Hello, so... where do I start with this, idk, anyways so this is just a detailed look at deck structure between 2004 and 2014, this an insight to decks what was being played in each format, as well as going over what seemed more popular and what really made decks, as well as explaining the power creep to some extent in each format and what it really meant.
Since a majority of previous worlds decklists were not for sale before 2004 a majority of the format is either just memory on my part and what you can find bits and pieces of online, but it is to be noted that the formats from base set to neo were made up of haymaker (hitmonchan/electabuzz/magmar/scizor), feraligator, jumpluff, alakazam, etc, etc, etc I can't recall or never played against them, and were really set to set made, and were more or less made up of favourites. The majority of these formats were based around trainer cards starting out as both tech cards and the major engine for draw and pokemon support. This however didn't make that much of a change until 2003 when ruby and sapphire was released and delcatty began to be a useful pokemon bench draw support adding a new dimension to draw support in pokemon.
2004, though the rotation was 2004: (E-on) Expedition - Hidden Legends, it was apparently Ruby & Sapphire - on (I think hidden legends as a few months before worlds Groudon was considered the top tier deck at the time). The structure of "non team magma" 2004 decklists were made up of this...
3-4 dunsparce (strike and run, would fill the bench with up to 3 basic pokemon, and could switch with a pokemon on the bench if need be)
2-4 oracle (supporter) (a supporter card that looks through your deck for any 2 cards and puts them on top of your deck, shuffle the rest of your deck)
2-3 steven's advice (supporter) (draw up to the amount of pokemon on your opponents side of the field, if you have more then 7 cards in hand you can't play this card)
2-2 delcatty (discard an energy draw 3 cards)
2-2 magneton (discard a card, take 2 energy from your discard pile and put them into your hand)
So a general overview was you basically use dunsparce to get out turn 2 delcatty and magneton to draw into additional pokemon and attackers, dunspace also has a weaker attack that lets him paralyze his opponent at the flip of a coin, small dmg, but it goes a long way in setting up the bench, delcatty and magneton did energy stack dmg, which could come in handy as they had some hp to tank hits and had a low energy attack cost.
Now why separate team magma decks from the fray? The decklist itself ran by a different engine and used team magma specific cards for the setup, making it not a universal deck structure, just something for groudon, but why groudon? As opposed to gardevoir ex which saw second place at the seniors table, and blaziken ex which commonly made top 4 in every division, groudon was not an ex and had the backup to setup extremely fast to win every division (which it did).
team magma's claydol (moved energy 1 energy between team maga pokemon per turn)
team magma's camerupt (moved basic energy from the discard to camerupt for 2 dmg)
team magma's conscriptor, supporter (search your deck for a basic team magma pokemon and a basic energy)
Maxie, supporter (brought back team magma pokemon to the bench regardless of stage)
team magma ball, trainer (flip a coin if heads search your deck for a pokemon with team magma in its name, if tail search your deck for a basic pokemon with team magma in its name)
Since a majority of the deck list used alot of bench techs to setup attack dmg the rest of the deck would have alot of Steven's advice, tv reporter (supporter, draw 3 cards then discard a card from your hand), Copycat (supporter, shuffle your hand into your deck, draw the same amount of cards as your opponent), Underground expedition (supporter, look at 4 cards from the bottom of your deck, pick 2 and put them in your hand, put the rest on the bottom of your deck).
Generally having 11 supporters made a difference in being able to draw into the cards you needed to make the biggest impact in a deck that used benched cards to support your main attacker.
2005 and 2006, 05 (RS-on) Ruby & Sapphire - Emerald (I put these 2 together as deck structure in those formats are actually similar to how decks are currently being built, which I will do later down the road), 05 generally used alot of the same supporters losing bench draw overall but gaining
4 celios network which was a supporter that let you search your deck for a pokemon card excluding pokemon-ex,
2-1-2 or 3-1-3 pidgeot which chose one card from your deck to your hand, shuffle your deck afterward allowing you to drop the delcatty magneton combo for a search tech.
The rest of decks structure were made up of team rockets trainer cards from team rocket returns, it overall turned the format into something rather silly.
