Neo Genesis Review - Psychic

The Psychic-types of Neo Genesis are surprisingly straightforward, with one extreme exception in Slowking. Most of the cards have attacks or mechanics reprinted from older cards, with no real innovation outside of tweaking the numbers.

While this wouldn't be unusual nowadays, the Psychic type in the WotC era was known for being experimental and wacky. It was overflowing with unique utility effects and defensive powers, so it's weird to see a group of additions that adds so little to the type's identity.

Slowpoke is good. Not great or special or unique, exactly. Just good. The mixed energy costs are awkward, but you won't actually be using Water Gun most of the time anyway. It's nice that they're finally acknowledging Slowpoke's ties to water in some small way, though.

So it really just functions as a slightly worse Fossil Gastly on its own, but the card it evolves into...well. He's coming up next.

Grade: 5/10

Slowking's value depends heavily on rulings. Due to a famous mistranslation that I also covered here, Slowking was far, far more powerful in English-speaking countries than he was ever meant to be.

Most tournaments opt to play him as the Japanese designers intended, which makes him more like a tech in Slowpoke Stall than a game-breaker. In fact, Fossil Slowbro might actually be a better card, surprisingly.

Grade: 6/10 (errata) or BAN/10 (as printed)

Natu is incredibly frail, but it does have a free Retreat Cost, which is always fashionable. It can be teched into a Sabrina's Alakazam deck, since Telekinesis is actually a pretty respectable attack, but it's nothing crazy.

Most Psychic-oriented decks of the era were all about stall and control tactics, so a 30 HP 'mon doesn't fit very well into any of them. But as a potential pivot and Pyslink target, it deserves at least a little credit.

Grade: 4/10

Xatu features the same Prophecy attack that makes Fossil Hypno weirdly compelling. On paper, the idea of controlling what each player draws really does get your wheels spinning.

But in practice, it tends to not accomplish much. The Fighting Resistance is nice, though, and it's not like the card is unusable. Just really mediocre, especially for an Evolution Card.

Grade: 4/10

Girafarig needs a Double Colorless Energy to even do anything on the first turn and it can be indefinitely walled by anything with a Psychic Resistance. These stats would be great for an evolving Basic, but they're terrible for a Basic that's already in its final form.

To its credit, Girafarig's Psybeam is one of the most cost-efficient ways to inflict Confusion in these early sets. I'll give it that much praise, at least.

Grade: 2/10

The Psychic-type from Neo Genesis is a bit lopsided in terms of power level. If you play Slowking as he was originally supposed to be played, then Psychic is the type that was the least impacted by the existence of Neo Genesis. But if you play Slowking by WotC's rulings, then he's probably the single most powerful 'mon of the entire WotC era, even outshining Dark Vileplume.

But aside from that one HUGE elephant in the room, this was a pretty lackluster set for the Psychic type. Especially since the new Darkness type eats them for breakfast.