Gym Series Review - Lightning

There is one Lightning-type from the Gym series in particular that lives in infamy as one of the strongest cards of the entire WotC era. But that also means that all of the other cards sharing its type are doomed to live in its shadow.

Even if you wanted to run more Lightning-types for redundancy, don't forget that Base Electabuzz is still around in about half of the different WotC era formats. Most of these cards just didn't stand a chance against the stiff competition.

Lt. Surge's Pikachu (lv 10) is a middle-of-the-road Basic. It has low HP with no real way to protect itself aside from retreating, but at least it can retreat for free. Quick Attack is the same as it usually is, either doing 30 damage on heads or 10 on tails for a Double Colorless Energy.

It's not like there's anything egregiously wrong with this card, but I can't find much reason to get excited about it, either.

Grade: 4/10

Lt. Surge's Pikachu (lv 15) is probably the one you want to use, just because it can charge itself up. This can make it easier to get energy on Lt. Surge's Raichu, so it's a decent enough option.

It also has a little more HP, just barely enough to not die to Base Hitmonchan's Jab (unless it has a Pluspower). It will still get one-tapped by a Tyrogue in later sets, though.

Grade: 5/10

Lt. Surge's Raichu (lv 32) is kind of boring, but it gets the job done, I guess. The problem is that Base Electabuzz is a very similar card that you don't need to evolve to get to.

Thunderbolt spam isn't a legitimate strategy, either. Base Zapdos always had it and rarely used it, even when it had 4 energy attached to it. So going out of your way to use it here would just be weird.

Grade: 3/10

Lt. Surge's Raichu (lv 38) is certainly more interesting, but still not actually worth playing. Kerzap does have a nice chance to hit for 50, and the downside is more tolerable than it sounds thanks to its pre-evolution's Charge attack.

Thundertackle can be a turn 2 attack after a Charge and a Double Colorless Energy, so it's quite strong given the context. Unfortunately, the Lightning-type had a crazy strong lineup of big Basics in the WotC era, so it's hard for the Evolutions to compete.

Grade: 5/10

Lt. Surge's Magnemite (lv 10) has incredible attacks and a free Retreat Cost. They needed to skimp somewhere, so they cut the poor fellow down to a measly 30 HP.

As with most 30 HP basics, this undermines most of the card's good qualities. Evolve it as soon as you possibly can, if it even lives that long.

Grade: 3/10

Lt. Surge's Magnemite (lv 12) has a little more HP, but 40 is still low. Thundershock is just as good here as it always is, thanks to the Paralysis chance, and Tackle can do decent damage if you have a DCE in hand.

But really, you would only run this card if you wanted to use its Evolution. It's nowhere near as good as the best Lightning-type basics, after all.

Grade: 3/10

Lt. Surge's Magneton can slowly accumulate energy over the course of the game by swiping it off of 'mons that you know you're going to lose. But if you were going to build up to a big attack, you'd probably want a flashier payoff than 50 damage with a chance of recoil.

It's especially sad when you remember that Rocket's Zapdos can do all this setup easier and more consistently without any external support whatsoever, then hit much harder.

Grade: 3/10

Lt. Surge's Voltorb (lv 12) loves coin flips and hates taking damage. When you factor in luck, both of its attacks really do an average of 10 damage per energy attachment. But if you're using a two-headed coin, then this is a pretty powerful attacker.

As with many, many Lightning-types of the era, this thing has 40 HP. There are a laughable number of ways to reduce that to zero on the first turn.

Grade: 2/10

Lt. Surge's Voltorb (lv 15) can't even attack on the first turn. They took a bad card and found a way to make it worse. Wonderful. The good news is that it actually has 50 HP, but I'm torn on which Voltorb is worse.

Both should dissuade you from ever touching them, though. And did it really need to have a chance to damage itself on top of everything else?

Grade: 2/10

Lt. Surge's Electrode excels at doing damage...to itself. Yeah, that awesome looking Pokémon Power hits ALL active 'mons, because we just can't have nice things around here.

This makes its average 70 HP feel a lot squishier than it should, and nothing else about the card makes up for it. I can't imagine using this card in a serious context, given what it's up against.

Grade: 3/10

Lt. Surge's Electabuzz (lv 28) can attach energy to itself with Charge and then unleash it all with Discharge, doing an average of 15 damage per energy spent this way, although it does come with a heavy discard cost.

The massive damage output this card promises is kind of tempting, but then you remember that Jungle Scyther's Swords Dance was able to power out a 60 damage attack on turn 2 without any discards. It's a flashy card, but not actually that great.

Grade: 5/10

Lt. Surge's Electabuzz (lv 22) does lower damage, but moves energy around instead of discarding it. To their credit, they had synergy in mind when designing these guys.

The idea is that you send this one out first, Charge up, then start doing 20 damage per turn while gradually sending everything to the other one. That way when this guy goes down, you already have a second attacker. It's clever, but a little too convoluted.

Grade: 5/10

Lt. Surge's Jolteon is mediocre, at best. Thunder Flare has really high damage output for a Rage-style attack, but Rage decks were already falling off by the time the gym sets came out. High Voltage has a nifty lockdown effect, but is reliant on a coin flip.

And, as with almost every other card on this list, it's just completely overshadowed by the next card we're going to talk about.

Grade: 4/10

Rocket's Zapdos is so powerful that it single-handedly influenced the scores of dozens of cards in my Gym series reviews. Every Lightning-type that isn't Rocket's Zapdos and every type that's weak to Lightning gets a slightly lower score just because this card exists.

20 damage for a single energy and energy acceleration on a single attack. No weaknesses. 70 HP. An extremely powerful second attack that it will eventually charge up to by accident. This was THE strongest Lightning-type.

Grade: 10/10

As you may have guessed, the bottom line of this review is that Rocket's Zapdos is the only new Lightning-type that actually matters. If your deck needs more than 4 Lightning-types then you should probably just run more ways to draw into your copies of Rocket's Zapdos. It's that good.

The biggest reason that there aren't many Lightning-type decks in these older formats is that Rocket's Zapdos IS the Lightning-type deck, condensed down into a single piece of cardboard. It's one of the best individual cards from the first two generations of the franchise.