06 (HL-on) Hidden Legends - Holon Phantoms, increased the ability of deck structure by adding in the holon cards, holon cards made a universal engine based off of themselves however we're not overly used until 2007, with the exception of sun and moons which used the engine. The majority of the deck structure continued from 2005 to 2006 using pidgeot for search and supporters like Steven's advice, TV reporter, and team rockets admin which you and your opponent shuffle your hands into your decks and draw the same number of cards as your remaining prize cards, for deck support (which in turn makes the deck structure extremely like that of 2013 and 2014). BLS, blastoise ex which allowed you to attaché as much water energy to your pokemon per turn put 1 dmg counter for each energy attached that way, lugia-ex which deals 200 dmg for 1 water, fire and electric, discard all energy to use the attack, steelix-ex which deal 70 dmg and 1 dmg to itself, this was the deck that did the most amount of dmg to the format overall, though manektrik-ex does 40 dmg and trainer lock won the masters division.
2007 (DX-on) Deoxys - Diamond and Pearl, To better explain 2007 I will just tear apart my flyvees list and explain the over view of the deck.
4-2-3/2 flygon ex(3) dragon frontiers, if active put 1 dmg counter on your opponents bench pokemon in-between turns/flygon holon phantoms(2), once per turn you may attaché either a basic energy or a delta species rainbow energy to a pokemon with a delta species symbol once per turn
2-2/1 jolteon ex(2), when you evolve jolteon ex from your hand, put 1 dmg counter on all of your opponents pokemon/ espeon ex (1) when you evolve espeon ex from your hand de-evolve one pokemon on your opponents bench.
4 holons castform (2 reasons for this card, 1. Delta call, draw a card for the number of pokemon in play both yours and your opponents that have the delta species symbol, and it has an ability on it as a double rainbow energy that returns an energy to my hand and can only be played if I have an energy on that pokemon.
7 psychic energy
3 electric energy
2 cyclone energy
4 Holon transceiver, trainer (one of the most expensive trainer cards past format, it goes for roughly 8-10$ due to how versatile it is with the engine. Search either your deck or discard pile for a supporter card that has holon's in it's name and put it into your hand)
1 holon mentor, supporter (discard a card, search your deck for up to 3 basic pokemon under 100 hp, into your hand)
1 holon scientist, supporter (discard a card, draw the same number of cards as your opponents hand)
2 celios network, supporter (search your deck for 1 pokemon card except pokemon-ex into your hand)
3 holon's adventurer, supporter (discard a card, draw 3 cards into your hand, if you discard pokemon card with a delta species symbol draw 4 cards)
1 holon farmer, supporter (discard a card, put any 3 basic pokemon, evolution pokemon, basic energy into your deck, shuffle your deck afterward)
3 Windstorm, trainer (discard either 2 pokemon tool cards and/or stadium cards)
2 Power tree, stadium (if you have any special energy in your discard pile this can't work, take 1 basic energy from your discard pile into your hand)
2 copycat, supporter (shuffle your hand into your deck and draw up to the same number of cards the your opponent has in there hand)
4 rare candy, trainer (evolves a pokemon the turn you play it into a stage 2 or 1)
3 Super Scoop Up, trainer (flip a coin if heads return 1 of your pokemon and all cards attached to it into your hand)
2 prof elms training method, supporter (search your deck for an evolution pokemon card and put it into your hand).
Due to the use of holons transceiver it made doing things like getting pokemon out with mentor, getting cards back from the discard pile with farmer and re-using supporters once they were played and getting them out of your deck extremely flexible. Cyclone energy to move pokemon around, holons castform to get the cyclone energy back. Other notable releases from the rotation was
2-3 castaway, which searches your deck for a supporter, basic energy and tool card,
as well as Lv. X's cards that once played offered new ability's and attacks as well as allowing you to use attacks, powers and bodies of the pokemon you placed the lv. X card on top of, however you can only play a lv.X if it is in your active.
2008 (HP-on) Holon Phantoms - Majestic Dawn, the most notable things about this format was gardevior secret wonders dominated a majority of the format up to worlds, it's attack psychic lock which deals 60 dmg and locks powers for your opponents turn and has a power that searches your opponents discard pile for a supporter card and uses it as the effect of the power.
2-2 claydol great adventures, which you take up to 2 cards from your hand put it on the bottom of your deck and draw up to 6 cards,
3-4 Roseanne research supporter, search your deck for 2 any basic pokemon and/or basic energy into your hand.
With a new search card and now universal pokemon bench draw, people now started to shove there decks full of Roseanne's, castaway, Celio's, and Steven's advice.
