Arceus VSTAR leads a pack of stellar cards that will be making their way to decks everywhere.
By Ellis Longhurst, Contributing Writer
With the launch of the
Pokémon TCG: Sword & Shield—Brilliant
Stars expansion,
it’s a good time to take a look at which new cards are going to light up the
battlefield. This set introduces players to Pokémon VSTAR, which evolve from Pokémon
V and have unique VSTAR Powers. Prepare to be dazzled by VSTAR Powers—they create
such incredible effects that you can only use one per game. The set also
includes a variety of other exciting Pokémon, Trainer cards, and Energy cards
that will illuminate some decks—and leave others in the dark. Read on to find
out which cards shine brightest in Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars.
The legend of Arceus continues
in the Pokémon TCG with the new Arceus VSTAR.
This Pokémon has a huge 280 HP and boasts a powerful attack: Trinity Nova does 200
damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon and enables the player to search their
deck for up to 3 basic Energy cards to attach to their Pokémon V in any way
they like. There’s a lot to love about this attack—you could even say it’s out
of this world.
Trinity Nova has an
attack cost of three Colorless Energy, which means Arceus VSTAR can use any
type of basic Energy or the new Double Turbo Energy.
And while it doesn’t do enough damage to take down the biggest opponents,
Trinity Nova can Knock Out supporting two-Prize Pokémon like Lumineon V or Crobat V in one hit, while also preparing
your Pokémon V on the Bench to attack.
If the going gets
tough, Arceus VSTAR can get going with some help from the new Cheren’s Care Supporter card. Unlike
Scoop Up Net, Cheren’s
Care puts all cards attached to Arceus VSTAR into your hand. This is an
effective way to recover and re-allocate limited resources like Double Turbo
Energy and the new Choice Belt Tool
card.
Arceus VSTAR is also
valued for its VSTAR Power, which is perhaps the most impressive of its kind in
Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars. The Starbirth Ability enables the
player to search their deck for up to two cards and put them into their hand.
Find your situational tech cards, guarantee a Supporter card for the turn, or
piece together a Knock Out—you can do it all with Starbirth.
This VSTAR Power is so
useful that players may include Arceus VSTAR in their deck just to use its
effect. The challenge for players will be to determine the best partner Pokémon
for Arceus VSTAR.
Once you dive into Sword
& Shield—Brilliant Stars, it would seem rather fishy if Lumineon V didn’t get its turn in
the spotlight. Excitement surrounds its Luminous Sign Ability, and many players
expect this Pokémon to feature in a variety of decks.
When Lumineon V is
played onto the Bench, Luminous Sign enables the player to search their deck
for a Supporter card. Playing Supporter cards is often crucial to a deck’s
winning strategy, so being able to access them at the right time is very
important. For example, Lumineon V can find the new Gloria
Supporter card at the beginning of the game to put loads of Pokémon into
play, or search for Boss’s Orders
to target the opponent’s Pokémon for the final Knock Out.
Lumineon V is a Basic Pokémon,
which means it can be splashed into any deck that includes Pokémon search cards
like Quick Ball or Ultra Ball. Both of these are
popular Trainer cards, so don’t be surprised if Lumineon V appears on the
battlefield alongside different types of Pokémon.
Longtime fans of the Pokémon
TCG may recognize the effect of Lumineon V’s Luminous Sign because it’s essentially
the same as Tapu Lele-GX‘s
Wonder Tag Ability and Jirachi-EX‘s
Stellar Guidance Ability. Tapu Lele-GX and Jirachi-EX were
played widely to great success and shaped the way decks were built in their
respective eras. Without Lumineon V in your deck, you might end up feeling like
a fish out of water.
Manaphy proves that you don’t
need a Rule Box to be a superstar. This 70-HP Basic Pokémon has an Ability that
will force the top decks to adjust their strategy, and empower players to
explore combinations with single-Prize Pokémon. What an influencer!
Manaphy’s Wave Veil Ability
prevents all damage done to your Benched Pokémon by attacks from your opponent’s
Pokémon. This causes problems for decks that rely on attacks to soften up
Benched Pokémon or take two Knock Outs in one turn, such as Jolteon VMAX‘s Max Thunder Rumble
and Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX‘s
G-Max Rapid Flow.
