History TabletopGame / Pokemon

** Charizard is an odd mixture of this trope and AdaptationalBadass. While Charizard is fairly strong in the video games, most Charizard cards have been hard to use due to having some form of crippling drawback such as Fire Spin from Base Set requiring four Fire Energy cards and having the player discard two every time they attack, despite their high HP and powerful attacks. Charizard cards that have been released starting in the [=SM=] era have less restrictive costs and effects.

*** Most Imakuni? cards are straight up banned due to their outlandish nature; Imakuni?'s Whismur, for example, prevents the players from speaking when its on the field, and Imakuni?'s PC has an "effect" that's just a weird anecdone about him.

* AscendedMeme: The online game gives players six free copies of Ancient Origins Magikarp, despite the game only letting you have four copies of any card in your deck other than basic Energy, likely as a nod to the Fishermen with teams of six Magikarp in the main series games.

** The most valuable card from the initial set, Charizard, was hardly ever used in competitive play even in the early days. Only by using it in a combo deck strategy with Venusaur did it work on a practical level. Other similarly overpowered-yet-impractical cards have since been released.

** Charizard has traditionally been like this, with high HP and attacks that cause enormous damage (in the 100-300 range) but are way too slow to set up and usually have crippling drawbacks. However, Charizard cards tend to fetch high prices (despite their low competitive value) due to the big lizard's popularity combined with the "wow" factor of its damage output. A running joke in the community is that any new Charizard card is bound to be an unplayable "collector card" rather than one that can be used to good effect in battle. This is subverted with the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charizard_(Team_Up_14) Charizard from Team Up]], [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Reshiram_%26_Charizard-GX_(Unbroken_Bonds_20) Reshiram & Charizard-GX]], [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charizard_%26_Braixen-GX_(Cosmic_Eclipse_22) Charizard & Braixen-GX]], and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Radiant_Charizard_(Pok%C3%A9mon_GO_11) Radiant Charizard]] as these cards have seen some degree of tournament success some time after their release.

** Some cards have the effect of healing all of your Pokémon, but each of them has a drawback. Undaunted Togekiss and Burning Shadows Butterfree are Stage 2s (which means the player has to have evolved them twice from Basic Pokémon and then Stage 1s) and require the player to shuffle the Pokémon and all cards attached to it into your deck. Sun & Moon's Primarina-GX is also a Stage 2 and requires you to place a GX marker on the card after you use its move (though this can be sidestepped by Cosmic Eclipse Misty & Lorelei Tag Team) as does Altaria-GX from Dragon Majesty (though it's a Stage 1, meaning only 1 evolution). Quad Stone, finally, requires you to play 4 copies at once. Needless to say, it's easier to use cards like Max Potion or Rough Seas if you're in need of lots of healing.
** Most EX Pokémon that let your opponent take two prizes instead of one when they're defeated (the rules eventually changed so newer ones don't follow this). This is a generalization, however; playing them when you have one prize left regardless is still a potent strategy, and some (though not all) EX cards really do have enough potency to justify it.
** EX Mega Evolutions are this in general; they have high HP and very strong attacks, but can't attack the turn they Mega Evolve, and usually have difficult Energy requirements for their attacks, sometimes paired with insane drawbacks. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Both of Charizard's Mega Evolutions are textbook examples.]] Because they (unsurprisingly) have attacks that deal 300 damage, [[http://pojo.com/COTD/2014/Jun/6.shtml some have noted]] that their unplayability prevents their price from shooting through the roof on the secondary market. ''The Pokémon Company'' seemed to have noticed that last one, hence why as of Phantom Forces, they started to give Mega Evolutions a Tool called Spirit Links which allow them to Mega Evolve without needing to skip a turn. The only drawback is the inability to put a different Tool on the Pokémon (unless you remove the Link afterwards, or have Theta Double like Mega Tyranitar EX), but it's a small price to pay in order to not lose your turn. On top of that, Mega Pokémon started to receive much more efficient attacks in terms of energy costs, and thus they skyrocketed to competitive relevance almost immediately.
** Rayquaza VMAX. When set up properly, you have a very powerful and consistent all-in-one draw engine and beatstick with no weakness... emphasis on ''when''. The Pokémon is ultimately too slow and inconsistent to set up properly, requiring the Dragon-type standard of two different Energy types as well as multiple evolutions (for multiple copies of both itself and the Flaaffy used for energy acceleration), and the speed of the format it's in means the player needs to get ''very'' lucky and set up quickly or else they lose the game. Additionally, some Basic Pokémon V[[note]]meaning they don't need to evolve to reach their full potential[[/note]] released in subsequent sets [[OvershadowedByAwesome do Rayquaza's beatstick job but better]], such as Raichu V[[note]]deals less damage per discarded Lightning Energy, but only requires one Energy type and can discard energy from ''any'' of your Pokémon and not just itself[[/note]], Flygon V[[note]]has an attack that works similarly to Max Burst against Pokémon VMAX but deals more damage against them than said attack[[/note]], and Garchomp V[[note]]has an attack that works very similarly to a 3-energy discard Max Burst and deals slightly less damage, but can be used to snipe ''any'' of your opponent's Pokémon and not just their Active[[/note]].