2009 (DP-RR) Diamond & Pearl - Rising Rivals, The format completely evolved, adding in new draw and support cards like uxie LA, when you put it onto your bench and draw up to 7 cards. Broken time space, you can evolve a pokemon the turn you play it. Night maintenance a trainer card that brought back up to 3 pokemon and/or basic energy into your deck, call energy, when you play this card from your hand you may search your deck for 2 basic energy cards and put them onto your bench, if you did end your turn. (team galactic's invention) TGI toolbox,
4 Cyrus conspiracy, supporter (search your deck for 1 supporter, item, and basic energy with team galactic's invention in it's name into your hand)
4 poketurn, trainer (returns a sp pokemon from your bench into your hand)
4 power spray, trainer (you can play this on your opponents turn, this card stops a pokemon power)
4 energy gain, tool (this card counts as 1 colourless energy to an sp pokemon)
3-4 sp radar, trainer (choose one card in your hand put it on top of your deck then search your deck for 1 sp pokemon, put it into your hand, shuffle your deck)
This format was fairly balanced, luxray gl. LV X had the upper hand by getting pokemon from the bench to active once it evolved but sp's didn't really have any aggressive attackers, Gengar Stormfront with the power that if is knocked out instead flip a coin if heads its remaining hp is 10, shadow room for 1 energy 3 dmg anywhere on your opponents pokemon, 2 energy 30 dmg X the amount of trainers in your opponents hand. And finally the most aggressive deck flygon, flygon secret wonders, put 1 dmg counter on your opponents pokemon between turns except fighting pokemon. Flygon lv. X, power: discard 1 card off the top of your opponents deck inbetween turns, deals 150 dmg to 1 pokemon lv.x card on your opponents side of the field. Poke draw+ was an intereasting add into the format using 1 to draw a card or using 2 to search your deck for any 1 card, however the diverse use of pokemon made the meta and the structure of the decks.
2010 (DP-UL) Diamond & Pearl - Unleashed, One of the largest formats covering 13 sets. Within a week after worlds supreme victors came out with garchomp C lv.X and blaziken fb lv.X, combined with luray GL lv.X and from august 2009 18 to august 2010 13 ruled the format with a iron fist by wining 70-80% of all tournaments through out the year and with luxray/garchomp or luxchomp gaining double colourless energy from heart gold & soul silver turned garchomp into even more of a beast. The notable come back was gardevior secret wonders, which came across as fairly aggressive by shutting down gengar decks that gained gengar lv.X and gengar from arceus which used powers to run the deck by switching dmg around and putting lv.X cards from opponents pokemon back into there decks. As for deck structure nothing changed from using pokemon for draw and supporters for search except for heart gold soul silver and unleashed. The sets brought pokemon prime's and legend pokemon and the popular supporters of
3-4 prof oaks new theory, shuffle your hand into your deck draw 6 cards, 2-4 Judge, you and your opponent put your hands on top of your decks, shuffle and draw 4 cards. Other then 2 supporters added to the list of staples.
2011 (HS-BLW) HeartGold & SoulSilver - Black & White/ Stormfront - Black & White the lost format. Since Garchomp C lv. X continued it's rampage for even longer until a month or so before, were they got rid of the turn 1 rule of no trainers to you can play trainers, nerfed rare candy to evolving it the same turn to the turn after you play a basic. Primes started to make a large impact with typhlosion's ability to attache a fire energy from the discard to a pokemon, 1 dmg per energy (I think it only allowed 1), then black and whites emboar that lets you attaché as much energy from your hand as often as you like. The prime magnezone made for a solid combo by putting as much energy attached to the lost zone for 50 dmg a piece and lets you draw up to 6 card per turn (since claydol GE was lost), and RDL (rayquaza & deoxys legend) which deals 150, but discard all the fire energy attached to RDL. Yanmega was also a decent addition by being able to attack no energy required if you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent, 3-4 judge and free energy attack.
Since judge and pont made up for alot of deck structure, as well as cleffa, draw up to 6 is asleep and if it's asleep you can't deal dmg to it. Junk arm and twins was a great introduction,
4 junk arm, trainer, lets you discard 2 cards and add a trainer card into your hand,
2-3 twins, supporter, which if you have less prize cards then your opponent search your deck for any 2 cards and put them into your hand.
3-4 pokemon communication, trainer, take a pokemon from your hand, put it on top of your deck search your card for a pokemon card put it into your hand, shuffle your deck.
