Neo Genesis Review - Lightning

The lightning-types of Neo Genesis include two of the format's brand new Baby Pokémon and the first ever Stage 2 Lightning-type Evolution card. It's also worth noting that the concept of flipping a coin for recoil damage is no longer a central focus for the type.

I guess they decided that the format was going to be risky enough without maintaining the high-risk, high-reward playstyle that earlier Lightning-types were known for. We haven't seen the last of those designs, but it's nice to have a change of pace.

Pichu is easily the most important Lightning-type to come out of this set and it isn't close. The second-most played baby of the era behind Cleffa, this card's purpose is to punish decks that are reliant on Pokémon Powers.

20 damage may not seem like much, but when it's on a 'mon with automatic protection, it can add up fast. Note that the Baby Rule is a rule, not a Power, so Zzzap doesn't hit Babies.

Grade: 10/10

Pikachu is actually pretty solid. Quick Attack for a single colorless energy is abnormally efficient, and it has respectable stats for an evolving Basic. On any other evolutionary line, this would have been a great card.

The main issue is that it's a Pikachu. There are a lot of Pikachu cards. This is one of the better ones, but there's a promo that blows it out of the water. Still good in a vacuum, though. There's no Neo Genesis Raichu, by the way.

Grade: 5/10

Elekid may seem outgunned by other Babies at a glance, but it's actually great. The fact that it doesn't require energy to do damage artificially accelerates your board elsewhere by a turn, which is huge.

It can find a place in various decks as a Baby-slayer, since Babies can't block its "attack," or as a way to do untyped damage to get around a Resistance. It doesn't see as much play as Cleffa or Pichu, but it's still a phenomenal card.

Grade: 8/10

This Electabuzz is basically never your best option. It does have an unusually low Retreat Cost, but it takes up a Double Colorless Energy if you want to attack right away and its two attacks have anti-synergistic costs.

It's not like it's a bad card, though. It's just that it pales in comparison to the Rocket's Zapdos and Base Electabuzz that came before it. You could run it in a deck and find some modest success, but there's no specific deck it belongs in.

Grade: 6/10

This Chinchou isn't terrible but it is outclassed by a Chinchou from a different Neo set. If you do use this one, you'll find Flail to be less convenient than it looks. A Basic with 50 HP would rather evolve than sit around taking damage.

Supersonic is fine, though, and it's not like this card's stats are abnormally bad for the era. Shout out to whoever copy/pasted the exact same Chinchou art into the background without even flipping it vertically or something. Wow. Just wow.

Grade: 4/10

Floodlight is really just the same as a billion other Paralysis moves we'd already seen at this point. The "cool gimmick" of this card is that you can place Water Energy on it to boost Floodlight.

There are some janky applications to this, but nothing worth mentioning here. As a Stage 1 it needed to be better than Base Electabuzz as a bare minimum, and it definitely didn't get there.

Grade: 4/10

Mareep has a cute concept going for it. You build up a herd of Mareep and they help you charge up with Static Electricity. It's a flavorful and powerful attack. This card can fully charge its Evolutions right away.

But having 40 HP is miserable, as always. The good news is that most of the format's Fighting-type decks are hovering around rogue status, but you're probably just going to open with a Cleffa in your active spot anyway.

Grade: 7/10

Flaaffy was clearly designed to synergize with Mareep. It can take advantage of the energy accelerated to it by blasting the enemy with Discharge or moving it around with Electric Current. I love the sentiment, but it flops pretty hard in execution.

The damage output for these attacks doesn't quite justify tossing all of your Energy Cards all over the place. You'd really rather keep them in your Active Spot.

Grade: 4/10

Ampharos is an acceptable payoff for Mareep's acceleration. It does have low HP for a Stage 2, but that was (unfortunately) pretty common back then. Gigaspark can be pretty nasty if you keep flipping heads, but it can also be pretty underwhelming if you keep flipping tails.

A consistent 40 damage starting on turn 2 is certainly decent, and you only need to flip heads once or twice to get ahead pretty quickly.

Grade: 6/10

Pichu and Elekid are obviously the stars of the show here, but it was never a fair competition to begin with. Even the worst Babies of the Neo format tend to have some sort of role somewhere. They're just all that good, heavily propped up by the sheer lunacy of their automatic protection.

Still, I love that we're starting to see Evolution Cards that synergize with their pre-evolutions in a tangible and meaningful way. Even if Ampharos can't compare to the three starters in terms of power level, there was an obvious intentionality behind the effects, and it's impressive that they squeezed such interesting interactions into a line that doesn't have any Pokémon Powers.