Hey Trainers! The release of the next major Pokémon TCG expansion, Temporal Forces, and standard rotation is right around the corner, which means new playable cards for our players while old cards leave the format. Temporal Forces is a love letter to players as the vast majority of the set is playable, whether you’re playing a meme deck or a Tier 1 meta deck. That being said, let me give you MY top 5 cards from Temporal Forces that can take your deck from zero to hero!
Number 1: Eri
The card text reads: “Your opponent reveals their hand. Choose up to 2 Item cards you find there and discard them.” This card is absolutely broken and there are several reasons why you should consider implementing it into your deck. This is one of those cards that can universally fit in any deck either as a 1 or a 2 of.
However, the main reason why this is one of the most broken cards ever printed is what the card lets you do. Part one: it lets you look at your opponent’s hand. Information is key, like in any TCG. Having knowledge of what is in your opponent’s hand can help you make more informed decisions on what to do during your turn and how to prep for the turns ahead. Part 2, the actual broken part is that this lets you discard 2 Item cards you find in your opponent’s hand.
Setup decks that’ll be very prevalent after rotation like Chien-Pao ex or Charizard ex heavily rely on cards like Buddy-Buddy Poffin and Rare Candy to get setup so being able to force your opponent into drawing another copy of those cards to continue to get setup can put YOU ahead by 1, even 2 turns, letting you take easier KOs on their smaller Pokémon, putting you closer to the W. This makes it easier one of the most playable cards in Temporal Forces.
Number 2: Prime Catcher
The card says: “Switch in 1 of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon to the Active Spot. If you do, switch your Active Pokémon with 1 of your Benched Pokémon.” Cards with a similar effect have been printed before like Guzma or Cross Switcher, however, those older cards were printed with some kind of caveat in mind; Guzma being a supporter and Cross Switcher needing 2 copies of the card to be played at the same time to activate the effect. Prime Catcher is 1 Item card that does what a supporter does, thereby conserving your supporter for turn, and saving on deck space since you don’t need 2 of them to do what Cross Switcher does. Prime Catcher being an item means that it can be found off of supporters like Arven or Irida or stadiums like PokeStop.
This all sounds broken so far, and trust me it is, but they did balance it by making it an Ace Spec card. This is a returning mechanic from the Black and White era where you can’t have more than 1 Ace Spec card in your deck, so once it’s used, it’s gone… except for when it’s not. There are now cards that let you recover item cards from the discard pile like Cyllene and Darkrai VStar and in those decks that run those kinds of recovery cards, you can potentially get off more than 1 use of the Ace Spec. Keep this card on your radar, trainers. It’s gonna be a menace.
Number 3: Cinccino
We’ve talked a lot about Items and Supporter cards so let’s switch things up. Cinccino is a card to be on the lookout for because of its attack Special Roll. Special Roll says “This attack does 70 damage for each Special Energy card attached to this Pokémon.”
The Lugia VStar archetype has been under the radar for awhile now ever since D-Block cards rotated, nerfing Lugia’s potential damage output on top of losing tons of great attackers like Amazing Rare Yveltal and broken special energies like Powerful Colorless Energy and Aurora Energy. With this Cinccino, Lugia VStar decks now have an attacker that is A. a single prizer and B. can dish out unbelievable amounts of damage.
Archeops can accelerate special energies from the deck onto Cinccino, increasing its damage output. Four special energy on Cinccino lets it dish out 280 damage, enough to KO meta relevant Pokémon VStar and if you attach an extra energy on top of those 4, you’re doing 350 damage, KO-ing every relevant Pokémon in the meta. This card made an appearance at Japan’s Champions League Fukuoka, a tournament that had 2700 Masters and took the whole tournament down. Lugia is SO back in part by Cinccino. This little guy is one of the must have playable cards without a Rule Box in Temporal Forces.
Number 4: Iron Leaves ex
Good grass type attackers have been lacking in the Pokémon TCG for a while. The prevalence of Charizard ex, a dark type 2 prize Pokémon that’s weak to grass, has been very difficult to answer as a result without outright using effects to KO like we see on Roaring Moon ex or Giratina VStar. With Iron Leaves ex, we now have an answer to Charizard ex that can swing entire games from in favor of Charizard, to in favor of whatever YOU are running.
Iron Leaves ex has the Rapid Vernier ability that says “Once during your turn, when you play this Pokémon from your hand onto your bench, you may switch this Pokémon with your Active Pokemon. If you do, you may move any number of Energy from your benched Pokémon to this Pokémon.” That means if you have any Pokémon with grass energy already on them, you can search for Iron Leaves using ultra ball, put it into your hand, play it onto your bench, move it into the active and now suddenly you have an attacker that’s powered up out of nowhere. Its attack, Prismatic Edge, does 180 for 2 grass and a colorless; “During your next turn, this Pokémon can’t attack.”
Prismatic Edge does the PERFECT amount to KO a Charizard ex, doing 180, 360 damage with weakness. This can be run in Lost Zone Giratina, Arceus Piles or just about any deck that uses Grass energy to some capacity to counter Charizard ex. Keep this in the back of your mind if you’re struggling with your Charizard ex matchup!
Number 5: Buddy-Buddy Poffin
How can a tier list of the most playable cards from Temporal Forces end without mentioning Buddy-Buddy Poffin. With rotation coinciding with the release and legality of Temporal Forces in standard play, we’ll be losing Battle VIP Pass, a card that lets you search your deck for 2 Basic Pokémon and put them onto your bench. Battle VIP Pass lets you search for ANY Basic Pokémon so you can search for Rule Box Pokémon like Radiant Greninja, Giratina V, etc to help get you set up. Buddy-Buddy Poffin is a much more balanced version of Battle VIP Pass, letting the user search their deck for up to 2 Basic Pokémon with 70 HP or less and put them onto their bench.
Battle VIP Pass was balanced by the game designers with the additional text that says it can only be played on the first turn. Since Buddy-Buddy Poffin only lets you search for basic Pokémon with up to 70 HP, the game designers decided that that limitation was balanced enough to allow the card to be used throughout the game. This is HUGE for setup decks since you can still grab your low HP basics throughout the game instead of being stuck with 4 dead cards for the rest of the game in the case of Battle VIP Pass.
In the case a setup deck has a bad start, they can still recover during the upcoming turns and in my personal testing, I was able to showcase how comebacks can be made after a terrible start. Absolutely incredible card and if you’re running Stage 1s/2s in your deck, you’ll NEED to have these in your deck.
And there ya have it! Those are my top 5 picks for the most playable cards from Temporal Forces! GLHF at prerelease, hit the lab, brew some decks for post rotation and if YOU need singles or Temporal Forces products, check us out! Cya at locals >:-)
