I Ranked The Best Pokemon Cards Of All Time On How Good They Were For The Game!

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In today’s video I ranked all the best Pokemon cards of all time on how good they were for the game when they were legal in standard!

[@kered13]

23:20 An important note about Exeggcute is that it was supposed to be limited to once per turn per Exeggcute, however due to an oversight by the designers it can actually be used as many times as you want. Because the contents of your hand are considered private information (regardless of what your opponent may be able to infer from context), your opponent cannot know (as far as the rules are concerned) whether you are playing the same exeggcute again or a different one. Therefore you can keep using the same Exeggcute over and over, even more than 4 times per turn! 55:10 Slowking made you flip a coin every time you played a trainer card, and if the coin was tails the trainer card had no effect. The misprint was that the ability was supposed to only work when Slowking was in the active, but that was never included in the card. So it's ability worked when Slowking was on the bench, and you had to flip for every Slowking. If there were 4 Slowkings on the bench, that is a 1 in 16 chance that your trainer card would do anything. Basically it prevented your opponent from playing the game.

[@icephoenix174]

That.... Doesn't really make sense though. Like I believe you but it's a very easy fix. I discard egg. I recover egg with ability. I discard another egg. If I want to use the ability, I just show the other egg that the opponent knows is in my hand. If I can't, then that's the same egg and it's ability is spent. If I can show the other egg, then it's a different egg and it can use its ability again. It'd be tedious but I don't see an iteration of this card that isn't tedious

[@muegeedo4354]

@@icephoenix174 That's a really complex way of making this ability work. But also if you have two eggs then, you can still infinitely spam its ability. They could have just added an extra line at the end of the ability: You can only use the ability Propagation once per turn.

[@kered13]

@@icephoenix174 Your hand is private information and you never have to show anything in it to your opponent unless a card explicitly says so. Since your opponent cannot "know" that you are using the same Exeggcute, they can't call you out on it, the same way your opponent cannot stop you from using a search card to look for a card that they know is not in your deck, because the rules don't allow them to "know" that information. Basically it's impossible to make a card the way that Exeggcute was intended to work in the Pokemon TCG because of how the information rules work.

[@icephoenix174]

@@kered13 okay so for it to function as intended and follow the hand information rules, they would have had to errata the eggs to make them reveal all eggs in your hand? It's just weird to me that it explicitly says "once per turn" but the private information rules completely overrides it and ignores an explicit rule on the card. Especially in a tournament setting where referees and the like do have access to that hand information. Like I said I believe you it's just an odd choice.

[@kered13]

@@icephoenix174 Your hand would have to be revealed at all times for your opponent to know (according to the rules) that you are playing the same Exeggcute. It just can't work. If they wanted to reprint a card like this, the best way to do it would be to say "You can only use one Propagate ability per turn".

[@ethanwebber7854]

IMO the biggest issue with Rad Greninja is that it is the best Radiant Pokémon. Since it is so good it limits the use cases of most other Radiant Pokémon. When you have a card that is much better than most of the other options in its category you make it an almost must include in a large majority of decks(similar to Prime Catcher).

[@gabrielcastillo9745]

Well, I would say it is pretty close in use to Charizard, and some other Radiants like Alakazam and Gardevoir saw good use. But yeah, it is by far one of the best cards in the whole sword and shield block.

[@ethanwebber7854]

@@gabrielcastillo9745 I would say that it is at least a bit better and more versatile than Zard. The other radiant mons had their niches but have not sustained their meta presence. Ninja is just so consistently good.

[@Swiss_sw]

The Slowking was so broken. I remember playing as a 7 or 8 year old kid going to league with my dad and brother and being matched against an older guy who knew the slowking was broken. I rarely remember being so frustrated as a kid and not being able to do anything. I think the guy won the event undefeated, only giving up a handful of prizes the entire day. Needless to say they made an announcement the following week that the deck was banned 😂.

