Pokemon TCG History - 2000 Competitive Meta - Gym/East Coast Super Trainer Showdown ft.

[@jarvis]

i love these videos so much

[@rubyretro]

Thanks so much! To return the compliment, that was a really good fight you put on in the Creator Clash.

[@andrewp6738]

Thanks Mr. Johnson please collab with Tricky Gym

[@We_silly]

@@rubyretrothese are so interesting and in depth, no wonder it’s taking months for them to come out

[@shanesprague449]

Wow that kid absolutely wrecked that card at 0:20, he practically folded it in half

[@rubyretro]

Right? Absolutely folded it.

[@jakegearhart]

29:20 The benefit of playing Blastoise alongside Wigglytuff, Ditto, and Chansey is that Blastoise powering up Articuno, Lapras, and itself frees up all of your once-per-turn attachments to setting up your more powerful colorless attackers. Even if you fall behind on attachments or your opponent is repeatedly 1HKO-ing your attackers, you'll always be able to respond with a decent attack instead of none at all. The single copy of Rocket's Sneak Attack also seems random until you realize he's also playing two Item Finder, giving him access to potentially multiple in a turn without taking up spaces for consistency cards, as Item Finder can double as those as well. This list seems really ahead of its time.

[@takumi3069]

The first one minute is the best example of why supporter cards have the can't use on turn one going first and one per turn rule XD This was def a time when most of us just collected and never played so I really appreciate all these vids!

[@alexjeiseman]

Another great one! Thanks endlessly for letting me be a small part of this! I love seeing how much joy and nostalgia this brings people besides us.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for the stellar music and constant input!

[@MewtwoStruckBack]

I remember most of this clearly. You reminded me of one thing I had entirely forgotten was a thing - 15-3C. WOW. That's a blast from the past. I wish the official TCG would run old formats as current tournaments as part of Nationals/Worlds.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@ariannadravis3934]

Issue with that is, how would they? I suppose doing it as a draft'd be fine.

[@MewtwoStruckBack]

@@ariannadravis3934 Why would it be any different? The players buy the old cards on the secondary market or they reprint the old cards (with the old, non-errata'd text that was valid during the previous formats) and make money off of it that way.

[@ariannadravis3934]

@@MewtwoStruckBack The issue would be, primarily, a lack of access. While yes you certaintly could buy them online from secondary markets, the best ones would be forever expensive as a result; and that's a limited supply mind, there not MAKING new copies of older cards; it'll run out. As for making new copies, that's why i reccomended Draft or Sealed, so they could have admission basically be the standard price for X amount of packs, and you get to keep the cards.

[@KindaDrake]

Coming from a predominantly Yu-Gi-Oh! focused background, this kind of historical deep dive into what was the meta through each era is really interesting. Keep up the great work!

[@rubyretro]

It's definitely a different vibe going from a game with a massive card pool and ban list to one that rotates sets out annually (even though that part hasn't happened yet in this history series). Thanks for tuning in!

[@xpYoink]

This is genuinely one of the most interesting and well produced content I've seen on yt in a minute. Can't wait for the next part!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! More to come!

[@TehFoamy]

As a kid with ADD, I collected a ton of Pokémon cards in the first few years of the TCG, but never got into the competitive scene and always glossed over the wordy TCG-related articles in my issues of Pojo and Beckett Pokémon Collector. As a competitive Magic player now, it's been really fascinating and nostalgic to follow this series and learn the early history of the Pokémon TCG's tournament scene. It's been a delight to see how strategies evolved and metagames developed, especially during a time when people couldn't just find a bottomless wellspring of info on the internet and the player base didn't collectively solve formats within weeks or even days of a new set's release.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@pnpgutterfold]

This is actually why I don't play the standard format competitively. Rushing to solve the new expansion in order to stay competitive measurably takes away from my enjoyment of the hobby. I never want to feel rushed with my hobbies. My favorite thing to do is to attend pre-release events and then slowly discover the new artwork and attacks/abilities on cards each time I open up a new booster pack. Then only much later do I min/max my deck with the new expansion cards as I slowly discover them in the wild while playing against opponents on PTCG Live.

