Neo Genesis Sneasel is one of the infamous cards in the Pokemon Trading Card Game but seems weak by today’s standard. A re-release in HGSS Undaunted made no waves. However, that raises the question “Why was Neo Genesis Sneasel Banned?”
What does the card do?
Sneasel is a basic pokemon which means that you can play it as your first pokemon, and it can be played anytime you have free bench space. Sneasel is a Dark-type pokemon that has 60 health points. However, the card has no weakness and no retreat cost. Besides that, Sneasel also has a resistance against psychic pokemon.
The first attack is Fury Swipes which requires one energy of any type. The player flips 3 coins, and the attack does 10 damage times the number of heads. However, it gets crazy with the second attack Beat Up. Beat Up is a two-dark energy attack that requires the player to flip coins for each one of your pokemon in play including Sneasel. The attack then does 20 damage times the number of heads.
Why Beat Up is broken
Darkness Energy does 10 additional damage to the opposing pokemon which means Beat Up always does 20 damage. If you have 6 pokemon in play then you should on average do about 80 damage overall. However, the best case scenario is that you do 140 damage.
Pokemon in this era had a whole lot less health, and this will knock out most pokemon in the game. However, this is worse when you realize that this can be done on Turn 2. This also means you can win the game on Turn 2 if your opponent has a bad opening.
This does require you to create a full bench of pokemon in order to see the full potential. Despite this, it was a very easy task as good support pokemon were in abundance. Slowking and Cleffa are probably the most infamous.
Why isn’t the card still banned?
Rarely are cards from 15-plus years ago still good in any game. While plenty of those exists in Yugioh in spades that is rarely true in Pokemon.
The problem with this card is that putting two pieces of energy on a card to potentially do 140 damage is not that great. Basic Pokemon that can do the same thing with 3 times the health are available in expanded. This card is a relic of the early days of the Pokemon TCG.