ARCHETYPES
An article for beginners to the Pokémon TCG
By SubMinus

As many of you beginners may be aware of, there is something in Pokémon called Archetypes(Ar-cah-types) from the two greek words Arche, meaning good, top rate, best and Typos, meaning things, or stuff as you might say today. In other words, The Good Stuff.. This is an article discussing several of them.
Warning! This article is long.

HAYMAKER
Creator: Brian Brokaw
Play Difficulty: *
Speed: *****
Haymaker is a deck using big and fast Pokémon like Hitmochan, Rocket's Zapdos and Electabuzz. Scyther is also used, because of its colorless attack, big HP, free retreat cost and fighting resistance. A very easy deck to play, and one of the most used.

TUFFSTUFF
Creator: ?
Play Difficulty: **
Speed: *****
TuffStuff uses the same Pokémon as Haymaker, but now uses Wigglytuff and a lot of search power to enable 60 damage on the second turn, with only 3 colorless energy.

RAINDANCE
Creator: ?
Play Difficulty: **
Speed: *****
Raindance uses Blastoise's Pokémon Power, which reads:
Pokémon Power: Rain Dance As often as you like during your turn(before your attack), you may attach one Water Energy to one of your Water Pokémon. This doesn't use up your one energy attachment for this turn. This power can't be used if Blastoise is Asleep, Confused or Paralyzed.
Then sprinkle a lot of water energy on Blastoise, Lapras, Dewgong, Gyarados, Dark Blastoise, Articuno and the like. With 4 Bill, 4 Professor Oak, 4 Computer Search and 4 Pokémon Breeder this is not too  hard.

ALAKAZAM STALL
Creator: ?
Play Difficulty: ****
Speed: *
This is a deck that uses an alternative winning condition: Running your opponent out of cards. This is accomplished with combining Alakazam, Mr. Mime, Chansey, Pokémon Center and/or Scoop up. This endless cycle is very harsh on the opponent, and is IMHO a pretty dumb and boring way to win.

THE CLEANER
Creator: The Impossible Man
Play Difficulty: ***
Speed: ***
The Cleaner uses a diversity of Status-Effect Pokémon to stall until you bring out an Arcanine or two, fully loaded, to Clean Up your opponents Pokémon.

ESCALATOR
Creator: ?
Play Difficulty: ***
Speed: ***
Escalator uses Electabuzz, Clefable, Gengar and Mr. Mime to be a great antidote for both Raindance and Haymaker. Great for tournaments, and the favorite of Yours Truly.

SPONGE
Creator: Scott Gerhardt
Play Difficulty: **
Speed: *****
The Sponge is a Haymaker-ish deck that uses the Promo Mewtwo(Lv. 60)
to obtain Psychic Energy from the Discard pile.

POTPOURRI
Creator: Scott Gerhardt(again)
Play Difficulty: ***
Speed: ****
Potpourri(is that spelled right?) is as yet the only "playable" deck with 3+ colors. Uses Hitmonchan, Electabuzz(might sound like a Haymaker but isn't technically), Mr. Mime, Scyther, Kangaskhan and Ponyta/TR Machop/TR Squirtle/TR Machop/Promo Electabuzz/TR Magnemite etc. Great for a varied tournament scene. Ponyta/TR Machop/TR Squirtle/TR Machop/Promo Electabuzz/TR Magnemite is chosen depending on the "Metagame".

MONO-GRASS
Creator: ?
Play Difficulty: ***
Speed: ***
Okay, this is not technically an archetype, but it is close. Mono-Grass uses Venusaur's Pokémon Power, which enables you to move Grass Energy around your Pokémon. Used Pokémon include: Scyther, Pinsir, Rocket's Scyther, Venomoth and Exeggutor.

WILDFIRE
Creator: ? [Editor's Note: Several possibilities exist, including Brian Brokaw, Chad Mills and IQ... they all seem to have come up with this deck at about the same time frame]
Play Difficulty: ****
Speed: ***
This is a stall deck that uses an attack of Moltres (fossil) that reads:
(Fire)  Wildfire  You may discard any number of Fire Energy cards attached to Moltres when you use this attack. Discard that number of cards from the top of your opponents deck.
You can see where this is going, right? Pile a lot of Fire on Moltres, then burn down your opponent's deck.


Well, those are all the archetypes and semi-archetypes I can come up with from the top of my head. I hope this can help you Poké newbies to get a better understanding of this wonderful game.

DISCLAIMER:
I apologize if any of the above information was wrong, like contents of decks, creators et cetera. And I would also like to remind you all that I have not done any further research than what I knew before, or from personal experience. If a "?" is left at Creator then it does not necessarily mean that the creator is unknown or anonymous, it only means that I DO NOT KNOW who the creator is. If you have any more corrections either mail me on my personal address or write a reply on this page.

E-mail me at sub-minus@iname.com