The Slowking that was released as a part of Neo Genesis became one the most dominant cards in the game. This led to it being banned, but the story is more than just a great ability. However, it does bring up the question of why is Neo Genesis Slowking Banned?
What does Slowking do?
Slowking is Stage 1 pokemon that requires you to have a slowpoke to evolve from. Slowking is a psychic type with a weakness to the same type. Despite this, Slowking only has 80 hp which wasn’t too good even at this time period. Beyond that, Slowking has one attack and retreat cost of three colorless energy.
The one attack this pokemon has requires three psychic energy that is not really worth getting into. It is pretty bad. The pokemon power is the thing that people use the card for.
Pokemon Power with a bad translation
The Pokemon Power is pretty simple. Whenever your opponent plays a Trainer card, you may flip a coin. If heads, that card does nothing. Put it on top of your opponent’s deck, but this power can’t be used if Slowking is Asleep, Confused, or Paralyzed. This is an amazing ability, but that is because it is mistranslated.
The Japanese release includes the stipulation that this can only be used if Slowking is the active pokemon. This means that this pokemon becomes a ridiculously good support pokemon. However, this means that you can have multiple Slowkings on your bench.
This means that at most your opponent would have to flip four coins in order to use any trainer card. This means that your opponent could have all search or draw engines cut off in a couple of turns. This card has insanely good Synergy with Sneasel from the same set.
The Ban and Errata
This card became the last card to be banned until Lysandre’s Last Stand in 2015. A mistranslation or a careless translation completely destroyed the game for a brief period of time. However, this card got an errata that makes it similar to the original Japanese version.