>Solgaleo
Suffers from being a Stage 2 Pokemon. There's Rare Candy now, but all Stage 2 Pokemon have Rare Candy now. He's 2 Steel, and his ability brings him to the front for free, so they obviously want you to turbo him out, but you still have to get the pieces. Remembering that the only reason that Gallade is playable is because it has a 2 energy attack, and remembering that Meowscarada is also a Stage 2 with a 2 energy attack, I wonder if this now solidifies that Stage 2 Pokemon are DoA unless their attack only costs 2 or less energy. Thinking about it more, Rampardos is also 2 or fewer energy. Of every Stage 2 Pokemon that has ever been playable, I think only Charizard is an outlier of this, and you stack energy on him with Moltres. However, with Rare Candy now, is Charizard stacking to 4+ energy too slow? If you high roll Moltress it can still compete of course, but is that reliable? I knew before now (from personal experience) that Machamp is trash because of his 3 energy attack and that Gallade is playable only because he has a 2 energy attack, but I never truly realized how far this went until just now. Stage 2 Pokemon need to have a 2 or lesser energy cost attack in order to even have a shot at being playable. It also looks like they're still playing heavily into Red/Cape breakpoints. Anyway, I think the best comparison for this guy that we have in the game right now is Gallade. On the low end, Solgaleo does more damage, but on the high end Solgaleo does less damage. I'll be surprised if a Stage 2 deck usurps Basic EX slop as best deck, but you can probably play him with Skarmory like playing Gallade with Sudowoodo.
>Alolan Raichu
Powercreeped GA Alakzam? It's EX but it's a Stage 1, colorless version of GA Alakazam. I don't know if any non-Psychic decks want a GA Alakazam. Playable, but probably not very good, like GA Alakazam (which has Rare Candy now btw).
>Lunala
This might be spicy due to Giratina's existence. Hard for me to tell.
>Alolan Marowak
More gambling. Seemingly not an EX this time, and with energy gen support. Pretty cool "turn 2" smash, but will be extremely unreliable damage wise just like regular Marowak. Cubone -> energy -> A.Marowak -> energy trainer seems like a pretty sick play if you can flip 2 heads though, and it will only give up 1 point.
actually, I just got to Kiawe, and I changed my mind. This probably fucking sucks. Kiawe ENDS YOUR TURN wtf why
>Rotom Dex
Scry 1. Pokedex. Fucking trash. We have too many good cards nowadays to waste a slot on this thing. Why does this exist? Is S/M when they introduced the "Rotom Dex" and they just have to include it?
>Rare Candy
Very good, but as touched on earlier, I think this now solidifies that any Stage 2 Pokemon that does not have a 2 or fewer energy attack (or some energy support) is trash. This was already true (explained above), but now it's even more true.
>Ilima
Koga/Expeditioner version 3. I wonder if we'll get a nice new colorless Pokemon to go with this. You could turn GA Snorlax into a better Druddigon (with Helmet) but I think we might be past that era and it requires too many cards to be anything more than cute I think. I don't even know if Arceus EX decks want this as is. Deck space is becoming premium and Mew EX didn't really care for Expeditioner.
>Lana
<only if you have Araquanid in play
Doesn't need to be the active Pokemon, just in play. Exactly how good Lana is depends on how good Araquanid is, because Cyrus still exists and you can still just run 1 Cyrus and 1 Sabrina, and neither of those require a Stage 1 Pokemon be in play to use. If your deck is playing Araquanid, I think Lana is very good, but if Araquanid is mid, I can't imagine water decks choosing to include a playset of Araquanids just so that they can play Lana. Cyrus is good enough already.
>Kiawe
I thought this was decent until I read that it ends your turn. I change my mind about Alolan Marowak. Turtonator better hard carry this guy cuz Marowak isn't.
>Acerola
Depends on what Palossand and Mimikyu do, but seems very cheeky. I like the concept of this card a lot (it's basically 1 hit from GA Kabutops) so hopefully Mimikyu is good. I have a harder time believing that Palossand might be good, but hopefully he is too.
>Mallow
Cute brown girl. Depends on if Tsareena is good or not, since the Shiinotic we have now is not very good. Tsareena basically needs to have a 2 or fewer energy attack in order for Mallow to be potentially playable... but you can just play Erika, so Tsareena needs to have like 170/180 HP, and also a 2 energy attack.
>Sophocles
Again, if any of these Pokemon are really good, then this cards is pretty much like a better Red if your deck is using these guys. Alolan Golem and Vikavolt need to hope they have 2 energy attacks, so of these my money is on Vika being potentially playable. I just don't like Togedemaru so I hope he doesn't end up being the usable one.
>Immersive Lillie
Cute. Slight upgrade to Erika, for all colors, as long as you're all in on Stage 2. Definitely playable in Stage 2 decks, though maybe only as a one-of, because deck space is really getting small now that you probably want Rare Candy and also at least 1 Comm