[@cubsfan1622000]

I was only nine years old in 1999 but I distinctly remember the Pokemon craze I remember going to Pokemon League at Books-A-Million every Saturday for several Saturdays at least. I never really played the card game and instead just collected and traded. I also played the game boy game. I wish I had been a little bit older and understood the card game better. Because I'm a competitive person and probably would have really enjoyed it. I stopped being interested in Pokemon around the time of the gym series as I don't recall having any cards beyond that. I believe I sold my holographic cards when I was in college in 2009 or 2010. But I have the rest of the cards somewhere. I do plan to dig them out and look at them soon. These videos bring back a tremendous amount of memories from that part of my life. The production quality has been extremely high and honestly I believe these videos belong in the KZbin Hall of fame.

[@scottsauers1845]

IVE BEEN WAAAAAITING FOR THIS THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@SuperLuigiKart64]

I just wanted to say, I love these videos for a ton of reasons. Your Groudon and the setting give it a very personable feel, the information is laid out well in both script and visual, and I'm just glad to see both the history of this game and the violently nostalgic times of late 90s-early 2000s. Thanks for all your effort!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching and thanks for the kind words!

[@fatalbert135]

Awesome mention about John Chimento. He's a guy that became a pokemon TCG Judge and TO for his local stores when I started playing in 2009. To this day I still remember a lot of the old school players telling me stories about guys like Johnny blaze aka John Chimento. He also had sons that went on to play and have success in the tcg as well. Awesome pokemon family as a whole that I had a great time playing against, and still keep in touch with John. I sent him this video so he can appreciate the work you put into it. 🙏🙏🙏

[@rubyretro]

We really appreciate that!

[@shomanoni]

YESS!! Great one man, excellent video. Thank you!

[@rubyretro]

Glad you liked it!

[@cody2teach277]

Was watching tricky gym's twitch live when he said he had to go early so he could work with y'all and i got so hype. Love this series!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@vgpokemonmaster]

never actually played the pokemon tcg beyond playground shenanigans as a kid, but i absolutely adore these videos

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@xESPplayer500x]

Its amazing how fast the TCG mania came and went. 1999-2003 didnt seem like a long time but SO MUCH HAPPENED! Pokemon and yugioh both

[@DKQuagmire]

Throughout the mid to late 2010's I was a prominent player, on the "Showdown" inspired TCG ONE Website, which let players create your own decks and play VS games with other players online. while a majority of players would use the quick-play battle feature which let people just play the standard and expanded formats, as well as any other "worlds" format, there was no work required to build these decks. Career Mode, forced you to play against opponents using only your starter pre-constructed deck, and earn coins from battles, and then use those coins to spend on virtual booster packs to expand an online collection to make better decks etc. there was even an online market place on the site, much like PTCGO had. what made Career mode special, was it was heavily focused on the old gen 1 formats, and Rocket-on formats to begin with, with each site update, adding a new expansion. WhenI joined the site, people where excited for "NEO DESTINY" being added to Career mode, and "SHINING CHARIZARD", was flooding the online market place at ridiculous prices! As time went on however, and we got through the e-card sets and eventually Ruby and Sapphire, the sites admin, decided to scrap the market place entirely, in favour of Heartstones "Inking" system. where unwanted cards (more than 4 copies), could be turned into ink. Then you can spend that ink on the cards you want. Like a Base Set Blastoise etc. it was a fun time, but i eventually stopped playing, shortly after Team Magma and Team Aqua, got added to career mode (worlds 2004 format).

[@rubyretro]

You should make a video on TCGOne. Sounds like you were really impassioned about it, plus that was an interesting perspective to read about.

[@lkmdude8094]

That Groudon vtuber model is something I did not expect to see. Prop 15/3 is really cool. I feel like it would be a fun side event even in the current standard format of the game.

