Pokémon TCG Pocket: Best cards in Celestial Guardians

The Celestial Guardians expansion in Pokémon TCG Pocket is available now and it brings with it over 200 new cards to play with. As the biggest expansion to date – even bigger than the Genetic Apex set the game launched with – there are plenty of fantastic cards, many of which will push the meta forwards in new and interesting ways. 

We’ve seen the meta grow into a faster, harder-hitting place in recent expansions, and Celestial Guardians is no different. It even brings with it a staple card from the paper game that opens up all new strategies and makes some decks much more powerful and much more consistent. 

With all the new cards added in the expansion – and a few hours of competitive play under our belts in the new format – we put together this helpful guide going over the best cards in Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Celestial Guardians expansion. 

Rare Candy 

Rare Candy is an absolute game changer, although it comes with a few key stipulations that keep it from being ridiculously overpowered. Rare Candy lets you evolve a Basic Pokémon from the Basic stage immediately to Stage 2, skipping Stage 1 in the process — if you have a Charmander card on the field, for example, you can play Rare Candy to evolve it straight into a Charizard without ever needing a Charmeleon in hand or in play first. 

This has huge ramifications for certain decks, and makes Stage 2 Pokémon ex cards significantly more viable in the faster meta we’ve seen develop with recent sets. It can also be used in a few different ways: you can swap out your Stage 1 cards for Rare Candy cards instead, freeing up room for other key cards, or you can include it alongside those cards to essentially give you 3 or 4 cards that get you to your Stage 2 Pokémon, massively increasing the consistency of any deck that plays Stage 2s. 

Rare Candy’s restrictions are something to keep in mind, though. You can’t play it on your first turn, and you can’t play it on a Basic Pokémon that was put into play on the same turn you intend to play it. These restrictions are on its paper counterpart too, though, and it’s still seen consistent play in most formats in which it’s been available, which should tell you just how valuable this card is. If you play literally any Stage 2 card – including the new Solgaleo and Lunala ex cards – then you should find space to run at least one Rare Candy alongside it, ideally two. 

Passimian ex 

Passimian ex is notable as the first basic Pokémon ex card for Fighting-type decks, giving a much-needed speed boost to one of the slowest deck typings in the game. Passimian ex isn’t particularly strong on its own, given its relatively low HP for an ex card and damage topping out at 60 points, but its ability is what makes it worth considering. Offload Pass lets you move all the energy on Passimian ex to another Pokémon on your bench when it gets knocked out by an attack from another Pokémon, allowing you to instantly set up a second, perhaps slower Pokémon on the bench. 

The play here is pretty simple — throw Passimian ex into the active spot as soon as possible, then load all of your energy onto it. On the bench, you’ll want to be setting up a strong Fighting-type Pokémon card like Aerodactyl ex, or even something colorless like Rayquaza ex, while dealing small amounts of damage using Passimian. Once the monkey card is knocked out, you’ll move all your energy onto the Pokémon you’ve been setting up on the bench, then start sweeping for the win. 

Kiawe and Turtonator

Kiawe seems very limited at first glance, but paired with Turtonator it becomes a very interesting proposition, especially since it makes going first actually viable. Turtonator isn’t very powerful, but as a basic Pokémon it’s very easy to get going, and Kiawe lets you dump two energy onto it on turn one — even if you’re going first. Using Kiawe also instantly ends your turn, which is completely fine in this scenario, because when your second turn rolls around, you’ll be able to attach a third energy and start dealing 90 damage immediately. This is hugely threatening, especially in a Fire deck, which are typically big hitters, and it should let you get a couple knockouts while you’re busy setting up something even more terrifying on the bench. 

Notably, Turtonator’s attack only requires that the first two energy are Fire-type, with the third energy required being colorless. Given Kiawe gives two Fire-type energy, you could theoretically slot this two-card combo into a deck of any type, giving slower decks more opportunity to deal early damage and put your opponent on the back foot. 

Alolan Raichu ex 

Alolan Raichu ex is threatening enough to almost single-handedly remove Serperior and Grass-type decks on the whole from the meta. Its attack deals an extra 30 damage for each energy attached to your opponent’s Pokémon, so decks that rely on a high amount of energy – like the Serperior + Celebi combo, or Charizard ex – are punished by its existence. 

It also only requires colorless energy, effectively making it a generic Pokémon card that’s able to fit into any deck — as long as you’re okay with setting up a Pikachu in an unrelated deck.  It’s quite unlike most Lightning-type cards, too, because it’s relatively slow to set up and requires a large amount of energy with very few methods to accelerate that, so it can be a great long-play backup strategy in a faster deck like Pikachu ex. 

Leaf Cape 

Leaf Cape is a strange card, primarily because it entirely replaces another, similar card — but only for decks of a specific type. The Leaf Cape is a Pokémon Tool card that gives any Grass-type Pokémon it’s attached to an extra 30 HP. That effectively makes it a drop-in replacement for Space-Time Smackdown’s Giant Cape Pokémon Tool, provided you’re using a Grass-type deck. 

And that’s actually pretty good, all things considered. Grass-type decks tend to be frail, relying on cards like Celebi ex, which has just 130 HP, so having an extra 30 HP as a buffer can make a big difference. Most Grass decks were already running Giant Cape anyway, but Leaf Cape pushes a card like Celebi ex up to 160 HP vs the 150 HP of the Giant Cape, which makes it much more reliable when it comes to surviving some heavy hitters that deal exactly (or up to) 150 HP. 

Oricorio (Pom-Pom) 

Oricorio got four new cards in the Celestial Guardians set – one for each of its forms – but the Pom-Pom one is the only variant really worth playing. It’s pretty incredible too, thanks to its ability Safeguard, which prevents all damage from your opponent’s Pokémon ex card attacks, making it a very safe switch in whenever you need to slow the game down and prevent your opponent from sweeping. 

This Oricorio card is a Lightning-type card, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever use it for its attack, so it’s more than viable in any deck type that plays a little bit more slowly than the fast sweepers of the current meta. It’s a super valuable staller, because most fast decks focus primarily on setting up a big Pokémon ex card and little else — if your opponent is about to sweep, you can swap in your Oricorio and prevent that from happening (provided they don’t have a Sabrina handy), forcing them to waste energy or resources to get another Pokémon ready to take it out. Paired with a Giant Cape, it should be able to tank at least one hit from most cards capable of dealing damage to it, giving you two turns to set up a counter-sweep or draw the right card for your strategy to work. It’s also got a delightful full art variant, so it’s definitely worth considering.

Solgaleo ex 

Solgaleo ex is the powerful heavy hitter that Metal-type decks have been waiting for, and with Rare Candy making it actually viable to play Stage 2 cards now, it’s definitely worth considering building a deck around it. Solgaleo ex has a fantastic ability that lets you build it up on the bench and then swap it into the active spot for free. It also only needs two Metal energy to deal 120 damage, which is an absurd energy to damage ratio, even for a Stage 2 card. 

A pretty simple and viable Metal deck in the current meta consists of a couple Solgaleo ex cards, a couple Skarmory cards, and a bunch of Trainer cards to help move it all along. It’s cheap, consistent, and quite fast all things considered, with a straightforward strategy that gets results without any fuss. Metal has a decent Supporter card in Adaman now, too, so if you’ve got Solgaleo ex – and the cards that enable it – you may as well give it a go.