‘Ello everyone, PikaPoster here, and today we will be looking at the amazing Forbidden Light trainers.
Items
Beast Ring
This is hands down the most broken card in the expansion. It allows for up to 8 energies to be attached in one turn, without using up your energy attachment for the turn. Oh, and did I mention it pulls them out of the deck? 2 or more copies of this card MUST be played in every Ultra Beast deck. 5 stars.
Eneporter
This card looks, well, fairly useless. In general, most decks that run special energy won’t care where it goes. Even Tapu Lele, the most common support card, can use DCE. The only deck I can see this working against is Buzzwole to get rid of it entirely, but even then it’s not as good as Enhanced Hammer. 1 star.
Fossil Excavation Map
Let’s be honest here, who’s actually going to use fossils? If they were really usable, it might be okay, but in general, not so good. It’s specific, but it does what it’s meant to do. 2 stars.
Mysterious Treasure
This is another very good card. While specific, many decks these days use Dragon or Psychic Pokémon, and in those decks, it is a straight upgrade from Ultra Ball. 4 stars.
Unidentified Fossil
This one is very hard to rate. It pretty much acts as a useless card on the field until it evolves, but is the only way to get fossil ‘mons up. ?/5 stars.
Tools
Metal Frying Pan
Ahh, possibly my favorite moment from the Pokémon anime ever. Brock’s trusty frying pan, or should I say, drying pan is quite the specific card. It reduces damage done to the Pokémon it is attached to by 30, but only if that Pokémon is Metal type. 10/5 for style points alone, but only 2.5/5 for usage.
Supporters
Bonnie
This is probably the most specific card in the set, but not the worst. However, as seen at Worlds 2018, Bonnie is not really necessary to play Zygarde-GX well, and a couple more field blowers or another N might do you better than Bonnie. 3 stars.
Crasher Wake
This card looks to be really good. I mean, discard 2 water energy and search for ANY 2 cards? Unfortunately, this card is outclassed by the Mallow/Zoroark-GX combo, as well as Magcargo. 1.5 stars.
Diantha
This card is just okay. It could see a bit of use in Fairy decks, but all in all, it’s just a worse version of Teammates or Puzzle of Time. 2 stars.
Judge
In the current format, Judge is trash. N is strictly better than it, for quite good reasons. However, with rotation coming up, and less hand disruption available, Judge might be seen a bit. 2.5 stars.
Lady
I mean, Professor’s Letter is much better, although it does fully outclass Clemont. Post-Rotation it could be decent, but I really don’t think it’s worth playing. 2 stars.
Lysandre Prism Star
While this card could have been okay a while ago, when Volcanion was running rampant, nowadays it’s nearly gone entirely. I also think its effect is rather underwhelming, and would not recommend this card in any deck. 1 star.
Ultra Recon Squad
This card is trash. Not lovely Garbodor trash, but disgusting, vile, worthless garbage. There is literally no reason to play this card. Most times you will only discard one, in which case play Hau even. If you discard two, play Cynthia, and feel good that you didn’t play this card. -1 stars.
Stadiums
Lysandre Labs
This card is surprisingly annoying. While playing against an unnamed opponent (you know who you are) who was playing Pyroar, the worst thing was attaching a Float Stone and then realizing that you can’t. Uuugh. 3 stars.
Ultra Space
This card is rather nice in UB decks. I rather like it, as it improves consistency, but it might be a little too tight in your deck for a few copies. 3.5 stars.