Triumphant Light is here and it adds a new gimmick which is having a certain pokemon in play to get your abilities live.

Exs

Arceus ex is obviously the ouliner, you can build a deck around it, or many i should say:

- Carnivine hitting for 50 from 1 Grass.

- Heatran is a decent wall that gets free retreat with decent dmg once it has dmg on it.

- Abomasnow is a solid stage 1 water, Manaphy and Irida could a meta contender.

- Raichu does 60 dmg for 2 lightning, 40 to the active and 20 to 1 in the bench, which is pretty good, and i could see being playing without Arceus ex, the new Pikachu also has some spread dmg.

- Rotom is your colorless atk Hitmonlee (that can be played in any deck without needing Arceus).

- Tyranitar is unfortunetely the worse of this bunch, despite raching 160 dmg, a 4 energy atk with no good way to be sped up is really bad.

- Crobat is a solid card that does 30 dmg to the active through its ability while having a 50 atk for 1 darkness energy, GA's Golbat line can atk with colorless energy, so I could see this being a good option for Arceus that doesn't want to play Darkness energy.

- Magnezone seems like a decent card, but the issue is why would play metal with a starge 2 line and having to play Arceus and not just play Dialga and a stage 1 line instead or even just more basics like the Arceus ex without Magnezone. I could be wrong about this one but feels not worth playing stage 2s that don't help you finish the game and instead are trying to stay alive for longer.

Regular Arceus is pretty bad, but it meets the requirements for the abilities so it mght see play for that reason, and if you are playing NOEX.

Leafeon ex can accelerate Grass energy while in the active to your other grass pokemon or itself, making it a good lead. Notable grass options:

- new Vespiquen, same dmg output as Arcanine ex, but more frail, tho 2x copies of it have more longevity than 1 Arcanine ex.

- Yanmega ex, this makes so you could play duo energy or even not play Grass and go with Water, Darkness or smth else just so you can utilize other cards like Manaphy, Darkrai ex, Irida, etc.

Glaceon ex is a nice option for your water deck that already plays Eevee/Vaporeon as a decent backup attacker.

Garchomp ex is a decent card, its somewhat in pair with older stage 2 exs, if you evolve on curve going 2nd is will put a lot of pressure while it also has a good atk to hit the bench even when you go first.

Probopass is fine card for metal, decent HP, decent atk. Nothing crazy, most notable thing is that it can atk a turn earlier than Melmetal. But it's a bit more vunerable than Melmetal as it's only taking less dmg if it used it's atk, Melmetal doesn't tak any dmg from things like the new Rotom and Raichu for example.

The supporters are all decent/good:

- Irida is crazy good, healing everything that has water energy, lets you keep your manaphy alive which also spreads Water energy, and comes in a meta build around Cyrus, will definitely be the most played supporter from the set.

- Adaman is a decent option for Metal simply bcuz there's so many cards that hit the bench for 10-20 dmg, that can protect your wincon from Cyrus.

- Barry is really good, Heracross is alright with Barry but really bad without it, Snorlax is decent, the new one works with Lum Berry and the GA one has Golduck atk stats but with more HP but obviously terrible without Barry, so I could see being played at 1 in your Staraptor deck. We have 3 different starptors, 1 from STS, 1 from TL and one that comes with the new event, they are all decent with different upsides, no retreat can lock you a win on your next turn, -30 from fightning could be decent if fightning would be the most popular type bcuz of Arceus (probably not), but the TL one is definitely the outliner here, 130 for 3 colorless is already good on its own, being able to use a supporter to make it a 1 energy atk is actually really good and makes it worthy of a stage 2 card. Also the new Staravia has better stats.

- Celestic Town Elder is decent card that anyone can play. Essentially you sack you lead while power up your bench and you can retrieve that lead if is important, like lets say Riolu, something that hits their bench, or you can use to retrieve smth you want to use again.

Other highlights:

- Houndoom is Arbok for Fire, nice option for fire, not sure if we will see play atm.

- Manectirc has an annoying extra effect on it's already solid atk.

- Gengar is decent but not really an upgrade from the one we had, unfortunately they managed to make worse versions of it's pre evos.

- Sudowoodo does 50 to exs for 1 fightning energy, and notably 70 to Arceus ex, which is a 2 hit KO.

- Medicham is GA's Seaking for Fightning.

- Toxicroak is very interesting, it deal 20 dmg and if they don't switch or evolve they take 40 more dmg and you can atk with smth else that turn. And Croakgunk if very searchable with the help of Team Galact Grunts.

- Bronzong is similar to Alakazam, it's downside is that it deals less dmg, 10 less base dmg and 10 less scaling dmg, while the upside being that it's metal and needs colorless energy to atk on a stage 1 and not 2.

- Shaymin could see play, it's ability is essentially 1 xspeed per turn for basic decks.

Overall nice additions, the meta will shake up a bit but I don't think the most played decks from last meta will be going anywhere, Darkrai ex, Exeggutor ex and Magnezone decks will still be very popular, we will just see other decks around.