The new Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion set, Twilight Masquerade, brings the world and characters of Kitakami to the TCG. But which cards are the set’s best? We’ll try to break it down.
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The coolest Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards
We’ve been, perhaps, a bit harsh on Tera Pokemon around here, but it’s undeniable that the new Greninja ex is quite cool. And useful! For one energy, it can deal 170 damage and search for any card in your deck, and its second ability is a good contingency choice for when you need to hit two bench targets for 120 instead. Now… is the new type relevant? Not particularly. But it doesn’t hurt anything either.
In terms of coolest pulls, though? Those are always the Hyper Rares. This set’s selections to get the gold treatment are Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Enhanced Hammer, Rescue Board and Luminous Energy. The gold looks special with anything, but it’s particularly funny for us to see it applied to street food.
The pool of ACE SPEC cards is expanding by six with this new set, adding options for players. Legacy Energy is a nice addition for decks that could use a rainbow energy, with the bonus of decreasing the opponent’s prize card reward for knocking a Pokemon out. Hyper Aroma lets you search for three Stage 1s, which would likely need a specific build, but that many searches as an Item has potential.
Speaking of lots of searches! Fellow ACE SPEC Secret Box costs itself and three discards, but gets you an Item, Tool, Supporter and Stadium of your choice. Rounding out the selection is Survival Brace, which lets you survive a one-hit KO; Unfair Stamp, which responds to a knockout with an asymmetrical hand re-draw; and Scoop Up Cyclone, a card that could see use if nothing else as a way to re-play enters-the-field utilities but might get you out of other jams from time to time.
Adding to the ranks of bench utilities is Drakloak, bringing back the old Pidgeotto ability to filter through and draw cards every turn. We also see some potential in Boomerang Energy, which is a colorless energy that reattaches itself when you discard it as an attack cost. Right now, we’re not sure there’s a viable enough user of it, but maybe there’s one on the horizon.
The most interesting Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards
We’re most interested to see what shenanigans players can formulate with the Ogerpon variants. The Ogre’s Mask card lets you essentially hot-swap the different ex cards from a Teal Mask variant that really needs grass energy to the others that only need one of their type to operate. With type switching not being a huge part of the competitive metagame and these moves not immediately showing their synergy to us, we’re not sure this’ll be great? But it’s certainly a creative attempt.
Also, though we’re not sure it rises to the level of competitive quite yet, the Festival Grounds suite of cards is purpose-built to provide a budget combo deck of its own. Creatures with the Festival Lead ability can attack twice when that stadium is in play. That sounds pretty great, yeah? Well unfortunately, most of the attacks available to them are really weak. But combining Dipplin’s longtime-favorite Do the Wave attack with the color-sharing Thwackey and its Boom Boom Groove ability to search for any card every turn? That might work.
The cutest Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards
Grookey just hanging out and having a good time is a definite mood-booster, as is a sedentary but still highly relatable Bellibolt. Eevee and Shinx are always safe bets, but their portrayals here do look quite nice.
We also like when the card art experiments with medium and style. The Ducklett works well for the character, and a knitted Sandygast brings whimsy to a species that can honestly be pretty disturbing when you think too long about it.
As always, the Illustration Rare cards have a much better opportunity to show personality. Hisuian Growlithe hams it up for the camera. Eevee pile up in a living room. Applin play a strange variant of Where’s Waldo in which Waldo is everywhere.
The latest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet: Twilight Masquerade, launches May 24, 2024. For more information on the TCG, check out our overview of the set or our Pokemon TCG archive.
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