[@rubyretro]

I wish it were a model. Then, I wouldn't have to animate it frame by frame. Might be worth investing in getting a model made lol. It could be interesting to play a version of standard with those rules in place.

[@lkmdude8094]

@@rubyretro when you said that you animated that frame by frame I died a little. It looks really good, but the amount of time that had to have taken...

[@pnpgutterfold]

@@rubyretro I heard a different account of Prop 15/3, which is that WoTC didn't want to follow Japan's lead on implementing gameplay restrictions and wanted creative control over these elements for themselves. It is true that the game was pretty broken in the early days, but I wonder if part of it was due to WoTC's involvement. DeltaSeeker has also done really good videos on the early history of the Pokemon TCG and I discovered both of you at around the same time. Would love to hear your thoughts on a slightly different interpretation. (kzbin.info/www/bejne/hamQgH-wnsicl6s) Regardless, I'm a big fan. Please keep making content!!!! I'm already subscribed!!

[@k9guy]

Love Andrew Mahone, his retro PTCG videos are what got me playing these formats again. This is quality stuff RR, looking forward to the next one!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! We're looking forward to making more!

[@Maxx00]

I'm so looking forward to Neo Genesis Era History, their "fixes" to this god awful format are hilarious.

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate the support as always. We're looking forward to the next few for sure!

[@56andru]

Slowking😅

[@DKQuagmire]

@@56andru Funny how in Japan, Slowkings Pokemon Power only worked in the active spot. Which made it pretty balanced, and vulnerable to attacks. But in the English versions of the card, it works anywhere in play, including the bench! This plus Sneasel, made Neo Genesis HELL ON EARTH!!!

[@56andru]

@@DKQuagmire Oh lord I forgot about Sneasel!

[@bduddy55555]

It's funny how Cleffa is one of the most broken cards of all time, but by going in every deck it "fixed" the format.

[@nicholasbaker5325]

Thumbnail game on point as always

[@Scorpion404100]

That slowking forshading is perfect!

[@rubyretro]

😈

[@nousukas]

I wish there was a single player pokemon tcg game with cards up to the Gym challenge. Pokemon tcg 2 for gbc was is so great with strategic decks.

[@raeosunshine24]

I absolutely adore this series!! As someone who only recently got into playing, but has been collecting for almost 20 years, I love seeing how these cards that are a bit before my time worked :)

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching (and for making me feel old)👴

[@raeosunshine24]

@Ruby Retro Ugh knew I would make people feel old with my comment. I'm 3 years younger than Pokemon, and I'm sorry for it! Lol

[@rubyretro]

@@raeosunshine24 No worries. I felt old long before your comment.

[@mak_707]

Heck yeah! I'm so happy Tricky Gym recognize how great this series is! Legend!

[@chavosaur2221]

Just fantastic work being done here, I was giddy seeing a new episode available.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@George-kz5hb]

Another excellent piece AND one with Mahomes!? Thank you so much for putting all of this together!

[@rubyretro]

Thank you for watching it!

[@Animebryan2]

I remember building a deck for each Gym Leader then running an elimination tournament to see who would come out on top. To my surprise, the Koga Deck proved to be the best. I also remember that Narrow Gym card & a deck I built around it including Dark Machamp & Pidgeot. Dark Machamp had a move called Fling that would take your opponent's active pokemon & send it & every card attached to it back into your opponent's deck. The restriction was that you could only keep doing this until your opponent only had 1 pokemon left. But Pidgeot has Hurricane which does the same thing only it goes to their hand, but there's no restriction on if it was your opponent's last pokemon. So just keep Flinging all your opponent's pokemon back into the deck until their last one & if they don't another basic onto the bench, retreat/switch out Dark Machamp for Pidgeot & Hurricane the last one FTW. God I miss the early sets of Pokemon TCG, before it degenerated to spamming OP Basics of evolved pokemon with fancy letters or acronyms in their names.