2012 (HGSS-DEX) HeartGold & SoulSilver - Dark Explorers, the first year of darkrai (the first year darkrai won worlds). Now getting down to the deck structure of supporters for draw, items for pokemon search such as dual ball as well as the introduction of current EX pokemon, it is interesting to note that prior pokemon-ex had up to 150 hp commonly for current EX pokemon which have 170-180 hp now 220-230 hp mega pokemon, so overall the power creep was more over due and also oddly placed (as lv.X pokemon could probably have needed 20-30 more hp so it didn't seem like such a steep 60-70 hp climb between 1 rotation. This also kept the ex rule were when it gets knocked out you either loss or take 2 prizes.
The overall engine which is currently being ran as...
4 N, supporter, both you and your opponent shuffle your hands into your deck then draw up to the same number of remaining prize cards left
4 juniper, supporter, discard your hand, draw 7 cards.
3 catcher, trainer/item (cards and the rotation between black and white and HGSS such as cards only being called trainers making junk arm broken with supporters) lets you choose a pokemon on your opponents bench and bring it into the active possition, now changed to a coin flip and now a supporter, lysandre.
4 junk arm
2-3 twins
2 communication
2 pokemon collector (search your deck for up to 3 basic pokemon and put them into your hand, a bad Roseanne research, but we lost that card when we jumped to HGSS - on)
2013 (BLW-on) Black & White - Plasma Freeze, Last years rotation, the major loss was that of the HGSS cards such as junk arm, twins, pont, judge, and RDL (which dealt 150 dmg w/o the EX 2 prize rule), the top 3 decks for that format was darkrai vanilla, TDK (thundurusEX/deoxysEX/kyurem plasma) and blastoise (keldeoEX,blackkyuremEX), which was the top 4-8 decks that won, darkrai won both junior and masters, TDK made top 2 in every division and won seniors, of which the quad N juniper engine was the universal call, new supporters and ace specs?
2-3 colress, supporter (shuffle your hand into your deck and draw up to the same number of pokemon on both you and your opponents bench)
2-4 skyla, supporter, search your deck for a trainer card and put it into your hand.
1 computer search or dowsing machine, discard 2 cards, for computer search your deck for a card put it into your hand shuffle your deck afterwards, dowsing search your discard and put it into your hand
3-4 Ultra ball, discard 2 cards from your hand search your deck for 1 pokemon card and put it into your hand
1-3 level ball, search your deck for a pokemon under 90 hp and put it into your hand
2014 (NXD - on) Next Destinies - Flashfire, To explain deck structure for this format is better to look at current format forums sixprizes, pokebeach, poke gym and here. But if there was a way to explain it is 05-06, no real changes, the supporter scheme is the same general outline since 2012, 1 deck gained a bench support, delphox rayquaza emboar, delphox X/Y lets you draw up to 6 cards in your hand once per turn, but other then that set after set has been new trainers which work as techs and set after set new attackers and combinations but no real changes, the rare candy rule is still the same since 2011 nerfing most stage pokemon unless it is being used as a bench tech with a basic to effectively attack with. But a general over view on how decks are ran currently as, this is a common deck structure
4 N
4 juniper
2-3 skyla
2-3 colress
with
2-3 ultra ball
1-2 level ball
1-2 megaphone (X/Y tech not engine based)
3-4 hypnotoxic laser (plasma storm not engine based, dmg based)
2 virbank (plasma storm stackable hypnotoxic laser dmg)
... for pretty much every single deck.
The overview and in closing, this took a few hours to type up, I should have been more determined and finished it sooner. ^This is to show the overall changes in the TCG, similar things being played over the years such as the unexplained/explained engines of 05/06 being a fair mix up of 08/09's trainer based pokedex engine draw with 11-14's supporter based draw.
Other then that, even though this is how the pokemon tcg format presents itself now, the format is constantly changing year after year, sometimes dramatically sometimes very slowly and anything is possible in the future.
I have been wanting to type this up for the past few months, instead of playing current format decks I've been playing people with my 2010 worlds decks, the structure the game play, everything about it was enjoyable even though it was a fairly broken as in one sided format it still had alot of diversity in terms of what you could do by increasing consistency in terms of bench/pokemon support supporter and item support and energy support, but I thought I would actually go back and look at the prior decks I played with from older years. I see alot of players look at the tcg and think that this has always been this way because we have been playing these decks for the past 3-4 years, I just wanted to show where the card game evolved from and where we might be able to go to.