** In general, Colorless Pokémon qualify. They often lack flashy effects and usually are a bit lacking in power, but they can use any kind of Energy for their attacks, allowing you to splash them into any deck if needed. Of note is Rayquaza's cards in particular; while it often gets very powerful Dragon-type cards as a selling point for expansions it's in, the most successful Rayquaza card of all time (within its format) is the Colorless-type Mega Rayquaza-EX.

** Some of the attack names were Bowdlerized; for example, God Blast was changed to Supreme Blast, Death Sentence was changed to Fainting Spell, and, rather cleverly, [[ObligatorySwearing Goddamn]] [[GratuitousEnglish Punch]] was changed to [[StealthPun Profane]] Punch.

* TheBusCameBack: The Dragon type was absent throughout much of the Sword and Shield era. Given that the Fairy-type was merged into Psychic, many assumed that it would be merged back into Colorless. However, it was revealed that the type would be returning with the ''Evolving Skies'' set, this time with no Weakness or Resistance.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: At first glance, code cards are practically useless outside of the online game. However, [=BREAKpoint=] gave them a hidden secondary purpose: they denote what type of Rare card is in the pack. There's two types of code cards, one with a green background, and one with a white background. A green background means that the pack has a Regular Rare, or at best, a Secret Rare if the set has one. A white code card means that the pack is guaranteed to have either a Holofoil Rare or an Ultra Rare.

** The Ultra Beast cards, introduced in Crimson Invasion, have at least one attack or ability that can only be used to its fullest (or used at all) if the opponent has drawn some prize cards or the user has failed to draw any.

** The online simulator lets you give Lance's hairstyle to male avatars and Misty's hairstyle to female ones.
** There's a few cards [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/User:MannedTooth/List_of_narrative_cards that reference other cards through their illustrations]]. The trend started in Legendary Treasures, and was extremely prevalent there.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to other cards, Pokémon Prime makes heavier use of shadows, and gives closeups of Pokémon with them generally looking very serious, or sometimes downright evil. See [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lanturn_(Unleashed_86) Lanturn Prime]] and [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Gengar_Prime Gengar Prime]].

* DigitalTabletopGameAdaptation: The game can be played online on ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Online''. Some physical products come with codes that can be redeemed for digital cards.
* DistractedByTheShiny: Collectors put a premium on the "holo" cards, allowing the competitive players to easily trade one valuable card with little game utility for multiple (much more useful) trainer cards.

* DrawExtraCards: Multiple cards can draw more cards, and their precise effects on card advantage has changed through the lifetime of the game, due to rules and card type changes. Bill started as a Trainer Card. It allows the player to draw two cards with no cost, and Trainer Cards don't use up the turn, so if a player had all four allowed copies at once, they could end up drawing 8 cards from Bills alone.

