When Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX made their debut in the Sword & Shield expansion, they entered a competitive landscape already dominated by TAG TEAM Pokémon-GX. Until now, a few new contenders have integrated themselves alongside the old guard, but Pokémon-GX have largely maintained their perch. Now, with the launch of Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze, we may be witnessing a significant rise in Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX. There’s a sense among players that the third or fourth expansion in a Pokémon TCG series is when things start to get exciting, and Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze may be a turning point in this battle between old and new. This shift will certainly be aided by the new Standard format, where some of the Sun & Moon Series expansions have recently rotated out.

So exactly which cards in the Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze expansion should we keep an eye out for? Let’s take a look at some of the top contenders from the new expansion!

A Hundred Furious Flames: Centiskorch VMAX & Charizard VMAX

As long as Welder is around, Fire-type Pokémon will be working with a stacked deck when compared to the rest of the game. Fiery Flint went away with the recent Standard format rotation, but Fire Crystal and Heat Fire Energy both stick around as the spark of an array of Fire-type decks. This base helps fan the flames of Centiskorch VMAX and Charizard VMAX, who both look poised to use that engine as the start of roaring competitive decks.

Let’s start with Centiskorch VMAX. Its G-Max Centiferno attack facilitates extra Energy attachment, one of the most valuable assets in the Pokémon TCG, while also doing good damage. In the new Standard format, one-hit Knock Outs are going to be less common than any time I can remember, and while Centiskorch VMAX does need gaudy amounts of Energy, it theoretically can rack those up! With a healthy 320 HP, an uncommon Weakness (for now), and the ability to get those precious one-hit Knock Outs, this seems like a concept that could excel in the new format. It will be limited by a few basic drawbacks, however. 40 damage for each Energy is a weird number mathematically—it won’t hit too many “magic numbers” at this point in the format. Putting a ton of Energy on one Pokémon is usually not the hallmark of a successful strategy, either—it’s risky to put all your resources in one place. Nevertheless, this may be one time I could see it working out.

Charizard VMAX, on the other hand, is a greater threat for a one-hit Knock Out but sacrifices the flexibility to do less damage at a lower cost. It’s a bit slow—5 Energy is a high bar for an attack, and Charizard V can’t do anything too great for less than 4. But once it starts rolling, I wouldn’t be surprised if being the only deck consistently getting one-hit Knock Outs (with an assist from, perhaps, Volcarona-GX) is enough to keep it around. Things will be a bit slow, though, by nature of the high Energy cost. Look for strategies with Volcanion, Welder, Giant Hearth, and other Fire-supporting cards to attempt to power through everything in their way—the hallmark of Fire-type Pokémon in the Pokémon TCG!

Extra Encounters: Eternatus VMAX

For all the attention (and expectations) for this card, the plan for Eternatus VMAX is pretty simple: get lots of Darkness-type Pokémon on your Bench, do lots of damage. It has high HP, a low attack cost, and an uncomplicated strategy—the makings of success. In the Standard format, one of the key weaknesses seems to be a lack of Energy acceleration, but Eternatus V is able to set up an extra Energy attachment with its first attack, and often that’s all you need to keep things moving for the full game.

It’s going to need to fill all of those Bench spots, though, to be at its most effective. Luckily, Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze lends it some additional help. I’m intrigued by any number of choices, such as Ariados (pulling a Pokémon in off your opponent’s Bench is always a powerful effect) and Hoopa for a cheap, strong attack. Galarian Zigzagoon from the Sword & Shield expansion will surely find a home here, too, with room for so many Darkness-type Pokémon and the need to hit for higher damage occasionally.

Weirdly, I think the greatest weakness Eternatus VMAX will have to overcome is that 270 damage doesn’t do anything particularly interesting. You’ll be hitting many Pokémon V and Pokémon-GX harder than necessary, but you could be at the mercy of your Pokémon VMAX opponent with some of the various healing options available, such as Mallow & Lana and Hyper Potion. Still, this is too obviously good to be ignored, and its existence could probably be enough to force current TAG TEAM mainstays like Pikachu & Zekrom-GX into retirement. Plus, there might be another pretty good Darkness-type Pokémon that loves using Bench spots and can help keep a deck moving. Oh, here it is....

Cards are Crucial: Crobat V

There are too many good cards to talk about them all, but ignoring Crobat V would be batty. It’s the latest in a long line of Pokémon—Dedenne-GX and Shaymin-EX being the most recent—that help by drawing cards. Seeing more of your deck is generally a huge factor in getting complicated strategies rolling, and Crobat V is here to help that happen. It carries a once-per-turn restriction, which means you can’t get too crazy, but it will surely be a fixture in every Pokémon TCG player’s deck-building process for the next few years. Turning Quick Ball or Pokémon Communication into a hand of six cards is always going to be great, and Crobat V will matter to competitive players for a long time.

At the moment, we’re in a pretty unique period, with Dedenne-GX, Crobat V, and Eldegoss V making up a trio of Pokémon whose only real function in decks is a once-when-Benched effect that helps the deck keep going. They all serve slightly different roles, but with all these “support” Pokémon floating around, the toughest thing for some players will be choosing which one to use. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few decks develop an entire strategy around taking advantage of these frailer two-Prize Pokémon. For the moment, Crobat V is probably the most difficult of the three to use: Dedenne-GX always provides six cards, and Eldegoss V gets you a Supporter of choice, but Crobat V requires a low hand size for maximum use. Unfortunately, there really aren’t a ton of cards that help reduce hand size right now, so Crobat V isn’t going to be able to save you from a bad hand. However, it will be excellent at refilling an empty one, and that’s enough to make it worthwhile.

