By Ellis Longhurst, Contributing Writer

It’s time to energize your gameplay with cards from the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces expansion. This set brings new and exciting Pokémon to the battlefield, including Ancient Pokémon and Future Pokémon with attacks and Abilities that are out of this world. Battles are intensified by the reintroduction of ACE SPEC cards to the Pokémon TCG—the effects of these cards are so powerful that each deck is limited to including only one. Ticktock—what are you waiting for? Read on to find out which cards from the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces expansion will create a disturbance in the metagame.

Bow Down to Iron Crown ex

Iron Crown ex should command your attention. Its Cobalt Command Ability adds 20 damage to the attacks of Future Pokémon (other than Iron Crown ex). If a Future Pokémon has a Future Booster Energy Capsule attached, and there are four Iron Crown ex in play, the damage done by its attacks is increased by 100! Future Pokémon are about to hit the big time.

There are plenty of Future Pokémon ready to follow Iron Crown ex into battle, and they can all be pulled into the present by the Techno Radar Item card. Iron Hands ex is a popular choice because the damage increase from Cobalt Command means that taking two Prize cards every turn with Amp You Very Much or Arm Press is not out of reach. Trainers could win the game in three turns! The new Iron Hands and Iron Treads are also prepared to be loyal vassals of Iron Crown ex: Iron Hands can do loads of damage with its Superalloy Hands attack or buy time by making the opponent’s Active Pokémon Paralyzed with Volt Wave. With a Future Booster Energy Capsule attached, Iron Treads will Knock Out an Iron Hands ex or a Chien-Pao ex in one hit if there are three Iron Crown ex in play.

It costs a king’s ransom for Iron Hands ex to attack with Amp You Very Much, so there is a need to include cards like Electric Generator, the new Reboot Pod ACE SPEC card, or the new Miraidon to accelerate Energy onto the battlefield. As a Future Pokémon, Miraidon benefits from Cobalt Command. Its Peak Acceleration attack will both set up allied Pokémon to attack and set up the opponent’s Pokémon to be Knocked Out. Attach the new Heavy Baton Pokémon Tool card before your Iron Hands ex is Knocked Out to retain Energy cards and ensure that attacks turn over like clockwork.

Iron Crown ex’s Twin Shotels attack can also be a royal pain for the opponent. It does 50 damage to two of the opponent’s Pokémon and ignores any effects on them. If combined with Future Pokémon Iron Valiant ex to spread damage counters with Tachyon Bits, Twin Shotels can threaten a Knock Out on popular Pokémon like Charmander, Comfey, Pidgey, and Bidoof…even if Manaphy is in play!

Roaring Moon Eclipses Its Ancient Rivals

It’s a new dawn for Ancient Pokémon, and Roaring Moon leads the charge. Roaring Moon’s Vengeance Fletching attack does 70 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon, plus 10 more damage for each Ancient card in your discard pile. To keep tempo with Pokémon ex and Pokémon V, a deck focused on Roaring Moon needs to include loads of Ancient cards and ways to quickly discard them. The new Explorer’s Guidance is an Ancient Supporter card that digs up and discards resources, as does Earthen Vessel. The new Awakening Drum ACE SPEC card helps draw them from the deck, and they also have synergy with Professor Sada’s Vitality, which attaches Basic Energy cards from the discard pile to Pokémon in play.

Roaring Moon will quickly become old news if it only relies on Ancient cards to set up and execute a winning strategy. The inclusion of modern technology like Nest Ball to search for a Basic Pokémon from your deck and Super Rod to recover Pokémon and Basic Energy cards from the discard pile is a must. Fortunately, as demonstrated by Ultra Ball, Trekking Shoes, and PokéStop, gathering resources and discarding Ancient cards do not have to be mutually exclusive.

It can take time to put enough Ancient cards into the discard pile to Knock Out a Pokémon ex or Pokémon V with Vengeance Fletching. In the early game, Trainers should look to Koraidon to Knock Out Pokémon with 180 HP or less, or look to Flutter Mane to delay the opponent’s setup through its Midnight Fluttering Ability. Notably, when Flutter Mane is in the Active Spot, Chien-Pao ex cannot use Shivery Chill to search the deck for Energy cards, nor can Comfey use Flower Selecting to draw cards. Other Ancient Pokémon that are useful in play or in the discard pile are Slither Wing because it can Knock Out an Iron Hands ex in one hit, and Great Tusk because it supports an alternative win condition.

Don’t Look Past Great Tusk

It’s about time we discussed the elephant in the set. Great Tusk has an attack called Land Collapse, which discards up to 4 cards from the top of the opponent’s deck. Winning by ensuring that the opponent does not have a card to draw from their deck at the start of their turn is the goal of the popular Snorlax control deck. Battles featuring Snorlax are lengthy, and there are often periods of passivity. Great Tusk, like time, waits for no one.

