The A3 Celestial Guardians expansion introduces over 200 cards to the game, aiming to shake up the Pokémon Pocket meta. The expansion brings in new archetypes to the game, but also will improve older decks, giving them better consistency.
We’ll take a look at the best cards in the A3 expansion, and which of those cards you should keep an eye out for!
8- Lunala ex
Lunala ex doesn’t have the strongest attack; you need 3 Energy to deal 100 damage, but its ability is what makes this Pokémon strong. Psychic Connect lets you move all of your Psychic Energy from 1 of your Benched Pokémon to the Active Pokémon, enabling you to switch out a Pokémon and still be capable of attacking with the new Active Pokémon.
This ability makes Lunala ex a versatile choice, working out in different Psychic decks or with Colorless Pokémon.
7- Guzma
Pokémon Tools are popular in the game, so Guzma discarding all Pokémon Tool cards attached to each of your opponent’s Pokémon is a strong addition to your deck.
Guzma shines the most if your opponent has 2 Tools in play, taking down two of them at once will put you ahead in the game.
6- Banette
I have a lot of hope for Banette as a supporting Pokémon that can stall the game until your win condition is online. Banette is a Stage 1 Pokémon, evolving from Shuppet. Night Bind is a 1 Energy attack, dealing 30 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon and preventing the opposing player from taking any Energy from their Energy Zone to attach to their Active Pokémon. So if they have their win condition on the Active spot, they’ll be forced to retreat it or commit to another Pokémon on the Bench.
5- Incineroar ex
Incineroar ex is one of our new Ex Pokémon that can carry games on its own. For 1 Energy, you can deal 30 damage with Fangs attack and burn the opponent’s Active Pokémon, slowly adding more damage every turn. Scar-Charged Smash deals 80 damage, but if Incineroar ex is damaged, you can deal 140 damage instead.
You can build Incineroar ex as the only Pokémon in the deck, along with its evolutions, and start winning games. You don’t really need any supporting Pokémon for this Pokémon to work, especially with Rare Candy skipping the Torracat evolution step.
4- Solgaleo ex
Solgaleo ex is probably the strongest ex-Pokémon in this expansion. It’s Rising Road’s ability lets you switch Solgaleo ex to the Active spot, so you won’t need to include retreat cards like Leaf. It also only needs 2 Metal Energy to start swinging for 120 damage, so you’re capable of going for an aggressive strategy and knocking out Pokémon before the opposing player can set up their game plan.
3- Lillie
Lillie is the new healer in town, offering to heal 60 damage from a Stage 2 Pokémon. In normal cases, I would rank her lower because of being tied to only Stage 2 Pokémon. However, Rare Candy has changed the game entirely, giving Stage 2 Pokémon better consistency in the game, which means Lillie gets to shine more in the game!
2- Oricorio
There’s a lot of debate around Oricorio’s Safeguard ability. When in the Active spot, Oricorio takes no damage from the opponent’s Pokémon ex. This means they’re forced to either switch in a non ex attacker or switch out the Oricorio from the Active spot. This is obviously buying you valuable time to get a win condition in play, but keep in mind that Oricorio can be a win condition on its own!
Zzzap is dealing 50 damage per attack, so you can easily knock out a high HP Pokémon ex that can’t even attack you.
Oricorio is the second-best card for me in this expansion, giving lightning decks a huge win condition if the meta is heavily dominated by ex Pokemon.
1- Rare Candy
Rare Candy takes first place as the best card in this expansion! By using Rare Candy in your deck, you can skip the Stage 1 part in evolving your Pokémon and go straight from Basic to Stage 2. This adds more consistency to your deck and lets you have your win condition online a turn earlier.
Rare Candy is changing how we play Pokémon Pocket entirely, bringing multiple Stage 2 Pokémon back into the meta. Hands down, this is the best and strongest card in this expansion and one of the best cards in the whole game.
