Pokemon Card GB1: Mono-Water

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is a pyramid scheme put out by Nintendo and formerly Wizards of the Coast stateside. It was all the rage back in the day when the Pokemon craze was hot, and even got its own video game (actually, two). Some fanatics/freaks still play it to this day, spending countless dollars on booster packs to put together card decks, as well as money in travel expenses to attend tournaments.

Pokemon Card GB is a Gameboy Color game that encompasses the first three sets in the now ginormous series: Base, Jungle, and Fossil. It also has a few promotional cards and cards exclusive to it programmed in. So how about our variant? The monotype challenge is something that can be done in many Pokemon games, and this is no exception. So let’s do that, and I know the perfect one to start.

Water is one of the then-seven types of the TCG, encompassing both Pokemon of that type and Ice as well. They are generally weak to Lightning, although some (Poliwag’s line and Gyarados) are weak to Grass. Offensively, they can hit the weakness of Fire types (double damage), and there’s nothing that resists them (-30). It’s one of the game’s most notable types for the presence of Base Set Blastoise. Ordinarily, you can only attach one Energy Card (needed for attacks) per turn. But with this card’s Pokemon Power - Rain Dance - you may attach as much Water Energy to your Water Pokemon as you please. This can allow you to get Pokemon going really quickly.

That’s not to say that Water is a perfect type, however. In particular, it doesn’t really have a strong Basic Pokemon you can throw out and get heavy damage from at the cheap. Playing evolution cards is important, which can be especially troublesome against those pesky Aerodactyls who prevent it! Let's take a look at what we'll be using.

- Seel/Dewgong: Dewgong is one of the heaviest hitters, even being used in the TAS and speedruns, for it being able to to do 50 damage with Aurora Beam for only three energy. The beauty of Dewgong is that it is an Uncommon Card, meaning it's easier to stock up on.
- Magikarp/Gyarados: Very similar to Dewgong attack-wise, but Magikarp is strictly worse than Seel. What it does get is a Grass weakness, so it comes in handy against Lightning Pokemon.
- Poliwag/Poliwhirl/Poliwrath: They also get Grass weaknesses. Poliwhirl's Doubleslap is a bit unreliable, but Amnesia has its uses. Poliwrath's Whirlpool can be very fun to employ, as I found out.
- Squirtle/Wartortle/Blastoise: Rain Dance. Enough said. Blastoise with 5 Water Energy is my heaviest hitter, doing 60 damage a shot.
- Staryu: 20 damage for one Water energy. Starmie isn't worth using.
- Goldeen/Seaking: The only Jungle Cards I can use due to Eevee being off-limits. They're good in the early game, but Goldeen doesn't measure up in the end.
- Articuno: Takes a while to get going and has only 70HP, but Blizzard is a nice attack, and its lack of weakness and Fighting resistance is nice.
- Lapras: Just filler.
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This isn’t a very involved game - you simply grind booster packs by winning games, get what you need - so I’ll only be covering the major duels in detail, or at least as far as I can remember them. These reports will be kind of short, in other words.

The obvious first target was the Fire Club. I grinded booster packs on one of the members repeatedly until I built a halfway-respectable deck, though had to go back and fight the tutorial unaided several times to get Water Energy cards. It fell pretty unassumingly, as did the Science Club - which employs Grass Pokemon that are Poison-typed in the games. I used some of the underlings in these two clubs to grind booster packs to get going.


A bunch of card-grinding later, and I was as ready as I felt I could be. The battle against the Rock Club leader was amusing. Check it out: a Squirtle, a Wartortle, a Blastoise, AND enough Energy! Then I drew Pokemon Breeder, and just like that, I had a Blastoise on Turn 2 ready to start Hydro Pumping away. He chipped away, but none of his Pokemon really lasted long.

The rampage finally came to an end against this Graveler, who was in-turn revenge killed by Dewgong which picked up the slack from there.

After this, I had a heated duel with the Fighting Club member in the Grass Club. I simply would not draw energy, and despite the fact that I had an Articuno up, his Primeape could still do heavy damage. It at least was able to take it down before it got taken down thanks to it confusing itself, but I was in dire straits. Luckily, Squirtle’s Bubble came through with some paralysis on Magmars. I was eventually able to accumulate enough Energy to get a Dewgong up and running.

To advance in the Grass Club, you need to beat three members of it. The only finnicky thing was the third, leading with a Pikachu against my lone Squirtle! Luckily, I had some Potions and Energy Removal to defend against it, did not get paralyzed, and drew a Pluspower. I then got a Wartortle as a Prize, but had to survive a Weedle’s Poison Sting - which thankfully did not poison. It evolved, and bit the rest of her team apart.


