Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm and I am so happy to bring you this article here at CCG Castle. Sword and Shield is being officially released this week and it truly is a breath of fresh air for the game. The expansion comes with amazing new cards that are going to have a huge impact on the game. I’ve summarized the main changes in 5 aspects. Let’s check what will they be!

1-      Consistency is back to the game.

One of the main reasons why many players have felt frustrated in the past couple of months was because of the feeling that no matter what you did through the game or even what deck you played; the possibilities of bricking were incredibly high. And this was no surprise. The rotation took away many searching cards like Ultra or Nest Ball. That meant, with very few exceptions, that every strategy struggled with the set up and the fact that the best drawing supporter we had was Cynthia (which is great for preserving resources but sometimes terrible when you need to find some very specific combo pieces) made it very difficult to progress in a game. But now, all our problems have finally been solved. Quick Ball is giving every deck the possibility to set up consistently, Evolution Incense will give evolution decks a new chance and Magnolia will finally bring back the much-needed effect of discarding our hand to draw.

2-      Adding another level of speed:

All these new cards are not only going to have an impact in how easy the decks can set up but also on the speed in general. I have been testing a couple of decks with the new Sword and Shield cards and I can tell that everything feels that the difference is just huge: Jirachis, Magnolias, Searching cards…. In fact, being able to Dedenne and Magnolia in the same turn equals to drawing a total of 13 cards. That represents a 27% of the cards that are in your deck after you draw for the first turn! Finding resources has never been so easily (at least in the last formats).

3-      More balanced turns 1

Many players are wondering how the new supporter rule will affect the first turn of the game. To me, the majority of decks won’t be affected by this because they will just focus on the set up and, provided that they run cards like Dedenne, Zacian V or even Rotom Bike, playing a supporter in the first turn won’t be a massive difference. The only strategies that will be 100% affected will be Welder based decks since they will lose their turn one explosivity.

4-      Diversity of strategies

Let’s face it. There was no one who dared to play evolution decks in the previous format because they were just too inconsistent. Without possibilities to search non-GX Pokémon, Evolution decks had to rely on things like Rosa to find the rare candies and the stages 2. Now, Evolutions and non-GX based decks seem to have enough support as to make a comeback. I am not saying they will be able to take the game by storm but, at least, searching cards and the fact that Skyla (yes, Skyla!) is getting a reprint soon makes them stand a chance after so long.

5-      Hand disruption will be very present  

I know what you are thinking. We already had Reset Stamp in the game and that has provided us with timely hand disruption when our opponent was low on prizes. However, now, with the release of Sword and Shield this disruption is not only going to be limited to mid/late game. Marnie not only does offer an amazing alternative for preserving resources, it is a Judge on steroids.  I have no doubts that it will be massively played in many decks and we all know how damaging a turn 1 judge it. If that was not enough, remember that our friend Trevenant Dusknoir Tag Team exists and that it can take away half of the hand that Marnie gets you.

With that, we reach to the end of this article. I am sure many more reasons can be found as why Sword and Shield is going to be an incredible set but for the time being, we will just leave it here. Make sure you pick all your staples here at CCG before there run out. Thanks for reading!