"Poisonous gas comprises 95% of its body. It's said that the remaining 5% is made up of the souls of those who died from the gas." ~ Pokémon Ultra Moon

As a deck builder, I love having different viable options for evolving Basics and Stage 1 Pokémon to choose from for my decks. When Gastly SF was around, there was no such decision to be made, as Gastly SF is arguably the best evolving Basic ever. Gastly evolved into 3 different playable Gengar cards, which gave it many decks to see play in.

Its bread and butter is its free Pitch Dark attack, which prevents the opponent from playing Trainer (Item) cards during their turn. Due to the turn 1 rules at the time, this could be used on turn 1 going 1st. This attack acts as disruption, giving you time to set up while also pairing well with the strategies that Gengar would use.

Gengar SF mainly relied on its Shadow Room attack to snipe damage around the opponent’s board, while being difficult to Knock Out due to its Fainting Spell PokePower. While less reliable, Gengar’s Poltergeist attack did damage for each Trainer, Supporter, and Stadium in the opponent’s hand. Gastly’s Pitch Dark perfectly sets up for this attack to do big damage.

Gastly’s Trick Gas attack does 10 and switches it with one of your Benched Pokémon. Switching allows you to conserve an Energy. The 2010 CurseGar deck mostly uses Pitch Dark to keep Trainer Lock up the whole game, but I’ve found plenty of scenarios where I got to use Trick Gas to switch Gastly into a Spiritomb AR, which also puts Trainer Lock on while allowing Gengar AR to be powered up to attack earlier, which makes a huge difference in winning or losing a game.

Pitch Dark also helps with the third Gengar, which is Gengar PRIME. Gengar PRIME relied on the opponent having Pokémon in their hand so Hurl Into Darkness can put them into the Lost Zone, but the opponent will happily remove Pokémon from their hand with Trainers like Junk Arm or Pokémon Communication when given the chance. Good thing basic Gastly had probably set up Trainer Lock for you, making it hard for the opponent to dodge Gengar PRIME’s tricky assault.

Here's some cool Gengar Gastly lists from a few different formats. 2009 Worlds, 2010 Worlds, & 2011 MD-COL.

Build 1

Build 2

Build 3

Source: Jason Martinez - 2nd Place Worlds 2009 (Jr)

Source: Frank Diaz - 3rd Place Worlds 2010

Source: PTCG Retro Library

Gastly is the perfect evolving Basic for the decks that needed it, while also being a solid choice for any deck playing a Gengar during the DP/HGSS era. Many recent evolving Basics have disappointed me, but none more than Shuppet SVI, which tries and fails to Trainer (Item) Lock like Gastly did. Not only can it only be used if you go second (allowing opponents to use Items if they go first), but it also relies on a coin flip. As “the guy who flips tails”, an attack with a 50/50 chance is not going to be one I eye up. This Shuppet has seen success with Banette LOR and Banette ex (Lost Zone Tina / Banette insert list), but it always feels like an attack you’ll use 1/100 games instead of one of the best attacks in a deck.

Anyway, that’s my “old man yells at cloud” article for why cards from the Diamond & Pearl series are the best for the 300th time... Good decks are not always about the big swingers and incredible Support Abilities. Sometimes it’s the little things that count!

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