[@Baltux]

Love it! Almost missed the new release. Great learning about the history of the game. Small feedback though, not sure what happened in editing with sound, but that constant *Thud* repeating at random times during the Gym Heroes part of the video drove me nuts. (It's also there during later parts like STS 11-14) It sounds like a special effect sound for something being revealed, but it just felt like my hungover brain was randomly hit by confusion every 2-3 turns lol.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! Appreciate the feedback.

[@MaliciousFalcon]

God, there's really nothing quite like that OG Ken Sugimori artwork.

[@rubyretro]

Str8 up fax

[@Apocralyph]

Another great video, keep up the good work! I like how you were a bit critical of these old lists, but still gave them the credit they deserve.

[@rubyretro]

Gotta give our take, but they are winning lists at the end of the day.

[@kahu129]

Your TCG History videos are really high quality content ! Looking forward to the next ones !! 😊

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate it! Thanks for watching. More to come!

[@snowyarticuno]

Been loving this series, especially as we get to the part of the "early" years that no one really talks about nearly as much as the Base to Rocket era does. I'm really excited to hear about the Neo era of the game in particular

[@rubyretro]

And we're excited to talk about it! Thanks for tuning in!

[@Kalazt]

Absolutely banger of a video, thank you for making these! Always wonderful to hear someone this knowledgeable talk about the history

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate that. Thanks for watching!

[@bigmule7200]

One of the goats of Pokemon TCG history keeping. Great intro for ppl looking to start playing retro formats too, keep up the great content man!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks so much!

[@jair2776]

Brings me back! Man I wish they came out with gym leader owned decks again and boosters to make it a bit more challenging to piece your perfect deck together. I remember owning lt.surge, brock and erickas decks.

[@NoOneUsesThis]

These are really fun to watch thanks.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@SilverWingTCG]

Absolutely loving this channel! Competitive content and pack openings are a plenty, and ultimately repetitive. However, the history of the game is seemingly untouched within video media, at least to the level of detail you provide. Keep up the good work!

[@rubyretro]

Thank you so much for stopping by!

[@kinya88_]

Great upload, thanks for the hard work! I hope the upcoming Pokémon TCG Classic will bring back more vintage paper play, hopefully not just on cards from the base set (which was announced in feb)

[@rubyretro]

That would be great. I'm keeping my expectations in check, though. Thanks for watching!

[@bduddy55555]

24:20 My guess for why there was a dispute between Wizards and TPC is that TPC had a "points system" in Japan and Wizards didn't want to do something that complex, preferring to use outright bans, which I guess TPC didn't support.

[@rubyretro]

A solid guess to be sure.

[@marioluigi164]

wow thank you so much for this video. its just astonishing, how kids and juveniles were so dedicated to a certain meta and also trusted in these events to be safe for their precious cards.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@Gino_Seee]

love this series, thank you for all the hard work you did for this!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@cesarfranceschy9576]

Excellent job as usual! Thanks a lot for the effort!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@fo-ef8qo]

as a current mtg player it's insane to me that you can turn 1 make your opponent discard their hand. one of the best discard spells of all time in mtg is a 2 mana discard 2. it's only legal in the high power / full collection formats.

[@chinaplzdotcom]

That’s because a 2 mana discard 2 is super strong. You’re comparing that one card to a 3 card combo that costs a discard and a coin flip. Still OP but come on lmao

[@fo-ef8qo]

@@chinaplzdotcom a turn one coin flip to make your opponent discard 3 in mtg would still be completely broken.

[@matobadesign]

Finally finished it, that was really good! The opening old school match was good footage, and I was very surprised at the quantity of original tournament reporting / assets and the Mahone interview! I might have to do that collab after all!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching it! You should!

[@FlammableLizard]

Yet another incredibly well-produced and interesting video! Thanks for all of your hard work! I've never read much about the Super Trainer Showdown, so it was really cool to learn a lot more about it! Also it was amazing to see young Heidi Craig featured here!! She was the TO for a ton of great tournaments I participated in when I lived in Florida.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching! Heidi is a legend.

