From: Brian Brokaw To: Subject: Re: QUESTION Date: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 6:24 AM > What exactly is a Haymaker? I know I'm probably a disgrace to the TCG world > not knowing what one is, but I...just don't know. Please help me. Heh. I don't think that qualifies as a disgrace to the TCG world at all! Haymaker means a LOT of different things to a lot of different people. Originally it started as Fighting + Lightning "beat-down" deck. It has 4 Hitmonchan and 4 Electabuzz as the main attackers. Other good attackers included Machops (more first turn big damage) and some Pokemon Birds (which are always resistant to Fighting and good against other Haymaker decks). In the beginning those birds were Farfetch'd, but when Jungle was released it changed to Scyther pretty quickly. Also, Haymaker has ALWAYS relied on offensive trainer cards as well: Gust of Wind to pick and choose who you beat up on. Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal are ALWAYS maxed out... Haymakers do not have long lasting staying power, and you need to deprive the opponent of their energy to keep them from evolving too much. Also PlusPower works really nicely in Haymaker (and so does Scoop Up!) Back in January of this year, my son Seamus and I made a deck like this after reading a post by a guy named Alan Kwan about the "2 best Basic Pokemon in the game". He chose Hitmonchan and Electabuzz. I named the deck "Haymaker" after reading an errored spoiler for Hitmonchan in the Duelist magazine. I posted the deck to the internet and the name just kind of took off. The decks that people call Haymakers look a lot different now, but they usually include good basic Pokemon and lots of energy removal. Hope this helps, Brian Brokaw