Post By: LittleDarkFury

With the brand new TCG set Sword & Shield coming out on the 7th of February, there are some new game-changing cards. In this post, I want to discuss and talk about what the best cards to come out of Sword & Shield will be. From Trainers, Pokémon, and even the energy! This set has some amazing new cards that will help speed the game up, but also includes new powerhouse threats!

 THE BEST POKÉMON

In terms of the best Pokémon to come in the set, there are; Zacian V, Frosmoth, Cinccino, and Snorlax VMAX. Let's talk about each one!

 Zacian V is a powerful new V Pokémon that has a very powerful attack and a great ability! With its ability, it can self accelerate energy onto itself and also draw you some extra cards, it's a great ability with the new supporter rule change! Its attack Brave Blade also does 230 damage which can take out most normal GX & V Pokémon, but with Arceus, Dialga & Palkia's GX attack it can do 260 damage instead! Which is just shy of a One-Hit KO on many Tag Team GX Pokémon!

Next up, we have Frosmoth, which is a stage 1 and has the ability Ice Dance, which allows you to attach as many water energy from your hand to your benched water Pokémon as you like! Frosmoth has a lot of partners to work with, including some new water types like Lapras VMAX and Keldeo V! Water types have needed a good accelerator to help keep up against the strong fire decks, and now we have a great partner for them!

Cinccino is a great card because of its ability! Which you may remember as the same ability as Zoroark GX! Yes, Trade is back in standard, but thankfully this time, Cinccino does not have that great of an attack compared to Zoroark's Riotous Beating attack. This ability will, without a doubt, see lots of play as it is a great way to draw cards. When you get multiple Cinccino in play, you're drawing up to 8 cards a turn!

Finally, with Snorlax VMAX, it is now the Pokémon card with the highest amount of HP in the existence of the Pokémon TCG, yes it has 340 HP. With the absurd amount of HP and a very powerful and splash-able attack due to the colorless type cost, Snorlax VMAX can work in almost any deck! Combine Snorlax VMAX with Buff Padding, and it has nearly 400 HP with 390 HP! These are the best Pokémon to come out of Sword & Shield, now let's get into the game-changing Trainer cards!

THE BEST TRAINER CARDS 

The Best Trainer cards coming out are; Quick Ball, Professor's Research, Ordinary Rod, Metal Saucer, and Pokémon Catcher.

Quick Ball is arguably the best card to come out in the entire set. It offers a Pokémon search engine that our current standard format was sorely lacking. The card allows you to discard a card from your hand and search your deck for a basic Pokémon! It's a simple effect that is very good for setting your deck up, whether it be finding basic GX or V Pokémon or looking for Jirachi or Inkays!

Professor's Research is another new card that our current standard was missing out on, and that was a good draw supporter! While Cynthia & Lillie did a fine job, they can't compare to the Ol' Discard your hand and draw 7 cards! It's great to have this card back and will become a 4 of in many decks as this card is hands down the best supporter in our standard format now!

Ordinary Rod is a good card as it gives us a Pokémon recovery option back in our format, which we also were missing out on when Rescue Stretcher rotated out last year. This card allows you to shuffle both a combination of 2 Pokémon & Basic Energy cards, which is great and can even save you a few energy! It's just nice to know that when something is knocked out, there is a way to get them back now!

Metal saucer brings back the "patch" style effect where you can take a basic energy of a certain type and attach it from the discard pile to one your benched Pokémon of that type! This is Dark & Aqua patch but for metal Pokémon! This card drops when metal Pokémon are underpowered due to fire types being really strong, but also drops with Zacian V which provides as a great partner for Metal Saucer!

Lastly, with the items, we have Pokémon Catcher. I chose this as one of the best trainers to come from the set because of its powerful "gusting" potential! While it is competing with Custom Catcher and Great Catcher, there is the possibility that 4 Pokémon Catcher becomes the norm for most decks. With Custom Catcher, you need 2 in your hand to guarantee the gust, but with Pokémon Catcher, you only need the one, but you have to flip a coin to bring a Pokémon up from the bench! The risk of this card might be more useful compared to Custom Catchers!

A GREAT NEW ENERGY CARD

Finally, we have a great new special energy card to round out the best cards in the set!

Aurora Energy is a brand new special energy that allows you to discard a card from your hand and attach this to a Pokémon, and it provides every type of energy! This is better than Rainbow Energy because the effect of discard a card your hand is beneficial, especially in Mewtwo & Mew GX decks, which is where this card will shine the best!

Sword & Shield is a game-changing set and provides some great new cards for our standard format & will introduce some new powerful archetypes with V & VMAX Pokémon. It will be exciting to see what becomes of the format going through until the next Sword & Shield set in May!