Surging Sparks has been fully revealed and is set to release on Monday, November 4^th for hobby stores nationwide! This set is chock full of cool techs, new archetypes, and really powerful ACE SPEC cards! In this article, I’m going to go over my top 10 cards from the set and then I will rank each of the 8 ACE SPECs released in Surging Sparks to let you know how I think they will shape the metagame!

Top 10 List

10. Durant ex

Initially, I saw Durant ex and thought, “Wow, that is a bad ex.” Then, I remembered one thing: Snorlax is certainly a deck. Thinking about how to use its Ability effectively, I came to the conclusion that this card replaces Chi-Yu ex/Fire Energy in the deck and gives an effective, consistent mill engine coupled with Penny. Since this card only has utilization in one deck, it’s ranked the lowest, but I believe it has the biggest impact on a single deck. Snorlax has always lacked a good straight-up mill tech, and this fits the niche perfectly, as you can leave your Snorlax in the Active to lock your opponent and use your excess Penny to reuse it over-and-over again. I think you will see this card as an auto-include one-of in Snorlax decks.

9. Rotom

Rotom was revealed and immediately sent players into a frenzy. This card, being a simple common, has one of the most ridiculous attacks I’ve seen in a long time. It is reminiscent of Noibat (FLI-100). While that card was hyped and ultimately ended up being a flop, this Rotom has the advantage of being able to be used for a single Lightning Energy. Control decks are currently still very popular, and this set has added a lot of tools for them to play with. With many Item-based decks in the format, this one card can disrupt your opponent’s setup so well, it can potentially end games on the spot. Even as a one-of tech in Miraidon decks, it can disrupt Raging Bolt ex decks by discarding all their gust effects, Retrievals, etc. and pretty much ensure they can’t take an easy follow up knockout. (I will have an article out soon about Miraidon ex that will go into more detail about this as well!)

8. Cyrano

Cyrano gives us a much-needed effect that can make setups much smoother for decks such as Charizard ex, Dragapult ex, and especially Gholdengo ex! This card searches for 3 Pokémon ex, which can be relevant for Charizard and Dragapult decks to setup Pidgeot ex and their main attacker in a much smoother fashion. And for decks like Gholdengo, searching for 3 of them immediately cannot be understated. There was a time when Gholdengo was playing Hyper Aroma ACE SPEC as a way to consistently get all their Gholdengo into play. Now, you have a simple Supporter that doesn’t use up your ACE SPEC deck slot! In the same vein, it’s possible to utilize this card well with Ceruledge ex! With these ideas in mind, it’s no wonder it’s made it onto my top 10 list.

7. Counter Gain

When Counter Gain was legal in Standard years ago, it was probably one of my favourite cards of all time. Paired with the likes of Lycanroc GX (BUS-74), it dominated the standard metagame by allowing explosive return knockouts and a way to claw yourself back into the game. In the current standard format, I do not have a specific way to use this card in mind, however the potential it presents cannot be understated. I believe it is waiting on the right archetypes to be able to abuse it.

6. Alolan Exeggutor ex

This card on its own is pretty unremarkable. The Energy cost is too crazy to use, and its effects are simply too niche or too slow to use effectively. However, this card slots extremely well into Regidrago VSTAR decks. The deck’s whole point is to have a toolbox-style strategy for different Dragon-types you run in the deck. Having the niche ability to simply knockout a Basic Pokémon on your opponent’s board for free, essentially, is very strong; and using Regidrago VSTAR to copy it with its streamlined strategy is the proper way to pull this off. The trade off is you have to flip a coin to knock out the Basic Pokémon either on their Bench or in their Active, but being that a lot of the tougher matchups for Regidrago play basic 2-prize Pokémon shouldn’t be too difficult a task to get one Active. This will effectively guarantee a 2-prize knockout.

