With the release of Team Up next week I wanted to take a look at what cards you might want to keep an eye out on and save spaces in your binder, as they could start sneaking into decks as tech options or have their own archetypes built round the card itself. I will be analysing each card and why they can be useful in decks or possible archetypes coming out within the Meta. Before we get into these 10 cards, I would like to make an honourable mention about cards which were not quite able to make the list.
Honourable Mentions: Charizard and Blastoise
Charizard is a card which I think will see quite a bit of play for anyone who wants to play a fun deck. It loads energies onto itself so it can attack and can hit quite large numbers, which I believe makes it too good to put on the underrated list for Team Up. The ability reads, once during your turn (before your attack), you may put 2 damage counters on this Pokémon. If you do, search your deck for up to 2 Fire Energy cards and attach them to this Pokémon. Then, shuffle your deck. It does make Charizard weaker to Pokémon which can hit the 130 number quite easily and cause you issues on chaining your attackers throughout the game but I can imagine you can play some form of healing especially going into the new format which can keep this card at 150 hp after using the ability. Being able to find energies with ease from your deck is incredibly good and where the card is its own engine as long as you get Charizard into play you will for certain be able to attack. The attack does 30+ and discard all Energy from this Pokémon. This attack does 50 more damage for each card you discarded in this way. Which is crazy good with the ability I can imagine a lot of hype around a Charizard that might actually be playable.
Blastoise is a card which has an ability which I believe is equally as good in the majority of water decks as quite a few rely on having a lot of water energy in play with cards like Quagsire and Lapras GX needing multiple energy to be able to attack. With the new Wailord & Magikarp Tag Team GX this could be a really good synergy. The ability is Once during your turn (before your attack), you may look at the top 6 cards of your deck and attach any number of water Energy cards you find there to your Pokémon in any way you like. Shuffle the other cards back into your deck. This helps accelerate the energy from your deck into play a lot more fluently which adds a new dynamic to water decks as with both Naganadel and Aqua Patches usually you want to be discarding as many water energy early on in the deck. With this card I can see much more increased energy counts than we have done before and I can see a form of WaterBox type deck with the amount of tech options available to the type in the current moment. The attack is not great with the amount of energy being needed being easily achieved but lacks the damage which can take it to the next level. 180 with a choice band is only really effective against Basic GX Pokémon plus it then does damage to itself which makes it easier to knock out.
Now onto the 10 most underrated cards of the set in my eyes which can at some stage shake up the meta when we have a fully established format once Team Up has been released and the first few Internationals and Regionals have been played.
10. Spiritomb
With the addition of this Spiritomb, it gives the Pokémon TCG a mechanic which has been lost since the days of Black and White cards. The attack for a single colourless energy is to discard 4 Pokémon from your deck. This is basically a battle compressor for your Pokémon and means that you are able to thin your deck early of tech Pokémon you may not need to be able to continue setting up a lot more consistently or in the later game be able to draw into cards you need. The difference is that it uses an attacker rather than the easier use of an item card, this is true for the majority of not being able to pressure your opponent but I think there are a few good tools in which we can incorporate with this card such as the Black Market Prism stadium which means your opponent will not take a prize against you while using this ability. As well it provides you an opportunity to basically attack and not worry about losing the game if in the later stages. With there being a new Zoroark as well in the meta, which has a similar attack to Vespiqueens Bee Revenge, 20x the amount of Pokémon in your discard pile, it can lead to an archtype which is incredibly powerful early on as it can be in the late game. My main issue with Zoroark is that it needs two energy attachments to get going and with a format without any really strong dark acceleration, its not going to see a great deal of play, but with Spiritomb it makes it a lot more viable.9. Cobalion GX
This is a card which I think could be quite splash-able in a few decks due to the GX move and in metal decks it will be a very good bench sitter, when I first saw the card it reminded me of how good Magearna EX was in most decks. The ability which has my interest is read As long as this Pokémon is in play, your Pokémon with Metal Energy attached can’t be affected by Special Conditions. Remove all Special Conditions on those Pokemon. In the future meta this would help against decks like Koko/PoisonBarb, Celebi/Venusaur Tag Team and Blacephalon, which all have special conditions involved within one of their attacks. This means your Pokémon will not take any extra damage with Poison and Burn or be able to be stalled out through Confusion, Sleep and Paralysis if the meta decides to go into a special condition format. Having this on your bench does take up room for other attackers or even Tapu Lele’s but I think it outweighs any form of negative points against itself and changes them to be positive when it saves you against these decks which will look to take advantage of conditions in the game. The GX attack is very good as it allows you another turn to get set up and ready to hopefully take a lead in a prize race either early or later game. The attack is during your opponent’s next turn, none of your opponent’s Pokémon can attack (including newly played Pokémon). (You can’t use more than 1 GX attack in a game.). Which this attack costs a single colourless energy which increases its splash-ability. Overall this can fit extremely well in decks that run Rainbow and Metal Energy and stops usage of a growing mechanic in the meta.8. Emolga
