Arceus – Triumphant Light
Date Reviewed: March 7, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Our second honorable mention is Arceus (A2a 070). It’s a Basic, Colorless Pokémon with 120 HP, (F) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, and the attack “Power Blast”. Priced at (C)(C)(C)(C), Power Blast does 100 damage, while discarding a random Energy from Arceus itself. Arceus is available as a ♦♦♦♦ rare. As many of us won’t be pulling Arceus ex, but will be pulling all the “Link” Ability Pokémon, I thought we should look at our other option to trigger them.
This Arceus is not a Pokémon ex, so you’re only giving up one point when it is KO’d, and it doesn’t have to worry about anti-ex effects. Arceus is a (C) Type, so there won’t be any matches where it enjoys +20 damage from exploiting Weakness. Nor did any Colorless-Type support materialize since I reviewed Shaymin (A2a 069, 081).
Arceus is a Basic: easy to run and requiring minimal time and resources. Basic support like Poké Ball (P-A 005) and the aforementioned Shaymin are also handy, while I haven’t noticed anti-Basic effects2 seeing much play, lately. 120 HP is sturdy, able to survive even a medium attack, though the (F) Weakness will enable some relevant OHKOs and 2HKOs. The Retreat Cost of (C)(C) is typical, but at least feels worse since this is not a big, Basic Pokémon ex.
Power Blast is mediocre. If we only consider the Energy Cost versus the damage done, even with that random discard of its own Energy, Power Blast looks good. What concerns me is, even with compatible Energy acceleration, that’s four Energy attached to a 120 HP body, that is not hitting hard enough to score reliable OHKOs. There’s just too large a chance your opponent retaliates and scores a OHKO against Arceus, costing you Energy and maybe disabling Link Abilities.
The real value of Arceus is satisfying the conditional requirement of the Abilities found Abomasnow (A2a 021), Carnivine (A2a 009), Crobat (A2a 050), Heatran (A2a 013), Magnezone (A2a 055), Raichu (A2a 026; P-A 044), Rotom (A2a 035), and Tyranitar (A2a 041). If you don’t have a card named “Arceus” or “Arceus ex” in play, their Abilities do nothing. I found no decks using Arceus itself on LimitlessTCG, but I’ll mention when the following have a deck alongside Arceus ex (A2a 071, 086, 095, 096).
Abomasnow (A2a 021) is a (W) Type, Stage 1 with 120 HP, (M) Weakness, (C)(C))C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Vigor Link”, and the attack “Mega Punch”. Vigor Link reduces this Pokémon’s attack cost by (C). Mega Punch does 80 damage for (W)(W)(C), or just (W)(W) when Vigor Link is working. There are less than 40 examples of it in the listings of Arceus ex/Abomasnow, and its 46.9% win percentage isn’t encouraging, but at least it’s there.
Carnivine (A2a 009) is a (G) Type, Basic Pokémon with 80 HP, (R) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Power Link”, and the attack “Vine Whip”. Power Link grants +30 damage to the attacks used by this card; it’s only attack costs (G) and does 20 base damage (50 when Power Link is working). Arceus ex/Carnivine is has a solid Win % but also less than 100 entries. This many weeks past the release of Triumphant Light, the latter makes me distrust the former.
Crobat (A2a 050) is a (D) Type, Stage 2 with 110 HP, (F) Weakness, free Retreat Cost, the Ability, “Cunning Link”, and the attack “Darkness Fang”. Once per turn, Cunning Link lets you do 30 damage to your opponent’s Active. Darkness Fang only costs (D), and does 50 damage. Attacking with Darkness Fang is optional; Cunning Link is like a damage bonus that doesn’t need a damaging attack to work! Too bad the decks utilizing it aren’t doing as well as I’d expected.
Heatran (A2a 013) is a (R) Type, Basic Pokémon with 110 HP, (W) Weakness, (C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Speed Link”, and the attack “Ragin’ Mad Strike”. Speed Link zeroes out Heatran’s Retreat Cost. Ragin’ Mad Strike costs (R)(R) and does 40 damage, or 80 if there’s any damage on itself. Speed Link lets it function as a pivot Pokémon and decent meatshield. The attack can be nice, if you can spare the Energy for it. There’s actually a decklist for this over at Pokémon Zone!
Magnezone (A2a 055) is a (M) Type, Stage 2 with 140 HP, (R) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Resilience Link”, and the attack “Power Beam”. The former applies a -30 modifier to damage from attacks done to Magnezone; the latter does 80 damage for (M)(M)(C). While there are Arceus ex/Magnezone decks, they use the Magnezone (A2 053).
Raichu (A2a 026; P-A 044) is a (L) Type, Stage 1 with 90 HP, (F) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Resilience Link”, and the attack “Spark”. Yes, the same -30 to damage taken that Magnezone (A2a 055) enjoys, but on a 90 HP Stage 1. Spark costs (L)(L) does 40 damage to your opponent’s Active, and 20 to one of their Benched Pokémon (your choice which). I didn’t see any lists using this.
Rotom (A2a 035) is a (P) Type, Basic with 70 HP, (D) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Speed Link”, and “Dash Attack” the… attack. Once again, Speed Link works the same as it does for Heatran (A2a 013), except we’re zeroing out a (C) Retreat Cost, instead of a chunky (C)(C)(C). Dash Attack costs (C) and does 20 damage to one of your choice of the opponent’s Benched Pokémon. It’s seeing use alongside Carnivine.
Tyranitar (A2a 041) is a (F) Type, Stage 2 with 160 HP, (G) Weakness, (C)(C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Power Link”, and the attack “Land Crush”. Our third repeated Ability, Power Link still grants +30 damage. Land Crush costs (F)(F)(F)(C) and does 130 damage, or 160 when Power Link is working. This card makes me with we had some compatible Energy acceleration. I suppose you could try hiding behind something else…
Rating: 3/5
Admittedly, I’m being pretty generous here. From what I can tell, Arceus ex decks just use Arceus ex. There’s either no room to include “baby” Arceus, or it’s just not worth the effort. Still, this let us look at the various Link Ability Pokémon now, since I probably won’t be able to review all of them before we cover Arceus ex itself. If you don’t factor in the Link Ability crowd, Arceus is probably half a point to even a full point worse.
1Pokémon Flute (A1a 064) and Victreebel (A1 020).
2Irida (A2a 072, 087) and Manaphy (A2 050, 162; P-A 048).
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