Beat Up (TCG)

Beat Up is a Pokémon Trading Card Game based around . It was popular due to its potential to inflict massive damage for little energy, but was shunned by some players because it relied on successful coin flips. It died out in later 2001.
==History==
The Beat Up archetype has been around since soon after the expansion was released. Many players recognized as a game-changing Pokémon almost instantly after its release. However, some did not believe it would succeed because it was only useful as a beatstick, and even then it relied too much on coin flips to be consistently useful. The former point of view would prove to be correct, as Beat Up variants dominated the Play! Pokémon scene for quite some time. With Beat Up winning constantly and few other decks competing with it, Wizards of the Coast did something unprecedented at the time: they banned from use. This crippled the deck, as was the key card. Many players were outraged, some were relieved.
==Strategy==
The main strategy of the deck is to get onto the field as the Active Pokémon as soon as possible with two Darkness Energies attached to it. A on the bench is ideal, because it prevents the player's opponent from playing s to switch out or heal their Active Pokémon. That way, Sneasel can just attack until the opposing Pokémon is Knocked Out. Cleffa is used for hand refreshing and drawing support to meet the deck's other requirements as soon as possible (i.e. Sneasel and Slowking). Once the player has their Sneasel powered up, they should pile as many Pokémon onto the bench as possible, so as to have Beat Up doing maximum damage. Any trainer cards used should be aimed towards this objective.
==Cards==
===Key cards===
* is the deck's main attacker, with Beat Up doing an average of 10 damage for each Pokémon in play, plus an additional 10 damage for each and/or .
* prevents the opponent from playing s like to get their Pokémon safe from Sneasel. It also slows down an opponent's drawing speed and reduces their chances to win as a whole.
* backs up Sneasel with drawing support and hand refreshing. It maximizes a player's chance of drawing a Sneasel and as many Darkness Energies as possible.
===Other Pokémon===
* could lock the opponent out of the game by using its Mean Look attack while they had a setup Pokémon like in play, keeping them from switching while fainting their benched Pokémon with Feint Attack.
* is only used to evolve into .
===Other Trainers===
* is to provide extra card drawing.
* refreshes a player's hand.
* searches the player's deck for any card and adds it to their hand. Quite useful, for obvious reasons.
* roots out any from the discard pile and adds it to the player's hand. This speeds up the deck and makes the card useful in many situations because of its versatility.
* gets or another Pokémon to the safety of the bench if it is close to being Knocked Out.
* can give the extra turn it needs to score a knockout.
* recycles used Darkness Energies back into the deck, because Beat Up can't be used if all the Darkness Energies are in the discard pile, and there are only four in the deck.
* allows a player to control their opponent's field to some extent, giving them the power to choose their opponent's Active Pokémon.
* is like , but with only one-time usage and less consistency.
* can be used in a pinch in place of to shut down the opponent's options.
===Energy cards===
* is needed for 's attack, and as an added bonus, it adds 10 damage per card onto Beat Up.
* can be attached to Slowking if absolutely necessary.
* removes status conditions from Sneasel to ensure it has a successful attack and does not faint from poison or burn.
==Typical deck list==
==Restriction==
As mentioned in the History section, was banned from by Wizards of the Coast because it was too powerful. Additionally, Slowking was banned from modified at the end of 2002.
Category:Deck archetypes