This Emolga is my soft spot pick, hear me out before you skip past this Paragraph! If I told you that it can be used to help set up your board, early and late game, help in keeping energy in play and is a free retreater, surely this is an absolutely fantastic card? Yeah thats right I am talking about Raichu GX and Snuggly Generator. Ever since the Pachirisu came out I have loved the deck and wanted it to be good although with no Nuzzle Pikachu being in the format it has taken a back seat. That has been until the single pack blister promos from this set, which sees our favourite electric mouse come back with that Nuzzle attack. Emolga’s ability is once during your turn (before your attack), you may search your deck for a Pokémon that has the Nuzzle attack, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck. This means that when you get a nest ball you can theoretically search for two Pokémon rather than one with the use of the ability. This helps with the set up needed for this deck to fully come into fruition. With Exp. Shares and the Nuzzle attack on itself it can prove to be a very much needed card within the archetype to give it a much needed boost. 7. Alolan Muk
The card itself is incredibly good at increasing the amount of items your opponent has in their discard pile as well as disrupting their top deck. With the ability on the Alolan Muk, when you play this Pokemon from your hand to evolve 1 of your Pokémon during your turn, you may look at the top 6 cards of your opponent’s deck and discard as many Item cards you find there as you like. Then, shuffle the remaining cards into your opponent’s deck. This is good for three main reasons and why it features so far down the list compared to other cards because it helps decks out in numerous ways. The first being the obvious synergy with Garbodor and getting items in your opponents decks, increasing the damage being done to your opponents active Pokémon which can be the difference between a knockout and whiffing. The second reason being a disruption for your opponent, if you can get it out early enough in the game it hopes to stop your opponent gaining resources which they can either gain an advantage with or finish getting set up with cards like ultra balls, Pokémon Communication and Mysterious Treasure. The final reason why I think it is good is it stops Magcargo coming into play as much, if your opponent sets up their top deck you know that once you look at their cards you are disrupting their gameplay, especially if they have no way to physically draw the card during their turn from a draw supporter or ability. You will need to find a good way to keep picking up the card over and over, Nanu might be a good way to do this. 6. Farfetch’d
This card just misses out on breaking into the Top 5 as it generally delivers on something which I think going forward is a very good counter to Tool-Reliant decks. This is going to increasingly see more play with Tool Drop being released in this set as well. It is splash-able in all decks as it is a colourless Pokémon therefore it can simply be a one of in most decks. The attack I am talking about is for a single colourless and for 20+ damage, before doing damage, discard all Pokémon Tool cards attached to the opponent’s Active Pokémon. If you discard any cards, this attack does 70 more damage. Which hits perfectly onto a Doublade for a knockout, which is a single prized Pokémon and allows you to keep up in the race with multiple Rescue Stretchers you can continuously attack and trade. With a Choice Band of its own you can be hitting 120 onto GX Pokémon which can make Tag Teams two hit knockouts. This card is crazy good with the amount of Tools that we are being being released it would not surprise me even if we see a deck solely around the Farfetch’d.5. Ninetales
Who doesn’t love a gusting ability? I mean Lycanroc GX has seen so much play over the last two seasons and it just gets better and better so surely a single prized version with a small cost to play can step in and run the show, right? The ability reads once during your turn (before your attack), you may discard 2 [R] Energy cards from your hand. Then, choose 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon and switch it with his or her Active Pokémon. This can synergies really well with the new Flareon GX coming out in Tins next month and you can easily get energy into your hand via Energy Retrieval, Lady and Fisherman I think that there is a lot to like about this card. It reminds me a lot of Volcanion Prism which has seen play quite a lot in the past few months within water decks and with this ability on the Nineties fuelling the damage of Victini Prism I feel that a compilation of the cards could prove very successful at some point in the future meta. Gusting abilities have always been very strong.4. Beedrill
