It's a key card in 20 combos
310.4b A battle has the intrinsic ability This permanent enters the battlefield with a number of defense counters on it equal to its printed defense number. This ability creates a replacement effect (see rule 614.1c)
You keep in burn spells in case they are able to stabilize with Root Snares vs
Pokmon Original Partner cards: Release date and what to expect from the 30th anniversary set We all start somewhere
So you can potentially see unhealthy combos like that arising again with things like Shiftry (NXD 72/99) from Next Destinies, or Vileplume from Ancient Origins, or Exeggutor (PLF 5/116) from Plasma Freeze, which are all just incredible Grass-type Pokemon that are held back by the fact that they're Stage 1 or Stage 2, which is a good way to cripple a card -- or to balance a card, I should say -- to give it a really strong ability, but you make it a Stage 1 or Stage 2, and it's slower
To discover if it's a first edition, look at the bottom right corner of any card for a bright gold Eye of Anubis symbol