Koga – Genetic Apex
Date Reviewed: January 08, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
We’re still playing catch-up with the Pokémon TCG Pocket. Genetic Apex is the “base set” of the Pokémon TCG Pocket, and at 225 unique cards, it’s so large we’re going to do a separate Top 4 countdown of the Trainer cards, then a Top 10 for the Pokémon!
Koga (Genetic Apex 222/228, 269/228) is the fourth best Trainer of Genetic Apex! He lets you return your Active Muk or Weezing to your hand. Not a Benched Muk or Weezing. Not a Grimer or Koffing. The Grimer or Koffing under the Muk or Koffing are returned to your hand. If Pocket ever gets something like a Muk ex or Weezing ex, Koga won’t work on them (the names are different).
What makes Koga good? Mostly by bouncing Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226). I won’t go into detail, as this card will receive its own review sooner or later. The short version is that this Weezing has a great Ability, good HP (for a Stage 1), but a so-so attack and chunky Retreat Cost of (CCC). You can attack with Weezing, but you’ll probably want to use it to Poison your opponent’s Active, maybe soak an attack, then get out of the way for your preferred attacker.
If you can afford to manually retreat Weezing at full price, something has gone very, very wrong for either you or your opponent. You could use Leaf and/or X Speed to lower Weezing’s Retreat Cost, but you’ll need one of each to avoid having to discard any Energy and you still burned your Supporter for the turn. Koga is better, and from what I’ve seen (and tried myself), decks using Weezing will run all three if they can, but if they can’t they prioritize Koga.
What about other targets for Koga? There’s also Muk (Genetic Apex 175/226) and Weezing (Mythical Island 050/068). Again, we’ll review these Pokémon sooner or later. The short version is they’re both also Stage 1 (D) Pokémon with good HP scores and that same troubling Retreat Cost of (C)(C)(C). Muk has a three Energy attack that does good (not great) damage if your opponent’s Active is Poisoned. Weezing has a two Energy attack that does “okay” damage, but forces the Pokémon it attacked to flip a coin if it tries to attack the next turn.
Muk has seen a little competitive success, but Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226) gets used with other attackers as well, and seems to be doing better. I haven’t noticed any decks using Weezing (Mythical Island 050/068), and when I tried it, it didn’t impress. Relevant to Koga, this means its usefulness and influence on the current metagame is mostly from Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226). Even if you run either Muk or the other Weezing alongside it, you’ll still usually use Koga on Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226).
Since I keep bringing it up, there’s a card named “Koga” in the full TCG, but its an old one. Koga (Gym Challenge 19/132, 106/132) predates the Supporter mechanic, so it functions like an Item card. Its effect states, until the end of the turn, attacks from Pokémon with “Koga” in their name that do damage to the Defending Pokémon will Poison the Defending Pokémon as well.
A Pocket compatible version would probably be a Supporter that only worked for Pokémon named “Muk” or “Weezing”. Yes, in Gen 1 (let alone other games and the TCG), Koga used other Pokémon, but look at the Koga card we actually got. The effect would otherwise be similar; until the end of that turn, your opponent’s Active would become Poisoned if it was damaged by an attack from your Muk or Weezing. Weezing (Mythical Island 050/068) would enjoy that, but Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226) already can Poison via its Ability. Muk’s attack wants the opponent’s Active Poisoned before Muk damages it, not after, to trigger its extra damage.
Rating: 3.25/5
This may not seem like a promising start, but Koga is a proven card. It is just that Koga’s success is as much due to himself as it is due to Weezing (Genetic Apex 177/226, 243/226), and I take that into account when scoring cards. Koga still has a lot of potential, even though he only works with cards named “Muk” or “Weezing”. While I wish he also worked with cards named “Grimer” and “Koffing”, he’d be absurdly powerful if he worked with any Pokémon, and probably too good if he worked for all (D) Types.
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