Pokemon TCG History Origins - 1997 - Japan's First Tournament

Episode 1 of Pokemon TCG History Origins - a 3-Part limited series covering Japan's first tournaments.
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[@Maxx00]

5:55 I think the reason he ran 1 Devolution Spray was to Devolve Alakazam into Kadabra for a Higher Damage attack. 30 vs 50 could make a big difference in getting a crucial KO

[@rubyretro]

Also, could allow free retreating as Abra if Alakazam got stuck active.

[@SpectreXS]

Love seeing these historic decklists! Not only for data preservation, but also for having a break from the typical 20-year-hindsight optimal lists that were never played at the time.

[@MrRBX]

Right, these kids were lucky to have what they had at all. Today's players don't understand how rare it was to have every card at your tips

[@DHunter_47]

The Kingdom of God is at Hand John 3:16 King James Version 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

[@SpiteBellow]

I played Jay (Jason Klaczynski) in mtg at our local for years and knew he was a pokegod in his youth, so its cool to see his deck ideas showcased. I also logged hundreds of hours on the gba pkmn tcg as a kid so the nostalgia factor is off the charts

[@burningphoneix]

My playground rules was that you needed to "level up" a pokemon to play an evolution card because all cards had just a random Level printed in the description. We got XP by tallying up the damage that pokemon did to a KOed opponent so every 10 damage was 10 levels and so on. So to upgrade a Lv.18 Growlithe to a Lv.45 Arcanine you needed to do at least 30 damage first with that pokemon.

[@rubyretro]

Interesting spin.

[@jaysant6958]

Do you still play? We should play with those rules.

[@burningphoneix]

@@jaysant6958 I haven't played since I was a kid and even then I mostly played the GBC game. I was turned off of TCGs when I rolled into a YGO tournament in my local game store and wondered how people had these stacked decks and they just told me they buy boxes of card packs to get the cards they want which seemed kinda crazy to me since I could barely afford a pack or two a week. Decided to just invest my money in videogames but lootboxes came there too. 😅 I bought a small "My First Battle" deck to mess around with my son tho.

[@jaysant6958]

@@burningphoneix I’ve only ever played the gameboy version too which I still find to be pretty fun. I’ve never kept up with the newer Pokémon beyond the original 150 (plus Mew). Did you know there’s a way to play the gameboy version online now?

[@Evixyn]

The talking groundon in the chambers smoking a pipe with his cozy fire is well done. Especially the mouth syncing and hand gestures.

[@rubyretro]

Really appreciate that! I'm quite proud of how he turned out.

[@nicholasbaker5325]

From the thumbnail alone, I'm so excited to see the end product after all the work that went into this

[@WinterShorts0]

All the one-ofs makes me want to believe these decklists were all drafted from an old-school cube, Japan had a REALLY different mind when building decks back then, wow!

[@jasonschmidt6782]

I believe the idea behind the devolution spray was to get +20 damage by devolving Alakazam back into Kadabra, granting the potential for a surprise KO.

[@rubyretro]

That or to retreat for free with Abra if alakazam gets stuck active.

[@stravagantgames]

Stoked for this video!

[@weelzneal4768]

I either had too much energy or not enough. Hardly got to play & wasn't even aware of meta game play, think i met a kid who did know the game better & questioned my reasoning for some things

[@LanEXHikari]

Thanks for the video, perfect timing seeing that this year WC is being held in Japan

[@rubyretro]

Indeed! For the first time. Crazy that it's never been outside of the US until last year, even though it makes logistical sense to run it in the US..

[@shomanoni]

Hey man, I'm a retro pokemon deck collector (yes, decks only) and I'm genuinly praising you for those history videos!! keep those comming at us :)

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate it! More to come!

[@dukeriver01]

Always playing the theme decks, that was our basis for deck making back then

[@mcgipple]

Man. These videos have made my morning something amazing. I used to play with my dad, he taught me math with it!!! He ran aerodactyl so no one could evolve. Looking at the data from your videos, I can see why he placed 11th during the neo genesis events in early 2000. We got some cool southern island box sets with post cards and some really unique neo genesis folders with the starter lines in Japanese. I was amazed as a kid. Pokemon has been a staple in my life. So it is a love letter to watch your videos. Thanks!!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@Mr.Narquatics]

Can’t wait!

[@X2-drop]

So looking forward to this been waiting for more content!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for your patience!

