"Burning Shadows" Expansion Adds a Ton of Punch to Pokemon Trading Card Game

The Pokemon Trading Card Game’s latest expansion, “Burning Shadows,” might be the most impressive set to come out in several years. Not only do most of the cards look gorgeous, there’s several “must have” cards that will be used for years to come by elite trainers.

For those unfamiliar with the Pokemon Trading Card Game, or TCG for short, the Pokemon Company releases a new expansion every three months or so. Each expansion comes with a ton of new cards, plus several theme decks to help newer players jump right into battle.

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The cool thing about “Burning Shadows” is that there’s not just one “must have” card in the new expansion. There are several new cards that players can build a deck around, or simply collect because they look amazing.

There’s too many cards to list off, but here’s a few of our favorites from the new set:

Gardevoir-GX

There’s a lot of great cards in “Burning Shadows,” but the card most players are looking forward to using is Gardevoir-GX. This new card comes with a whopping 230 HP, which means that it won’t get knocked out by most single attacks.

What makes Gardevoir-GX really frightening is its normal attack Infinite Force. Infinite Force does 30 damage times the number of energy attached to both active Pokemon. When coupled with Gardevoir-GX’s ability to attach an extra Fairy Energy per turn, Gardevoir can do a lot of damage in a hurry.

Like all GX cards, Gardevoir-GX has a special GX-move that can be used once per game. Gardevoir’s move is called Twilight and allows a player to shuffle 10 cards from their discard pile back into their deck. That means that a player can reuse a lot of items and energy cards twice.

Necrozma-GX

Necrozma-GX is one of those cards created to be a counter to popular decks. Necrozma-GX’s special ability makes it immune to all “Colorless” Pokemon attacks, including those by Tauros-GX and Drampa-GX, two of the more popular Pokemon cards among competitive play.

Necrozma’s GX attack “Black Ray” does 100 damage to every GX and EX card in play, which means it can really mess up a lot of decks that are built around these extra-powerful decks. Players probably can’t rely on Necrozma-GX to carry their deck, but it will be a useful counter in many situations.

Plus, Necrozma-GX looks really freakin’ cool. It might be the coolest card in the game.

Wishful Baton

Not every powerful card is a Pokemon. Wishful Baton will help a lot of players deal with the trickiest part of the Pokemon Trading Card Game: energy management. A lot of the strategy in Pokemon TCG involves efficient distribution of a deck’s energy, which players can only attach to a Pokemon at a rate of one per turn. Each energy you put on one Pokemon is an energy that can’t be attached to another Pokemon…unless you have a Wishful Baton in play.

Wishful Baton allows a player to move up to three energy from one Pokemon to another when the first Pokemon is knocked out. Not only does this allow a player to keep energy in play, it also prevents a player from spending multiple turns building up another Pokemon’s energy so it can attack.

Weavile

Weavile is another one of those cards built to counter some of the more popular cards and decks out there today. Weavile’s “Rule of Evil” attack does 60 damage to any Pokemon with an Ability, regardless of whether they’re yours or your opponent’s. Considering that most of the game’s best Pokemon cards have some sort of ability, Weavile potentially can dish out 300 damage per turn to an opponent’s team.

Of course, the downside to Weavile is that it can also hurt your Pokemon, which means that it doesn’t play well with Pokemon with abilities. Using Weavile will limit your options, but it still might be worth it depending on which decks grow popular in the next few months.

Noivern-GX

Noivern-GX could potentially be one of the most annoying cards in the game, thanks to its “Distort” ability. Distort dishes out 50 damage and prevents a player from using any Item during their next turn. There’s no limit to Distort’s use, so a player could potentially block their opponent from using any item as long as Noivern’s actively attacking. Noivern’s second attack has a similar blocking ability, only with special energy cards.

Noivern’s GX attack is also pretty useful. Boomburst does 50 damage to each of an opponent’s Pokemon, which is a great way to knock out multiple Pokemon at once.

Alolan Ninetales

Alolan Ninetales is a Pokemon card that’s about to become a major mainstay in a lot of decks. Alolan Ninetales’ Ability prevents a GX or EX Pokemon from landing any sort of attack. Since a lot of decks are built around one or more GX or EX card, Alolan Ninetales is going to make a lot of players miserable in the months to come.

The other great thing about Alolan Ninetales is that it’s available in the Luminous Frost theme deck, so player can get their hands on this card quite easily along with a lot of other swell cards like Kingdra and Alolan Sandslash.