[@parkerirish]

i remember going to league back in 2012 and literally everyone was running mewtwo/blastoise, ray eels, darkrai… looking at cards now the power creep is so crazy (not a bad thing though)

[@Yuzuki1337]

Man I had such a great time during that era with Crobat/Wobuffet ❤️

[@parkerirish]

@@Yuzuki1337 such a fun deck! phantom forces is one of my favorite sets of all time

[@GoOKuSj33]

LoL 2012 was power creep by definition, worlds finals was Darkrai Mewtwo mirror.

[@GoyBenius_0901]

I FUCKING LOVE RAYEELS RAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH Nah but for real RayEels had such a profound effect on me I run Miraidon in today'd meta because it's the closest I could get to RayEels.

[@geneismm1215]

Yeah they definitely powercreep stuff over time. Current meta diversity is really good imo though, almost 20 completely separate meta decks

[@_6ix-]

It's crazy to think how long it took us to start playing marshadow. It was out almost a year before it became common in decks. I thought the tag team format was awesome, I stopped playing for a bit when zacian came out so I only remember ADP and all the tag teams very fondly. Like Mewtwo Mew was awesome, it felt like I could beat anyone with that deck as long as I played well

[@kingwailord4143]

I disagree on cleffa being unconditionally healthy, since it was an unquestionable mandatory 4 of in every single deck and that lead to a lot of balance implications for the generations formats. imo cleffa is a more neutral card; it did add a much needed draw pokemon that could go into any deck that would not be stopped by the overpowered trainer locking cards but it also created problems. The most obvious thing cleffa did was it let to games where both players would lead cleffa and they would baby rule each other, which forced both players to flip to draw cards; if one person was lucky and the other person kept getting tails the lucky player would be several turns ahead! Of course the player behind could use cleffa to stall their opponents attacker and try to win by getting lucky back; but still it led to the gen 2 metagames being the most flip heavy formats basically all on its own. Also because cleffa was in every single deck it meant that decks that could counter baby pokemon where extremely strong since you could not counter their strategies since cutting even a single 1 of your 4 cleffas would make your deck unviable! (plus you probably wanted to play some of the other really powerful baby pokemon too). Murkrow was the formats strongest cleffa punish. Much like the modern block lax it could permanently trap any pokemon in the active and then use its very good snipe attack to win the game. Since every deck had a cleffa murkrow ALWAYS had a trap target (and gen 2 has cards that can force pokemon into play so you can't play around murkrow by just not benching cleffa if you did not start with one). Murkrow forced switch counts to be high in a format where every deck had a free retreat pivot; if you could even play your switch... Dark Vileplume + Murkrow (aka paint lock) was one of the absolute strongest tier 0 decks this game has ever seen. Vileplume from team rocket blocked both players from playing ANY trainer cards when it was in play. With vileplume murkrow has no counters, not a single one. You get to trap cleffa and your opponent cannot do anything; they just lose instantly all because you HAVE to play cleffa in every single deck. Perfectly balanced! Thats just murkrow too; a single card in that deck i'm not even going to get into the details of how strong vileplume decks are. There were lots of more anti cleffa cards with varying levels of toxicity. Another really stupid card is tyrouge. Another baby pokemon that did 30 on a flip; so if you flipped double heads you could donk cleffa with an easily splashable basic pokemon; in a best of 3 one of the players cleffa's being donked was pretty realistic since it had so few hit points and with 4 in every deck you where going to start cleffa a lot. Although at least baby rule let you survive a donk on a coinflip; most other basic pokemon can be reliably donked. Still cleffa made donks happen and losing before you get to even draw a card is terrible for any format. One of the non degenerate cleffa counters was dark haunter. A stage 1 that had an attack called Call Back, which put one of your opponents discarded basic pokemon back onto the bench and did 10 damage too it. Putting cleffa in range of any snipe attack in the format. Haunter decks could win of koing a cleffa 6 times with that attack. The first forretres card had the spike poke power; which did 10 damage to pokemon that switched into the active, with 3 forretres in play you could ko cleffas (and other babies) for free with just an ability. Since there was item gust in these formats forretres decks could just take prizes of cleffa by gusting them into play and bringing the cleffa back with pokeflute (a prehistoric echoing horn). Speaking of gust, another thing cleffa did to the game was it made Double gust an easily exploitable card. Double gust was basically a prime catcher but as a normal item card; it let both players pick one of their opponents benched pokemon and switch it into the active. So if your whole bench was your attackers and free retreaters (easy to do thanks to cleffa) it did not matter which pokemon your opponent picked! Double gust was a super powerful card many decks could use; an game breaking gust effect combined with a situational switch. Modern players have it lucky that decks can only play prime catcher and at great cost! I could acutally keep going. Cleffa is one of the most era defining cards ever; its easily the most promiant pokemon the game has ever seen. Cleffa is THE card all gen 2 formats center around and its influence on the game can lead to a lot of stupid stuff happening simply because it had to be in every deck. Cleffa is acutally really similar to shaymin ex when that card was at the peak of its strength. Both of the cards where needed for decks to keep up and because they could be expected to be seen every game it lead to the whole meta centering around them with decks dedicated to countering shayman and cleffa being really good.

