Pokemon advantage
    This article will focus on the four base set Pokemon who when the base 
set came out, were considered the best.  I must warn this was then and not 
now.
    Blastoise-  His Rain Dance Pokemon power was  made him a quick card to 
power up if you had enough water energy.  A lot of people including myself  
based their deck around this power.  Plus he is a great Charizard killer!
    Charizard- Lets face it having an attack that can do 100 damage or kill 
practically every Pokemon in the game will help a guy.  He also has a pretty 
good Pokemon power in Energy Burn, which helps him with having to discard two 
fire energies every time he attacks.  Also he has 120 HP and a resistance to 
fighting, which makes him one of the longest lasting Pokemon around.  
    Gyarados-  He is considered by many to be the fastest card in the game.  
He is a stage one Pokemon and can do 50 damage with just three energy (think 
about it though Nidorino can do 50 damage in two turns if you have a DCE 
while Gyarados takes at least  three turns).  Gyarados is pretty defensive 
with 100 HP and a resistance to fighting.
    Hitmochan-Was made extremely popular, even more than he was before by 
Haymaker and all of the variants that have come from it.  Looking at him I 
would have to say he is incredibly powerful.   A basic Pokemon with 70 HP and 
an attack that does 40 damage no questions asked (except for defenders and 
resistance).  You can do that in two turns if you have two fighting energy 
and a DCE.  Plus on your first turn you can do 20 damage if you put a 
fighting energy down on him. 
    These were the advantages of those four cards, but of course they have 
some disadvantages so here they are.
    Blastoise- Can be killed by electabuzz in two turns, other than this he 
has no huge disadvantages that I can think of.
    Charizard-  Blastoise can kill him in one turn if he has water energy, 
because of Charizard’s weakness to him.  To go along with that, Charizard 
will have quite a bit of trouble with Rain Dance decks (including Blastoise). 
 One last thing, be careful because he is quite an energy hog!!
    Gyarados-  Super energy removal will hurt this guy quite a bit.  Plus 
evolving from the very weak Magikarp is not something to brag about.
    Hitmochan- his main weakness is when most people build a deck they have 
something in it to try and kill him (psychic Pokemon).
    Now here are some problems they have now that Jungle has been released.
    Blastoise- Mr. mime can shut him down completely.
    Charizard- The same as above.
    Gyarados- The same as above, plus now grass decks are quite common and 
Gyarados has a weakness to grass!
    Hitmochan- No major problems except that he is sometimes replaced by 
Scythers in decks.
    So now its time for a wrap up of the base set.  Blastoise has lost a lot 
of popularity because of Mr. Mime.  Charizard is the same as Blastoise.  
Gyarados seems to have fallen from the earth since I hardly ever see him in 
decks any more.  Hitmochan is still standing strong since Haymakers are as 
popular as ever.

By: Jeff T.
E-mail me with questions or comments at <A 
HREF="mailto:mr2113@aol.com">mr2113@aol.com</A>