[@CrackingPlastic]

Really excited to see the next two parts! Always been a huge fan of the early Pokemon tcg and 1997-2002 Japanese Pokemon tournaments have some of the most interesting history in the entire card game!

[@rubyretro]

Stay tuned! We're doing gym next, then parts 2 and 3. The other parts have more to cover, so they'll be longer too.

[@Jeppe950]

Great video, coming from a background of YuGiOh and later on MTG I never really got the hang of the rules to play Pokemon TCG. I had a lot of cards as a kid, but I was mostly looking for the shiny cool Pokemon like a lot of other people did. Therefore, I am finding it super interesting to follow the historical early metas that you are presenting.

[@rubyretro]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@JanjoZone]

Old deck lists in a lot of games are interesting due to card availability alone. Great video!

[@rubyretro]

100%!

[@harrisonkoolaid]

I love the intro and the translation added. It looked very high quality

[@rubyretro]

Thank you very much!

[@organous8870]

The final statement reminds me how even as recently as 5 years ago, I had people still thinking the Yu-Gi-Oh anime rules were how the real game is played. I know, different game, but that same phenomenon of people making assumptions instead of reading rule books.

[@Apocralyph]

That was a fun look at some unoptimized decks, king of the playground style. It's kind of a shame that there was no equivalent to a masters division where we may have been able to see some more advanced lists. Pretty strange to effectively ban older players from competing.

[@rubyretro]

They were different times

[@ZoeyEldritch]

Finally got to sit down to watch this one! Busy few days… happy to see you going strong with this awesome series! Loving it

[@rubyretro]

Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for watching!

[@FlammableLizard]

I was just thinking about your channel when I saw this notification, what a fun surprise! :D It's so cool to think back on Japan's first Pokemon TCG tournament. Maybe the deck lists weren't optimal, but I absolutely love the vibes of playing with whatever cards you have and making it work. It was especially interesting to see the lack of draw support! Thank you for another awesome video!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for being awesome and stopping by!

[@lkmdude8094]

This was really cool. It's so hard to find anything about the early japanese scene so this was great to hear about.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@SurriSama]

Love it! My first deck was quite similar to the damage swap deck honestly, but not because I had any read or insight... I just loved Alakazam 😂

[@daredewley9231]

Great work as always! You present an interesting thought on why deckbuilding philosophy had a lag in Japan. I never had a deck as a kid, only random cards I traded for. It was only as far back as 2018 that I started playing theme decks. I gobble this history stuff up though. Thanks for what you do.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for tuning in!

[@thebigdug]

Awesome video, but I wanna give you one small nuance about Japanese naming conventions: foreign names written in Katakana don't have the given and surnames swapped like native names are, and there's usually a cute little dot in between the two names. So Jason Klaczynski's name in Japanese would be written ジェイソン•クラジンスキー

[@rubyretro]

Good to know. I've always treated it the other way. That's what I get for not going to actual school I guess. I will take this correction into part 2, thank you!

[@Crusader3010]

I have some posts still on Pojo archives from my local tournements and some of my lists and reports saved on both the site and on my pc! Man, that was, IMO, the PUREST FORM of PKMN in its entirety. Base-set to Rocket, along with The first release of the Gameboy Red, Blue, Yellow and The TCG game was a time when you didn't know how to play PKMN to its fullest, but you tried anyway. The social aspect of it was unreal as you, regardless of age, had friends, online communities and events in stores that would be super unheard of today. Nothing like pretending you were ACTUALLY a trainer and yelling out attacks as you played any of these games. I believe Gen 4 was the peak of PKMN social structure with the advent of DS online play and PKMN PBR for the Wii. Thanks for the vids though! You helped me walk through some of my childhood's highest points!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching and thanks for sharing!

[@TimeCapsuleCrew]

From a fellow Pokemon KZbinr... your videos are really great man! Keep it up. You should keep doing the history of the meta through each set. I'm still waiting on that Gym Set video. I binge them while gaming pretty often.

[@rubyretro]

The gym video is next! Thanks for watching!

[@MetodoCuboAzul]

Loved the Groundon animation with monocles and a smoking pipe! Really added flavor and credibility! Thanks for the content, looking forward to your next video!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@Droanux]

Wataru Ooishi's list just gives me the most nostalgic grin, though it looks better than a lot of my lists as a kid with mostly monocolors and few colorless, and mostly all singletons.

