Legacy Select Format - Master Topic

[crait]

Hello! After the incredible work from the team, custom formats are now available! This means I was able to implement my own custom format called Legacy Select. This custom format is a celebration of the first 25 years of the Pokemon TCG, having a small subset of cards from the entire series.

My goal was to create a fun format that allows some older, iconic strategies to come back while allowing some weaker ones to finally get a chance to shine. A lot of effort has been put into this format to so make at least every card useful. Every single Pokemon in Generation 1 and Generation 2 are represented with their full evolution lines, along with many of their other regional forms.

The focus was on encouraging players to evolve and not get dunked on too easily, like in more modern formats. To ensure this playstyle, I also had these restrictions when selecting cards:

• No mutli-prize cards, such as ex or V-Pokemon
• No format-specific mechanics, such as Dark Pokemon, Pokemon BREAK, Lv. X, etc.
• No Delta Species or Baby Pokemon
• Only 1 Pokemon of each name
• Only yellow-border cards can be selected

Rules for the game come from the 2020 ruleset.

Ready to play??

If you’re interested in playing, you can check out all the cards and some information on the format website that made, here: Legacy Select Format - By Jonathan Holmes (crait) (This website also has a deck builder with 35 additional starter decks.)

If you’d like to give it a shot, I’d suggest taking a look at the 35 starter decks that I’ve made to give you an idea of what’s possible. Each deck has also been created on TCGOne so that you’re able to use it, clone it, modify it, etc.

Fire Gatherer

Fire Gatherer — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Super Riptide

Super Riptide — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Motor Spark

Motor Spark — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Afterburnt

Afterburnt — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Deluge Stream

Deluge Stream — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Ghost Lock

Ghost Lock — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Heavy Rock Blaster

Heavy Rock Blaster — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Bear The Brunt

Bear The Brunt — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Nice Hair Bad Teeth

Nice Hair, Bad Teeth — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Alolan Shakedown

Alolan Shakedown — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Whirlwind Claws

Whirlwind Claws — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Perfect Magnetism

Perfect Magnetism — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Fossil Expedition

Fossil Expedition — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Rapid Barrier

Rapid Barrier — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Circular Circulation

Circular Circulation — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Fluffy Taser

Fluffy Taser — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Miasma Nausea

Miasma Nausea — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Poison Lock

Poison Lock — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Bug Totem

Palm Totem — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Nightmare Fuel

Nightmare Fuel — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Gaze Barrier

Gaze Barrier — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Kitchen Scissors

Kitchen Scissors — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Small Mill

Small Mill — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Trashville

Trashville — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Bench Killers

Bench Killers — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Soaking Potion

Soaking Potion — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Rainbow Grace

Rainbow Grace — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Prehistoric Rage

Prehistoric Rage — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Holdus Pinkus

Holdus Pinkus — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Cool Eeveelutions

Cool Eeveelutions — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Lunar Appraisal

Lunar Appraisal — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Yanmurder

Yanmurder — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Champ Slap

Champ Slap — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Poli Fam

Poli Fam — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Nido Fam

Nido Fam — Legacy Select Format Deck - TCG ONE

Link to see more about the format: Legacy Select Format - v1 - Custom Format - TCG ONE

[Charmaster]

“No Delta Species” booooooo, delta species is the best species.

In all seriousness, this seems kind of interesting, and I hadn’t realized custom formats were this far along in development! Hope you’ll be able to tweak the lists as testing is done, though!

Also, Acerola’s Premonition isn’t on TCGONE, right? You might to replace it for Ghetsis or something like that in the Ghost Lock deck. Unless there’s been a big expansion update I’m not aware of as well as a custom formats update, the card pool only comes up to Chilling Reign. (As a matter of fact, Double Turbo Energy is in a lot of these decks.)

Rapid Barrier needs Air Balloon or Float Stone or some similar card instead of Escape Rope. Or at least Recycle Energy.

(Wait a minute, I thought this was a format for pre-constructed decks, but these are just samples.)

[crait]

@Charmaster

“No Delta Species” booooooo, delta species is the best species.

Haha. I love that set, but it misrepresents the identity of some of the Pokemon that I wanted to keep in tact. There are still some cards from those sets, but no type-shifted Pokemon.

@Charmaster

(Wait a minute, I thought this was a format for pre-constructed decks, but these are just samples.)

Yep! These are examples that I came up with. Some can surely be more optimized, but I didn’t want to spoil the fun for some people. I know of one specific deck that could be greatly overhauled with the removal of a single card and a few tweaks, too, but I also don’t have enough time to update things since these are just examples.

