Against the backdrop of cackling thunder and volts of trainer excitement, Scarlet and Violet’s latest set, Surging Sparks, is set to be released on 8 November.
The new expansion is centred around Paldea’s Terarium – an artificial paradise first introduced in The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. With it comes a cast of new cards, including ex Pokémon, a plethora of Paradox variants, and a few more acclaimed ACE SPEC cards.
The Surging Sparks mascot is none other than a supercharged Pikachu ex, with its first special illustration rare in the Scarlet and Violet era. Pikachu’s strikingly powerful Topaz Bolt attack hits for 300 damage – numbers befitting one of the faces of the franchise.
Yet, while Pikachu ex is enough to get amped up about, the Terarium offers a whole lot more. From terastalising dragons to game-defining Trainer cards, it’s time to see what’s causing a current in Paldea…
Table of Contents
1: Koraidon
Up first is one of the legendary Pokémon of Paldea, Koraidon. This single-prize attacker could be even better than the existing format because of its potential to slot into pre-existing builds, such as Ancient Box.
With 130HP, Koraidon has a reasonably sizable bulk, allowing it to withstand early-game attacks from smaller threats. Throw on a Bravery Charm and you may even start surviving some two shots.
Yet it’s Koraidon’s attack, Unrelenting Assault, that could make it of use to Ancient decks across the meta. For two Colourless Energy, the attack does base 30 damage. However, if you attacked with another Ancient Pokémon in your last turn, then the attack’s damage rises to a solid 180. By pairing this with Professor Sada’s Vitality, you can get Unrelenting Assault charged up in just one turn.
As a single-prize attacker, Koraidon is hugely helpful for bypassing ex foils, such as Mimikyu. However, due to their weakness, the legendary fighting type’s actual value may lie in the fact that it can legitimately threaten the core components of decks, such as Miraidon ex and Terapagos ex. Both of these cards, which are seeing quite a bit of play in the current meta, will be OHKO by a Koraidon with the correct capabilities. In fact, a bulky Terapagos ex with a Bouffalant wall and a Bravery Charm will still go down with one hit.
Koraidon can chain up multiple Unrelenting Assault or become part of a wider strategy in decks that are already seeing love, like Raging Bolt ex and Roaring Moon ex.
2: Palossand ex
Life’s a beach for players using the new Palossand ex, which looks like a super fun card to punish your opponent with.
Introduced as a Psychic Tera type, the 280HP Palossand ex has some interesting attacks that will undoubtedly make it competitively viable. Its first attack, Sand Tomb, does 160 damage for three Colourless Energy and prevents your opponent’s defending Pokémon from retreating during their next turn. Its second attack, Barite Jail, is the Pokémon’s USP for chipping down big hitters; it lets you put damage counters on all of your opponent’s benched Pokémon until they have just 100HP remaining.
These attacks make Palossand ex perfectly suited to spread decks looking to wreak havoc across the board. This is because its first attack damages the bench with an effect, so Manaphy and tera type protection won’t help there. And then the second will allow you to pull down high-HP Pokémon to a range where they can be KO’d or even take out smaller pre-evolution Pokémon sitting there.
Trainers have already begun to speculate about what cards may help to further build Palossand ex up. Among the suggestions is its use alongside the in vogue Dusknoir line. By sacrificing itself, Dusknoir can use its ability, Cursed Blast, to place damage 13 counters on your opponent’s Pokémon. So, by pairing it with the ghostly sandcastle, no card will be out of range.
3: Hydreigon ex
The second deadly dragon here is Hydreigon ex, the three-headed tyrant. In the run up to the release of Surging Sparks, Hydreigon ex has already begun earning acclaim for much-loved artwork by 5ban Graphics. And this fanfare is likely to be followed by love for its battle prowess.
The 330HP Hydreigon ex is primed to take chunks out of multiple cards with different types of attacking strategy. This is because its first attack, Crashing Headbutt, does 200 damage and discards the top three cards of your opponent’s deck. This multi-pronged approach is well suited to an aggressive attacking or milling strategy, costing just one Dark and one Colourless Energy.
