Would you rather have a Charizards HP or an Electabuzzes? It may seem, at
first glance, that Charizard has twice as much HP. But can you use Charizard
by himself? No. You have to use him in conjunction with two other cards
(Charmander and Charmeleon or Breeeder). Those two extra card slots can be
taken up with Scoop Ups, prolonging the life of my Electabuzz to 190 (60 + 60
+ 70). The real HP of a Pokemon is not only determined by the literal number
of Hit Points, but also the number of cards required to get it out
(basically, stage + 1). Based on this I have devised a formula for
calculating the 'real hp' of a pokemon:
Real HP = (Literal HP / (Stage + 1)) + (Stage  * 10)
So Charizard's HP would be 120 / 3 + 20, or 60. As you can see Charizard
becomes not even equal to Electabuzz, simply because of his stage. Some other
popular pokemon's HO would be:
Blastoise = 100 / 3 + 20 = 53 HP
Venusaur = 100 / 3 + 20 = 53 HP
Nidoking = 90 /3 + 20 = 50 HP
Charmeleon = 80 / 2 + 10 = 50 HP
Ivysaur = 60 / 2 + 10 = 40 HP
Golduck = 70 / 2 + 10 = 45 HP
* Note, when HP is not an even ten, round UP
Based on this, the average real HP of Pokemon is around 50. A side effect of
the real HP theory is that Dark Pokemon have extremely low real HP. Take Dark
Charizard, with the highest HP in the Rocket set.
Dark Charizard = 80 / 3 + 20 = 46 HP
The highest HP Pokemon in Rocket is AVERAGE! Another example:
Dark Charmeleon = 50 /2 + 10 = 25 HP
Getting the drift here?
I am going to conclude this article by saying that, no matter how good an
attack is, if the pokemon doe snot llive to use it, the attack is useless.

~ Andy
kiandy@aol.com