Neo Revelation Review - Darkness

While the Darkness-type was dominant upon its introduction, Neo Revelation did very little to contribute to the type's legacy. What we ultimately get are two clear downgrades to existing cards and a respectable Stage 1.

Still, none of these cards are terrible in a vacuum. The real issue is that they share their names with preexisting options that they have to compete with. That's just what happens when you only have five species to work with.

Murkrow is a little lame. If you can attach 2 Darkness Energy to it and fill your bench with extra copies of Murkrow, then in theory you could be doing an average of 45 damage per turn.

But Neo Genesis Sneasel can do way more than that with way less setup. As a result, I can only really call this a funny little meme deck.

Grade: 2/10

This Sneasel is obviously and violently outclassed by Neo Genesis Sneasel. It isn't even close. That being said, it does have some merit in Sealed formats and Point-Buy formats, where Neo Genesis Sneasel may not always be an option.

With 60 HP and a free retreat cost, it's at least comparable to the legendary beasts as a pivot. It just loses several points from sharing a name with one of the most powerful cards ever printed.

Grade: 4/10

Houndoom's Black Fang would already have an average output of 45 damage just based on its energy requirements, but you can use Porygon2 and more copies of Darkness Energy to crank that damage up higher and higher.

As a result, Houndoom can actually hit very high damage numbers pretty quickly. Dark Flame is an interesting move for setting up, since it lets you keep Darkness Energy cards in play even if they were discarded.

Grade: 8/10

The Darkness-type will continue to mostly be the "Sneasel and Friends" type for the foreseeable future, but at least there's one solid option for every Darkness-type species now.

Still, I'm not going to pretend that Houndoom is as in-demand as the more powerful Neo Genesis Sneasel or the more popular Tyranitar and Umbreon. Houndoom and Murkrow have always occupied a strange space where they're neither the most powerful nor the most popular Darkness-types.