** Dialga-GX from ''Forbidden Light'' and Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX from ''Cosmic Eclipse'' both have Time Walk's effect from [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic: The Gathering]] for that GX attacks in that you skip your opponent's next turn (with the text even saying "Take another turn after this one. (Skip the between-turns step)". The main difference is that Togepi, Cleffa and Igglybuff's GX attack does no damage...but it costs '''a lot less energy''' than Dialga-GX's. (The Baby Fairy-type GX card also has more HP than the Metal-type Legendary, amusingly enough)

* FakeUltimateMook: There are several cards that have intimidating art, huge HP, and powerful attacks, but are AwesomeButImpractical due to high energy costs and steep drawbacks to using them. The textbook example is the iconic [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charizard_(Base_Set_4) Base Set Charizard]] — it has the highest stats of ''any'' card in the Base Set, with 120 HP and an attack that can OneHitKO many lesser Pokémon, but its attack costs a whopping 4 energy to use, and 2 of those energy cards have to be discarded after each hit. Later Charizard cards aren't immune to this either, even with heavy PowerCreep in play. [[https://www.pojo.com/COTD/2014/Jun/6.shtml Mega Charizard EX]] has 230 HP, and an attack that deals 300 damage... but it takes 5 energy to use, needs both Fire and Darkness energy, discards 5 cards from the top of your deck every time it attacks, and can't even act the turn after Mega Evolving without a Charizard Spirit Link attached, rendering it completely impractical in actual play.
* FirstPlayerAdvantageMitigation: The player who goes first is not allowed to attack on their first turn. This helps compensate for their tempo advantage.

** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Compressor_(Phantom_Forces_92) Battle Compressor]], from the Phantom Forces expansion, which lets you search through your deck for three cards... and put them in the discard. Sounds useless on paper and will be without the right cards, but if used alongside cards that draw from, attach energy from, or otherwise rely on the discard pile to work, it suddenly becomes a very effective item to use.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Spiritomb_(Team_Up_89) Spiritomb in the Team Up Expansion]] has a primary attack that lets you search your deck for four Pokémon and discard them. Again, useless, unless you pair it up with [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Zoroark_(Team_Up_91) Team Up Zoroark]] for example, which deals more damage for every Pokémon in the discard, or perhaps [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Greninja_%26_Zoroark-GX_(Unbroken_Bonds_107) Greninja & Zoroark GX]], which can place 2 GX Pokémon on your bench ''without evolution'', given that said GX cards are already in your discard.

* InfinityPlusOneElement: While the Dragon type was intended to be this from the beginning, it was fully reworked into this in the ''Sword and Shield'' era starting with ''Evolving Skies'', having no weaknesses and no resistances while retaining the type's powerful mixed-Energy attacks.

** The ''[[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F_(CoroCoro_promo) Imakuni?]]'' card, which just confuses your own Pokémon... There's even [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F%27s_Corner_(Vending_S3) a card]] just to tell you that it's useless! [[LethalJokeItem Subverted when you put Machamp EX, which deals extra damage when it's confused, into play...]]

** The original Baby Pokémon from the Neo and e-Card sets, especially the ones from the Neo sets. At first glance, they look pretty bad, especially due to their horrific HP and the fact that you don't necessarily have to use them in order to use their "evolved" forms. However, they often proved to be nasty annoyances due to their Baby Pokémon Powers, which caused every single attack — even those that don't inflict any damage — to have only a 50% chance of succeeding (if the attacker flipped heads). Combine the original Baby Pokémon Power with Focus Band, and one would have a whopping ''seventy-five'' percent chance of having to deal with the Baby Pokémon again the next turn. To make matters even crazier, the Babies usually had troublesome attacks that only cost one Colorless Energy and they had free retreat. After Ruby and Sapphire were released, all new Baby Pokémon were Basic Pokémon, and no longer had to be attacked on a coin flip. However, especially destructive Babies like Cleffa (which was like a Professor Oak that DIDN'T discard your hand that you could re-use, potentially multiple times thanks to the Baby Pokémon rule) were so influential on the game that they were "reprinted" 10 years later in the [=HeartGold/SoulSilver=] sets; however, these new versions weren't anywhere near as chaotic as their G/S/C era counterparts, as they were only impervious to damage if they were asleep.

** The Imakuni? card, which confuses your own Pokémon, can be combined with Machamp EX to deal extra damage with its second attack and then instantly heal the confusion.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Surprise_Box_(Unbroken_Bonds_187) Surprise Box]], from Unbroken Bonds, adds a card from the opponent's discard pile to their hand. This is especially unhelpful to the player, as the opponent can use the card they got back in a future turn, but Surprise Box can be comboed with other cards that rely on an opponent's hand cards, like Gengar & Mimikyu GX's Poltergeist attack.

