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Written by Grand Master Scyther
June 2nd, 2003
Hello, and welcome to another installment of Grand Master Scyther's TCG Tips and Strategies. This is the first of several articles where I look at the different types of Pokemon. I chose to begin with one of the most powerful types: Psychic.
Many Psychic Pokemon have dominated the game from as early as the premiere expansion to the new Skyridge set. One of the top Psychic Pokemon back in the day was Mr. Mime from the Jungle expansion. This goofy looking 40 HP Pokemon may not seem like much, but it's Pokemon Power Invisible Wall made up for that. Basically, it allows any attack that does 30 or more damage to be completely negated. However, this is after any damage modifiers, such as weakness, resistance, and trainer cards. So if an attack would normally do 40 damage and you have a Mr. Mime with a Defender attached to it that negates the damage to 20 so it will slip through Mr. Mime's wall. Also, Invisible Wall will shut off if Mr. Mime is affected by a special condition, so if a Pokemon is out that can cause a special condition, consider not putting out Mr. Mime quite yet.
Another good Psychic Pokemon back then was Dark Slowbro from the Team Rocket expansion. This one had its ups and downs though. The up side was when it came into play from your hand, you could choose up to 3 Basic and/or Evolution cards from your discard pile and put them in your hand. The down side was that it was only 60 HP and its only attack can only do 40 damage, and that's only 50% of the time!
Today though, there are several good Psychic Pokemon in the new Skyridge set. One is Wobbuffet. This is one of the best Basic Pokemon I've seen of the Psychic type. For 70 HP and an attack that only needs 2 energy (one Psychic, one colorless), this should be considered for any Psychic deck. Its attack of Return Attack tells you to flip a coin, and if even one of them is heads, deal 10x damage where x is the number of damage counters on Wobbuffet (so 3 damage counters would deal 30 damage). Its Poke-Body is awesome also (Mirror Coat). If you become Burned or Poisoned by the opposing Pokemon, they also become affected by that same condition. Consider this for a haymaker Psychic deck.
Another awesome Pokemon is the new Gengar. At 100 HP it has what I consider one of the best Poke-Powers in the game. When you play Gengar from your hand to evolve your Active Pokemon (yes, it must be active for this to take place), you may take any non-baby Basic Pokemon from your discard pile, place it on your bench, flip 3 coins, and for each heads take an Energy card from the discard pile and attach it to that Pokemon. Its attack may look bad at only 40 damage, but your opponent will either be burned or confused in the end, an awesome effect.
Well, that concludes my article on Psychic Pokemon. In my next article I will take a look at some of the new and old grass type Pokemon out there. Until next time, happy training and good luck.