Neo Genesis introduced a mix of extremely solid and extremely mediocre colorless cards, without much in between. They basically locked down the modern concept of "Colorless as the support type" at this point in time, but with a mix of pointlessly average 'mons thrown in for good measure.
It does feel like they had a much more firm grasp of what a Colorless card probably should do by this point in time, which is nice to see.
Cleffa is the most powerful Pokémon in the WotC era, and is still in the running for the greatest of all time to this day. If it were printed into standard today, it would still be an instant staple, no questions asked.
Having automatic protection and the ability to fully reset your hand every turn is insane. This card single-handedly slowed down the aggro decks of previous sets and sped up every other deck to keep up with them. And no, being able to evolve into Clefairy never came up.
Grade: 11/10
Clefairy is a little pointless. Doubleslap is so clearly over-costed that I had to check and make sure it wasn't a mistranslation. Meanwhile Squaredance is just way too expensive for a setup move that you would only ever want to use on the first turn.
The stats are normal for a Basic, but with attacks this bad it just doesn't warrant play in any deck. Even in the smallest card pools, there are better options.
Grade: 1/10
Sentret has a respectable attack, for what it's worth. Unfortunately, that attack is on a really frail Basic. If it didn't have a weakness then 40 HP might be workable, but the risk is too obvious here.
As an added bonus, there's no good Furret in most of the Neo formats. By the time one finally did pop up in the e-Card series, there were better Sentret cards in circulation. So this guy just kind of exists.
Grade: 2/10
Furret isn't worthwhile as an Evolution Card. This would be a below-average Basic, so it absolutely isn't a good Stage 1. The HP is too low, the attacks are only on-curve at best, and it offers no utility that you can't find elsewhere.
To be clear, nothing about this card is insanely bad. It's just the most boring card you can possibly imagine. I guess this version of Quick Attack is a mild improvement over the usual Quick Attack, so there's that.
Grade: 2/10
Hoothoot is a solid Basic. It has a decent HP, can protect itself with Hypnosis, and has a Fighting Resistance. This is perfectly respectable for an evolving basic. Peck could even do decent damage if you see a good opening for it.
But really, you'll probably want to keep it on the bench since Noctowl has an impressive Pokémon Power that you'll want to preserve. Still, having such solid stats for a Basic really does help in those rare situations where you have to use it.
Grade: 7/10
Noctowl's Glaring Gaze is incredibly useful. The coin flip is largely irrelevant since over the course of a game, you'll eventually get at least a card's worth of value out of it. It's a much lower investment than something like Dark Vileplume, but has a real effect on the outcome of a game.
Wing Attack also does respectable damage and the free Retreat Cost is excellent. The low HP is excusable for this guy, since everything else about the card is great.
Grade: 8/10
Togepi, for whatever reason, does not count as a Baby in the Trading Card Game. To be fair, there's no way it would have been able to compete with Cleffa. But being stuck with 40 HP and a weakness when you don't have the Baby Rule protecting you is really unfortunate.
Poison Barb also doesn't fit thematically, on a side note. It's a super weird choice for the first ever Togepi card. Colorless cards that inflict Poison are rare, though.
Grade: 3/10
Togetic's Super Metronome is definitely interesting. Whereas Jungle Clefable can only use the defending 'mon's attack, Togetic can choose an attack from any opposing 'mon. But only on a coin flip, and that's a massive issue.
It does retreat for free and has an interesting backup option in Fly, though. Togetic is stuck in a weird place where it's technically a solid card, but is a bit too reliant on luck and matchups for serious competitive play.
Grade: 6/10
Aipom, surprisingly, does see significant competitive play. The main draw of the card is that Pilfer makes you essentially immune to a deck out loss. If you flip heads and get to retrieve a card from your discard pile, that's a massive bonus on top of an already usable card.
It would be a lot clunkier to use if it didn't have that free Retreat Cost, since all it offers is utility, but it just happens to be good in all the right ways.
Grade: 9/10
Snubbull is underwhelming. Roar would be fine if it worked like Gust of Wind, but the fact that the opponent gets to choose their new Active really kills it. It would be below average if it had a solid Evolution Card, but the Evolution is underwhelming, too.
It's a little sad because everything here is technically on-rate for an evolving Basic, but the combination of factors just doesn't click.
Grade: 3/10
Granbull's only remotely compelling attack is Raging Charge, but having recoil damage on an attack that requires you to already be at low HP is incredibly awkward.
The thought process was probably that Raging Charge powers itself up, but Rage-type attacks always come with the caveat that your Pokémon isn't long for this world. Its other stats are only average at best.
Grade: 4/10
Stantler is just a pretty boring card. It's not aggressively bad in any interesting way. The HP is below average, the Retreat Cost is too high, and the attacks are underwhelming at best.
Similar stats were reasonable on Jungle Tauros, but he was born into a format where big basics were heavily supported, whereas Stantler exists in all the same formats as Cleffa.
Grade: 4/10
Miltank can, potentially, be a solid wall. With 70 HP and a healing attack, it could sit there for a while annoying the opponent. But there are generally better defensive options in every format.
I do have to give it some credit, though, since they were trying to pull back on the HP of big Basics at this time. They found a respectable balance here, but nothing else about the card stands out in an impressive way.
Grade: 5/10
Lugia can put out some absolutely insane damage, and Rainbow Energy makes it slightly less awkward to power up than it looks. Still, it is a pretty unwieldy card to rely on. You should pack a Pluspower in with it, since a lot of important targets have exactly 100 HP.
The obvious downside is that you basically have to build your whole deck around it, but there are worse strategies out there.
Grade: 7/10
There are definitely some vestiges of Gen 1 design here, with Stantler and Togetic standing out as just "we have Tauros and Clefable at home," but Neo Genesis really did do a good job of exploring new design spaces while sticking closely to things that had worked in the past.
I don't expect every card to stick the landing, so in general I'd say the batting average for this set is insanely impressive for the time.
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