* LimitBreak: GX attacks. You're only allowed one per game and only certain Pokémon can use them, but they're all rather powerful. Tag Team GX Pokémon take this to a whole new level; their GX moves have an optional additional energy or specific card usage requirement that, if fulfilled, enable an even stronger effect when used.

*** Jumbo Cards are banned due to their sheer size, being easily-identifiable within a deck of normal cards. That said, a deck consisting ''entirely'' of jumbo cards is allowed, and one 2022 player brought an entirely-jumbo deck into a tournament.

* OneHitKO: Some Pokémon have attacks that always knock out the opponent Pokémon if they're able to connect, regardless of how much HP it has.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Radiant_Jirachi_(Silver_Tempest_120) Radiant Jirachi]]'s Astral Misfortune has two coins flipped, and knocks out the defending Pokémon if both are heads, doing nothing at all if even one tails is flipped.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Yveltal_(Shining_Fates_46) Shining Fates Yveltal]]'s Amazing Destruction knocks out the defending Pokémon without fail if it is used unimpeded, but it requires a massive 5 energy of 3 different types to be used.

* PinkGirlBlueBoy: The Beginning set for the ''Black and White'' expansion is split into a "boys" set and a "girls" set. The boy set is black and contains cool-looking Pokémon; the girl set is bright pink and contains cute-looking Pokémon. Obviously, though, there's nothing stopping you from buying a set of the opposite gender.

* PromotedToPlayable: Eternatus's [[OneWingedAngel Eternamax forme]] is uncatchable in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', but [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Eternatus_VMAX_(Darkness_Ablaze_117) appears as a Pokémon VMAX]] in the Darkness Ablaze expansion.

** {{Averted}} with most of the ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'' cards; some of them like Mewtwo, Charizard, and Greninja are all fairly useful, and their GX versions are about on par with normal GX cards. That being said, some of them like Snubbull and Charmander really aren't that great, but that's typically expected of Pokémon intended to be evolved up.

** Necrozma will either have an attack that deals more damage if you have more Prize cards than your opponent or if Necrozma has Special Energy attached to it.

* ShoutOut: The online simulator lets you give [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Aerith]]'s hairstyle to female avatars.

* TakesOneToKillOne: Psychic-type Pokémon are often weak to other Psychic types in the card game. This is because Pokémon that are normally Poison[[note]]from Diamond/Pearl until Sword/Shield, at least[[/note]], Psychic, and Ghost type are all classified under Psychic type, and those three types are all weak against each other.[[note]]Poison is weak to Psychic, Psychic to Ghost, and Ghost to itself.[[/note]]

* VictoryByEndurance: Stonewalling the opponent until they run out of cards causes them to lose the match.
* WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing: [[StoneWall Wailord EX]] decks that ran no energy at all became popular at one point and are still seen in the expanded format. The idea is to use various item cards to heal your Wailord and render your opponent unable to attach energy and damage it, until your opponent runs out of cards in their deck.

* SuddenDeath: This is played with only one prize card, so whoever grabs the prize card first wins.

* InformedAttribute: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' classifies "Ferocious Commons" as a "tournament-winning" deck that should earn its player "plenty of respect". Said deck tosses 3 weak Basic Pokémon (Rattata, Staryu, Machop) and multiple Trainer cards into a deck with no strategy beyond "Deal 20 damage and try and use the Trainer cards to mess with your opponent". With their low health, all three can be easily knocked out, and it would have zero chance of competing in a tournament even then.

** Some of the Stage 1 Pokémon GX in recent sets certainly qualify. Golisopod GX can hit for 120 damage for a single energy (though it has to have just came into the active position that turn) and has 210 HP, and the damage output of Zoroark GX (also 210 HP) is based on the amount of Pokémon in play, meaning that in the Expanded format where Sky Field (which allow you to have up to 8 Pokémon on your bench) or [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Eternatus_VMAX_(Darkness_Ablaze_117) Eternatus V-Max]] is legal, it can hit for up to 200 damage for one Double Colorless Energy.

** [[http://xy12.pokemontcgxy.com/en-us/home.php The official page]] for the set is delibrately designed to resemble 90s webpage design, down to an UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} style song playing in the background and unfinished "Under Construction" subsections.

