Arceus VSTAR leads a pack of stellar cards that will be making their way to decks everywhere.

By Ellis Longhurst, Contributing Writer

With the launch of the Pokémon TCG: Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars expansion, it’s a good time to take a look at which new cards are going to light up the battlefield. This set introduces players to Pokémon VSTAR, which evolve from Pokémon V and have unique VSTAR Powers. Prepare to be dazzled by VSTAR Powers—they create such incredible effects that you can only use one per game. The set also includes a variety of other exciting Pokémon, Trainer cards, and Energy cards that will illuminate some decks—and leave others in the dark. Read on to find out which cards shine brightest in Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars.

Arceus VSTAR Earns a Starring Role

The legend of Arceus continues in the Pokémon TCG with the new Arceus VSTAR. This Pokémon has a huge 280 HP and boasts a powerful attack: Trinity Nova does 200 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon and enables the player to search their deck for up to 3 basic Energy cards to attach to their Pokémon V in any way they like. There’s a lot to love about this attack—you could even say it’s out of this world.

Trinity Nova has an attack cost of three Colorless Energy, which means Arceus VSTAR can use any type of basic Energy or the new Double Turbo Energy. And while it doesn’t do enough damage to take down the biggest opponents, Trinity Nova can Knock Out supporting two-Prize Pokémon like Lumineon V or Crobat V in one hit, while also preparing your Pokémon V on the Bench to attack.

If the going gets tough, Arceus VSTAR can get going with some help from the new Cheren’s Care Supporter card. Unlike Scoop Up Net, Cheren’s Care puts all cards attached to Arceus VSTAR into your hand. This is an effective way to recover and re-allocate limited resources like Double Turbo Energy and the new Choice Belt Tool card.

Arceus VSTAR is also valued for its VSTAR Power, which is perhaps the most impressive of its kind in Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars. The Starbirth Ability enables the player to search their deck for up to two cards and put them into their hand. Find your situational tech cards, guarantee a Supporter card for the turn, or piece together a Knock Out—you can do it all with Starbirth.

This VSTAR Power is so useful that players may include Arceus VSTAR in their deck just to use its effect. The challenge for players will be to determine the best partner Pokémon for Arceus VSTAR.

Lumineon V Wins Best Supporting Pokémon

Once you dive into Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars, it would seem rather fishy if Lumineon V didn’t get its turn in the spotlight. Excitement surrounds its Luminous Sign Ability, and many players expect this Pokémon to feature in a variety of decks.

When Lumineon V is played onto the Bench, Luminous Sign enables the player to search their deck for a Supporter card. Playing Supporter cards is often crucial to a deck’s winning strategy, so being able to access them at the right time is very important. For example, Lumineon V can find the new Gloria Supporter card at the beginning of the game to put loads of Pokémon into play, or search for Boss’s Orders to target the opponent’s Pokémon for the final Knock Out.

Lumineon V is a Basic Pokémon, which means it can be splashed into any deck that includes Pokémon search cards like Quick Ball or Ultra Ball. Both of these are popular Trainer cards, so don’t be surprised if Lumineon V appears on the battlefield alongside different types of Pokémon.

Longtime fans of the Pokémon TCG may recognize the effect of Lumineon V’s Luminous Sign because it’s essentially the same as Tapu Lele-GX’s Wonder Tag Ability and Jirachi-EX’s Stellar Guidance Ability. Tapu Lele-GX and Jirachi-EX were played widely to great success and shaped the way decks were built in their respective eras. Without Lumineon V in your deck, you might end up feeling like a fish out of water.

Manaphy Is the Latest Trend-Setter

Manaphy proves that you don’t need a Rule Box to be a superstar. This 70-HP Basic Pokémon has an Ability that will force the top decks to adjust their strategy, and empower players to explore combinations with single-Prize Pokémon. What an influencer!

Manaphy’s Wave Veil Ability prevents all damage done to your Benched Pokémon by attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon. This causes problems for decks that rely on attacks to soften up Benched Pokémon or take two Knock Outs in one turn, such as Jolteon VMAX’s Max Thunder Rumble and Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX’s G-Max Rapid Flow.