[@ldfptcg2022]

Thats fair tbh, i did t play back then

[@justjoe7517]

The slowking at 55:00 got banned because it was missing the sentence "Once per attempt" or something like that. Meaning if you used the coin flip and it gets tails, and they use the supporter, this essentially creates a paradox scenario where it counts as them trying to play that supporter, and the coin gets reflipped an infinite amount of times until your opponent either shows mercy or gets heads. Its also missing the sentence "When this pokemon is in the active spot" (in a translation error i think) making it infinite in any case, because you can set up four slowking. This sets the chance of your supporter card being allowed into play quite literally 0 dependant on your opponent's generosity.

[@awesomalityness]

Sableye, shaymin, toad, Uxie, and slow king being basically back to back is hilarious 😂 all some of the most insane cards printed

[@israelalderete6962]

Dude keep up this kind of content! Love the vid and would love to see more of your rankings and stuff. Favorite TCG KZbinr:)

[@nevergonnaletmewdown]

On the Neo Genesis Slowking, its ability allowed you to flip a coin when your opponent played a trainer and if heads the trainer did nothing. It was printed in Japan as only working when Slowking was in the active spot, but when they translated to English they did so incorrectly and it meant the power could work from the bench. This also meant you could have multiple Slowking in play and force your opponent to go through multiple coin flips just to be able to play trainers. If you had 3 Slowkings on your bench then every time your opponent played a trainer they only had a 1-in-8 chance of being able to actually get the effect. About as toxic a card as it gets, given that WOTC never had an errata for it.

[@LucasRiffe-ut2ly]

Loved the vid and think it would be awesome if you made more like this with trainers. I love learning about all the old cards and how broken they were

[@imgm150995]

Kinda surprised no Night March or the turn 1 Trevenant Item Lock (with Wally) on the list

[@nickfanzo]

Dude you didn’t give slow king enough mention, it was nuts

[@KaiserClownLXXXI]

Being newer to the game, this video was essentially listening to bedtime stories about overpowered Garbodors and Exeggcutes

[@howierylant5121]

I don’t know how often you get to hear this but thank you for the hard work you put into these videos. Best pokemon KZbinr by far with the amount, style, and type of content. Keep it up!

[@huk6249]

If I remember correctly, the original JP Slowking required it to be in the active spot to use it's ability. And that active requirement was omitted in the EN translation, causing your opponent to have to flip a coin for every copy of Slowking you had out.