[@MrStu-yj2le]

Really loving this series as I am teaching my son to play the TCG. For anyone who doesn’t know how to play, it is really easy to learn and makes buying cards to collect that much better. :)

[@rubyretro]

Great to hear! Thanks for watching!

[@austinmitchell2652]

Great video as always! Can't wait for the next installment

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@coreydopson2030]

I really like how you present the information. Ive never been a pokemon tcg player but have watched all 3 episodes so far. These are great and id love to see the mentioned "side videos" too. Also if youre ever at my locals and shuffle like you did in that skit im personally reshuffling your deck.

[@rubyretro]

XD thanks for watching!

[@nesjames341]

Wow! What a trip down memory lane. So nostalgic!! I stumbled on the 1st vid and watched them all back to back. This vid was my fave because it had you playing the old school cards and explaining to your opponent. I'd love to see a full vid of game play with older cards and the explanations.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@knaacku]

I appreciate all your work in logging this history!

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate you watching it!

[@TheGh0stBullet]

I don't even play Pokemon TCG and I find these videos interesting. Its neat to see how the cards have changed in various ways over the years and its cool to see 15+ years of the TCG unfold over episodes!

[@MazterP28]

I knew John chimento when I first played him, he played Tropical beach, and I learned how to use it. He still beat me, but He was so cool at the time. :)!

[@agent0fartifice571]

As someone who’s just getting into playing the game for the first time since I was a kid, it’s great to see what the tournament scene was like while I was just trying to collect my favorites!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@dawsn6]

I love this channel. What good timing since I got back into vintage pokemon tcg collecting

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! Pick up anything cool?

[@dawsn6]

@@rubyretro charizard base set 2 holo :)

[@cubsfan1622000]

​@@dawsn6How did you get it? How much was it?

[@derekgilbert9845]

This is my favorite thing on KZbin right now!! Keep ‘em comin, I love the videos 😁

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@Morte_n]

The concept of best of 1 games just baffles me today when looking at such big tournaments....

[@RahulReddy]

Absolutely love these videos so much! They're a treat to watch, thank you!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@robbylava]

Adore this series -- I haven't played the Pokemon TCG since I was 8 and this is still incredibly engaging, I'd watch another 10 hours comfortably. Really great to see you getting some traction off it mate.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks so much for stopping by!

[@stevesperling4684]

Can't wait for the video on the 2001 ECSTS! I have a pic in front of the huge Banned Sneasal card somewhere

[@rubyretro]

If you can find the picture and send it to us on Twitter, we'll feature it in the video!

[@nicktourville9398]

I'm so excited every time the new one of these drops!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@FrancescoBazzani]

Amazing content! This kind of content makes me want to play this meta so badly! Thank you :)

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@hjvflavdf]

I never really played the card game much but I love these videos so much :) I did collect some cards and watching these videos is really a nostalgia trip :)

[@justinnapier7894]

Excellent work mate! Keep it going, love thinking back to those early days of the game when it was still magical to me.

[@rubyretro]

Thank you so much!

[@flamingice911]

My favorite parts where they say their catchphrase "aaaaand thats how we mon man" every video it cracks me up.

[@rubyretro]

Is this a thing?

[@flamingice911]

Ya man. Every episode pretty sure it was at 35:50

[@rubyretro]

I'm not hearing anything that sounds like that at that time stamp, lol.

[@Kameno-o]

God watching these makes me want to play the tcg even more regardless of the year it came out etc.

[@rubyretro]

It's never too late!

[@ultimapower6950]

I wonder if there are any new rom hacks coming out?

[@hboettcherrhs]

I never thought I’d hear a Pokémon/Wii tanks music mashup but here we are (and I love it)

[@rubyretro]

Curious which track you're referring to. 🤔

[@DownKneeFresh]

great videos, looking forward to the next one!

[@rubyretro]

Thank you! Stay tuned!

