Team Rocket Set Review - Colorless

You're probably sick of hearing this, but the colorless type barely even felt the impact of the Team Rocket set upon release. Of course, this was already the type with the largest percentage of powerful 'mons from the Base-Fossil sets, so it might be for the best that they toned things down here.

A few are actually pretty interesting, though. I especially like the new dragons.

Rattata's Trickery might seem useless at first glance, since your prizes start the game face-down, but they don't have to stay that way. A new trainer card from the same set turns them all face-up, allowing you to always know what you're hitting with Trickery.

This effectively turns the Power into a pseudo-search effect, and is a neat little combo for consideration. That's largely the card's only utility, though.

Grade: 5/10

Just when you thought Raticate couldn't get any worse, this card shows up. Dark Raticate's Gnaw does the exact same damage as Base Raticate's Bite, but costs more energy. And Dark Raticate has even less HP, at a humiliating 50. And its second attack has one of those infamous "if tails, this attack does nothing" effects.

I hope you don't need me to tell you that this is a bad card.

Grade: 1/10

For some reason, they decided to make every Meowth in the first few sets bad. This one is probably the worst of the ones available, sitting at a measly 40 HP and still requiring 2 energy to attack.

It doesn't help that this is yet another card that whiffs completely if you flip tails, and this time that's its only attack. Great. Truly splendid work. It could theoretically snipe something, so I'll give it that.

Grade: 2/10

Since no one thought Lure from the first few sets was good, they decided to reprint it...on a coin flip? Poison Claws would be fine on a basic, but this is your evolution. Your big payoff to evolving is...a more expensive copy of Base Weedle's Poison Sting?

I have no idea what the thought process was here, unless it was, "Let's print a bad card and call it a day."

Grade: 1/10

The Eevee from this set is also not worth using over its respective counterpart. It dies to a single Jab or Low Kick due to 40 HP and weakness. Its attacks aren't anything dreadful, but I'd honestly rather have the original Eevee's Tail Wag over a measly 10 damage.

Sand-Attack is fine, but if you have 2 energy on this 'mon it should be because you're evolving into something else anyway. Overall, I can't see much of a use-case for this card.

Grade: 2/10

This Porygon is at least better than the one from Base Set. Free retreat and the potential to do some decent damage and confusion. One especially cool trick this Porygon can pull off is changing an opponent's weakness and then retreating into a different attacker for free.

Can be a fun addition to donk decks and I can see potential for building around it, but I'm not going to sit here and claim that PoryDonk is the new meta.

Grade: 5/10

Picking a Dratini for your deck is like picking which hole to put in your sock. This one is just as frail as the original but it now has a chance of inflicting paralysis, at the cost of having a more expensive attack.

I'd probably rather take the original and evolve ASAP, but they're almost equally bad. Pick your poison.

Grade: 2/10

I love Dark Dragonair. Evolutionary Light is a free search for evolution cards every turn, and evolution decks could use the help. It also isn't terrible as a backup attacker in a pinch, but it really would've benefitted from just a little more HP.

This card only really shines its brightest in more limited formats like Prop 15/3 and WotC 20, but it's good at what it does. Even without a truly solid place in the metagame, I can't find any compelling reason to give it a low score.

Grade: 7/10

Dark Dragonite is fine, but it just doesn't do a whole lot to justify its existence. It does immediately fill your bench with any 2 basics you could want, but by the time you've played a Stage 2 evolution, you should've already found most of your relevant basics.

It also only gains 10 HP over its pre-evolution, though I suppose you only need to play one copy of it since Dark Dragonair can search for it. There's probably a solid use for this card, but I'm just not seeing it.

Grade: 6/10

Overall, the colorless types of this set were a mix of filler nobodies and hidden gems. Sadly, it failed to reach the staggering heights of Base Chansey, but that will be true of pretty much every colorless card for years to come.

One thing the Team Rocket set does well is that it encourages players to at least try out the dark 'mons, because they sound fun even if they're clearly not the strongest cards in the game. It's just a shame that they couldn't raise the average HP of this set just a hair to bring everything up to code.