[@maddpullz]

Gengar SF (Fainting Spell and Shadow Room) was the most OP pokemon (TCG) ever printed. It was Tier 1 it's ENTIRE lifespan and had the most meta decks built around it, more than any other card in our history. The Gastly had item lock for 0 energy. Then Spiritomb item lock came out and paired with Gengar too. Was insane for it's time in rotation.

[@lurchxx2470]

Good stuff! Next ranked all the trainer cards. Perhaps items and supporters separately?

[@mclulows]

love the history lesson, especially as newer players. awesome video; well done!

[@WitherGaming465]

You forgot to mention G Booster when talking about Genesect EX. That card enabled it to take one-shots and put on a ton of pressure when combined with its ability.

[@ldfptcg2022]

I just went with genesect with that one

[@sammaxson2164]

Can you make a supporter, item card, and energy video?

[@_6ix-]

Slowking said your opponent had to flip a coin to play a card or maybe it was just trainers but if it got tails the card went on top of your deck. It was supposed to only work in the active but they forgot that part so you could make your opponent flip 4 coins just to play their cards

[@WhimsicottTCG]

Pikarom should probably be in the gatekeeper category. If you compare the metas of Lost Thunder and Team Up, the single prize evolution decks just disappeared off the map until they printed Mew Bench Barrier to counter it. It didn't even take 3 months for them to realize they messed up

[@ldfptcg2022]

Fair it did end up getting power kept

[@DarBowsong]

​@@ldfptcg2022power creep will likely affect every deck, that's the nature of the game.

[@raymondkuczewski6499]

i do agree with this list , it is crazy how many crazy cards there are

[@gillebanier4125]

What the site that you used for searchign card

[@kevinsheeler9044]

Not to be an ADP defender but single prizers would have been mostly irrelevant during its peak anyways, because they weren’t printing relevant ones

[@scottjohnson9672]

Love the spirtomb that cancels items while active and I an attack no energy take 2 damage and evolve a bench pokemon.

[@patrickreyeshillmeyer9979]

what is the website being used to search for cards?

[@louiepikmin3184]

Great video! I'd personally switch lugia and genesect V just because lugia fell off for a while but mew vmax kept winning tounament after tournament (Including 2 world championships) and kept coming back ,despite the multiple hard counters pokemon printed to try and beat mew. But yeah, definitely agree otherwise

[@pipdev8636]

Seismitoad deserves the lowest hells of this tier list I dont think it ever can be granted any merit for "blocking accelerated strategies" because it would literally use those itself- it would run Lysandres Trump Card and dominate through access to stuff like vs seekers that the opponent couldnt use. Item lock+hypnotoxic lasers and hammers as BDIF is always gunna be the WOAT formats cus you dont even get to play the game most of the time. 0/10 card

[@Tehexpl0it]

The faces of ppl when you flipped the full art toadboi. 😂😂

[@user-ye3ks9vz9u]

Couldn't garbodor make it easier to play Palafin ex in the expanded format because you could just evolve Palafin ex regularly?

[@boxkid759]

Yes

[@raipanda133]

Yes and No. Palafin ex’s ability is a static effect in the hand and deck, so it wouldn’t turn off in either of those areas. It would shut off in the discard pile, but we don’t have a way to pull it out of the discard straight to the board.

[@boxkid759]

@@raipanda133 Garbodor shuts off field, discard, and hand. Palafin would have no ability in the hand. Therefore it can evolve into a normal Finizen that's been in play one turn already.

[@user-ye3ks9vz9u]

@@raipanda133 Huh? I thought the ability turns off all abilities from all pokemon in each players hand? Therefore Palafin ex wouldn't have it's ability?

[@gumbo64]

U gotta do this with trainer cards too for sure

[@mazinrobox2546]

Cleffa saved the TCG, there were trainer cards that turn 1 destroyed your hand. Mewtwo ex weakness was Psychic, so the counter to Mewtwo was also Mewtwo, which was terrible.