[@itstimeforsomeaction]

Production quality of your content is amazing 😮

[@rubyretro]

I appreciate that!

[@silver15fd]

Oh man! How did I miss this dropping?! Thank you for another awesome vid!

[@rubyretro]

KZbin's fault, no doubt. Thanks for watching!

[@simoyoyoboss]

I was waiting this video so much,thank you !

[@Wishfigurecollector]

i waited so much for this episode, and not a single mention of my loved Giovanni's Nikoking hahaha.

[@rubyretro]

Sorry 😞

[@LanEXHikari]

I love to rewatch this episode just for the sheer amount of shenanigans Gym's cards brought to the table... And we're still far from "perfectly balanced" games. Please keep up the fine work! (And collabs) 👍🏼

[@fangirlforlife237]

I really love the skit you guys did in the beginning with the cards! XD these videos are so well put together and super informative! Great hearing Aaron in this one! Also i totally cheated as a kid doing things like using Blaine’s charmeleon with normal base set Charmander not knowing that wasn’t allowed… oops 🙈 Haha! I love your videos! Keep it up!!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks Rachel! Really appreciate you giving a watch!

[@fangirlforlife237]

@@rubyretro of course!!! Also love the animation work as always!!! ^_^ I hope the algorithm picks this up!!

[@rubyretro]

@FanGirlForLife23 It already had, but will it keep pushing it? That's the question. It's been suggested to 200k people in the algorithm already.

[@Rootzish]

I really enjoy watching these and then playing the Pokémon TCG Rockets Revenge game for Gameboy color. Seeing how the decks perform and then changing and tweeking the decks for fun. What works, what doesn't and all. Unfortunately they didn't make the gym battle cards, so we only have up to rocket cards to play with.

[@yawg691]

Man the CRT hum/VHS garbledness in the intro is oddly comforting

[@rickelmemonti1405]

it's crazy how the name of pokemon kept this card game going

[@headstrong29]

I can't get enough of TCG retrospectives, especially this series

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@ikenzlove]

Loving these videos! Thanks for the awesome content.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@TeianDown]

I played at a game shop who ran tournaments with the following house rules: You could use cards from sets not yet released in the US (so long as you had a Scrye magazine to translate them), and they banned Super Energy Removal, Computer Search, Item Finder, and Rocket Sneak Attack. This was the era I best remember, so I've been eagerly awaiting your review of what things were like without those bans in place. At my shop, the viable Pokemon were basically identical. Haymaker variants (both with and without 'tuff) still ruled the roost with the help of Rocket Zapdos, though we all definitely slept on Erika's Jigglypuff. I don't remember hand disruption being such a problem to make the game as awful as the opening skit portrayed, I guess the bans did have some success. The power of Chaos Gym was news to me - I don't remember anyone running those. I wonder how much was due to the bans reining in trainer power versus how much might have been due to a mistranslation. Scrye wasn't always accurate, and when Neo cards landed, their mistranslation of some baby Pokemon ability pretty much broke the game for a few weeks until the shop's tournament admin stepped in, heh. I was also really curious how Prop15/3 turned out. At the time, I was kinda hyped about it potentially making "official" tournaments fun enough to play in again, but my friends and I were losing interest in the game as a whole anyway, so I never got to give it a try. Seems I didn't miss much.

[@rubyretro]

Chaos gym was widely underappreciated at the time, which is probably for the better. It is just the biggest example of the types of cards that set out to make the game luck-based. Thanks for watching!

[@SlimFactorMusic]

These videos of yours are pure gold for an "old" tcg player like me! I lived those ancient eras of the tcg and I love to watch them being explored again today! Thanks!! P.s. where can I buy that beautiful green 2 players playmat?

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate it! We picked it up at a pop-up shop in 2016 while we we're attending Pokemon Nationals. I was able to find out online, though. Here you go: www.inkedgaming.com/products/battlefield-two-player-mat?variant=961977153

[@stravagantgames]

Superb job editing and narrating!