Since a majority of previous worlds decklists were not for sale before 2004 a majority of the format is either just memory on my part and what you can find bits and pieces of online, but it is to be noted that the formats from base set to neo were made up of haymaker (hitmonchan/electabuzz/magmar/scizor), feraligator, jumpluff, alakazam, etc, etc, etc I can't recall or never played against them, and were really set to set made, and were more or less made up of favourites. The majority of these formats were based around trainer cards starting out as both tech cards and the major engine for draw and pokemon support. This however didn't make that much of a change until 2003 when ruby and sapphire was released and delcatty began to be a useful pokemon bench draw support adding a new dimension to draw support in pokemon.
2004, though the rotation was 2004: (E-on) Expedition - Hidden Legends, it was apparently Ruby & Sapphire - on (I think hidden legends as a few months before worlds Groudon was considered the top tier deck at the time). The structure of "non team magma" 2004 decklists were made up of this...
3-4 dunsparce (strike and run, would fill the bench with up to 3 basic pokemon, and could switch with a pokemon on the bench if need be)
2-4 oracle (supporter) (a supporter card that looks through your deck for any 2 cards and puts them on top of your deck, shuffle the rest of your deck)
2-3 steven's advice (supporter) (draw up to the amount of pokemon on your opponents side of the field, if you have more then 7 cards in hand you can't play this card)
2-2 delcatty (discard an energy draw 3 cards)
2-2 magneton (discard a card, take 2 energy from your discard pile and put them into your hand)
So a general overview was you basically use dunsparce to get out turn 2 delcatty and magneton to draw into additional pokemon and attackers, dunspace also has a weaker attack that lets him paralyze his opponent at the flip of a coin, small dmg, but it goes a long way in setting up the bench, delcatty and magneton did energy stack dmg, which could come in handy as they had some hp to tank hits and had a low energy attack cost.
Now why separate team magma decks from the fray? The decklist itself ran by a different engine and used team magma specific cards for the setup, making it not a universal deck structure, just something for groudon, but why groudon? As opposed to gardevoir ex which saw second place at the seniors table, and blaziken ex which commonly made top 4 in every division, groudon was not an ex and had the backup to setup extremely fast to win every division (which it did).
team magma's claydol (moved energy 1 energy between team maga pokemon per turn)
team magma's camerupt (moved basic energy from the discard to camerupt for 2 dmg)
team magma's conscriptor, supporter (search your deck for a basic team magma pokemon and a basic energy)
Maxie, supporter (brought back team magma pokemon to the bench regardless of stage)
team magma ball, trainer (flip a coin if heads search your deck for a pokemon with team magma in its name, if tail search your deck for a basic pokemon with team magma in its name)
Since a majority of the deck list used alot of bench techs to setup attack dmg the rest of the deck would have alot of Steven's advice, tv reporter (supporter, draw 3 cards then discard a card from your hand), Copycat (supporter, shuffle your hand into your deck, draw the same amount of cards as your opponent), Underground expedition (supporter, look at 4 cards from the bottom of your deck, pick 2 and put them in your hand, put the rest on the bottom of your deck).
Generally having 11 supporters made a difference in being able to draw into the cards you needed to make the biggest impact in a deck that used benched cards to support your main attacker.
2005 and 2006, 05 (RS-on) Ruby & Sapphire - Emerald (I put these 2 together as deck structure in those formats are actually similar to how decks are currently being built, which I will do later down the road), 05 generally used alot of the same supporters losing bench draw overall but gaining
4 celios network which was a supporter that let you search your deck for a pokemon card excluding pokemon-ex,
2-1-2 or 3-1-3 pidgeot which chose one card from your deck to your hand, shuffle your deck afterward allowing you to drop the delcatty magneton combo for a search tech.
The rest of decks structure were made up of team rockets trainer cards from team rocket returns, it overall turned the format into something rather silly.
