Team Rocket Set Review - Psychic

The new psychic-types were actually pretty compelling. A few of these cards would find a new lease on life in later sets, even if they didn't make a massive impact right away. There was some emphasis on drawing and retrieving cards, but set up 'mons aren't as tempting when you have the full suite of Base Set trainer cards at your disposal.

Still, a few decks wouldn't have been possible without these cards.

It's hard to decide whether this Abra is an upgrade or a downgrade over the original. It has more HP, which is awesome, but it also doesn't have a free retreat cost. It can use Vanish as a last resort to get out of the active, but shuffling yourself into the deck is a strange option to have.

The thing is, you almost never want your Abra in the active because the strongest Alakazam at the time loved staying on the bench. Neither Abra is especially good either way, though.

Grade: 3/10

Dark Kadabra's Matter Exchange gives you a free discard and draw every turn. This is excellent in cards with heavy limitations, but in most formats it's outclassed by much more powerful draw effects.

It also has 50 HP and a clunky retreat cost of 2, so any value it might have had as an evolved attacker gets thrown out the window instantly. At least it can dump cards into your discard for effects like Energy Absorption.

Grade: 5/10

You could be forgiven for thinking Dark Alakazam is just another worse version of an existing 'mon, but it's actually quite powerful. Being able to attack and switch in the same motion lets you set up some insulting plays.

You can bring in a Fossil Haunter to potentially block an attack each turn or a Clefairy Doll to completely block an attack once. In later formats it would become the headliner for the BabyPorter deck, which used babies as shields, and to great effect.

Grade: 7/10

Slowpoke is a perfectly serviceable evolving basic. Afternoon Nap is a nice acceleration effect, but unfortunately there's no super powerful Slowbro card to ramp into. In fact, both Slowbro that existed were supporters more than anything else.

It also can't pull off any crazy shenanigans the way Fossil Slowpoke's Scavenge could, but there's nothing objectively wrong with this card. It just doesn't fit in anywhere.

Grade: 4/10

Dark Slowbro has a fantastic effect. If Reel In had been on a basic, it would have been an instant staple in evolution decks. Retrieving several evolution cards from the discard all at once allows you to play evolution strategies much more aggressively, without fear of Oak ruining your deck.

Except that Dark Slowbro is an evolution card itself and has all the downsides that come with that. There's no top tier deck that really excels at abusing this card, but it's certainly usable.

Grade: 5/10

Drowzee is one of this set's sleeper hits. Nightmare is nothing special, but Long-Range Hypnosis allows you to inflict sleep from the bench on a coin flip. There is the pesky downside that you might inflict sleep on yourself, but this can be avoided by using an active 'mon that's immune to sleep.

It might also fit into some sleep-focused decks, but most of the 'mons it would theoretically partner with are self-sufficient without it. (IE. Dark Gengar)

Grade: 6/10

Dark Hypno uses Bench Manipulation, an inverted and almost strictly worse version of attacks like Do the Wave (Jungle Wigglytuff) or Beat Up (Neo Genesis Sneasel). Psypunch is also nice, being just a psychic type version of Hitmonchan's Jab.

It did see some play as a very, very rogue strategy. As such, I can't give it a terrible score, but I personally don't think the deck is worth running in any format, for the record.

Grade: 6/10

While the new psychic types didn't have the raw power of Movie Promo Mewtwo or the insane stall potential of cards like Mr. Mime and Base Alakazam, they did leave a small impact on the metagame moving forward.

It would be disingenuous to say that Team Rocket did nothing for the psychic type, but we're still well below the power level of the Base-Fossil staples.