[@rubyretro]

No U

[@andywest1788]

This was a great video! Can’t wait for the next round. Amazing!

[@rubyretro]

Thank you!

[@jm505]

Yeah, that gameplay at the beginning was pretty spot on.

[@TylerLowe15]

New favorite KZbin channel. Appreciate the research you put into this

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate that!

[@Rambrus0]

For some reason this video wasnt recommended for me for a month, im glad i found it again

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for coming back for it!

[@Yeah-ic7nd]

Comment for the algorithm. I'm always glad to see people documenting the history of competitive games, and I'm really glad to see you doing it for this one. Keep up the great work.

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate that!

[@MasterWalrus]

Great video like always. I love seeing the Decklists. Also, I’m leaving a comment before Chaotic Meatball! That never happens!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for your continued support! And congratulations on winning the race against a meatball.

[@anewfuture]

I was at this event. A kid who went to my local pokemon league won the gold medal. I cannot remember his name, but he was one of the better players there. I didn't understand what I was doing, so I missed getting into the tournament both days, but the non-tournament activities were still fun. It is a fond memory. Not that I would have stood a chance even if I did got in, as I was always playing off meta stuff just for fun.

[@JanjoZone]

Can we just point out how unfriendly Tickling Machine looks? It's fun seeing hiw functional or non-functional cards I had back then were. Gym Leader variants sure were better than Dark variants, huh? Keep up the great work man!

[@rubyretro]

What? You don't want to be tickled with metal crab claws? Thanks for the support, as always, my friend!

[@DraphEnjoyer]

No Removal Gym is one of the most comically blunt cards I've ever seen in a TCG. Card might as well just say "Stop using Energy Removal" with how lazy it is

[@rubyretro]

XD

[@RichardBlaziken]

After the second Gym set with the final four Gym Leaders my collecting era came to a close for a very long time. I managed to complete Base, Jungle, Fossil, Rocket, and both Gym sets, but my dad had gotten tired of supporting this financially, especially since he saw it as them just reprinting the same Pokemon he'd already helped me collect over and over again. It was a fun era though, good memories.

[@rubyretro]

The best memories. 👌

[@pnpgutterfold]

This is a surprisingly common scenario. Pokemon, all things considered, is way more expensive than most board games, card games, and video games because the format rotates ad infinitum. I was super big into the Pokemon TCG during Base, Jungle, and Fossil, but my mother just couldn't keep paying for booster packs and decks. She bought my sister and me a total of 10 booster packs for each of us before she wanted us to move onto something else. It wasn't until I got my first job that I was able to get back into collecting.

[@wusstunes]

Part of this makes me curious what a format allowing just cards from a single set would look like for these years, given that many cards were never even played and many of the strongest cards from the first three sets remained dominant for as long as they were legal. Great work as always. I definitely remember that commercial.

[@rubyretro]

Could be an idea worth exploring in future videos. 🤔

[@damonke7674]

Why are YOU here lmao??

[@FantasyJared]

These are so, SO good! ^^ I can't stop watching these, love your work.

[@rubyretro]

Thank you so much!

[@JakevO8]

Another banger my guy. Can't wait for the next video.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for tuning in!

[@Lonewolf0840]

The look on Mr. Mime's face has me questioning the tickle machine... 😅🤣😂

[@rubyretro]

Nothing good could be coming from Yeah Rocket.

[@catholiccowboy]

I hope the vintage pokemon community can organize oldschool tournaments at some point. Vintage mtg is alive and strong. I have no doubt these tournaments would also be successful in present day.

[@rubyretro]

These are a thing that happens. I'm sure we'd jump at the opportunity to run one as well, should we find the means to do so.

[@fawfulmark2]

Alex Brousseau and Jason Klazynski occasionally host IRL events themed around vintage formats so it's starting to become more common.

[@SpiteBellow]

Yesss, I was waiting for this! doin' great!

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate you a ton!

[@Jesse_Dawg]

I love these. Please more

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! More soon!