Vending Set Review - Colorless

Credit for the English-translated images goes to tcgone.net.

The colorless types of the vending series are all over the place. Since every species had been explored and a lot of the best cards in the format were colorless, it's only natural that this would be a difficult type to expand on.

They mostly settled for making better versions of the worst cards and worse versions of the better cards. They didn't get nearly as creative with this type as they did with the others, but it's probably better to play it safe since a card that can use any energy can go in any deck.

Vending Pidgey is far better than Base Pidgey. It's not that it does anything special; it just doesn't do anything wrong. The HP and damage output are perfectly respectable for an evolving basic.

Quick Attack's unreliability does bring it down ever so slightly, but the real problem is that the rest of its evolutionary line just never really gets good. Jungle Pidgeot is fine, but not the solid payoff you want a Stage 2 to be.

Grade: 4/10

Vending Pidgeotto is a remarkable step up from Base Pidgeotto. Twister has a chance of removing several energy cards at once and Fly is a good mix of offense and stall. The 60 HP is slightly balanced out by the free retreat cost.

This is honestly a pretty well-balanced card that does a little bit of everything. Aside from, you know, surviving a Thunderpunch. So that low HP is still a bit of an issue.

Grade: 5/10

Vending Rattata is a bit of a let-down. Base Rattata could retreat for free and hit for 20 damage off a single colorless, while Team Rocket Rattata has a nifty gimmick involving prize cards.

This one is just a decent basic. Not bad, but only decent. I suppose it's the most likely to survive if you're actually playing Raticate, so there's that. We all know Raticate's not exactly a star player, though.

Grade: 3/10

Vending Spearow is a flat downgrade from Jungle Spearow. It loses 10 HP and all it gains is a Fury Attack that inflicts the same average damage as Peck or Gust. When you need to flip heads twice to have any upside, you don't have any upside.

At least it does retain the free retreat cost. It's strictly worse than the cards it's competing with, though, so don't bother with it. There are far better pivots and fighting-resists.

Grade: 3/10

Vending Fearow is a little worse than Jungle Fearow and Jungle Fearow was only a middling card at best. You've got 60 HP to work with and both of your attacks rely on coin flips. Not a great look.

Drill Dive does have the potential to do 50 damage on turn 2 though, which is actually really impressive in a vacuum. It just isn't worth the downside of possibly doing nothing.

Grade: 4/10

We've finally reached a 'mon that's indisputably better than the original card! Vending Clefairy has more HP than Base Clefairy and can forcibly switch your opponent with Follow Me, allowing you to set up the best possible Metronome when Clefable hits the board.

Bonus points for that second attack. Imagine if Base Clefairy could actually do damage and inflict sleep without a coin flip! It also gets a point bonus for having a meta-relevant evolution.

Grade: 6/10

Vending Wigglytuff inspires far less optimism. Helping Hand is actually decent, since it's just a free Full Heal on a coin flip, but Expand is laughably over-costed for that non-existent damage output.

But its greatest sin is that adding it to your deck reduces the number of Jungle Wigglytuff cards you can add to your deck. When you're competing with the best Stage 1 in the game, you've gotta do better than this. A lot better.

Grade: 4/10

Vending Doduo does do a little more damage than its counterpart, since it only needs a DCE to do a flat 20, but it's slightly less likely to survive long enough to become a Dodrio.

I think they're roughly equivalent. They both fulfill the "free retreater with fighting resistance" niche and they both get a massive point boost for being related to Jungle Dodrio, one of the strongest cards in the early sets.

Grade: 6/10

Vending Dodrio, by way of contrast, loses a lot of points because it's competing with Jungle Dodrio. This is a very boring by-the-book card, while Jungle Dodrio completely redefines how the game is played.

Would you sacrifice a card that reduces the retreat cost of your entire team for this bland nobody? The only correct answer is no. Retreat Aid is worth sacrificing a huge chunk of your deck for, and this 'Trio comes nowhere close to that level of value.

Grade: 3/10

Vending Lickitung's art is among the best in the early sets and is dripping with personality. But in almost every other way, it just loses to Jungle Lickitung. Stomp wasn't worth losing 30 HP for, especially since the original Lickitung was all about stalling.

To be fair, this is probably the power level the original Lickitung actually should have been at, but I don't award bonus points for being a well-balanced card in my grading system.

Grade: 4/10

Vending Chansey is a little less bulky than Base Chansey and it can't smash in for a mean 80 damage anymore. Base Chansey would actually retain the title of "best Chansey" for an embarrassingly long time, because they realized just how badly they messed up when designing it.

This card is still well above average in a vacuum, but it's just hard to look at it the same way knowing that Base Chansey is out there being an objectively better fit for most decks.

Grade: 6/10

Vending Kangaskhan is a little less bulky than Jungle Kangaskhan, but it can start doing damage right away if you have a DCE to attach to it. Tail Drop is way too unreliable to use in a competitive setting, though, and this card doesn't fit into any of the decks that Jungle Kangaskhan is normally used in.

Being locked into such a high retreat cost is supposed to have a significant upside and this card just doesn't quite cross the finish line. At least nothing resists the colorless type.

Grade 5/10

Stomp Around is a funny move, but not necessarily a good move. Forced switching isn't something you really want on a coin flip, since the whole point of these effects is to control your opponent's board.

I miss Rampage, but I like the extra 10 HP. There is one major issue with not having Rampage though. Since this card isn't eligible for Rage/Flail strategies, it's functionally homeless. What's the incentive to use this card over the other colorless 'mons in the format?

Grade: 5/10

If you thought Fossil Ditto was convoluted, then brace yourself. The short version is that you can become any 'mon in play...if you win a coin flip. And it has to redo the coin flip every time it wants to transform again.

In short, this ends up being mostly worse than Fossil Ditto. It can't consistently check key threats since it's flip-reliant, but I suppose it can become an extra Nidoking for Boyfriends or something along those lines. It has a niche...in really unpopular decks.

Grade: 5/10

Vending Eevee is bad. Eevee's job is to evolve. This card has 30 HP and no defensive effects whatsoever. Therefore, this card is bad.

The free retreat doesn't even win it a point this time, since I can't think of any situation in which you would ever use this as your pivot over one of the many, many other options out there. Even if you want specifically a pivot that resists psychic, use Rattata.

Grade: 1/10

Vending Porygon can stall with Conversion 2, do some chip damage, and then retreat for free when you're done with it. It's the bane of 'mons that can't do more than 30 damage, which is actually a lot of real estate to cover.

This is how you make Porygon usable. It may be the most unfun thing to play against ever, but at least it has a niche. It does die quickly if your opponent can switch around it, though.

Grade: 6/10

Vending Snorlax is impossibly broken. As long as it's active, the opponent can't retreat. Period. The real issue is that you don't have to knock that opponent out. If you're confident that you can survive their attacks and keep them under control, you can just keep your prey in check indefinitely until the opponent runs out of cards.

As you might expect, this card is a problem in the Japanese metagame. This effect shouldn't exist on a card.

Grade: 10/10

Of these, my favorite is probably that wonky Ditto. It seems like it was probably designed to go hand in hand with cards like Team Rocket Magnemite, Vending Voltorb, and Jungle Nidoqueen. Giving you another copy of any card in play can be deceptively powerful when using name-counting attackers.

My least favorite is Snorlax. It's a cool card, but I'm glad it wasn't a part of our metagame during the Rocket and Gym sets. There were enough problem cards in the game without this guy clogging up the board.