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6.9K
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{F} → Jab : 20
{F}{F}{C} → Special Punch : 40
illus. Ken Sugimori · LV.33
Formats: Other: 1999–2001
External: Bulba ↗ · #ad / Affiliate Links: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, Amazon ↗, eBay ↗
While seeming to do nothing, it fires punches in lightning-fast volleys that are impossible to see.
coolestman22
The original Mewtwo EX.
Rance the Chapper
Even better! Only cost one prize!
NicholasInzeo
omg I remember this card! god what was I? 10 at the time this came out? good memories
Monferno
“Special” punch… hmmm.
Monferno
Oh, I’ll write a haiku about it I guess.
Base Set Hitmonchan
Is a pretty crappy card
It can special punch
…I’m not an English major
reshikrom64
In its day, this was incredible though.
Monferno
Ah. Never played back then – I was only four or so. Actually, I didn’t start playing (I collected) until right before the MD rotation.
Mantidactyle
This card with Electabuzz or Mewtwo promo, Scyther and a lot of trainers cards (computer search, bill, prof oak, (super) energy removal, plus power, gust of wind, item finder, lass…) formed a deck called Haymaker which was the Top-Tier at this time
In fact, this was the only competitive deck at this time
Monferno
I’ve heard of Haymaker.
feyblade
Your brilliant schemes foiled
Blastoise’s life nipped in the bud
It took but two jabs
alternatives for the last line:
“with two plus powers”
“it took F F C”
Adam Capriola
Hitmonchan is good
But can he beat Mike Tyson?
Well, he has no ears…
Curtis
He also doesn’t have any thumbs. So that means he certainly can’t beat him in Punch Out!.
Pokémon 31337
Really annoying when it was released. Donked me many times.
woril
start first vs Electabuzz
Computer search, plus power profesor oak, item finder computer search , profesor oak, plus power, profesor oak again, computer search plus power.
WIN.
Nick15
For anyone who wants an idea of how powerful this card was back in the day, lemme update it to account for 20 years of power creep:
HITMONCHAN – 210 HP – F
F – Jab – 100
FFC – Special Punch – 200
W: P / R: X / RC: CC
If this looks insane, that’s the point.
Combined with a Gust of Wind, you can effectively one-shot ANY Basic Pokemon before it can evolve or otherwise become useful. At its worst it could still KO anything in three to four turns… but anything against it would need to take just as long to take it out. However by then you’ve already got two more on your bench ready to mop up. It was the perfect no-frills Big Basic Pokemon, it always worked as ordered.
Otaku
I’m not trying to rain on your parade, Nick15, but… no. XD
Hitmonchan was great not because it was this massive beast of a Pokémon. It was great because of the rest of the cardpool and how it was able to exploit oversights in the game’s intended design. Hitmonchan costarred with set-mate Electabuzz in “Haymaker” decks, and those were brutally efficient beatdown/control decks.
MOST Evolving Basic Pokémon were NOT in the natural OHKO range of Jab; even Magikarp survived with 10 HP… unless you used a copy of PlusPower. Haymaker decks were good at dropping multiple copies of PlusPower because they not only were likely maxing it out, but running two to four copies of Bill, Computer Search, Item Finder, and Professor Oak. These potent draw, search, or recover cards made many Trainer cards far more potent than the developer’s likely expect…
…with Energy Removal and Super Energy Removal being the most critical to the success of Haymaker. 70 HP was known as “the magic number” for HP scores back in the day, because most decks struggled to OHKO it. Yet 120 was the maximum printed HP score and you’ll see multiple attackers in Base Set that swing for more than 60 damage. S/ER made it very, very hard to build up to larger attacks. It specifically made Electrode (Base Set) a horrible play.
How’d we get to Electrode? The Base Set version could KO itself via its Pokémon Power, then be attached to one of your Pokémon as an Energy card worth [FF], [RR], [GG], [LL], [WW], or [PP]. You picked which Type when you used the Pokémon Power. Using this, a lot of decks had a more even, or even a favorable, matchup with Haymaker, even though they might be down two Prizes by their second turn, because they could suddenly OHKO Haymaker Pokémon.
AlcreMina
“Rating: 4.5
Speed kills. Lays down 20 damage on turn 1. 70HP. The foundation of the Haymaker deck.” – Pojo’s Unofficial Big Book of Pokemon, ~2000
4.5/5? I can’t help but wonder if Hitmonchan is 4.5, what the criteria was to earn a 5-star rating XD
Charmaster
Evidently being Electabuzz and being able to do 30/40 damage for two energy.
Which feels out of context when you realize Electabuzz’s existence made Hitmonchan even better, both as a counter and as a partner (And sometimes both at the same time).
Pidgeotto the master one
This may be a good place to talk about the math of attack cost in early sets, or at least my hypothesis after studying the cards. With a few new exceptions, and taking into account rounding , a colorless energy gives 10 damage, and a typed one 15. This guy for example has a Jab by F (15 damage rounded up to 20) and the Special Punch by FFC (2 x 15 + 10 = 40). Poison is calculated as 20 damage (10 per turn for 2 turns), while flipping a coin for Paralysis augment the cost by 50% (50% of chance as attacking again with the same damage, i.e. 50% of chance of double damage), a sure chance of Sleeping is a bit more expensive (due to. small chance of the defending pokemon to stay asleep by many turns). Confusion is overpriced because in Japanese original rules a tails when attacking means the opponent uses the attack instead of the pokemon taking just 20 damage. One of the reasons early sets were so dominated by basics (besides of course energy removal) is that evolved ones did not gain a “discount” as it started to happen after the first sets.
Richard G
Those calculations look correct for energy costs and rewards for Basic Pokemon. However, evolving has its benefits since some Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokemon seem to get damage bonuses.
Pidgeotto the master one
Well, in base-fossil (and maybe rocket) for most cases it works for evolved pokemon too. Starting with Gym to Neo, a few pokemon (specially stage 2) started to get more bonuses and sometimes extra damage. In the Expedition (e-card) block, all evolved do more damage (10 to 20 more), and besides that block there was the power creep (now we have stage 2 ex pokemon doing 90 for one energy with 200-300 HP). Power creep seems to be more on evolved or special (ex cards for example), while my formula seems to still work for most evolving basics