Beedrill has always been one of my favourite Pokémon since I have been younger which is quite ironic considering I absolutely hate bees. Although this bee does pack a very large punch in the form of its first attack. This attack can only be used when this Pokémon has damage counters on it. Both Active Pokémon are Knocked Out. Which I personally believe that this deck is going to be the next Greninja Break deck. It has an incredibly powerful Kakuna which has the water duplicate attack on it for a single grass energy. I can see it being incorporated with Shedinja by stopping your opponent taking prizes as much as you can as when you knock out your own Beedrill your opponent will not be able to take a prize card. If you can stream this constantly and play extremely tactically against other single-prized decks this could be a top contender for the replacement of our fallen frog prince.3. Lycanroc GX
With the amount of Lycanroc cards we have in the format I think this has to be the nearest to a playable card since the release of the Guardians Rising Bloodthirsty Eyes Lycanroc we got nearly two years ago now. The card has great synergy with itself and possibly if the meta forecast is right we could see a very interesting deck come out similar to the Alolan Persian/Lycanroc deck which has seen some success out in Japan. The ability of the card is when you play this card from your hand to evolve a Pokémon during your turn, you may discard an Energy from your opponent’s Active Pokémon. This means any Special energy which your opponent might play is discarded and any other energy is easily removed by this card. This stops your opponents set up quite drastically putting them an energy attachment behind on that turn unless they have a way of accelerating energy into play. The attack does a solid 120 damage which hits for weakness against cards such as Zoroark GX and Pikachu/Zekrom Tag Team, which are incredibly strong archetypes continuing to develop in the meta coming up. Although what I really like is the GX attack, this attack does 30 damage times the number of Energy cards in your opponent’s discard pile. (You can’t use more than 1 GX attack in a game). If you are discarding energy from your opponents Pokémon you are fuelling this GX attack to hit larger and stronger numbers. With Acerola and Super Scoop Up we could see this card getting a lot of play in the near future.2. Starmie
This card comes in at number 2 but it could easily be classes as one of the best cards in the set. It is an energy accelerator, free retreater, early game attacker and all for a single energy. It has been one of my favourite cards to come out of the set and inspired me to make this top 10. The only attack the card has allows you to search your deck for up to 3 water or psychic Energy cards and attach them to 1 of your Benched Pokémon. Then, shuffle your deck. I think this is as strong as Malamar and Naganadel, it allows you to get energy out of your deck which can sometimes be hard to find with the consistency of Malamar lists. I think there will be a 1-1 to a 2-2 line introduced into these decks a it allows you to get these energies into play onto a single prized attacker and then use Malamar to get them back from the discard once it goes down. The card also does 40 damage to which it can hit psychic-weak Pokémon for 80 or 140 with a choice band with weakness. It also is a free retreater which makes less need for cards like Escape Board as you can easily retreat it out into a fully charged Pokémon and knockout which is something that these Malamar decks have always struggled with which is why most play 4/5 cards which enable switching in the standard format currently. This I think is a game changer for the format and has relatively gone under the radar. 1. Persian
Finally my number one card from this set that I believe to be incredibly underrated is Persian, this is due to how much it can disrupt your opponents play no matter what deck they are playing. If they have a large number of cards in their hand you can completely diminish it to 4 cards and they can be non playable as you chose which ones they discard. The attack itself reads if your opponent has 4 or cards in their hand, they reveal their hand. Discard cards you find there until your opponent has exactly 4 cards in their hand. I think this will see a lot of play as a Ditto evolution similar to how Alolan Muk has seen play, as it will be a tech option against Mill and decks who draw a lot of cards. I am hoping this causes an end to these Unown HAND decks which have been emerging in the format meaning stall decks will not emerge as much in the next quarter. I think this card has not been spoken about as much as it should be due to the impact of a card like Marshadow has in disrupting your opponent on the early turns, I think its quite a balanced card overall because its an attack rather than an ability. I would not be surprised to see it make an introduction at the Oceana Internationals.
Thanks for reading my Top 10 Underrated cards, I hope that some of these cards have given you inspiration for builds with some of your favourite cards in the current format and once Team Up comes out. I am traveling to my local shop this weekend for a pre release so I look forward to pulling some of these cards so that I can start experimenting with them. Let me know what your top 10’s are from the set and what cards you are looking forward to!
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Charlie
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