To expedite extinction of the opponent’s deck through Land Collapse, Trainers want to play an Ancient Supporter card on as many turns as possible. Just like in the Roaring Moon Ancient toolbox deck, Explorer’s Guidance and Professor Sada’s Vitality are the Supporter cards that will enable Great Tusk to run rampant through the opponent’s deck. Remember that you can only include four copies of each Supporter card, but they can be recovered from the discard pile through Pal Pad throughout the game.

Make it as difficult as possible for the opponent to Knock Out Great Tusk by using Tool cards like Bravery Charm, Ancient Booster Energy Capsule, or the new Hero’s Cape ACE SPEC card to give it a mammoth amount of Hit Points. Another strategy is to trap one of the opponent’s Pokémon in the Active Spot that is not prepared to attack. Counter Catcher or the new Prime Catcher ACE SPEC card switches the opponent’s Pokémon into the Active Spot, while the new Eri Supporter card or the Miss Fortune Sisters Supporter card can discard Item cards that would enable them to switch to the Bench.

Cinccino Performs a Special Role

Cinccino proves that contemporary Pokémon are a force to be reckoned with too. The Scarf Pokémon is not just stylish, it also employs a timeless strategy for success on the battlefield—do loads of damage to the opponent’s Pokémon. The damage done by Special Roll increases by 70 for each Special Energy card attached to Cinccino, which means that it only needs a few to Knock Out a Pokémon ex or a Pokémon V in one hit. Knock Outs are made even easier with accessories like Maximum Belt, Vitality Band, Choice Belt, or Defiance Band to increase the amount of damage. You know what they say: dress for success.

Trainers may look to fashion a Cinccino deck that uses Pokémon like Wigglytuff or Hydreigon to accelerate Special Energy onto Pokémon in play. However, Cinccino fits like a glove into the Lugia VSTAR archetype. Archeops’s Primal Turbo Ability lets Trainers search their deck every turn for two Special Energy cards and attach them to a Pokémon in play. Using this approach, Cinccino could be loaded with Special Energy cards as early as the second turn of the game. Knocking Out multi-Prize Pokémon with a single-Prize Pokémon is one way to give the Lugia VSTAR deck an edge in the Prize race.

There are a couple of other cards from the Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces expansion that will make Lugia VSTAR trend this season. The Master Ball card is a classic that improves the chance of an optimized Summoning Star VSTAR Power in the early game by reducing the need to rely on the coin flip of Capturing Aroma to find the right Pokémon. As Special Energy are easy to access with Primal Turbo, do not be surprised to see the new Mist Energy feature in Lugia VSTAR decks. This Special Energy card protects Pokémon from the effects of attacks, like damage counters placed by Sableye’s Lost Mine and an instant Knock Out by Roaring Moon ex’s Frenzied Gouging or Giratina VSTAR’s Star Requiem.

Lugia VSTAR decks with Archeops and Cinccino are already achieving a tour de force, with one such deck winning the Masters Division of the Champions League in Fukuoka, Japan, earlier this year—a tournament with over 2,600 players! Cinccino fans are hoping that this card will have more than fifteen minutes of fame.

Catch On to Prime Catcher

The return of ACE SPEC cards to the Pokémon Trading Card Game is highly anticipated, and none catches the eye more than Prime Catcher. This Item card has the same effect as Guzma, a popular Supporter card that contributed to the success of many top decks. When an opponent revealed a Guzma from a deck search, it often meant that they had your number. Will history repeat itself?

First and foremost, Prime Catcher complements the strategy of almost any deck. Its principal use will be to switch one of the opponent’s key Pokémon into the Active Spot so that it can be Knocked Out. However, Prime Catcher can also be used to trap one of the opponent’s Pokémon in the Active Spot while Pokémon like Snorlax and Great Tusk discard cards from their deck or Sableye and Iron Valiant ex spread damage counters across their Bench.

Unlike Counter Catcher, Prime Catcher can be used at any time in the game, but the Trainer who plays it must also switch their Active Pokémon with a Pokémon on their Bench. This helps Pokémon like Radiant Charizard and Miraidon ex to attack on consecutive turns. It could also create problems if a Pokémon is forced into the Active Spot when they are not ready to contribute to the battle. Don’t be caught unaware!

Archetypes that already include ways to search for Item cards in the deck are ready to make good use of Prime Catcher. Arceus VSTAR can use the Starbirth VSTAR Power in the early game to search for Prime Catcher and the Eri or Iono Supporter cards to disrupt the opponent’s setup. In Charizard ex and Chien-Pao ex, Prime Catcher enables the Arven and Irida Supporter cards to act like an additional copy of Boss’s Orders, thereby improving their utility in the late game.

These are just some of the impressive cards that you will find in the new Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces expansion. With over 160 new cards to collect, including more than a dozen brand-new Pokémon ex and seven ACE SPEC cards, there are plenty of other exciting combinations and strategies to explore. Do you have what it takes to go down in history?