Against Nikki. I was totally stomped the first time due to not getting any energy to attack at all. It didn’t matter that I was against an Exeggutor who could do insane damage from Big Eggsplosion (it had 10 Energy attached at one point...and still got 8 tails on one series of flips), as I was pretty screwed anyway in that spot. The second time was pretty much the usual: I got up Dewgong, which eventually took out an Exeggutor who didn’t get going. And when it fell, I had an Articuno and Blastoise waiting. 50 damage could one-shot many of her Pokemon.


This is what I used for most duels at this point.


On Murray, the Psychic leader, I was completely screwed over by Alakazam's Damage Swap the first time and not being able to outdamage him. The second time, I won without him getting anything going, That was unsatisfying, so I fought him a few times to make him suffer.


With all these Pokemon on the Bench with 10HP left, and an attack (Blizzard) that does 10 damage to one player's bench...yeah. Swag kill. Ronald after that was a bit touch and go; my Wartortle was in dire straits, but I drew a Blastoise from the prizes after KOing his Tauros. Then I drew a Dewgong for good measure. He had an Energy shortage too, only eventually attacking with a Jynx' Doubleslap as I was about to draw my last prize. He kept hanging on after this with a Switch, but it took only two turns from there to take out the Kangaskhan he switched in.


I fought Imakuni? in the Fighting Club, getting a second-turn Blastoise and winning from there. Against Mitch, I lost the first time because all I had was Energy and one Seel, which a Machop quickly finished. The second time looked to be the opposite problem: no energy and a Staryu and Squirtle. However, a Wartortle and Blastoise came, along with some Bills. I was also fortunate to get enough energy in time and a pair of Pluspower to OHKO the Primeape before it could Rampage me. It ran him through from there.


To fight the Water Club leader, you must beat her underlings. I was a bit concerned against Amanda due to only having a lone Staryu to start, facing a Scyther, to the extent that I Pokemon Tradered a Blastoise for a Seel (which eventually evolved into Dewgong). However, she never got much of anything going. I eventually beat it with a Pluspowered Slap, and took down the rest of her Pokemon from there. Staryu could've even done it solo, but she healed her Poliwag, so I just ended it with Dewgong from there.


My hand in particular: Seel/Seel/Dewgong/Dewgong. Booya. With one ready to go after some stalling by a Staryu and another set up soon after, the only two threats were a rude Super Energy Removal and Confuse Ray, but thankfully the latter failed to click. Interestingly, she runs a Rain Dance team as well, but never got it going.


The same applies to the Lightning Club and Isaac. Most of my Pokemon are weak to this type...but, that's what I did some grinding before. Poliwag's line, Gyarados, and Articuno all have nothing to fear, so I switched to a deck consisting only of those. With this, and getting a Magikarp and Gyarados at the start, the Pikachu deck was easy.

Poliwrath was quite fun to use. Its Whirlpool acts as an Energy Removal on its target. Quite fun, crippling the foe offensively. If I had realized how devastating it can be to the AI, I would've used it sooner. Of course, it has a weakness to Grass, which one of the trainers here used...

But Isaac was not that one. I got Poliwrath up and running, and a combination of healing, Energy Removal, and Whirlpool meant he couldn't mount on offense. I was so impressed by its performance, I just might use it formally moving forward. I also found Poliwhirl surprisingly useful. It could use Amnesia repeatedly on foes without enough Energy or only one attack, and stall if need be.


With only the Challenge Hall remaining, I decided to indeed mix it up, using them in the place of Squirtle/Wartortle/Blastoise. Seel/Dewgong got to come back, of course. That aside, I only some Articuno in. This was probably a more coherent deck overall.


Courtney is a Fire-user. No problem for our Watery team. One of the most fun moments came here, where Poliwhirl could stall by Amnesiaing a Moltres repeatedly.

The Electric deck of Steve's was the most finnicky. One of the problems with most of the AI decks in this game is all the different kinds energy they have, and the advantage of monotype decks is never having the wrong type. Anyway, I lost twice before making it through, thanks to Poliwrath's Whirlpool. Jack uses a Water-deck. I lost once against him due to never being able to get going. Rod uses mostly dragon-y Pokemon. He never got a chance to get going the first time I got to him: I got a fast Poliwrath and wrecked his face.


The final battle against Ronald was an interesting fight. I only had a Seel to start off with, but had three Energy Removals. Thus, I was able to stall him out for a bit. He eventually beat it before I could evolve it to Dewgong. Things were a bit tense, as all I had was a Poliwhirl and Articuno and a ton of energy. Then I drew Poliwrath. With all those Energy Removals having done their job, and Whirlpool to boot, he didn't stand much of a chance from here.

So yeah, that's mono Water in Pokemon TCG1. I'm going to do more, and probably add some twists to each as I go along, so it isn't just grind up and crush faces. That said, the sequel is probably the better game due to a wider variety of cards. But I'm going to try to do monotype challenges in both games. Probably some main series ones too.

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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.

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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.

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