leader, in particular was really screwy. Half my deck was Energy, and yet I had a severe shortage of it! I still had enough to get through though, due to Energy Removal cards stalling. Nikki, the Grass Club leader, was also interesting. I only had a Charmander, but that was enough to get the job done. After an initial Oddish, it one-shot the rest of her Pokemon with Ember.
Someone in the Psychic Club had Mr. Mimes (can't be damaged by attacks over 20 damage) and a promo Mew (can't be damaged by evolved Pokemon), which a Ponyta was able to take care of both. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to use Charizard to just blow away anything in the duel against Murray - he never got Alakazam going. I did use Charizard extensively to tear through his Chanseys, however, and it was extremely fun even if it was wasteful.
The second duel against Ronald was highly entertaining. He eventually got out a Mr. Mime, and all I had was a Magmar and Charmeleon, neither of which could actually damage it! I had to wait until I got a Ponyta, who could Smash Kick it down. Then he started paralyzing it with a Lickitung! Thankfully, he rolled tails, I got out Charizard, and a few Fire Spins ended the match from there. With one card in my deck left!
The battle against one of the underlings, Ryan, in the Rock Club was funny: I had up dual Rapidashes. which could retreat away from this effect at will despite all the heads he got on the roll. Wasn't much of a contest. Gene himself never got any evolutions going. My Rapidashes trampled over him, though I never got up Charizard.
It was around this point that I realized I'd forgotten about the emails. I was able to add two more Base Magmars to my deck because of this! Not much to say about the Fighting Club. I had some of the worst luck when fighting the underlings, like dying on turn 2 with a lone Ponyta or having no Energy at all. I forget exactly how Mitch went, though I fought him after the Water Club. I got up Charizard for its Resistance late into the match, and that pretty much sealed things.
The Water Club I tackled last, and it went surprisingly smoothly. It was just a matter of boiling them away before they could get going - as discussed, Water Pokemon do take a while to get up to speed. The twins died to Magmar before they could do much, and after a false start (featuring Charizard dying to a Krabby), a similar thing happened with the last underling. I got an insane amount of Rapidash Agility heads, as well as getting up Charizard to eventually put down Amy. She never got a chance to get Blastoise going.
One last deck checkup before we go in. I took out some Energy and my lone Pluspower for three Switches, in case I needed them. That one Computer Search that came with my starter deck had really been a boon throughout the game, managing to get me out of several pinches, so it got to stay.
The first time fighting the Grand Masters got stopped at Jack. He kept Scooping Up his legendary Articuno card and paralyzing my Rapidash. The second came down to simply avoiding enough of those while getting enough heads on Agility. It also helped that I had three Rapidashes to try for it with. I soon got up Charizard to take out what was left.
The first two had some tense moments, but were ultimately a nonthreat. Courtney was even easier than with my Water team, as I kept getting Energy Removals to cripple her Energy-consuming Fire types.
Rod was pretty scary. He had a Gyarados in his hand, but thankfully, I was able to cripple and take down his Magikarp with Energy Removals before it could evolve. Could've been problematic otherwise.
Ronald was a long duel, but I never really ended up in danger. I was wary of these Dragonairs, due to their Hyper Beams discarding Energy. Towards the end of it, my Bench had another Rapidash and two Magmars ready to go if need be. I wasn't running out of resources then!
Going through without any card grinding certainly made this one more interesting than the last one. I never thought that Rapidash would be so helpful. That said, I did need to catch some breaks with luck to pull through. It's definitely not a restriction I can slap on every monotype Card GB variant.
Index
For this playthrough, I decided I would fight every duelist only once, and see where it takes me. There is an exception to this of course: and that is I do need the Energy I need to actually run the deck to begin with. Since I didn't want another lengthy annoying tutorial grind for Energy (the lack of could make this impossible), I just hacked in enough to fill my deck out and get rid of those unwanted cards and start the variant right away!
Let's go over the key Pokemon of this run in-superbrief.
- Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard: Our tactical nuke!
- Ponyta/Rapidash Our defensive powerhouse!
- Base Magmar: Our Basic destroyer! Not to be confused with the tankier but weaker Fossil Magmar.
__________
So I went around to all the clubs and fought whoever I could to get something of a deck going. In this duration, I also earned the Lightning, Science, Grass, and Fire medals in that order. I suffered a few defeats here and there, but was generally able to get my Pokemon up and running, after which I rolled whatever was in my way from there. I soon ditched the Growlithes and Arcanines from the deck's original configuration: they're nice and all, and I even got enough for a 4/4 split, but they're a bit cumbersome.
Also, behold the biggest jerk of the run: Lickitung. They barely do any damage, but have tons of HP and had an annoying habit of stunlocking me.