06 (HL-on) Hidden Legends - Holon Phantoms, increased the ability of deck structure by adding in the holon cards, holon cards made a universal engine based off of themselves however we're not overly used until 2007, with the exception of sun and moons which used the engine. The majority of the deck structure continued from 2005 to 2006 using pidgeot for search and supporters like Steven's advice, TV reporter, and team rockets admin which you and your opponent shuffle your hands into your decks and draw the same number of cards as your remaining prize cards, for deck support (which in turn makes the deck structure extremely like that of 2013 and 2014). BLS, blastoise ex which allowed you to attaché as much water energy to your pokemon per turn put 1 dmg counter for each energy attached that way, lugia-ex which deals 200 dmg for 1 water, fire and electric, discard all energy to use the attack, steelix-ex which deal 70 dmg and 1 dmg to itself, this was the deck that did the most amount of dmg to the format overall, though manektrik-ex does 40 dmg and trainer lock won the masters division.
2007 (DX-on) Deoxys - Diamond and Pearl, To better explain 2007 I will just tear apart my flyvees list and explain the over view of the deck.
4-2-3/2 flygon ex(3) dragon frontiers, if active put 1 dmg counter on your opponents bench pokemon in-between turns/flygon holon phantoms(2), once per turn you may attaché either a basic energy or a delta species rainbow energy to a pokemon with a delta species symbol once per turn
2-2/1 jolteon ex(2), when you evolve jolteon ex from your hand, put 1 dmg counter on all of your opponents pokemon/ espeon ex (1) when you evolve espeon ex from your hand de-evolve one pokemon on your opponents bench.
4 holons castform (2 reasons for this card, 1. Delta call, draw a card for the number of pokemon in play both yours and your opponents that have the delta species symbol, and it has an ability on it as a double rainbow energy that returns an energy to my hand and can only be played if I have an energy on that pokemon.
7 psychic energy
3 electric energy
2 cyclone energy
4 Holon transceiver, trainer (one of the most expensive trainer cards past format, it goes for roughly 8-10$ due to how versatile it is with the engine. Search either your deck or discard pile for a supporter card that has holon's in it's name and put it into your hand)
1 holon mentor, supporter (discard a card, search your deck for up to 3 basic pokemon under 100 hp, into your hand)
1 holon scientist, supporter (discard a card, draw the same number of cards as your opponents hand)
2 celios network, supporter (search your deck for 1 pokemon card except pokemon-ex into your hand)
3 holon's adventurer, supporter (discard a card, draw 3 cards into your hand, if you discard pokemon card with a delta species symbol draw 4 cards)
1 holon farmer, supporter (discard a card, put any 3 basic pokemon, evolution pokemon, basic energy into your deck, shuffle your deck afterward)
3 Windstorm, trainer (discard either 2 pokemon tool cards and/or stadium cards)
2 Power tree, stadium (if you have any special energy in your discard pile this can't work, take 1 basic energy from your discard pile into your hand)
2 copycat, supporter (shuffle your hand into your deck and draw up to the same number of cards the your opponent has in there hand)
4 rare candy, trainer (evolves a pokemon the turn you play it into a stage 2 or 1)
3 Super Scoop Up, trainer (flip a coin if heads return 1 of your pokemon and all cards attached to it into your hand)
2 prof elms training method, supporter (search your deck for an evolution pokemon card and put it into your hand).
Due to the use of holons transceiver it made doing things like getting pokemon out with mentor, getting cards back from the discard pile with farmer and re-using supporters once they were played and getting them out of your deck extremely flexible. Cyclone energy to move pokemon around, holons castform to get the cyclone energy back. Other notable releases from the rotation was
2-3 castaway, which searches your deck for a supporter, basic energy and tool card,
as well as Lv. X's cards that once played offered new ability's and attacks as well as allowing you to use attacks, powers and bodies of the pokemon you placed the lv. X card on top of, however you can only play a lv.X if it is in your active.
2008 (HP-on) Holon Phantoms - Majestic Dawn, the most notable things about this format was gardevior secret wonders dominated a majority of the format up to worlds, it's attack psychic lock which deals 60 dmg and locks powers for your opponents turn and has a power that searches your opponents discard pile for a supporter card and uses it as the effect of the power.
2-2 claydol great adventures, which you take up to 2 cards from your hand put it on the bottom of your deck and draw up to 6 cards,
3-4 Roseanne research supporter, search your deck for 2 any basic pokemon and/or basic energy into your hand.
With a new search card and now universal pokemon bench draw, people now started to shove there decks full of Roseanne's, castaway, Celio's, and Steven's advice.
