When you've reviewed as many Pokemon TCG expansions as I have, it's hard not to repeat yourself. This is especially true with Scarlet & Violet, which re-introduced ex cards from all the way back in the Ruby & Sapphire era. Though today's ex cards are the TCGs version of Tera Types with their own unique mechanics, you can see the patterns of power progression and strategic variety emerging in the same way they do with every new generation. Pokemon TCG is a game that repeats itself, expanding and contracting in the same rhythm on a three year cycle that never ends.
The newest expansion, Paldea Evolved, echoes a dozen past first-series expansions, like Sword & Shield - Rebel Clash, XY - Flash Fire, and of course, 2003's EX Sandstorm. It expands a newly-introduced mechanic beyond the gimmick phase and solidifies the playstyles that will define the generation, while also filling in the gaps for current-gen Pokemon that have yet to be featured. Paldea Evolved is formulaic and predictable in many ways, but that reliability is also what has made Pokemon the most popular TCG in the world for the last 25 years.
Scarlet & Violet Base Set established the pace for the new generation, and Paldea Evolved does a great job fleshing out ex options without trying to overcomplicate the new meta prematurely. The ten ex cards introduced in the base set are joined by 15 new ones, including all three Scarlet & Violet starters, all four Ruinous Legends, and Pikachu. Among those, I've got my eye on Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao, who both have a lot of potential to become bench-building engines. This set also introduced Dedenne ex, but I don't expect it will have the same massive impact that Dedenne GX once had.
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Paldea Evolved also features a suite of new special energy cards, which is a nice nod to EX Sandstorm. These are going to be the cards that make the biggest impact from this set, and I expect that both Superior Energy Retrieval and Jet Energy will see immediately play. Special energy cards are so versatile that powerful ones can be even more exciting and meta-defining than flashy new Pokemon, and I'm excited to see what kind of impact these new options will have on the game.
The illustration rares, formerly known as the Trainer Gallery, are stunning, and some of the best the game has ever had. I'm particularly fond of the starter Pokemon in this set. Both the base evolution and middle evolution share a setting and narrative thread. For example, Fuecoco is riding in the baby seat of a shopping cart at the grocery store, while Crocalor is making a mess in the produce aisle. It's a shame we don't have the final evolutions here (they're reserved for the typical gold rarity in this set) but I hope the next expansion can revisit this concept and finish the arc.
These are the kinds of art cards that deserve to be framed and displayed, and while I hate beating the drum endlessly with each new set, it's a shame how poor the pull rates are. Even with the new three-holo-per-pack system - which does help - you're still unlikely to find more than three or four of the 36 illustration rares from a booster box, and it's even harder to find ultra rares, special illustration rares, and hyper rares. I love the variety of rarity options and the sheer amount of worthwhile cards to hunt for in each set, but I'm beyond tired of spending hundreds and filling crates full of bulk only to find barely a fraction of what each set has to offer.
The Pokemon TCG has become pretty predictable. This set gave us ex versions of the starters and Pikachu, the next will give us Charizard ex, and then we'll probably get the Eeveelutions followed by a new mechanic, like gx. But despite that familiarity, the expansion has never become monotonous. Between the fantastic new illustration rares and powerful new special energy cards, Paldea Evolved feels just as exciting today as Ex Sandstorm did 20 years ago. It's hard to fault Pokemon for settling into certain patterns when the game has thrived for this long. Hopefully I'm still this excited about pulling a Pikachu ex in another 20 years too.
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