Irritably, I didn't get any Base Magmar cards. While having only 50HP, they're a Basic Pokemon that can do 30 damage for 2 Energy without even needing to discard any, nigh unheard of for a Fire type. Instead, I decided to settle on a team of Charmander's line and Ponya's line, due to picking up an extra Charizard.
Rapidash and Charizard actually synergized quite well. Let's talk about them a bit. The latter is one of the most famous Pokemon Cards: 120HP, and a 100-damage Fire Spin attack that, at the time and even for several sets after, would one-shot anything in the game except Chansey and other Charizard. However, it requires discarding two Energy Cards - even if you have two Double Colorless Energies to use with Energy Burn, you need to discard both.
Meanwhile, Rapidash has a zero Retreat Cost, and an 30-damage attack that requires discarding no Energy and can even make itself invincible on when Agility rolls Heads. The strategy is obvious: use Rapidash when things are fine, and if something big and scary comes out, use the Charizard nuke.
All in all, my deck looked something like this by the time I got most of what I wanted, and was able to move onto the Club Leaders as well as what I had forgotten (Rock Club)/wouldn't immediately fight me (Psychic Club). It was nice ending up with four Energy Removals.
There were a few interesting fights through all this, mostly among the Club leaders. I actually lost to Isaac the first time, because the AI was smart enough to Selfdestruct his Magnemite when I only had up a Ponyta.
Ken, the Fire Club leader, in particular was really screwy. Half my deck was Energy, and yet I had a severe shortage of it! I still had enough to get through though, due to Energy Removal cards stalling. Nikki, the Grass Club leader, was also interesting. I only had a Charmander, but that was enough to get the job done. After an initial Oddish, it one-shot the rest of her Pokemon with Ember.
Someone in the Psychic Club had Mr. Mimes (can't be damaged by attacks over 20 damage) and a promo Mew (can't be damaged by evolved Pokemon), which a Ponyta was able to take care of both. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to use Charizard to just blow away anything in the duel against Murray - he never got Alakazam going. I did use Charizard extensively to tear through his Chanseys, however, and it was extremely fun even if it was wasteful.
The second duel against Ronald was highly entertaining. He eventually got out a Mr. Mime, and all I had was a Magmar and Charmeleon, neither of which could actually damage it! I had to wait until I got a Ponyta, who could Smash Kick it down. Then he started paralyzing it with a Lickitung! Thankfully, he rolled tails, I got out Charizard, and a few Fire Spins ended the match from there. With one card in my deck left!
The battle against one of the underlings, Ryan, in the Rock Club was funny: I had up dual Rapidashes. which could retreat away from this effect at will despite all the heads he got on the roll. Wasn't much of a contest. Gene himself never got any evolutions going. My Rapidashes trampled over him, though I never got up Charizard.
It was around this point that I realized I'd forgotten about the emails. I was able to add two more Base Magmars to my deck because of this! Not much to say about the Fighting Club. I had some of the worst luck when fighting the underlings, like dying on turn 2 with a lone Ponyta or having no Energy at all. I forget exactly how Mitch went, though I fought him after the Water Club. I got up Charizard for its Resistance late into the match, and that pretty much sealed things.
The Water Club I tackled last, and it went surprisingly smoothly. It was just a matter of boiling them away before they could get going - as discussed, Water Pokemon do take a while to get up to speed. The twins died to Magmar before they could do much, and after a false start (featuring Charizard dying to a Krabby), a similar thing happened with the last underling. I got an insane amount of Rapidash Agility heads, as well as getting up Charizard to eventually put down Amy. She never got a chance to get Blastoise going.
One last deck checkup before we go in. I took out some Energy and my lone Pluspower for three Switches, in case I needed them. That one Computer Search that came with my starter deck had really been a boon throughout the game, managing to get me out of several pinches, so it got to stay.
The first time fighting the Grand Masters got stopped at Jack. He kept Scooping Up his legendary Articuno card and paralyzing my Rapidash. The second came down to simply avoiding enough of those while getting enough heads on Agility. It also helped that I had three Rapidashes to try for it with. I soon got up Charizard to take out what was left.
The first two had some tense moments, but were ultimately a nonthreat. Courtney was even easier than with my Water team, as I kept getting Energy Removals to cripple her Energy-consuming Fire types.
Rod was pretty scary. He had a Gyarados in his hand, but thankfully, I was able to cripple and take down his Magikarp with Energy Removals before it could evolve. Could've been problematic otherwise.
Ronald was a long duel, but I never really ended up in danger. I was wary of these Dragonairs, due to their Hyper Beams discarding Energy. Towards the end of it, my Bench had another Rapidash and two Magmars ready to go if need be. I wasn't running out of resources then!
Going through without any card grinding certainly made this one more interesting than the last one. I never thought that Rapidash would be so helpful. That said, I did need to catch some breaks with luck to pull through. It's definitely not a restriction I can slap on every monotype Card GB variant.
Index