On the other flipper, Manaphy
creates an opportunity for decks that focus on single-Prize Pokémon to shine. These
Pokémon usually have fewer Hit Points than Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX, but the
trade-off is that they give up fewer Prize cards when Knocked Out. Wave Veil
maintains this balance by preventing the opponent from taking two Prize cards with
damage from one attack.
This is particularly
important for decks that use evolved Pokémon like Malamar,
Flaaffy, or Alcremie, because Wave Veil protects the Basic Pokémon on the
Bench in the turn before they can evolve.
What’s really cool is
that Wave Veil’s effect applies for as long as Manaphy is on the field, and
there are loads of commonly played Trainer cards that can search Manaphy from
the deck. Now that Manaphy is on the scene, players who enjoy doing damage to
their opponent’s Benched Pokémon had better rethink their strategy.
It might be called Roseanne’s Backup, but this card will help any deck keep moving forward. There’s a lot
of text on the card, but it’s well worth the read. This Supporter retrieves one
or more of the following from the discard pile and shuffles them into the deck:
a Pokémon, a Pokémon Tool card, a Stadium card, and an Energy card.
All strategies revolve
around Pokémon, and many decks use Pokémon Tool cards like Choice
Belt and Stadium cards like Path to the Peak
to create an advantage. Recovering these cards from the discard pile
using Roseanne’s Backup is one way to keep the pressure on the opponent.
Roseanne’s Backup is
also the only Trainer card that can recover a Special Energy card from the
discard pile. This is really important since most of the decks currently
dominating online competitions use Special Energy. In fact, it is not uncommon
to find more Special Energy in a deck than basic Energy. For example, the
popular Fusion Strike decks rely on four copies of Fusion Strike Energy to set up Mew VMAX and Meloetta
for powerful attacks. Roseanne’s Backup makes it much more challenging
for the opponent to permanently remove all the Fusion Strike Energy from play.
Roseanne’s Backup is
particularly effective in the Fusion Strike deck because it includes Genesect V, which can draw the cards
that were shuffled back into the deck using its Fusion Strike System Ability. The
same is true for decks that use other Pokémon with card-drawing Abilities, such
as the new Bibarel and Liepard from Sword &
Shield—Brilliant Stars.
Try not to be deceived
by the way it looks—Collapsed Stadium
is a five-star location. When this new Stadium is on the field, neither
player can have more than four Benched Pokémon—and if someone already does, at
the time this card is played, they have to discard the extras.
There are plenty of opponents
who will want to scratch Collapsed Stadium off their destination list. This Stadium
is highly disruptive to some popular strategies. For example, Eternatus VMAX relies on having
loads of Pokémon in play to maximize the damage done by its Dread End attack, and
the Fusion Strike decks need as many Fusion Strike Pokémon in play as possible
to take full advantage of Genesect V’s Fusion Strike System Ability. Collapsed
Stadium also significantly reduces the amount of damage that Suicune V and the new Entei V and Raikou V can do with their
attacks.
What’s more, Collapsed
Stadium provides the opportunity to deny the opponent Prize cards by removing
heavily damaged Pokémon or low-HP single-use Pokémon V, like Crobat V and
Lumineon V, from play. This is a great way to undo the damage that has been
spread across the battlefield by an opponent’s Jolteon VMAX, Inteleon, or Rapid Strike Urshifu
VMAX.
Keep in mind that the
effect of Collapsed Stadium applies to both players, so definitely consider how
it will impact both your strategy and your opponent’s strategy. One
thing is certain: when this card is in play, fun is to be had.
This is just a glimmer
of the stellar cards available in the new Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars
expansion. With over 170 new cards to collect, including four brand-new Pokémon
VSTAR, 20 Pokémon V, and three Pokémon VMAX, there are plenty of other exciting
combinations and strategies to explore. Do you have what it takes to light up
the competition?
Look for more Pokémon TCG strategy and analysis at Pokemon.com/Strategy.
About the Writer
Ellis Longhurst
Ellis Longhurst is a contributing writer covering Play! Pokémon events for Pokemon.com. She has been competing in high-level Pokémon TCG tournaments since 2006, and creating written content for the Pokémon community since 2011. Ellis now brings an Australian flavour to the Play! Pokémon broadcasting and stream teams at the International and World Championships competitions.
Source: Pokemon
