History of Furret in the TCG Pokemon Trading Card Game Overview!

What’s popping everybody, SaberWolf94 and welcome to a Pokemon TCG Overview on the Furret line. Whether you realize this or not, the Furret line is one of the most forgotten and neglected lines in terms of card prints and this can’t be understated seeing it’s one of the oldest pokemon debuting in generation 2 in the Johto region. Furret itself only has 9 different prints to its name, such a low amount that I had confidently guessed even newer similar lines must have more prints.

I wasn’t far from the truth, as I’ve verified Linoone and Bibarel have more prints and even Watchog with 7 cards is so close given it’s a gen 5 pokemon. Furret attained some fame during the wait for the Diamond and Pearl remakes with the random Furret on escalator meme that started, and then unsurprisingly even more Furret memes followed. Having said that I do want to take the chance to say I’ll NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, F***KING EVER forgive them for how they treated and handled the DP remakes but we’re gonna have to keep moving from that.

So yes. Very forgotten pokemon outside of the Furret on escalator memes at least in the tcg. I don’t think anyone’s gonna be surprised to know none of its cards were very good but maybe this aspect of neglect is what inspired me to cover it.

Its pre-evolution Sentret is also very simple to cover having no cards with any poke-powers, bodies or abilities or any Japanese exclusive cards. The earliest cards before Aquapolis had a psychic resistance, common for colorless pokemon back then, and many Sentret cards have attacks that reveal your opponent’s hand or scouting top cards from the deck, letting you grab a card from yours or arranging the order in your opponent’s case.

As for Furret, the first original print debuts fittingly in Neo Genesis with classy Ken Sugimori artwork. Bottom stats are fine for such a card, it only misses some slightly better HP, if not 80 at least 70 HP would have made it more decent but 60 is definitely on that low side. Considering Double Colorless Energy Quick Attack is a solid attack back then doing 20 with the chance of doing 30 on a coin flip. Here’s the problem…. Tauros from Jungle shares the same HP, same first attack and only a slightly worse retreat as just a basic pokemon. Its second attack is also more useful compared to Furret’s Slam attack, flipping more coins and on average doing 30 for 3. It wasn’t that special, especially when Hitmonchan and other fighting pokemon could threaten it.

Whitney’s Furret is the only Japanese exclusive card it gets from the Versus series and it isn’t really an improvement besides sharing the same 60 HP as a basic pokemon. Then again it also loses the psychic resistance so in the end the Neo Genesis one might still be better overall.

Aquapolis Furret is the only one with an effect through a poke-power but it’s underwhelming. You can shuffle 2 cards from your hand back in your deck to grab an energy card, objectively a big cost just to get an energy but it will allow you to get special energies too like DCE. It probably wouldn’t be too bad if the cost was only 1 card, or just let you grab only 1 basic energy for free every turn considering it has better HP and a consistent solid 30 for 2 compatible with DCE as well. We do need to keep in mind though that by this time the standards for cards were going up slightly as well.

The grand and epic ex era gave it 2 cards, an okay amount since it wasn’t a gen 3 pokemon I suppose with the first one in ex Team Rocket Returns. Stats are okay for a stage 1 in that period but the attacks are quite iffy. Quick Change does give you the amazing opportunity to grab 3 of any card in your deck but you have to put that many back from your hand first. It can still be useful given the nature of the era but it’s also true that there were many other cards more effective in fetching you cards. Quick Tail Smash isn’t an improvement over Aquapolis Furret and you could argue is even worse considering gen 3 was a newer format and you didn’t even have DCE like before. It does the same 30 for 2 and only gives you the chance to do 80 if you get heads. The problem is that this amazing damage has a drawback too, if you get Tails you do nothing instead. A straight 40 for 2 or just the chance to do 40 on a coin flip would have made it more consistent.

ex Legend Maker Furret is more workable as an attacker having a Do the Wave attack but as it maxes out at 60 and other pokemon can hit for that isn’t anything unique. Body Slam is also a standard coin flip attack with a chance for paralysis while doing a little bit of damage. Once again, if only Do the Wave started at 20 base damage instead of 10 it would have been more respectable. Since other pokemon can do 60 for 3, some of them more consistently even, this card doesn’t stand out much once again.

Gen 4 was the last time Furret would see more than 1 card in an era and Secret Wonders Furret might just be the best Furret card. 90 HP is a solid range for a stage 1 in that era seeing as some stage 1s still had 80 but Keen Eye is definitely the best aspect of this card. It allows you to grab any 2 cards from your deck and you don’t even need to commit an energy for this attack. Seeing as you have to use your attack this certainly isn’t the fastest method to grab cards but could definitely be workable depending on your deck. You also get additional merit from Baton Pass doing a solid 40 for 2 with the option to hit and switch to a new pokemon. This will also move all energies to Furret on the new active pokemon, letting you power up a new pokemon quicker but putting that new pokemon in harms way too.

It technically still counts as energy conservation though if Furret can’t afford to remain active anymore, at least you can still use its energies on a different pokemon.

Unfortunately Furret from HGSS is a common case of a worse print than a predecessor in the same era. It’s so blatant here too, worse HP weakness updated to times 2, an objectively WORSE searching attack and even a worse second attack. What the hell.

13 years later after this card Furret would only see 2 more cards as of now skipping gen 5 and gen 7 completely. The first one is Furret from Flashfire and you don’t have to be a deep thinker to draw a conclusion here. No improvement in terms of stats, in eras where all regular pokemon got neglected and both attacks are really bad.

Darkness Ablaze Furret is the last and latest card it has and it was also designed and printed as filler, with no regard of the format and all the power rule box pokemon have. At 110 HP in the Sword and Shield era this card always get KOed with almost any attack, using Feeling Fine to draw 3 cards is too slow and Tail Smash is an insulting joke considering even if it did a consistent 90 for 1 this wouldn’t have been a top meta card. That’s what we learnt from Vivid Voltage Donphan and I’ll never stop saying that.

I suppose being dominant in the realm of pokemon memes is what Furret is about now but it would be good if it could see some really good cards eventually; I mean if they can give some to Bibarel they can give something to Furret too. Thank you guys for reading this tcg overview and I’ll see you guys on the next one.

Originally Written in 2023

And there you have it, all the Furret cards ever printed, no special cards or promos, not really any high tier meta cards and only one Japanese exclusive card. Out of the other pokemon I reviewed in this series Furret now easily holds the record as the weakest card, even Dewgong and Skarmory had more to show than this.