The second attack, Obsidian, truly pays homage to the design of Hydreigon. It does a base 130 damage and also 130 damage to two of your opponent’s benched Pokémon. That’s all three heads taking a bite at once. The only caveat is that this attack is quite hard to power up as it costs one Dark, one Psychic, one Steel, and Colourless Energy.
There are workarounds to get this ex dragon ready to do damage. For example, you could pair it with the single-prize Hydreigon from Paldea Evolved and use its ability Tri Howl to accelerate Energy cards from your deck to Hydreigon ex. A way to make this even easier is to ensure you know what those cards at the top of your deck are using the Supporter card, Ciphermaniac's Codebreaking.
4: Gastrodon
Up next is the sea-slag Pokémon, Gastrodon. While it hasn’t traditionally received much love, Gastrodon could be about to be thrust into the limelight as a useful supporter Pokémon for some of the meta’s current builds.
Key to this potential is its ability, Sticky Bind, which shuts off the abilities of all stage two Pokémon – applying to both you and your opponent – when Gastrodon is on the bench.
Instantly, you’ll think of the disruption potential, shutting down draw engine consistency, such as Pidgeot ex, and nullifying the threat of spread decks, like Dusknoir and its damage counters. But, of course, it shuts you off too, so you’ll need to find the correct deck to integrate Gastrodon into – a deck that can reliably set itself up. Initial suggestions from the TCG community have included Arceus V Star, Dragapult ex, and even the new Terapagos ex deck, which has performed so well.
You can even utilise Gastrodon to bring your Pokémon to life. The Slacking ex, which is also set to be released in Surging Sparks, has unruly potential but is hampered by its ability, Born to Slack. Born to Slack prevents Slacking ex from attacking if your opponent has no ex or V Pokémon in play. But if you shut this off, you can get a 340HP Slacking pummelling your opponent’s smaller Pokémon with Great Swing – a hefty attack that does 280 damage.
5: Lively Stadium
The first non-Pokémon we encounter is Lively Stadium. This Stadium card has the potential to impact archetypes that don’t rely on evolution, as when it is in play, it adds an extra 30HP to all basic Pokémon (both yours and your opponents').
For example, Raging Bolt ex, the Pokémon known for its fast and furious attacking style with Bellowing Thunder, can now fend off attacking threats with an extra bit of bulk. If you attach a Bravery Charm, you can even get Raging Bolt ex up to 320HP.
While it has earmarked more for decks such as Raging Bolt ex, Lively Stadium also has some merit in evolution decks. If you are loading your bench with Charmander and lacking a Manaphy shield, Lively Stadium will give them enough HP to withstand snipe shots from Pokémon such as Radiant Greninja and Dragapult ex.
But remember, if your opponent has set up KOs on several of your Pokémon with damage counters and then bumps the Stadium card, you could be in trouble. Perhaps it's exciting and unnerving in equal measure…
6: Cyrano
One of the set’s stand-out Supporter cards, Cyrano is ready to help archetypes that play ex with some useful draw consistency.
Essentially an updated version of Adventurer's Discovery, which supported V Pokémon, Cyrano lets you search your deck for up to three ex Pokémon, reveal them, and add them to your hand. It’ll certainly have a use where players don’t want to use an Ultra Ball and have to discard, or play a Professor’s Research and hope to draw what you need.
While useful for evolution decks, such as Charizard ex, helping you to find those stage two evolutions, it’ll likely perform best in decks with basic ex Pokémon.
For example, it's another card that could give the Terapagos ex build a leg up, letting you load your bench with all of your primary attackers. Or Cyrano can even give you the ammo you need to take early-game KOs, getting Raging Bolt ex's into play.
7: Milotic ex
Versatile with the potential to become a strong performing deck in its own right, Milotic ex is a new threat to Tera types that has ironically been printed in the Terarium-focused set. And that will suit this regal Water-type just fine.
Now, Milotic ex is ready to negate the attacks of all Tera Pokémon with its ability, Sparkling Scales. The card states:
‘Prevent all damage and effects done to this Pokémon by your opponent’s Tera’s Pokémon attacks.’
