Base-Fossil

Base-Fossil is a format where Aerodactyl thrives most since there are no Baby Pokémon to disrupt its Pokémon Power. With four Computer Searches the deck is designed to get it on the field as early as possible to disrupt all the decks that rely on evolved Pokémon. From there, Metwo, Scyther, and Chansey can take out the opponent's basic Pokémon with ease. And if an evolved Pokémon manages to come into play before Aerodactyl is established, Mew allows you to devolve it back to its basic form. Finally, if you need to stall for time, since this is primarily a Psychic deck, Mr. Mime naturally fits in.

This is an all or nothing ("donk") deck. It's designed to plow through your deck to set up Zapdos and Voltorbs on turn one then evolve into Electrodes and attack with Zapdos on turn two. It's a very high risk, high reward strategy that won't always work. But when it does, the game will be over in just a couple of turns.

Clefable is able to copy any opponent's active Pokémon's attack for a single energy and is resistant to Psychic, a prevalent type in the format. Magmar is a great partner to Clefable, similarly low maintenance in terms of energy cost and just a good all-rounder. Dodrio, a staple of many Base-Fossil decks, allows you to effortlessly switch between them to cover for their weaknesses.

This deck is designed to battle the stall decks prevalent in the modern Base-Fossil meta, especially those based around Lickitung. These decks attempt to inflict status effects on the opponent (usually Paralysis) while using Pokémon with high HP, deliberately drawing the game out. This deck allows the player to replace their Active Pokémon at any time with Dragonite's Step In Pokémon Power then freely swap back to the previous (or any other) Pokémon thanks to Dodrio's Retreat Aid. Not only does that break the status effect lock, it allows the player to promote the Pokémon best suited for the job by targeting the opponent's Weaknesses.

The most popular and most successful deck archetype back in the day when Base-Fossil was a Standard format. While it was dethroned in the modern day by the various Lickitung variants it still remains a powerful force.

Dodrio's Retreat Aid allows you to quickly switch between Hitmonchan and Mewtwo, a combo which covers most of the common weaknesses in the format. Additionally, free retreat and all Basic attackers frees up deck space for more useful trainers while having Psychic Energy in the deck allows you to fit in other tech Pokémon like Mew for countering Psychic Pokémon and Mr. Mime for blocking strong attackers or stalling.

This deck aims to stall the opponent through low-cost attacks with chance of paralysis (Lickitung), denial of attack on the next turn (Magmar, Chansey), and neutralizing Pokémon Powers (Muk). When the game nears the end, it's Moltres' time to shine as its Wildfire attack ensures the opponent will run out of cards in their deck first.

Designed to outlast the popular aggressive decks in the format, this deck employs a variety of tricky Pokémon that dish out low damage but are difficult to knock out quickly. Ideally, the opponent is forced to burn through their resources in pursuit of knockouts while the combo of Mewtwo and Mr. Fuji on your side ensure that you will never be the first to run out of cards in the deck.

Blastoise is the lone standout in this format as probably the only good Stage 2 attacker. Not only that, its Rain Dance Pokémon Power is basically the only reason Water type is even viable. Articuno is the perfect partner to Blastoise - a Basic Pokémon with powerful attacks, no weaknesses, and resistance to the popular Fighting type. Lapras is also helpful if you need to stall but realistically it's mostly there to help you deal with Mr. Mime.

The idea behind this deck is to set up an Alakazam or two and some high HP Pokémon in your bench while Mr. Mime sits in the active spot. Using Alakazam's Damage Swap Pokémon Power, you are then able to consistently move damage counters off of Mr. Mime to your benched Pokémon and eventually heal them with Pokémon Center.

The deck does feature some decent attackers - like Scyther and Kangaskhan - but your primary win condition here is not to take prizes - it's to run your opponent out of cards in their deck.

While Wigglytuff is the best attacker in the format, its attacks are expensive. This deck aims to solve that problem by using Gastly who can retrieve Double Colorless Energy from the discard pile then retreat for free the next turn. Since Gastly requires Psychic Energy, Mewtwo is an easy fit into this deck, very useful for countering Hitmonchan and having the ability to power its own attack with Energy Absorption. Finally, Muk is there to frustrate your opponent's Pokémon Powers.

Hitmonchan usually suffers from three notable shortcomings: it has high retreat cost, Weakness against Psychic type, and is generally useless against many popular Pokémon in the format with Fighting resistance (e.g. Scyther). On the flip side, however, it's a very useful attacker against the many Fighting-weak Colorless Pokémon as it can dish out 40 damage against them for one Fighting Energy, which is very good.

The beauty of this deck is that it effectively sidesteps all Hitmonchan's problematic elements with the help of Dodrio's Retreat Aid, allowing it to be freely retreated or promoted.

Oh, and Wigglytuff's in the deck too. You know, the best attacker in the format.