[@TheAmazingMrB]

I've recently gotten back into the PTCGO and happened upon this series. What a gem! I was barely alive at the time of base set play, but it's enthralling to see how far the game has come in terms of design and balance. I also have a cache of early cards that I inherited, so it's interesting to learn the context of the scene when they were released. Thanks for this really well produced series!

[@rubyretro]

Welcome back! Thanks for watching!

[@benjaminkappler2255]

Awesome video! Very well thought out and produced. Keep this series alive! Thanks

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! That's our goal.

[@robbylava]

A family friend from Japan gave me my first couple booster packs of Japanese Pokemon cards back in '98. I was only 4. Unbelievable that the tournament scene was already starting to spring up across the Pacific way back then.

[@nyozha7154]

Great video, thanks! I can't wait for the TMB history!

[@rubyretro]

It's coming!

[@markymark9359]

This was such a cool video! I’d like to see more of this kind of content.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! More soon!

[@vedran626]

Love these videos! I played at my local game store back in like 2000 - 2001 but I can't for the life of me remember what decks I used. I'm pretty sure they were all terrible lol I recently played both tcg games for the gameboy and I thought they were awesome. I think the glossy vending machine cards had some interesting pokemon and were a nice addition to the game.

[@ripedroxx]

At first i was kinda bummed that this wasn't the next part of your other tcg history series, however god damn man you are doing an amazing job and now you got me hyped for two different series keep it up!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! The next part of the main series will be next, then the last 2 parts of this, so stay tuned!

[@Lonewolf0840]

I started playing the second TCG game for the Gameboy since the last video. All I can say is, at eleven years old, I truly did not understand how to play the game and see why I didn't win as much as I lost. 😅🤣

[@rubyretro]

It's a great game!

[@tanzolo4487]

The devolution spray in tatsuro’s deck was in there to devolve Alakazam to Kadabra, as Kadabra has an attack power of 50, Alakazam could only attack for 30. For the time, 50 was very high, high enough so he could knock out opposing smaller basic pokemon in 1 hit. like opposing jugglypuff or machop. Pokemon that posed a threat to his Mr Mime’s. Knocking them out in 1 hit was something even Mewtwo couldn’t do. Wacky list for sure. But some ideas are very neat. Thank you for the free content. I realise the effort and level of research put into these so I liked and subscribed. Please continue making these retro ptcg videos. This is very good content 👌🏻

[@Zigtech25]

20-20-20 on decks and stall chansey, lickatounge & Alakazam.... started on gb and figured out that deck out was a thing real quick

[@4GodSoLovedCR]

I’m looking forward to part 2!

[@rubyretro]

It'll be the next thing after the main series video we're working on now! Thanks for watching!

[@Dynomightgd]

Brilliant as always, keep it up

[@rubyretro]

Thanks a ton!

[@JakevO8]

Man these videos are top notch. Can’t get enough.

[@rubyretro]

Thanks, appreciate that!

[@robinhassler6487]

Amazing video! Please keep making more of these :)

[@rubyretro]

Thank you! More to come!

[@l3oxi579]

Back when I was first looking into trying to make a deck. I only thought about using Bill and potion. Other trainer cards didn't catch my eye, because I just wanted more pokemon.

[@guilhermeluispereira]

So knowledgeable. Love your videos!

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate you!

[@sethmix8264]

Oh man, great video. I totally forgot my cousins and I made the mistake of discarding energy every time it was used as well haha. We also thought the prize cards were taken from your opponents take so they would have less resources to work with. Needless to say, our games were short and frustrating lmao

[@Kholdstare4]

Love the content! Really well done. As an audio guy, it stuck out that you have some noise in the background of your voice recording-setting the right gain levels on your mic and audio interface or using a de-noiser like RX could make it cleaner. But you’re doing an awesome job!

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate the feedback. Honestly, the Shure SM7B we used for this is an enigma to me, though I would like to understand it better. For our next one, we're using a hyper x podcast mic, which should be a little easier to optimize for us.

[@SpiteBellow]

these vids are great, love learning and excited for more of the history of the meta vids

[@rubyretro]

Glad you like them! More soon

[@didsomeoneaskforanegg2168]

Damn bruh these videos are lit af you earned a new subscriber

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate you!