2009 (DP-RR) Diamond & Pearl - Rising Rivals, The format completely evolved, adding in new draw and support cards like uxie LA, when you put it onto your bench and draw up to 7 cards. Broken time space, you can evolve a pokemon the turn you play it. Night maintenance a trainer card that brought back up to 3 pokemon and/or basic energy into your deck, call energy, when you play this card from your hand you may search your deck for 2 basic energy cards and put them onto your bench, if you did end your turn. (team galactic's invention) TGI toolbox,
4 Cyrus conspiracy, supporter (search your deck for 1 supporter, item, and basic energy with team galactic's invention in it's name into your hand)
4 poketurn, trainer (returns a sp pokemon from your bench into your hand)
4 power spray, trainer (you can play this on your opponents turn, this card stops a pokemon power)
4 energy gain, tool (this card counts as 1 colourless energy to an sp pokemon)
3-4 sp radar, trainer (choose one card in your hand put it on top of your deck then search your deck for 1 sp pokemon, put it into your hand, shuffle your deck)
This format was fairly balanced, luxray gl. LV X had the upper hand by getting pokemon from the bench to active once it evolved but sp's didn't really have any aggressive attackers, Gengar Stormfront with the power that if is knocked out instead flip a coin if heads its remaining hp is 10, shadow room for 1 energy 3 dmg anywhere on your opponents pokemon, 2 energy 30 dmg X the amount of trainers in your opponents hand. And finally the most aggressive deck flygon, flygon secret wonders, put 1 dmg counter on your opponents pokemon between turns except fighting pokemon. Flygon lv. X, power: discard 1 card off the top of your opponents deck inbetween turns, deals 150 dmg to 1 pokemon lv.x card on your opponents side of the field. Poke draw+ was an intereasting add into the format using 1 to draw a card or using 2 to search your deck for any 1 card, however the diverse use of pokemon made the meta and the structure of the decks.
2010 (DP-UL) Diamond & Pearl - Unleashed, One of the largest formats covering 13 sets. Within a week after worlds supreme victors came out with garchomp C lv.X and blaziken fb lv.X, combined with luray GL lv.X and from august 2009 18 to august 2010 13 ruled the format with a iron fist by wining 70-80% of all tournaments through out the year and with luxray/garchomp or luxchomp gaining double colourless energy from heart gold & soul silver turned garchomp into even more of a beast. The notable come back was gardevior secret wonders, which came across as fairly aggressive by shutting down gengar decks that gained gengar lv.X and gengar from arceus which used powers to run the deck by switching dmg around and putting lv.X cards from opponents pokemon back into there decks. As for deck structure nothing changed from using pokemon for draw and supporters for search except for heart gold soul silver and unleashed. The sets brought pokemon prime's and legend pokemon and the popular supporters of
3-4 prof oaks new theory, shuffle your hand into your deck draw 6 cards, 2-4 Judge, you and your opponent put your hands on top of your decks, shuffle and draw 4 cards. Other then 2 supporters added to the list of staples.
2011 (HS-BLW) HeartGold & SoulSilver - Black & White/ Stormfront - Black & White the lost format. Since Garchomp C lv. X continued it's rampage for even longer until a month or so before, were they got rid of the turn 1 rule of no trainers to you can play trainers, nerfed rare candy to evolving it the same turn to the turn after you play a basic. Primes started to make a large impact with typhlosion's ability to attache a fire energy from the discard to a pokemon, 1 dmg per energy (I think it only allowed 1), then black and whites emboar that lets you attaché as much energy from your hand as often as you like. The prime magnezone made for a solid combo by putting as much energy attached to the lost zone for 50 dmg a piece and lets you draw up to 6 card per turn (since claydol GE was lost), and RDL (rayquaza & deoxys legend) which deals 150, but discard all the fire energy attached to RDL. Yanmega was also a decent addition by being able to attack no energy required if you have the same number of cards in your hand as your opponent, 3-4 judge and free energy attack.
Since judge and pont made up for alot of deck structure, as well as cleffa, draw up to 6 is asleep and if it's asleep you can't deal dmg to it. Junk arm and twins was a great introduction,
4 junk arm, trainer, lets you discard 2 cards and add a trainer card into your hand,
2-3 twins, supporter, which if you have less prize cards then your opponent search your deck for any 2 cards and put them into your hand.
3-4 pokemon communication, trainer, take a pokemon from your hand, put it on top of your deck search your card for a pokemon card put it into your hand, shuffle your deck.