@Charmaster

Rapid Barrier needs Air Balloon or Float Stone or some similar card instead of Escape Rope. Or at least Recycle Energy.

I do plan on doing a few more revisions after enough people play and find some broken combos or obvious missing pieces that would make things more fun, so I’m open to suggestions and changes. However, the current list has basically been locked in for over 2 years, at this point, so I’d like to keep the current list around for a little before changing it.

[Charmaster]

@crait

Legacy Select Format - v1 - Custom Format - TCG ONE

Well, Skiploom EVS, Flaaffy EVS, Alolan Raticate PGO, Acerola’s Premonition, Collapsed Stadium, Hisuian Heavy Ball, Spirit Mask, Supereffective Glasses, Temple of Sinnoh, Trekking Shoes and Double Turbo Energy will need to be replaced for similar cards, and Copycat, Dark Patch, Crushing Hammer, Energy Search, Energy Retrieval, Pokéball, Professor’s Research, Shauna and Ultra Ball will need to replaced for older prints, because all of those cards are currently unplayable on TCGONE. That’s a lot of Trainer cards to technically have legal in the card pool but not actually be able to play.

Fortunately Eelektrik NVI is an easy replacement for Flaaffy EVS. Gladion or Town Map is probably the smart replacement for Hisuian Heavy Ball, Narrow Gym can replace Collapsed Stadium, Ghetsis could work well as an Acerola replacement, Acro Bike is similar to Trekking Shoes, and Cursed Shovel is similar to Spirit Mask.

[jamie756]

Parasect does not keep the cards in the Discard pile for Riptide, in that Feraligatr deck. If Riptide doesn’t shuffle any cards back into the deck, it doesn’t do any extra damage. Just a heads up. See the WOTC Erratas page.

[admin]

@crait

I have been working to make many of the cards playable. I recently did almost all of the Gen 8 cards! However, I still have a few more cards amongst them to do. I think they’ll be quite easy compared to the Trainer cards. I also fixed an oversight or two in the codebase. I’m also going to verify all of the other cards. in the format. To keep up with the status, check the first post in this thread. I’ll keep it up-to-date with cards that I’m still working on.

Hi @crait all missing cards have been implemented recently so they can be added to your format. Please check them out and report bugs if there are any issues, cheers.

[crait]

YOU ARE INCREDIBLE! Let’s goo!

[crait]

After playing a few dozen matches, here’s my thoughts… I’m going to list a few possibly problematic cards based off of how desperately they need to be changed:

100% Remove:

Darkness Energy - It’s just way too strong and can be put in any deck, I think. It’s also going to make Dark Pokemon stronger and they’re already pretty strong.

100% Swap:

Magnemite - Swap it with an electric one since it’s too powerful with the Frying Pan. Not that it, itself, is too powerful, just that it can become powerful when it evolves to Magnezone. Giving Magnezone a really strong Basic Pokemon might be too overpowered for something that can already operate as a strong support and main attacker.

Alolan Diglett - Swap with the one from Unbroken Bonds. It’s too good for setting up for how powerful Alolan Dugtrio is. Switching it to the one from Unbroken bonds is essentially removing 10HP from it and removing the ability to reorder your deck. Putting Alolan Diglett in an Alolan tribe deck will also be quite strong as the other Alolan Pokemon are good at setting up. Unless strong bench protection becomes more prominent, I think this is the right change.

Borderline (Probably Swapping):

Alolan Marowak - Probably the strongest deck, in my opinion. Out of all the decks I’ve seen play, it sets up quickly and then is able to hit with a powerful attack. It would be nice to find an alternative to swap this guy with. I’d rather not remove it, completely.

Virbank City Gym - Poison is very powerful with this. Not too bad in the late-game, but because this format is depowers basics, I think removing this is for the better. There’s not too many Basic Pokemon that can auto poison for 1 energy, but it’s still worth considering getting rid of this since it could cause damage to pile up just too fast in the early-game.

Scary (Worth Considering):

Farfetch’d - Hits way too hard for 1 energy and can be swapped around easily since there’s Switch AND Escape Rope in this format. Could be OP in the early-game.

Alolan Exeggutor - This Pokemon has the most HP for any Stage 1. I wanna keep an eye on this card to see if it becomes a problem. Luckily, I think the damage output takes a little while to rack up in this format since it’s slower than the S/M format it originated in.

Alolan Persian - Hitting 60 damage for 1 Energy seems really powerful and could be consistent in a Crobat deck.