[@TwilitEpitaph]

One thing to consider (at least by my observation) is that all the one-ofs in the elementary-grade decks implies a collector, not a player. By that I mean someone who up until the tournament was just collecting one of each pokemon card to fill out a collection and not retaining their duplicates. Then they won the lottery and built a deck from the cards in said collection.

[@rubyretro]

Certainly could be!

[@Darthemed]

Very informative, thank you for the video!

[@guifig]

Awesome job, I'm enjoying this series very much. One quick correction: 4th edition was the first mtg set to be released in japanese (along with rennaissance, or "kinda sorta chronicles").

[@rubyretro]

I'm aware, but I was unable to find images of anything before 5th.

[@cdub31613]

I was lucky because my favorite Pokémon was the base of a competitive deck. I was running Blastoise/Gyarados through Base-Fossil, although I’d eventually get Articunos and Lapras’ in the deck as well. I used to run Kangaskhan for fetching too. Unfortunately, my ability to play was based on convincing my mom to take me on a Saturday instead of doing chores, and a good chunk of my collection was stolen at a card shop in Dallas around when Gym Heroes released. I didn’t start playing again until many, many years later.

[@ConnorKrohnicles]

I’m so excited for these videos

[@rubyretro]

Thanks for watching!

[@cambot4life.]

Remember when I started playing it was with 1 of my neighborhood friends, then 2 others joined, all 4 of our decks have changed a lot but from what I remember, I played a deck with mega camerupt ex, and the other 3 played a mewtwo ex deck, and the other 2 started into the swsh era and played malamar vmax and scizor vmax

[@BDBlueDragon16]

It’s alway interesting to see how the current meta of any card games compared to the early stage, or “beta.” Can’t wait to see your videos and watch the evolution of the meta. I usually run fire base deck with bunch of energy revivals as fire has the strongest attack and I countered the high cost with more trainers.

[@teamvikavolt2856]

SO well done!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks!

[@williamn_246]

Nice video. I think one other advantage Western players had was theme decks, while not great they did teach me the basics of deck building.

[@rubyretro]

Good point!

[@brooskiploo5397]

deevolution spray with alakazam is so you can switch to kadabra for a bigger attack for a final move if you will. isn't optimal but that's the synergy.

[@mawcus7132]

This is great content.. keep it up!

[@rubyretro]

Thanks, will do!

[@RJV-s3l]

Wataru Ooishi San out there being a Giga Chad in Elementary School. I have nothing but admiration for him. I want to play the GBC game with his deck list now.

[@wusstunes]

I don't care about improving my gameplay. I just think this stuff is cool.

[@rubyretro]

Nothing wrong with that. Thanks for watching!

[@isaacunderhill9120]

cool to hear

[@LIL_BRYCE]

Wow

[@tommetelsky]

Amazing! Would be great if you could cover Base-Fossil deck techs or gameplay.

[@rubyretro]

Keep an eye out. 😉

[@rightasreine]

great video as always, although i wish all 3 parts were in one upload instead of feeling like i have to wait for the rest. guess im spoiled by long-winded vid essays

[@rubyretro]

Sadly, we don't yet have a means to spend as much time on videos, unless you want to wait a year per upload, lol. Ideally, we'll eventually be able to do videos weekly.

[@JO-iv7tl]

I had lots of trainer cards but no good pokemon lines. So my list often was able to be playable but prizing or discarding became critical to gameplay outcomes. With so many one of pokemon counts. Because of this I thought everyone played whatever. archetype just didn't exist yet.

[@rbd5868]

I wonder where you get the info for each video, love them

[@rubyretro]

Source links are always in the description.

[@Gare_]

love this channel

[@rubyretro]

This channel loves you too ❤️

[@chienpo2945]

MORE!!!

[@rubyretro]

Stay tuned!

[@theforesttroll]

the animated groudon is so cute ;W;

[@rubyretro]

Thanks! Took far more time to do than I care to admit.

[@HenryBenedictUSA]

90’s Pokémon is the superior iteration 😎

[@SirioResteghini]

Nice video. I have a question though... I've heard in a Discord server that the rules of the Pokémon TCG in Japan were quite differrent from those that we eventually got in the rest of the world. For example, I've heard that three mulligans were an auto-loss. I could not find any reliable source for any of this, but I figured that maybe you could (especially since this might be relevant to this series).