2012 (HGSS-DEX) HeartGold & SoulSilver - Dark Explorers, the first year of darkrai (the first year darkrai won worlds). Now getting down to the deck structure of supporters for draw, items for pokemon search such as dual ball as well as the introduction of current EX pokemon, it is interesting to note that prior pokemon-ex had up to 150 hp commonly for current EX pokemon which have 170-180 hp now 220-230 hp mega pokemon, so overall the power creep was more over due and also oddly placed (as lv.X pokemon could probably have needed 20-30 more hp so it didn't seem like such a steep 60-70 hp climb between 1 rotation. This also kept the ex rule were when it gets knocked out you either loss or take 2 prizes.
The overall engine which is currently being ran as...
4 N, supporter, both you and your opponent shuffle your hands into your deck then draw up to the same number of remaining prize cards left
4 juniper, supporter, discard your hand, draw 7 cards.
3 catcher, trainer/item (cards and the rotation between black and white and HGSS such as cards only being called trainers making junk arm broken with supporters) lets you choose a pokemon on your opponents bench and bring it into the active possition, now changed to a coin flip and now a supporter, lysandre.
4 junk arm
2-3 twins
2 communication
2 pokemon collector (search your deck for up to 3 basic pokemon and put them into your hand, a bad Roseanne research, but we lost that card when we jumped to HGSS - on)
2013 (BLW-on) Black & White - Plasma Freeze, Last years rotation, the major loss was that of the HGSS cards such as junk arm, twins, pont, judge, and RDL (which dealt 150 dmg w/o the EX 2 prize rule), the top 3 decks for that format was darkrai vanilla, TDK (thundurusEX/deoxysEX/kyurem plasma) and blastoise (keldeoEX,blackkyuremEX), which was the top 4-8 decks that won, darkrai won both junior and masters, TDK made top 2 in every division and won seniors, of which the quad N juniper engine was the universal call, new supporters and ace specs?
2-3 colress, supporter (shuffle your hand into your deck and draw up to the same number of pokemon on both you and your opponents bench)
2-4 skyla, supporter, search your deck for a trainer card and put it into your hand.
1 computer search or dowsing machine, discard 2 cards, for computer search your deck for a card put it into your hand shuffle your deck afterwards, dowsing search your discard and put it into your hand
3-4 Ultra ball, discard 2 cards from your hand search your deck for 1 pokemon card and put it into your hand
1-3 level ball, search your deck for a pokemon under 90 hp and put it into your hand
2014 (NXD - on) Next Destinies - Flashfire, To explain deck structure for this format is better to look at current format forums sixprizes, pokebeach, poke gym and here. But if there was a way to explain it is 05-06, no real changes, the supporter scheme is the same general outline since 2012, 1 deck gained a bench support, delphox rayquaza emboar, delphox X/Y lets you draw up to 6 cards in your hand once per turn, but other then that set after set has been new trainers which work as techs and set after set new attackers and combinations but no real changes, the rare candy rule is still the same since 2011 nerfing most stage pokemon unless it is being used as a bench tech with a basic to effectively attack with. But a general over view on how decks are ran currently as, this is a common deck structure
4 N
4 juniper
2-3 skyla
2-3 colress
with
2-3 ultra ball
1-2 level ball
1-2 megaphone (X/Y tech not engine based)
3-4 hypnotoxic laser (plasma storm not engine based, dmg based)
2 virbank (plasma storm stackable hypnotoxic laser dmg)
... for pretty much every single deck.
The overview and in closing, this took a few hours to type up, I should have been more determined and finished it sooner. ^This is to show the overall changes in the TCG, similar things being played over the years such as the unexplained/explained engines of 05/06 being a fair mix up of 08/09's trainer based pokedex engine draw with 11-14's supporter based draw.
Other then that, even though this is how the pokemon tcg format presents itself now, the format is constantly changing year after year, sometimes dramatically sometimes very slowly and anything is possible in the future.
I have been wanting to type this up for the past few months, instead of playing current format decks I've been playing people with my 2010 worlds decks, the structure the game play, everything about it was enjoyable even though it was a fairly broken as in one sided format it still had alot of diversity in terms of what you could do by increasing consistency in terms of bench/pokemon support supporter and item support and energy support, but I thought I would actually go back and look at the prior decks I played with from older years. I see alot of players look at the tcg and think that this has always been this way because we have been playing these decks for the past 3-4 years, I just wanted to show where the card game evolved from and where we might be able to go to.
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