[@kingwailord4143]

But cleffa also made that trainer card (Lass) even better! You could Lass (which was an item card that made both players shuffle all trainers cards they had in hand into their decks) to get rid of both players hands and then use cleffa too draw your hand back (you used to be able to attack turn 1). Do this simple combo on turn 1 if your opponent does not have a cleffa in play and you just win! Cleffa gives and cleffa takes!

[@DKQuagmire]

I wonder if Stormfront Sableye will be listed here. Pretty impactful on launch. Especially with Gyarados from the same set. However, things took a dark turn in early 2011, when the black and white base set was about to release, with the important rule change, that turn one players could play supporter cards! This made Sableye a turn 1 meta threat donk deck! TPCI had to issue an emergency mid season rotation, to HGSS on for worlds that year as a result!

[@DKQuagmire]

LDF talks about it at 51:50

[@ldfptcg2022]

Yup one of the iconic best cards

[@Vaeggen]

Why no dobbelt rainbow energy

[@althaboss3925]

When i started playing the tcg ADP was everywhere and i couldt stand it so i quit until it rotated.

[@hesohit]

ditto primas is my goat card but i agree zoark gx was fun and could put with any gx to make deck Zoark gx made it a rock, paper, scissor format. Buzzwole counter Zorack and Galisapod counter Buzzwole, then Blacephalon-GX countered Galisapod and so on and so on... lol the new BDIF was whatever countered the last tournament winner...

[@qnz469]

I think Shaymin Ex is much worse than ADP. XY was the format of 10 minute first turns where you could pretty much set up whatever you wanted turn one. Mega Rayquaza, Seismitoad EX, Night March, lysanders trump card were all broken exclusively because Shaymin gave you the ability to draw your entire deck turn one. In expanded with scoop up net it became much worse, where it became the enabler for every OP turn one win deck.

[@TheJay104]

Portrait smeargle and junk hunt sableye are probably strong enough to make the list. Imagine that 3 sableyes being toxic for the game lmao

[@JosephHeathhotdang]

Why didn't Channeler work as a counter against ADP?

[@uselessneon9042]

Cause it only removes your own effects and not the opponent's

[@qlslenigma]

I would have added tina Vstar

[@piplup2884]

Fun fact: Garbotoxin actually let's you play palafin ex directly

[@raipanda133]

It doesn’t. The static effect is in the hand, so it can’t be put into play, and it has to be in play for Garbotoxin to turn it off. Just like Mew151 Chansey would activate in your hand once you drew it, but once you put it onto the bench, you wouldn’t be able to flip for the extra card.

[@piplup2884]

@@raipanda133 no garbotoxin does turn off abilities in the hand

[@maddpullz]

I won a state championship and made it to the finals of another back to back weeks with 4 celebi/4 mewtwo ex. Mewtwo EX BLW broke the game for a minute

[@WitherGaming465]

I would definitely not call PikaRom the most balanced of the strong TAG TEAMs. It could do very unfair things with its GX attack, and whenever you were able to attack turn 1, the game pretty much ended due to the extreme tempo and the acceleration that nearly guarenteed hitting the GX attack later in the game. Furthermore, when paired with RiRi, it enabled even more unfair things such as guaranteed paralysis and it gained the ability to easily take one-shots. I would say that Mew3 was a more balanced card, as it was never more powerful than the cards TPC decided to print to combo with it. And while ReshiZard did have donk potential, it was a fairly balanced card outside of that. Its 230 damage meant that it couldn't take one-shots without the GX attack or the opponent playing into Outrage. While TAG TEAMs weren't good for the game at all, I would switch the places of PikaRom and ReshiZard in the tier list, or maybe even bump PikaRom to Toxic tier and keep ReshiZard in the same place.

[@katymerrick1393]

No trainers?

[@kingwailord4143]

if trainers where included the video would be 10 hours long!

[@ldfptcg2022]

Ye wouldve been too long, ill do that in a future vid!