[@rubyretro]

I was able to find a Wikipedia article mentioning rule changes from 97-99, cited from various issues of Corocoro. I'll have to run through the magazine pages to verify, but seems legit. Here's a translated link: wiki-xn----rckteqa2e-com.translate.goog/wiki/%E3%83%9D%E3%82%B1%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[@SirioResteghini]

@@rubyretro Thanks a lot! Wow, those early rules for confusion were wild!

[@Lord_Toastado]

Peak soul decklists

[@thebiglebrosky2031]

God I really need to read up on "The Great Charizard Debate" of Single Card Strategies. (I have a very vague idea of how this game works but 90s nerd shit is my jam)

[@MetalBum]

So cool keep producing historic videos like this. Can you do one on comic books. And video games. Thank you!! Maybe magic the gathering

[@rubyretro]

We'll be sticking mainly to pokemon, but do plan to cover the manga and video games at some point!

[@MazterP28]

Maybe he used devolution spray because Kadabra did 50 damage. And alakazam only did 30. So maybe to get knock outs

[@rubyretro]

Or possibly to utilize Abra's free retreat of Alakazam gets stuck active?

[@MazterP28]

@@rubyretro ooh yeah I thought that too.

[@LazurBeemz]

Good to know my elementary school decks could have been tournament-winning in Japan... We were just playing whatever!

[@mrunderscorecool]

YES

[@rubyretro]

🙂

[@goncaloferreira6429]

For the algo!

[@marioluigi164]

u doing a great job

[@rubyretro]

Thank you!

[@Zanji1234]

it's interessting if you see early pokemon decks vs early Yugioh decks (even for smaller kids) since not only had it several magazines here (at least in Germany) targeted for kids with deck lists, card galleries and deckbuilding tipps AND most of the kids had access to the internet so they could look at forums to get info. :-D So the pokemon kids back then had both the problem with "card availablility" (the evolved ones were hard to get) and not really access to deckbuilding knowledge (since tcgs were kinda a small hobby back then)

[@Zanji1234]

Edit: I also double checked... heck even the Digimon TCG came later O_o i thought that the (original) game was almost at the same time. So Pokemon TCG IS the first japanese tcg

[@triumphant8637]

need episode 3 :)

[@rubyretro]

Well, part 2 will be first, covering the Charizard (Lizardon) Mega Battle, followed by part 3, looking at the Blastoise (Kamex) Mega Battle. We're working on our next main series video now, and then we'll move onto part 2 of Origins. Thanks for tuning in!

[@triumphant8637]

@@rubyretro I was talking about the main series video! Good to hear :)

[@YourBoyBol]

I was not around during that time and even now I’ve never played the game because I don’t understand deck building

[@kirinkirisake8719]

i collected pokemon cards since i was little a but could only find packs back then so my first deck was the wind blast theme deck from the ex dragon expansion of the game i still have the full deck

[@JcBravo8]

So question. Why were Japanese and English decks so different in this period? The cards would be the same, right? EDIT: Uhp, you just answered the question. I was a few seconds too early XD XD.

[@NaldoNidoking]

Finally Nidoking

[@rubyretro]

I thought you might be happy about this one.

[@blastfiend7478]

Ayyyyy

[@hikershay11395]

content's too good

[@rubyretro]

No U

[@cooltrainerpat_tcg]

7:58 oh so that's what you look like

[@rubyretro]

Just like the profile picture, wouldn't you say?

[@Bodied]

More history of meta videos

[@rubyretro]

We're working on it. Thanks for watching!

[@thembosupremepizza1827]

your opening is way too loud but good video

[@topazboy333]

You sound like Sheldon from big bang theory

[@rubyretro]

I don't hear it.

[@IBongMaster395I]

please make more videos

[@rubyretro]

We're working on it! Thanks for watching!

[@Sunshine-gc7nv]

Comment

[@rubyretro]

Reply

[@DionysisGalanis]

This is a great new channel but the background sound in this video was like comedic ear-rape.

[@rubyretro]

Appreciate the feedback. Do you think you could elaborate on what about the music didn't work? We're still on the crawling phase, so we're looking to make improvements anywhere we can.

[@DionysisGalanis]

​@@rubyretro For example after 10:52 it was awful. A nicer approach would be the Pokémon TCG for Gameboy soundtrack. It's very related to the Pokémon trading card game theme of your videos, club master duel theme is a great example. You could also search remixes of those themes to see what fits. Also you could draw from Pokémon music and remixes from the main video games too.

[@chancylvania]

What the actual f was that intro

[@rubyretro]

Japanese commercial.