So that’ll be a spot of bother for Charizard ex, Terapagos ex, Dragapult ex, and more.
For those not sporting a crystal crown, such as Raging Bolt ex and Hydrapple ex, Milotic ex has another weapon to shut them down. Its attack, Hypno Splash, does 160 damage and puts the opponent to sleep for one Water Energy and two Colourless Energy. That means they’ll flip a coin to see if they can do anything the next turn.
Even if Milotic ex doesn’t emerge into its own archetype, it has all the necessities to slot into competitive Water decks as a tech-line, such as Chien-Pao, which looks like it could need some extra edge.
8: Precious Trolley
In the era of ACE SPEC, we are now seeing how important their selections are in deck builds – and Surging Sparks has given us another strong option.
Precious Trolley lets you search your deck for any number of basic Pokémon and add them to your bench. Precious Trolley offers so much, aside from the sheer ability to get Pokémon into play for battle.
When playing against decks that utilise Gapejaw Bog, such as some rogue Hisuian Zoroark V Star builds, Precious Trolley will allow you to get your bench filled without succumbing to damage.
But the biggest boon seems to be the potential this card holds for the Terapagos ex archetype, which relies on cracking open the bench with Area Zero Underdepths, loading the bench, and then hitting for as much damage as possible with Terapagos ex's Unified Beatdown attack, which multiplies damage times the number of Pokémon on your bench. By using Precious Trolley to find and place eight basic Pokémon on your bench, you could hit for 240 at the cost of just two Colourless Energy.
9: Cofagrigus
The new Cofagrigus is a card with the potential to add another dimension to spread deck archetypes, such as those that play the Dusknoir line.
While its usage is pretty niche, the 120HP Cofagrigus could be a decent one-one line that throws in mid-to-late-game mischief by spreading damage counters. It does this using its attack, Law of the Underworld, which lets you place six damage counters on each Pokémon in play with any abilities (both yours and your opponent’s).
Law of the Underworld costs just one Psychic Energy, and if you are already thinking of sacrificing Dusknoir and Dusclops to hurt your opponent, then adding six damage counters won’t matter. This play could be a solid single-prize counter to the near ubiquitous existence of ex Pokémon with abilities, with builds such as Dragapult ex and Terapagos ex now performing so well.
10: Terapagos
Terapagos has made a name for itself in the meta thanks to its ex form from Stellar Crown. But it now has another form that could complement the already-impressive archetype.
This single prize version of Terapagos can use its first attack, Prism Charge, which costs just one Colourless Energy, to search your deck for three basic Energy cards of different types and attach them to your Tera Pokémon in any manner.
This is a huge advantage for those cards with awkward secondary attacks, such as the aforementioned Terapagos ex. But there are others too, like the new Hydreigon ex card, which has so much attacking output to offer with the correct set up. Dig out a Dark, Steel and Psychic energy, then start hitting three Pokémon for 130 in one fell swoop. Terapagos certainly seems set to be a useful foil.
What else is out there?
Surging Sparks is packed with options, making it a hard one to narrow down.
For control and stall decks, the basic Rotom is a potentially disruptive option. Its attack, Crushing Pulse, forces your opponent to reveal their hand, and allows you to discard any Item and Tool cards you find there. Combine this with Galvantula ex from Stella Crown, use the electric spider’s attack, Fulgurite, and you can prevent your opponent from playing any Item cards from their hand, and then force them to discard.
The last card to pay homage to on the list is Energy Search Pro. This card lets you search your deck for any number of basic Energy cards of different types, reveal them, and put them into your hand. This could be game-defining for archetypes that need to accelerate energy to then discard for attack, such as Chien-Pao ex. Its attack, Hail Blade, multiplies damage by 60 for every Water Energy discarded from the legendary.
For many fans, Surging Sparks is going to be one of the sets of the year, a standout in the Scarlet and Violet era, with so many chase cards. Are you looking to pull that sought-after Pikachu, land yourself a new ex attacker, or find another special ACE SPEC?
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