Pokémon Trading Card Game: Celestial Storm Themed Decks

When The Pokémon Company releases themed decks for the Pokémon Trading Card Game, they never expect them to be someone’s go-to deck for competitive play, but rather a great way to introduce new players to the experience. That is why each themed deck comes with hit tokens, status tokens, a playmate to help layout the gaming area, and a coin for flipping heads and tails. Each deck also comes complete with the sixty required cards to play a game, and for the most part, these are fairly balanced for to create a competitive experience.

We looked at two decks. The first was a Leaf-Lightning deck (Leaf Charge) which focused on getting energy onto Pokémon and adding cards into your hand. The alternative to this is the Water-Fire deck (Hydro Fury), with a focus on powerful Pokémon and being able to search your deck to get more and more Pokémon to your bench and hand. When compared head-to-head over a few rounds, the Leaf Charge deck quickly outshined the Hydro Fury deck, to a point where I can safely say that the Celestial Storm release has the best deck, and the worst deck, in recent memory.

In six games head-to-head, the Leaf Charge deck came out on top in 5 of the matches, only failing in the sixth because of poor initial card draw. There was one main reason why the Leaf Charge deck set itself apart from all recent decks in memory: the ability to get fairly powerful Pokémon to the table, and stock them with energy.

While the Hydro Fury deck can get cards out of your deck and into your hand through a variety of trainers, we rarely had great opportunities to get energy on those Pokémon. And as we all know, a Pokémon without energy is a pretty lousy Pokémon. On the flip side, we never had issues putting energy on Pokémon in the Leaf Charge deck, especially thanks to Manectric, who can do 40 damage AND allow players to add two energy to a bench Pokémon of their choosing.

While none of the Pokémon within the Leaf Charge deck are incredibly strong, they are all middle-of-the-road level Pokémon. Even with strong Pokémon on the Hydro Fury deck, not being able to get energy onto those Pokémon makes them fairly useless. And that is what that deck is all about: getting Pokémon from your deck into your hand and onto your bench. Unlike the Leaf Charge deck, which allows players to draw cards frequently and add them to their hand, the Hydro Fire deck is all about the Pokémon cards. You get to search your deck often, but not for cards you really need.

The Celestial Storm decks are on opposite ends of the use ability spectrum, but both provide valuable cards to your collection that will go a long way in helping you build fantastic custom decks. If you are new to the Pokémon Trading Card Game, or want to bolster your collection with 60 great cards, look no further than the themed decks. For under $14.99 per deck, there is incredibly value in the box with the cards alone.