Hello! Thank you for taking the time to check out this resource of decks from past formats of the Pokemon Trading Card Game, cubes, and links to other pages. My name is Sean Worcester. I’ve played the Pokemon Trading Card Game since 2007, and I have since grown a passion for preserving the history of the game, as well as promoting some alternate formats, like Cube Draft.
This website was mostly developed so that all of the decks I have would be easy to find and all in one place – making it easier for myself to keep track of, and my friends to know what they’re using. However, I do hope other players can use this page as a resource for:
- Giving players reasonably strong decklists they can use when playing old decks
- In-depth articles about different archetypes
- Giving insight to players looking to start their own retro deck collection or cube formats
When creating this page, the bulk of the information you see here came from a few places, and I’d like to say thank you to each of them.
First, to Jimmy Ballard. Jimmy was a player at the game’s beginning, and is now a fantastic Tournament Organizer. He has his own retro deck library that I highly recommend you check out here as it has far more years and far more archetypes than my own does. He was my original inspiration for documenting decks like this, so to him I owe a very big Thank You.
Second, to Ben Robinson and PTCG Archive. This website is INCREDIBLE, and has tournament decklists wherever possible, and also tracks the results of tournaments not just here in America, but also has many results from events across the sea.
Third, to Christian Bianchi and the rest of Team R. Christian sent me a document that details tournament results from all areas in NA as far back as 2004, and they were instrumental in adding to the descriptions of each deck and figuring out what tournaments they performed well at. Quick note – all accomplishments in this document are for the MASTERS division unless stated otherwise.
Last, to the amazing group of players from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where many of these decks were experienced by me for the first time. There are far too many players to name all of them, but I do want to thank a few specific people, who played games with me in these years, and who always humored my interest in these years, even when they might not have played these years themselves. So, a massive thank you to all of the following people: Cody Walinski, Austin Zettel, Michael Lux, Enrique Avila, Alec Apps, Alex Bunker, Yehoshua Tate, Tyson Stephan, Jordan Becks, and Jeff Wiza.
Many of the decklists you find here were pulled either from Jimmy’s Retro Decks page (if they were rogue, or performed well at Nationals), PTCG Archives’ tournament decklists, or from the World Championships Booklets that are handed out each year, detailing the top 4 decks in every age division.
Some of them are from my own personal testing and experiences in the earliest years I played this game, and some of them were lists of friends. My goal in creating this page was not just to take down as many decklists as possible, but also to track their results, and explain the basic strategies each deck, to make them more accessible, and so that newer players have a chance to appreciate the rich history of the Pokemon TCG.
I hope you enjoy these decks and cubes as much as I do.
If you see me at an event and want to play a match, let me know!
~Sean
PTCG Retro Library 