Black Bolt / White Flare Set Review + Steven’s Metagross ex

Hey everyone! It's Charlie and I'm happy to be back with another article. After the conclusion of the North America International Championships (NAIC), I took a quick break and am just now starting my testing process for the 2025 World Championships. I ended up playing a version of Marnie's Grimmsnarl ex alongside many of my friends, and got 84th place. Not a bad end to the year, but I was certainly hoping for more.

Now, it's time to prep for my favorite event of the year: Worlds! Luckily, we have significantly more time to prepare for Worlds than we did for NAIC, as that was condensed down into 2.5 weeks (after Portland ended). This time, there are nearly 8 weeks between the two events. We're also getting a few new cards, all of which come from the new Black Bolt and White Flare expansions releasing soon. While there are no new game-breaking cards, we get a ton of quality-of-life improvements in the form of old reprints. There are also a few very interesting new Pokemon, which I'll talk about in today's article as I rank my top 10 cards from the new set. The fact that there are 10 cards worth ranking in my opinion speaks to the quality of the set; I originally planned to do a top five, but felt there were too many cards at similar power levels to fit into only five slots. After that, I'll share an early list for an archetype I'm really excited to experiment with: Steven's Metagross ex!

Black Bolt and White Flare Top 10

While this set is nowhere near as good as Shrouded Fable was last year, I think it will make more of an impact than 2022's Pokemon GO on the Worlds format. Last year may have brought us all-time greats like Fezandipiti ex and Night Stretcher, but this year brings back some old favorites that feel like they belong in a healthy format. Let's get into my top 10:

10: Mandibuzz

This is a card I'm surprised more people aren't talking about. Mandibuzz's Ability lets you look at your opponent's hand once per turn, and force them to put a Basic Pokemon with 70 HP or less onto their Bench. While the Bench-forcing effect isn't great (but could be solid in a stall or control deck), hand knowledge turn after turn is always a strong effect. I would not be surprised to see some sort of control variant find a good use for this card.

9: Eelektrik

Ah yes, the return of Dynamotor Eelektrik from 13 years ago! This card is entirely unchanged (besides some small wording differences that makes the old one illegal 😢), but brings back an effect we last saw with Flaaffy. This card saw a good amount of play in Miraidon ex variants, but without the big attacking power of Raichu V, the deck is still missing a great way to always blow up your opponent's Active Pokemon. However, another new card might be here to provide the fix, and it's up next!

8: Zekrom ex

The new Reshiram ex and Zekrom ex are spiritual reprints of the original Reshiram and Zekrom, but are both significantly stronger than I expected them to be. Doing 50 more damage for each Prize card your opponent has taken is very, very good, and it quickly starts to exceed the damage output from Charizard ex, which has been dominant for most of its life. As a powerful end game attacker in a Miraidon variant, Zekrom could fit extremely well. Magneton is also potentially a very strong partner, powering up the Zekrom and giving you 50 more damage. I'm interested to see what variants are able to take advantage of Zekrom the most, because I'm confident at least one deck will be able to use it well.

7: Ignition Energy

A near-exact reprint of Triple Acceleration Energy, Ignition Energy returns just in time to help my beloved Team Rocket's Porygon2 deck! If only Team Rocket's Porygon didn't have 60 HP...

Seriously though, I think I'm likely underrating this card. Lots of Evolution attackers have an attack cost of two Colorless or three Colorless Energy, and this card provides a single-attachment way to abuse these powerful attacks. We might not have the best partner for it yet, but I'd be very surprised if this card doesn't end up being extremely good at some point.

6: Hilda

Hilda is a very interesting new Supporter. Searching for an Evolution Pokemon is very powerful, and getting any Energy in your deck is a rare effect that we currently only have on Colress's Tenacity. I think this card fits perfectly in slower variants of Dragapult ex that intend to take a few turns to stack attachments, as it finds you both an extra Evolution and the attachment you want for turn. Also, it gives you a way to find the powerful Neo Upper Energy, which already saw play in a few Dragapult variants, but is likely to see even more play with Hilda out now.

I don't think this card will ever be a 4-of in anything, but as a supplement to Brock's Scouting in Dragapult decks, I think Hilda is pretty much perfect.

5: Genesect ex

Genesect ex is honestly ridiculous, and it would surely be higher if I thought it had better partners. However, for the partners it does have (one of which I'll talk about at the end), Genesect changes how you build your deck entirely. Searching for TWO Metal-type Evolution Pokemon once per turn is amazing, and allows slower decks that want to set up multiple Metal-type Evolutions a sustainable way to find them turn after turn.

For current decks, the only one that will add this card immediately is Gholdengo ex, which can use it to supplement its existing Technical Machine: Evolution package. Otherwise, I think there's still lots of room for decks to be built around Genesect, as its Ability gives you some of the most consistent Pokemon search in the game.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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