Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: battle styles, pokemon, pokemon cards, Pokemon TCG, TCG

Pokémon V & VMAX Cards of Pokémon TCG: Battle Styles Part 5

Sword & Shield – Battle Styles is the latest expansion from Pokémon TCG. It focuses on the new Legendary Pokémon Urshifu and introduces a new mechanic for those who play the game: Rapid Strike and Single Strike style attacks. This new mechanic begins in Battle Styles and will continue at least through the next two Pokémon TCG sets, including June's Chilling Reign and August's as-of-yet untitled expansion. Battle Styles isn't just a player's set but is also a collector's dream, as this expansion reintroduces Special Art Cards (or, Alternate Arts) which were popular during the tail end of the Sun & Moon era with fan-favorite sets such as Unified Minds, Cosmic Eclipse, and so on. With this series, we will spotlight all of the exciting pulls from Battle Styles, which you can see as they release by following the set's Bleeding Cool tag. This time, we continue with a closer look at the set's Pokémon V and VMAX cards.

• Rapid Strike Urshifu V & VMAX: This Rapid Strike version of the Pokémon is the basis for the new Rapid Strike mechanic in the TCG, which allows players to use strategy and speed as opposed to one big hit that the new Single Strike Mechanic offers. Personally, the Urshifu Vs are a bit underwhelming to me, but the VMAXes make up for them nicely. These things look straight out of Dragon Ball Z, which is weird for Pokémon cards but works to make this set quite unique. Just wait until the later installments when we cover the Full Art and Alternate Art Urshifu cards. There are a few truly special pulls.
• Tyranitar V: There are three Tyranitar cards in this set, with one of them being one of the set's Top Two chase cards. This one, the standard Tyranitar V, is the easiest of the three to pull and has the same computer-generated style we've come to expect for Pokémon Vs. It's not bad by any means, but it is one-upped quite a bit by the Tyranitar art we'll see later. Still, I was happy to pull this when I did. And note that starting with June's upcoming Chilling Reign set, the Pokémon TCG indeed seems to be noting the community's critique of the style of V art. There are way more hand-drawn and differently styled Vs in this upcoming set, which we were able to preview with the Japanese-language sets Matchless Fighter, Jet Black Poltergeist, and Silver Lance.

Next time, we continue with our spotlight on the Pokémon V and VMAX cards of Battle Styles.

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