Neo Revelation Review - Fire

Neo Revelation was the set that introduced the Johto legendary 'mons in full force, and nowhere is this clearer than in the Fire-types. The trend of acceleration and powerful attacks that require discards continues, and this would pretty much remain the standard for Fire-types from this point forward.

Despite being such a small set, the Fire-type really was revolutionized by the inclusion of a couple of meta-defining cards.

Slugma is a reasonable evolving Basic, even if its attacks are just a little bit underwhelming. The high retreat cost is really annoying, but you're probably going to avoid putting it in the active spot if you can.

Its ability to do 20 damage to Jungle Mr. Mime can sometimes come up, since Fire-type Evolution cards typically struggle to do less than 30 damage. More importantly, it evolves into a great Stage 1.

Grade: 5/10

Magcargo is an awesome attacker. Lava Flow does uncapped damage, so you can comfortably adjust it based on the needs of the moment. The fact that every extra energy attached to it can basically be traded in for an effect equivalent to two Pluspowers is wild.

It's routinely paired with Typhlosion or Entei for acceleration and can hit very, very hard when it needs to.

Grade: 9/10

Entei (lv 38) is primarily used to accelerate other Fire-types, such as the Magcargo above. It's virtually unrivalled in that role, although you do need to purposely play a deck with around 30ish Fire Energy cards to get the most out of it.

But it's very, very much worth the downside. There are a lot of ways to turn extra Fire Energy cards into huge damage quickly.

Grade: 10/10

Entei (lv 24) is a rare example of a Fire-type Basic with both high HP and a free retreat cost. It's occasionally used as a pivot in Fire decks, but it's far from mandatory since you could just run more Babies instead.

Legendary Body is a weirdly niche effect. There are a few useful effects it can block, like Energy Removal, but it also means you can't support it with cards like Pluspower. I would've rather had a second attack, to be honest.

Grade: 6/10

Ho-oh was clearly designed to be flashy for kids. The big numbers, big energy costs, and three attacks scream "powerhouse" when you're ten years old.

Unfortunately, everything it actually does requires a coin flip outside of Stoke. You could use Stoke alongside Gather Fire from the Team Rocket Charmander to potentially charge up a Charizard or Dark Charizard, I suppose. But this is nowhere near the best Fire-types.

Grade: 6/10

At this point in time, the Fire-type finally felt fully realized. While the burn status hadn't been added to the game yet, the typical gameplay loop of attaching energy quickly and then spending it all on damage had been firmly established.

It's worth noting that Ho-oh was much better in Japan, where they had a Promo Charizard that functioned like a much stronger version of the Team Rocket Charmander.