 

5. Gastrodon

Gastrodon is something that the format has needed for a little while. The Ability’s wording is bittersweet, however. If it becomes Active, the Ability no longer works. This is done for balancing, as if it worked as long as it was in play, it would probably have been too ridiculous and would effectively kill off Stage-2 decks. The main menace of the Stellar Crown format has thus far been Dusknoir, able to take knockouts where it had no business doing so. However, decks that struggle with this strategy can play this tech for immediate efficacy. The problem is that it’s a Stage 1 Pokemon, so you have to evolve it. This card also comes at the side effect of making Pidgeot ex decks slightly more awkward and makes the Lugia matchup significantly tougher in a lot of ways. These decks still have ways to play around this, and that’s where the balancing comes in. Rather than take an easy 2-prize swing like Lugia would usually like to do, it will probably have to settle with a much slower Boss to knockout the Gastrodon and ruining their prize mapping.

4. Magneton

Magneton is one of the craziest cards to come out and I think that it may give a resurgence to Miraidon ex decks. Miraidon ex has fallen off in popularity ever since the rotation of its beloved sheep, Flaaffy. Magneton gives the deck a much-needed consistency boost to accelerate energy into play which the deck desperately needed. (Turns out that Electric Generator is not enough!) This card also pairs with the thematic Pokémon of the set, Pikachu ex! Pikachu using Topaz Bolt will discard all of its Energy attached to it, but Magneton will re-attach those so Pikachu can continue swinging big.

3. Ceruledge ex

Ceruledge is one of the most popular decks in the Japanese metagame at the time of writing. Its ability to get a plethora of Energy in the discard and swing for big one-hit knockouts quickly is surprisingly consistent. Most effects that have been printed in the past have had the caveat of shuffling the Energy back in or similar effects, however, this is one of the first ones that simply does the damage and keeps on doing that consistently. The fact the attack costs only one Fire Energy is really what makes this deck shine, though. Any deck that can abuse attacks that only cost a single Energy attachment will usually be the most consistent and most popular choices.

2. Hydreigon ex

Hydreigon ex is a huge Pokémon a monstrous 330 HP, it swings for 200 damage for just a Dark and Colourless Energy and also mills your opponent’s deck by 3 cards! This attack is absurd and carries a lot of weight with some randomized disruption. For a Psychic, Dark, Metal, and Colourless Energy, it also hits your opponent’s active for 130 and snipes 130 to two Pokémon on your opponent’s bench. This can clean up games while also ruining your opponent’s setup, with decks that use small basics to evolve into their 2-prize monster evolutions. It also sets up plenty of damage for 2-shotting most stage 2 ex Pokémon. This card will tank plenty of hits and mill your opponent’s key resources over time and being able to hit 130 on several Pokémon applies enough pressure to keep your opponent scrambling.

1. Pikachu ex

Pikachu ex is the poster child of this set and keeps the trend that TPCi has kept up consistently with the most recent sets in making the most popular cards actually playable! This Pokémon thrives from being able to survive any would-be one-hit knockout that your opponent can dish out. In return, it also one-shots almost everything in the format. The best way to play Pikachu ex that I’ve found is in a Lost Box archetype, as Mirage Gate allows repeated use of the Topaz Bolt attack and allows Pikachu ex to tank hits, allowing you to maintain stamina and swing the tempo of the game in your favour. This card will be revolutionary for this archetype and, I think, will command a resurgence of this fallen archetype. Pikachu ex can also be toyed around with replacing Mewtwo ex in Miraidon ex decks that seek to include Area Zero Underdepths to give Raikou v a chance to take giant one-hit knockouts for only 2 Energy. Since you can also use Magneton in this archetype now, there is the potential to run a few of the different Energy in Pikachu’s attack cost so you can drop this little monster on the field and blow up your opponent’s Active out of nowhere. This card will shift the metagame and some decks will try to painfully include copies of Cancelling Cologne, Dusknoir, etc. to try to deal with Pikachu’s Resolute Heart Ability.

