Neo Discovery Review - Colorless

The Colorless-type did benefit a little more from Neo Discovery than most other types, for what it's worth. It has some solid cards with really unique effects, as well as a few of the typical pack filler Colorless-types that we've come to expect by now.

I won't claim that these cards invented whole new decks or anything, but there are a few decent inclusions and one that's edging on staple status.

Igglybuff is one of the lesser used Babies, but that's not saying much since almost every Baby was a smash hit. This card turns off a single targeted Pokémon Power for the turn, but that's all it needs to do.

This lets you snipe the Power off of something like Dark Vileplume or Fossil Aerodactyl. These floodgates are only effective when they stand uncontested, since you only need to squeeze through for one turn to get back in the game.

Grade: 8/10

Eevee is honestly quite good. It could let you get something like Dark Jolteon in play on the first turn, before you're supposed to be able to evolve. But obviously being reliant on a coin flip is really awkward.

Still, the core concept of adjusting your hand to match the energy that's attached to Eevee makes a lot of sense in the context of an Eeveelutions deck. There are definitely situations where it can accomplish something.

Grade: 7/10

Sentret is fine but there weren't any good Furret cards at the time of its release. Scout is a rare chance to look at your opponent's hand, but I would've much rather had that as a side effect of some other more impactful attack.

I suppose you can attach a DCE to do 20 damage right away, but there are just so many better ways to do that. Normally 50 HP would at least warrant a fair score, but everything about this card is just lame.

Grade: 2/10

I love Dunsparce. He's my cute little guy and he'll receive a very powerful meta-relevant card a generation later. But right now he's just an unreasonably frail pivot that can maybe inflict paralysis.

To put this in context, just imagine if Base Abra had the exact same stats but also couldn't evolve into anything. That's what we're looking at here. Clearly not worth running, but at least he's cute.

Grade: 2/10

Teddiursa is more or less what you'd expect from a Basic, but Nap Time does have the potential to be kind of annoying if you want it to be. You could potentially use Recall to let Ursaring borrow Nap Time for a turn, but the payoff is minimal.

40 HP is just way too scary to work with, though, especially on something with a Fighting weakness. If you run into a Tyrogue or a Base Hitmonchan, you're gone.

Grade: 2/10

Ursaring is a perfectly fair card, but that's its biggest problem. What deck specifically wants an exactly average run-of-the-mill Stage 1? More importantly, what deck wants Ursaring more than something actually impactful like Jungle Wigglytuff?

This is the kind of card that really shines in a draft environment, but doesn't have much use in constructed play.

Grade: 4/10

Smeargle's Sketch is very similar to Mirror Move, but you may remember that none of the cards with that move got outstanding scores. The thing to note here, though, is that Smeargle doesn't need to be active during the attack it's trying to copy.

It can witness a big attack from the bench and respond with an exact copy of it. This can be used to score some nasty KO's in the right context, especially against hyper-aggressive decks.

Grade: 7/10

There were no meta-defining cards or universal staples in this group of cards, but Igglybuff does come very close. I would've loved to see an Ursaring card that could compete with Jungle Wigglytuff on even terms, but that's not what we got.

Although Smeargle is actually the most interesting of the bunch, in my opinion. It makes for a really interesting revenge killer, answering any knock out with an immediate switch into the opponent's best attack, when appropriate. This can be a daunting threat to leave in play against certain decks.