Neo Revelation Review - Grass

Neo Revelation features some pretty solid Evolution cards for the Grass-type. They're mostly species we've seen before, but the overall power level is decent.

This is also the debut of Celebi, although it didn't exactly meet expectations.

This is the best Zubat card in any of the Neo formats and it's pretty definitive. Having free retreat and the ability to inflict guaranteed poison on the first turn are both really solid qualities.

While it does have low HP, that's the only complaint you can realistically have about it. On top of that, several Evolution cards related to it are solid, especially when you start getting into the dark bats.

Grade: 6/10

None of the Golbat cards that existed at the time were especially great, but this is probably the best one. It's frail and has poor damage output, but at least its attacks are cheap and it has free retreat.

I'd honestly rather skip over it with Breeder whenever it's an option, though. Poison Bite can steal HP and inflict poison in a single move, which is nice.

Grade: 4/10

Crobat is awesome. It has free retreat on a decently bulky body and can attack right away with Triggered Poison, even if you rush to evolve.

But obviously the real selling point is Cross Attack. It does an average of 40 damage and has a surprisingly high chance to inflict confusion. The reliance on confusion does mean that it'll inevitably lose some matches due to coin luck, though, so it's never going to be on par with the best Stage 2 cards.

Grade: 7/10

Paras is pretty bad. It's frail, needs a DCE to actually do damage on the first turn, and can only inflict sleep on a coin flip. It's pretty hard to find redeeming qualities here, even if it is a very slight improvement over the original Paras.

The ability to hit grass-weak 'mons for 40 damage might come up every now and then, but it's ultimately a bad Basic that you'd only play if you absolutely needed it for its Evolution.

Grade: 2/10

Parasect mainly exists to shut down decks reliant on the discard pile, at least if you play it the way it was meant to be played.

But due to a small mistranslation, people played it in Feraligatr decks to get the damage boost on Riptide without shuffling their energies back into the deck. The irony is that Parasect was supposed to be a counter to Feraligatr. But it's usable both pre-errata and post-errata, for different reasons.

Grade: 6/10

Jumpluff decks basically require you to max out on the older Skiploom card, since the poison damage helps with your relatively low damage output. This card is perfectly fine, mostly carried by the free retreat cost and efficient attacks, but there's no incentive to actually use it.

It would probably get an average or above average score if it had a different deck to fit into, but I really can't think of a single use-case.

Grade: 3/10

You would think this Jumpluff would be a no-brainer due to Evolutionary Spore, but in practice it's almost always better to keep spamming Solarbeam. It does have very solid damage output, but Genesis Jumpluff is good at annoying the opponent with Leech Seed and Sleep Powder.

Ultimately I think the two cards are very comparable. They're both excellent Stage 2 cards, though, as long as you keep poison applied with Genesis Skiploom.

Grade: 7/10

Celebi is pretty underwhelming, especially for a card that represents a mythical Pokémon. Its HP is terrible and it can't attack on the first turn. It really feels like they designed this card to be a collectible, but it's frustrating that such an important 'mon debuted with a weak card.

If the opponent has 4 energy attached, Psychic Leaf does an average of 30 damage and removes 30 damage from Celebi. So your big payoff is just Base Golbat's Leech Life?

Grade: 2/10

Crobat and Jumpluff decks are absolutely a thing, but this is just another group of Grass-types that added to the card pool without stirring the pot. The metagame wouldn't have been very different if these cards had never existed.

Parasect was the hardest one to rank, due to the mistranslation, but ultimately it's either one of the best counters to Feraligatr or one of the best supporters for Feraligatr. So it ends up being a net neutral.