 

Ranking the 8 ACE SPECs

8. Energy Search Pro

This card is probably one of the worst ACE SPECs I’ve seen, next to Poké Vital A. This deck may have a niche use in Gholdengo ex decks, where you can splash in one of each energy just to be able to search them out with an explosive Make it Rain attack, but it pales in comparison to the strength of Prime Catcher in the same slot. Overall, this card is just mediocre and does not accomplish much at the time of writing.

7. Enriching Energy

This card could be included in control decks that utilize Pidgeot V to cycle through their deck infinitely. Being able to shuffle Pidgeot V back in and reuse the draw 4 effect on this card can be an option, but I think it falls short in relevance compared to cards like Hero’s Cape and Secret Box, or even Megaton Blower, which we’ll go over shortly.

6. Amulet of Hope

This card has a unique effect that is reminiscent of Radiant Jirachi.  However, with Lost Vacuum in the format able to remove it simply and the fact it’s a reactive card, not an active card mean it falls short of being super useful in most ways. There will certainly be some archetypes that will try to use it, such that I don’t think it’s a terrible choice in control decks where it can be recycled to boost the disruptive factor.

 

5. Megaton Blower

A matchup that Snorlax control has struggled with constantly has been Lugia. Lugia’s ability to cheat energy into play with no real way to stop it, coupled with Jet Energy to switch into the active makes the matchup incredibly difficult if you aren’t built to specifically tech for the matchup. However, if you are expecting a good amount of Lugia at your next tournament, there is an argument for including this card instead of usual staples like Secret Box or Hero’s Cape. This card can singlehandedly perform was turns and turns of using Giacomo over and over would accomplish. This card is somewhat easy to play around as Lugia, however, as you just don’t need to attach that many energy so much, but it can get most players who are not expecting to play into this card.

 

4. Brilliant Blender

Speaking of Lugia, I believe this card has the potential to create a colourless Lugia archetype and thrust it into tier 1. Instead of trying to find Ultra Balls, Professor’s Research, and using Read the Wind to get your Archeops in the discard, you can use this get all 4 Archeops in the discard instead. It also means there’s the window of opportunity to cut 1 Archeops for more consistency to find this one-of card, I would aim for a route to search for it with Arven and gear the deck towards this, if anything. It can also be used to have a slight boost in consistency for meme decks such as United Wings!

 

3. Precious Trolley

Battle VIP Pass was one of the strongest turn 1 cards in the most recent standard format. This card is Battle VIP Pass to a much higher degree. It searches any amount of Basic Pokémon and puts them right on the bench and can be used on any turn, not just turn 1! If you have an Area Zero deck, you can use this to search for even 8 Pokémon for just 1 card! This is a powerful effect that a lot of archetypes will try to utilize, however I still do not think that decks that would be able to play this will give up their precious Prime Catcher.

 

2. Miracle Headset

VS Seeker was one of the most important staple Item cards the last time it was legal. This is another card that can see plenty of play in Control archetypes because of its ability to recurse control-based Supporters that can have an immediate impact on the game. This instead of using Pal Pad and trying to draw back into the Supporters can be much more consistent and can also be used with Cyllene to infinitely cycle your deck just as Pal Pad would. The options this card presents can be reason enough to play in lieu of Secret Box or Hero’s Cape in control decks.

 

1. Scramble Switch

When Scramble Switch was last legal, it was vastly outshined by Computer Search as an option, however the decks that used Scramble Switch used it to great effect. In this format, the decks that could use it effectively are numerous. With the new Stellar Tera Pokémon needing a variety of energy, there is the potential to break this card.

 

Overall, I think this set has many fantastic options and really shakes up the metagame! I will be working on an article for Miraidon ex and Ceruledge ex in the coming days to further explain these archetypes with a little more in-depth detail! Thanks so much for reading and I hope each and everyone of you gets to try out the decks coming with Surging Sparks!

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