Pokemon Card HP is OUT OF CONTROL

the United States saw the Pokemon TCG printed for the first time in 1999 the first ever Pikachu card had 40 hit points a little over 20 years later we saw the new TCG set team up the Pikachu here Pikachu and Zekrom GX has 240 hit points how on earth did we get here let's talk about it this past weekend was the Pokemon World Championships which meant another short teaser trailer for a new Pokemon TCG feature we've seen exas legends G X's tag teams and all handful of other pokemon card gimmicks over the last two decades but the new card type we'll be getting for the gala region is Pokemon V the trailer comically shows Pikachu and Zekrom the 240 HP monster we were just talking about cowering in fear at a 330 HP mr. Iman coming to us in the near future this is one of the most insane examples of power creep I've ever seen in the game of any kind before what's power creep the situation were updates to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities leaving the older ones underpowered it makes sense if you want someone to spend their $50 bills you want your new product to look better than the old product and then the next one needs to be even better than that and then while whoops and then there's no going back to the way things were today we're gonna go through the entire history of the pokemon TCG to figure out key moments where HP balloon welcome cuz it's the whit's history of thickness we're gonna look at two different kinds of pokemon cards one section for the highest HP on a basic pokemon of any era which are cards that you can play right from your hand down into the field and then another section for every type of card including evolutions and other multi step card types traveling back in time means we're starting at $19.99 let's go right from the base set we see a starting trend that sticks for a long long time 120 HP - cards have this holy health number the basic pokemon Chauncey and of course Charizard the most iconic Pokemon card of all time Chauncey makes perfect sense it has by far the highest HP base stat in the first gen video games meanwhile Charizard is toward the bottom of the top third I don't get it but they decided to make this boy thick and that thickness definitely played a role in what made this card so desirable for fans and collectors from the start of the game's history 120 was the iron unchangeable law for years every once in a while cards would tie Charizard and Chauncey in the top HP for any card you could tell that the devs were actively trying to avoid going to HP crazy stuff was definitely getting stronger but it wasn't getting bigger nothing even touches chancy's basic pokemon HP record not until Ruby and Sapphire in 2003 where a new pokemon card type was revealed the Pokemon e^x these cards were big and strong compared to the competition at the time but at the expense of giving up to prize cards from being knocked out chancy's 120 HP basic record is finally tied for the first time by Chauncey IX and while the first Ruby and Sapphire IX set only featured basic e^x Pokemon the second e^x set sandstorm added exas 4 evolutions this was the first great explosion overnight the 120 barrier was absolutely shattered 150 hundred 60 and even 200 HP for Wailord IX now having a lot of HP doesn't automatically make a card good but this was definitely a new ceiling that pokemon absolutely shattered that said once they did smash through the ceiling pokemon cards calm down for a while Chauncey and Wailord IX hold their spots as top globs for another half decade it wasn't until 2008 and diamond and pearl that we begin to see stuff match the current records great encounters give us another royal lord with 200 HP but this time it wasn't even a souped-up px card it was only worth one prize the new level ex mechanic functioned almost like an evolution so chancy's rule is the biggest basic pokemon continued however in legends awakened we finally saw a non e^x basic Tai Chan see for the first time in almost 10 years with regigigas none of the Platinum themed sets or heartgold SoulSilver themed sets would make that push the heartgold SoulSilver block does give us the 130 in larger hit point legend pokemon and even though they're kind of like basic Pokemon they weren't treated as basics and he needed to play multiple cards at once to get them down onto the field it wasn't until Gen 5 that we'd see new ground in the HP arms race but starting with black and white they finally did it bang the 120 HP barrier is officially dead for basic Pokemon the two mascots Reshiram and Zekrom are the first 130 HP basics not only were these pokemon big but they were both good immediately having a competitive impact on the game and even playing a role in that year's top two World Championship decks I didn't run any that year I guess that's why I got top a 130 would become the new big basic legendary Pokemon standard but this wouldn't be the first time black and white would shake up the basics category because in 2012 next destinies it was the second great explosion exas are back except this time they have a capital e X instead of lowercase steel two prizes but this time they're all basic Pokemon only immediately a massive influx of 180 HP basic ax has hit the scene and in many ways they changed the game forever I mean think about it it took us 12 years to move the max basic pokemon HP up 10 points and then in the blink of an eye were up another 50 and Wailord will continue to dominate the right half of our screen extending its streak to over 10 years until X&Y mega evolutions get their TCG equivalents and that puts a whole new kind of thickness into the top slot at two hundred and thirty but apparently all this mega nonsense got Wailord mega mad so mad that it decided to take over both sides of the list 250 HP Wailord e^x washes ashore like a beached whale in 2015's primal clash Sun and of course continuing with this new wave of capital e capital X Pokemon they are all basics so a Lord is king and in a way way Lord was kind of king for a minute it took second place at the u.s. national championships with a deck that didn't even attack it just soaked up damage with whale lards massive body and ran opponents out of cards by milling their decks well that was certainly one of the most entertaining and exhausting games of Pokemon I've ever casted a lot of people forget that this same way Lord yucks was a part of that year's World Championship winning deck as well jacob ben wagner used a copy of it in his Blastoise deck actually powering this colossal beast and attacking with it to win games well Lord held the HP fort until Sun and Moon launched in 2017 giving us new GX pokemon still to price cards like the e X's but these ones also had Z moves called GX attacks why these aren't Z X's I will never know Sun and Moon brought us a lot of 250 HP Pokemon but never over 250 that number wouldn't be broken until this year 2019 with the release of the new team-up GX cards which feature two pokemon and one card give up three prize cards for being knocked out and still unbelievably play to the field as a basic Pokemon several of these cards go past 250 but who better to set the new total than whale Lord and Magikarp G x3 freaking hundred and that's where we are today it truly is insane how big things have gotten and as we know it's only getting bigger from here Pokemon is actually proud that they power creep and especially 2012 onward it really seems like they've embraced it pokemon card HP growth has gotten out of control lately now one thing I should clear up is that Pokemon uses rotations to determine which cards are legal in the competitive card game so you almost will never see basic cards being played alongside the cars that are being used today but even then I'm in awe of the size of these lads back in 2005 there was a jumbo-sized shadow lugia promo card for pokemon XD obviously not tournament legal and that had 300 HP that number was meant to represent something impossibly huge but it looks like my 20/20 will be breaking that with regular cards big numbers and big shiny cards get players and collectors alike buying but it's just wild to me to see how fast things are inflating do they have a plan here or cards just gonna keep growing and growing with no end in sight holy time will tell pokemon card oh I know [Music] Pokemon Yoji roots holding the car can get much bigger [Music]

Channel: TheJWittz

Views: 1,282,841

Rating: 4.9060149 out of 5

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon TCG, Pokemon card, trading card game, HP, strongest, pikachu, charizard, EX, GX, Tag Team, Pokemon V, Valar, Gen 8, Sword Shield, Pack, Booster Pack, Wailord, Chansey, 120HP, Base Set, History, Broken, OP, Power Creep, lost thunder, unified minds, unbroken bonds, team up

Id: 9oj3pdPAeM0

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019