Vicious Victory: Vikavolt V

Vikavolt V is here to shut down one of the most important types of card in the game: Items. Cards that prevent your opponent from playing Items have a storied history in the Pokémon TCG. Vikavolt V is the spiritual successor to a strategy most recently seen in Seismitoad-EX a few years ago. Vikavolt V charges in with a little more juice by doing a little extra damage than its predecessors. 50 damage may not be too exciting, and currently there aren’t a lot of essential Item cards in the format, but having this option turned off is always annoying. One caution: Vikavolt V is a bit difficult to use on Turn 1, which means your opponent will probably get at least two turns of Item use before you slam the door shut.

With most Items related to setting up attackers right now, and 50 damage not quite being enough pressure to make most decks care about your threat to their attackers, we’ll have to see whether Vikavolt V can do enough in the early game. In the Expanded format, Electropower will be around, and I’m quite confident there will be some excitement to work with. But even in Standard, it is still an incredibly powerful effect, and I’m certain it will see play somewhere along the line—it might just not be immediately following this Standard rotation.

Stadium Showdown: Spikemuth, Glimwood Tangle, and Rose Tower

Stadiums as a central aspect of decks come and go in Pokémon, and we’re currently at a bit of high point, so there’s a lot of competition among them. Nevertheless, there are three Stadiums in this expansion that I believe are going to see play in a variety of supporting niches during their time in the game.

We’ll start with Glimwood Tangle: obviously, there are a lot of attacks that involve coin flips, and being able to retry your luck is a great boon to many of those strategies. This is an effect we’ve seen on a number of Victini cards over the years, and I expect it will see similar level of play—perhaps a bit more, even, as it avoids taking up a spot on your Bench in a format I expect will be cramped for space. It can be super fun to play a deck with a bit of extra edge involved, and taking off a bit of that risk makes it all the more so.

The value Rose Tower will bring is probably among my more controversial opinions. I believe this is a super-strong effect that has the potential to work with some strategies that involve keeping a low hand size—plus, it’s just extra insurance against a bad hand! The flip side to that, of course, is that it is insurance against a bad hand that your opponent also gets to use. Stadiums are naturally a double-edged sword, though, so that’s just a fact of life. It will take the right deck, but never count out a card that lets you easily draw more cards! I may be rating this card higher than a lot of my peers, but I’m expecting to see some great results from Rose Tower eventually.

Spikemuth is a fascinating effect, and one obvious application is the extra 20 or 40 damage a few decks need to get their opponents to one-hit Knock Out range. I generally don’t like relying on my opponent’s actions to get me the extra damage, though, and I really don’t like Stadium cards that only have a positive effect on my opponent’s turn: there are too many ways to get around it! The most exciting application of Spikemuth is actually damaging your own Pokémon, with Spiritomb looming in the wings. Now, you can hit for heavy damage out of nowhere, with Jynx ready to move the new damage counters around or Scoop Up Net ready to get that newly damaged Spiritomb back to the Active Spot. Cape of Toughness is another Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze contribution, giving extra HP to work with and a lot of damage to do. Spikemuth and Spiritomb are a great example of thinking outside the box to find successful strategies in places that aren’t obvious.

It’s a Mad Party: Bunnelby, Polteageist, Dedenne, Galarian Mr. Rime

I don’t know if it will be 2020, 2021, or 2022, but I’m highly confident that someone will someday do something notable with the Mad Party gang. Obviously, this is a throwback for many players to the Night March squad in XY—Phantom Forces, but this time there are four of them! This allows for more damage, and the potential is boundless alongside Twin Energy. All of these Pokémon probably won’t make it into any other decks besides Mad Party, though. Galarian Mr. Rime in particular is probably never worth evolving, and will instead live a lamp of a life in the discard pile.

Polteageist is the exception—but, of course, it is only useful with other Mad Partiers. The extra draw is nice, but the more important factor is definitely being able to discard Mad Party cards to get the damage working. There aren’t a ton of other easy discard effects right now, so Mad Party will probably have to settle for being a two-hit Knock Out deck this time around. By giving up only a single Prize card, though, you can afford to make that trade. The single biggest problem for Mad Party is that I can already predict 24 cards in every deck: 4 Bunnelby, 4 Polteageist, 4 Dedenne, 4 Galarian Mr. Rime, 4 Sinistea, and 4 Twin Energy. A set of Triple Acceleration Energy is probably in order, too, meaning almost half the deck is spoken for before we even consider supporting cards. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but it does raise some red flags: high damage will be traded for a pretty tight deck without much room for tricks. It’s a trade probably worth making, and I’m really looking forward to someone cracking the code.

This is only the start of the excitement presented in Sword & Shield—Darkness Ablaze, though: With more than 180 cards and countless Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX to explore, there are numerous possibilities to work with. Best of luck figuring out your own new deck, Trainers! For more Pokémon TCG strategy and analysis, be sure to keep checking Pokemon.co.uk/Strategy.