[@Mike-sp7zv]

Let's start smaller with stadiums

[@michaelcalvert6323]

Arceus VSTAR was bad for the game at the time It took over the meta and everyone was just playing their own version of it and I remember loads of people moaning about it. Wasn't until later when more sets came out did Arceus become fun as everyone wasn't playing it then. Very strong card though

[@Thomas2Axaeus]

Junk hunt sableye?

[@pokeverser]

Why don't include iron hands ex in the list but it's a good video

[@boxkid759]

Becuase is not THAT good

[@brandonkloha52]

Mewtwo welder is my favorite deck of all time especially throwing Lugia gx in the deck lol

[@waltercunningham494]

Saying sableye is worse for the game than radiant greninja is criminal. There’s no such thing as turn 1 sableye. There’s a reason manaphy is mandatory in evolving decks and jirachi is optional. Sableye has way more counterplay with Turo, collapsed and mist energy all working to achieve the same goal of stopping sableye. Greninja is only countered by manaphy, until they find gust and cancelling cologne. Then there is no more counterplay and you lose the game.

[@hiddenmosaic]

Overeager Sableye is the #1 Most toxic and unhealthy card on this list easily. The card created one of the most degenerate strategies relevant to its format, and was a factor in the early mid season rotation of all Diamond and Pearl cards. It is also a factor in why the Unlimited Format would be completely unplayable without a huge banlist. As you can donk any opponent on the first turn, and they cannot do anything about it.

[@ldfptcg2022]

Definitely one of the craziest evrr

[@KieranDrage]

No Bibarel?

[@ldfptcg2022]

Nahh

[@KieranDrage]

@@ldfptcg2022 How come?

[@DKQuagmire]

@@KieranDrage It's just a reprint of Octillery from a few years ago, or as DarkIntergralGaming used to say. SUSHI MASTER. Even when Octillery was legal, it wasn't being played in like every single deck.

[@spacedaddy6181]

Sneasler, Shifty and Archeops have an old version card that definitely made the game worse in their meta. Buzzwole gx and Mismagius are pretty toxic during SM period too.

[@ldfptcg2022]

Forgot about archeops and sneasler

[@anakin27ng]

why you only talk about the standard format and not about the expanded. There are so much more broken combos

[@vkdeen7570]

garbo toxin, scoop net, hypnotoxic laser, there u go, list done.

[@boxkid759]

Most of these are in expanded. What

[@iLLiDaN30]

Because of ADP i quitted the game and never came back since. That card ruined the game for me.

[@icephoenix174]

Boy I havent seen this yet but you better put some respect on Mew Vmax. I dont care if you call it bad for the game but you best mention him 😂 and ADP but you would have to be blind to not include ADP. That card is pure cancer.

[@musthakila]

ADP was such trash man, i hate it so much, than i stop playing for some ages PTCG

[@boxkid759]

I loved adp. It's was great

[@Nolsie]

5 minutes in and you do a poor job of reading and explaining the cards effects and why they are good or bad. Also something like ADP, as a noob that means nothing to me and I only really learned that you don’t like it, not really why/how it made the game worse. Just some feedback since I’m needing to google each card just to follow

[@boxkid759]

ADP was fine

[@Ponera86]

charizard is the worst one followed by ADP.

[@Nolsie]

5 minutes in and you do a poor job of reading and explaining the cards effects and why they are good or bad. Also something like ADP, as a noob that means nothing to me and I only really learned that you don’t like it, not really why/how it made the game worse

[@brandonkloha52]

I played Gengar and mimikyu with dusknoir trevenant in a shadow rider deck

[@internetrandodotcom]

charizard ex really isn't that bad, i think its dominance over big basic decks is a net positive for the health of the meta, its built-in acceleration encourages more unique team structures, and there still are big basic decks like chien pao ex that do decently enough into zard

[@ldfptcg2022]

Well see how bad zard gets over time