** Every Blastoise released from "Platinum" and onwards either has the capacity to move large quantities of Water Energy around or has a different form that has that capacity,[[note]]For instance, Blastoise V does not have Water Energy manipulation, but it can upgrade to Blastoise V-Max, which does[[/note]] a call-back to Base Set Blastoise's Rain Dance.

** Delcatty was an integral part of the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Infercatty_(TCG) Infercatty]] deck archetype, which achieved good success in competitive play until its counters became more prevalent. Its regular form was able to quickly gain the energy needed to power Infernape's Flare Blitz, while its ex form was able to recycle that energy and discard cards to fuel Infernape LV.X's Flare Up FinishingMove. Contrast this to the video games, where Delcatty is one of the weakest fully-evolved Pokémon out there and isn't even functional as a SupportPartyMember. Even then, most of Delcatty's cards have been based around Energy cards in some fashion, such as recycling, searching or moving Energy cards around.

** Imakuni? And yes, the question mark is part of his name.

** Early sets were full of cards that could outright discard Energy cards from the opponent's Pokémon, most notably Poliwrath and Energy Removal. This was found to be such a GameBreaker that Energy destruction in sets from [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Generation II]] and onwards either had drawbacks or relied on chance. On top of that, Energy accelerators were introduced, which allowed easy access and rapid attachment of Energy cards.

** In the Generation I era, this is what playing Bill amounted to. You drew cards which totaled eight with four cards effectively giving you more to work with. As such, this eventually led to most cards featuring human characters to be labeled as Supporters and you can only play one per turn.

* JokeCharacter: Imakuni? is an incredibly weird guy. He has his own rap group to promote the series, specifically the card game, called [[TwoGuysAndAGirl Suzukisan]], which consists of him, an enka singer named Sachiko Kobayashi, and an American guy named Raymond Johnson (who also had TheDanza as a minor character in TheMovie of the anime) who speaks English well. He also makes some joke cards and does illustrations for serious cards. He has a blog at imakuni.com. Whenever he shows up in the game itself, whether it's on a promotional card or as an opponent in the video games, you can count on him to be useless at best and actively harmful to his own player at worst.

** The ''[[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F_(CoroCoro_promo) Imakuni?]]'' card, which just confuses your own Pokémon... There's even [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Imakuni%3F%27s_Corner_(Vending_S3) a card]] just to tell you that it's useless! [[LethalJokeItem Subverted when you put Machamp EX into play...]]

* MightyGlacier: Most Charizard cards are an AwesomeButImpractical exaggeration of this archetype. They have high HP and attacks that deal inordinate amounts of damage (often in the rarely-seen 200-300 range), but have high energy costs and are very slow to set up.

** Trainer cards initially ''inverted'' this, as Trainer cards from the first few sets were so incredibly powerful that you could dig through half your deck in a single turn and freely switch your opponent's Pokémon around, leading to incredibly restrictive rules on the number of Trainer cards allowed in decks and the introduction of Supporter cards in the Expedition base set, of which only one could be played in a turn, as well as a massive downswing in the effective power of Trainer cards. In more recent years, Trainer cards have slowly crept back up in power; while never ''quite'' reaching the same levels of power that the original Base Set did[[labelnote:*]]Many Base Set cards had effects reprinted in a more limited format, such as 'Bill' having the same 'Draw 3 cards' as the Supporters Cheren, Tierno, and Hau, Professor Oak sharing effects with Supporters Professor Sycamore and Professor Juniper, Gust of Wind's effect going to Supporter Lysandre, and Computer Search being reprinted as an Ace Spec (you may have a single Ace Spec card in your deck — not one copy of, one ''Ace Spec card'') with the same name[[/labelnote]] but often improving in other ways from the ''Expedition Base Set'' onward; such as cards with a near-identical effect simply being more effective[[labelnote:*]][=HeartGold & SoulSilver's=] Moomoo Milk card heals 10 more damage per heads than the otherwise-identical Neo Genesis Moo Moo-Milk, [=BREAKthrough=]'s Brigitte being better than the Holon Mentor card, Professor Kukui outclassing Buck's Training, etc.[[/labelnote]], having effects previously on Supporter cards become Item cards[[labelnote:*]]Professor Elm's Training Method compared to Timer Ball, Pokémon Nurse, and Max Potion[[/labelnote]] or ''both'' [[labelnote:*]]XY's Evosoda is a strictly superior version of the Wally's Training Supporter card[[/labelnote]].