Might need to be buffed:

Slowbro - Cool card, but I never used it when it was in my deck except for like once. I got lucky with it because I hit a Psychic Pokemon for weakness for 1 Energy. It has too low HP for its weak damage output. I think it can be swapped, but not sure with whom.

Golduck - I like the effect, but I’m not sure if it’s worth putting into a deck just for that ability. The attack is just okay. Would be a lot better if this card had 100HP… Is it worth it to keep in a deck where someone uses Psyduck for it’s item lock attack just to give it an evolution? I’m not entirely convinced.

[JanJanKiq]

Since Sky Field is legal in this format, I think the current Sudowoodo should be replaced with Sudowoodo · Guardians Rising (GRI) #66, which has the Roadblock Ability. This should help keep Alolan Marowak in check. Yes, Collapsed Stadium exists, but you’d probably rather play Temple of Sinnoh to target your opponent’s Special Energy.

I’d also replace the coin-flip Stadium cards with these double-sided Stadiums: Chaos Tower, Parallel City, and Reverse Valley

[Dodrio-pult]

Like I said in my opinion on the legacy select format topic I think alolan exeggutor just hit’s to hard for how tanky it is since you can just run at least one of each energy type and with good draw card’s like research octillery unown and trecking shoes you can very easily get 5 energy in the discard there is also vulpix that let’s you draw 2 card’s for each energy you discard from your hand which is also a free attack though I haven’t experimented with vulpix like at all I definitely still think it’s just another reason why I think alolan exeggutor is unhealthy overall

[crait]

Yeah, it’s one of my favorite cards of all time, just too powerful. What about changing it to this one from Sun & Moon Ultra Prism? It’s HP is much lower and its attack is less reliable. Potentially doing 240 is so freaking high, but the weakness to Fairy and high retreat cost might make it susceptible to the Wigglytuff deck and Alolan Ninetails deck in this format.

Even though it’s not as fun as the Alolan Shakedown one, it could be fun if paired with the Venusaur in this format. I think a Stage-2 support Pokemon could be a fair partner. It also has a heavy retreat cost, so it makes the deck have a fair weakness. Also, with this Alolan Exeggutor being Dragon-type, it can’t be grabbed out of the trash with Revitalizer.

[Dodrio-pult]

I have to agree because ultra prism exeggutor is the only one that wouldn’t be broken as both from team up are strong in their own way’s

[Dodrio-pult]

I also think raichu should be replaced with raichu prime from triumphant, because the current raichu has the same attack as alolan marowak without the restriction of only being boosted by pokemon with alolan in it’s name, so it’s just a bit redundant and also opens the door for a lot of powerful combo’s that the alolan marowak deck doesn’t have like rattata and mankey, raticate to recover resources and your pikachu and raichu’s, alolan sandslash and magcargo as a budget pidgeot you get my point. Meanwhile raichu prime allows a fun pairing with flaaffy without being overbearing on the format.

[crait]

@JanJanKiq

Sudowoodo · Guardians Rising (GRI) #66,

This is such a great idea. Unfortunately, I think it’s attack is really powerful and the HP is quite high as a Basic.

@Dodrio-pult

the current raichu has the same attack as alolan marowak without the restriction of only being boosted by pokemon with alolan in it’s name,

Totally understandable, but the 90HP makes a big difference, in my opinion. The biggest downside for Raichu is that it only counts benched Pokemon. Alolan Marrowak includes itself, so the damage potential is actually lower for Raichu. If they both need to be swapped out, I wouldn’t say that Raichu Prime is a good choice since 120 damage is really high for a Stage 1.

[Dodrio-pult]

Yeah that’s fair, especially since the consistent 120 damage for alolan exeggutor is one of the main reason’s it’s as strong as it is.

[crait]

You mentioned you’d like more Trainers… Which ones were you thinking?

[Dodrio-pult]

I’m thinking card’s that make stage 2 deck’s more viable/consistent, like rare candy and/or pokemon trader/communication.

[crait]

Perhaps a Dana or Masked Royale could be cool. I do agree that more support to get out Stage 2 Pokemon is where we want to push players.

[Dodrio-pult]

I think if we add dana we can’t add rare candy, which is pretty much mandatory if we want deck’s like poli’s or nido’s to be good, since it will cause the opposite problem where stage 2’s can be put into play to easily .

[crait]

AHH, I misread Dana! I thought it was only if YOUR OWN Active was Stage 2!

Okay, cross that off the list!