On the other flipper, Manaphy creates an opportunity for decks that focus on single-Prize Pokémon to shine. These Pokémon usually have fewer Hit Points than Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX, but the trade-off is that they give up fewer Prize cards when Knocked Out. Wave Veil maintains this balance by preventing the opponent from taking two Prize cards with damage from one attack.

This is particularly important for decks that use evolved Pokémon like Malamar, Flaaffy, or Alcremie, because Wave Veil protects the Basic Pokémon on the Bench in the turn before they can evolve.

What’s really cool is that Wave Veil’s effect applies for as long as Manaphy is on the field, and there are loads of commonly played Trainer cards that can search Manaphy from the deck. Now that Manaphy is on the scene, players who enjoy doing damage to their opponent’s Benched Pokémon had better rethink their strategy.

Keep Moving Forward with Roseanne’s Backup

It might be called Roseanne’s Backup, but this card will help any deck keep moving forward. There’s a lot of text on the card, but it’s well worth the read. This Supporter retrieves one or more of the following from the discard pile and shuffles them into the deck: a Pokémon, a Pokémon Tool card, a Stadium card, and an Energy card.

All strategies revolve around Pokémon, and many decks use Pokémon Tool cards like Choice Belt and Stadium cards like Path to the Peak to create an advantage. Recovering these cards from the discard pile using Roseanne’s Backup is one way to keep the pressure on the opponent.

Roseanne’s Backup is also the only Trainer card that can recover a Special Energy card from the discard pile. This is really important since most of the decks currently dominating online competitions use Special Energy. In fact, it is not uncommon to find more Special Energy in a deck than basic Energy. For example, the popular Fusion Strike decks rely on four copies of Fusion Strike Energy to set up Mew VMAX and Meloetta for powerful attacks. Roseanne’s Backup makes it much more challenging for the opponent to permanently remove all the Fusion Strike Energy from play.

Roseanne’s Backup is particularly effective in the Fusion Strike deck because it includes Genesect V, which can draw the cards that were shuffled back into the deck using its Fusion Strike System Ability. The same is true for decks that use other Pokémon with card-drawing Abilities, such as the new Bibarel and Liepard from Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars.

Collapsed Stadium Creates a Big Bang

Try not to be deceived by the way it looks—Collapsed Stadium is a five-star location. When this new Stadium is on the field, neither player can have more than four Benched Pokémon—and if someone already does, at the time this card is played, they have to discard the extras.

There are plenty of opponents who will want to scratch Collapsed Stadium off their destination list. This Stadium is highly disruptive to some popular strategies. For example, Eternatus VMAX relies on having loads of Pokémon in play to maximize the damage done by its Dread End attack, and the Fusion Strike decks need as many Fusion Strike Pokémon in play as possible to take full advantage of Genesect V’s Fusion Strike System Ability. Collapsed Stadium also significantly reduces the amount of damage that Suicune V and the new Entei V and Raikou V can do with their attacks.

What’s more, Collapsed Stadium provides the opportunity to deny the opponent Prize cards by removing heavily damaged Pokémon or low-HP single-use Pokémon V, like Crobat V and Lumineon V, from play. This is a great way to undo the damage that has been spread across the battlefield by an opponent’s Jolteon VMAX, Inteleon, or Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX.

Keep in mind that the effect of Collapsed Stadium applies to both players, so definitely consider how it will impact both your strategy and your opponent’s strategy. One thing is certain: when this card is in play, fun is to be had.

This is just a glimmer of the stellar cards available in the new Sword & Shield—Brilliant Stars expansion. With over 170 new cards to collect, including four brand-new Pokémon VSTAR, 20 Pokémon V, and three Pokémon VMAX, there are plenty of other exciting combinations and strategies to explore. Do you have what it takes to light up the competition?

Look for more Pokémon TCG strategy and analysis at Pokemon.com/Strategy.