* Initially, Trainer cards in the western-language versions came in every rarity, but over time, most of them would be classified as Uncommon, with a few Commons out of tradition (though these were sometimes Uncommon anyway) and a few Holo-Rares as collectors' cards.

* GratuitousJapanese: Meanwhile, the English (and subsequent non-English western) versions of the same Mega Evolution cards have the attack name written out in katakana. Also counts as as [[SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage Surprisingly Good Japanese]]; while the Japanese cards' English attack names are a bit Engrish-y, the English cards' Japanese attack names are lifted right from the Japanese versions' attack text.

* JokeCharacter: Imakuni? is an incredibly weird guy. He has his own rap group to promote the series, specifically the card game, called [[TwoGuysAndAGirl Suzukisan]], which consists of him, an enka singer named Sachiko Kobayashi, and an American guy named Raymond Johnson (who also had TheDanza as a minor character in TheMovie of the anime) who speaks SurprisinglyGoodEnglish. He also makes some joke cards and does illustrations for serious cards. He has a blog at imakuni.com. Whenever he shows up in the game itself, whether it's on a promotional card or as an opponent in the video games, you can count on him to be useless at best and actively harmful to his own player at worst.

** "Misty's Tears" was completely redesigned outside of Japan because the original, "Kasumi's Tears", featured Misty nude.

* InformedAttribute: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' classifies "Ferocious Commons" as a "tournament-winning" deck that should earn its player "plenty of respect". Said deck tosses 3 weak Basic Pokémon (Rattata, Staryu, Machop) and multiple Trainer cards into a deck with no strategy beyond "Deal 20 damage and try and use the Trainer cards to mess with your opponent". With their low health, all three can be easily knocked out.
* InformedWeakness: The ''Pokémon Trading Card Game Fossil Expansion Player's Guide'' claims that expending all the time and effort to get Omastar (Mysterious Fossil, Omanyte) for a weak Water Gun will result in your opponent feeling sorry for you. However, the attack starts at 20 damage and deals 40 damage with two more Water Energy cards attached which was a lot of damage at the time, particularly if hitting a Fire-type.

** Cards with large numbers printed on it tend to fetch high prices among collectors, even though most of these cards have large downsides due to CompetitiveBalance. Chansey from the Base Set is like this (though at least it had some value as a DamageSponge for stall decks), sharing Charizard's [[PowerCreep then-high]] HP, as well as any Wailord card.

** Cards with large numbers printed on it tend to fetch high prices among collectors, even though most of these cards have large downsides due to CompetitiveBalance. Chansey from the Base Set is like this (though at least it had some value as a DamageSponge for stall decks), sharing Charizard's [[PowerCreep then-high]] HP, as well as any Wailord card.

** While Charizard is fairly strong in the video games, most Charizard cards have been hard to use due to having some form of crippling drawback such as Fire Spin from Base Set requiring four Fire Energy cards and having the player discard two every time they attack. Charizard cards that have been released starting in the [=SM=] era have less restrictive costs and effects.

* UselessItem: Named [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Orphaned_card "orphaned cards"]] by the fandom, they're cards that were intended to have some sort of useful effect, but due to bans or changes to the game's ruleset, they end up being unplayable or completely useless. For example, the [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/First_Ticket_(Dragon_Vault_19) First Ticket]] lets you [[ActionInitiative skip the opening coin flip to always go first...]] but a later rule change caused the coin flip to happen ''before'' the players draw their cards, so the card no longer has an opportunity to take effect.

** Dialga-GX from ''Forbidden Light'' and Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX from ''Cosmic Eclipse'' both have Time Walk's effect from [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic: The Gathering]] for that GX attacks in that you skip your opponent's next turn (with the text even saying "Take another turn after this one. (Skip the between-turns step)". The main difference is that Togepi, Cleffa and Igglybuff's GX attack does no damage...but it costs '''a lot less energy'' than Dialga-GX's. (The Baby Fairy-type GX card also has more HP than the Metal-type Legendary, amusingly enough)