Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and it is a pleasure to be here once again. In today’s article we are going to go quickly through the latest results from this weekend now that Forbidden Light is legal for tournament play. Not very surprisingly, both Buzzwole and Ultra Necrozma Malamar took many top places at the SPEs in Europe and Latam but what not many people were expecting was to see Necrozma GX in the top cuts. Yes, you read right, Necrozma GX. It makes an incredible partner with Malamar! So now the question is… which variant is better? Necrozma Malamar or Ultra Necrozma Malamar?

Necrozma GX was first released in Burning Shadows. With colorless protection, a great GX attack that spreads damage and the capacity to discard psychic energies to reach hig numbers, Necrozma apparently had a lot of opportunities in the fame. Nonetheless, its weakness to psychic in a format dominated by Garbodor made it literally see no competitive play... until now? This format may be the right time for Necrozma GX to shine. With Malamar, it can constantly recharge and deal consistently the magic number of 190 (the HP of Buzzwole and Ultra Necrozma among others). 

Then, we have Ultra Necrozma GX which happens to be a powerful dragon legendary with very similar attacks. Its GX move is slightly less powerful but its main attack can deal more damage at the same cost of discarding energies. The only issue with Necrozma is that it requires two different types of energies for attacking, metal and psychic in this case. So which one is better?

There are a number of objective facts about both Pokémon. On one side, Ultra Necrozma GX has a better weakness for the current state of the game (fairy), better HP, can be searched by Mysterious Treasure and literally kills anything with 3 Malamar on the bench. On the other side, Necrozma GX should be able to attack easier because it is free from the restriction of attaching a metal energy every turn, reaches consistent numbers and has a great GX attack for this format.

For me, there is no clear winner since each of them can do different things against different decks. I believe that both are great partners for Malamar and that the choice to go for one or another depends on the player and the local metagame. Thanks for reading!