The next expansion for the Pokémon Trading Card Game is Chilling Reign, set to release on June 18. Based off of Pokémon Sword and Shield's Crown Tundra expansion, the set prominently features Calyrex, as well as several other new Legendaries introduced in the expansion exploring Galar's frozen south. Three of those new legendaries are alternate forms for the Legendary Bird trio -- Articuno becomes Psychic/Flying, Zapdos becomes Fighting/Flying and Moltres becomes Dark/Flying. However, since the Pokémon TCG doesn't represent dual types, the cards for each bird drops its secondary Flying type.
The Pokémon Company has provided CBR with an exclusive look at the English versions of Galarian Articuno V, Galarian Moltres V and Galarian Zapdos V. Originally released in the Japanese Peerless Fighters expansion, the Galarian birds are now making their way overseas with Chilling Reign. Let's take a look at each card's capabilities and statistics to see how they might fit into the new Standard metagame.
Galarian Articuno V
If Galarian Articuno V sees play, it will likely be in Mad Party, a deck that first emerged in Darkness Ablaze. There are four Pokémon with the Mad Party attack, which deals 20 damage for each Pokémon with Mad Party in the player's discard pile. This means the deck wants to selectively discard Mad Party Pokémon, something Articuno provides a tremendous amount of help in doing with its Reconstitute ability.
The issue is that Mad Party simply isn't played very much in the current Standard metagame due to the dominance of Zacian ADP, a deck combining Zacian's extraordinarily high damage output with Arceus & Dialga & Palkia's ability to take an extra Prize Card off every attack. Part of Mad Party's strength is that it plays only Basic and Evolved Pokémon, giving only one Prize Card per knockout. Suddenly going to two cards per knockout is a huge blow for the deck, especially with both Zacian and ADP's inflated health totals. Galarian Articuno V might eventually see play if Mad Party rises to prominence, but is likely to stay on the bench for now.
Galarian Zapdos V
Galarian Zapdos V is the epitome of a "tech" card, which is to say a card that only sees play to counteract a popular opposing strategy. In this case, that opposing strategy is Eternatus VMAX, a deck revolving around Eternatus VMAX's ability to put additional Pokémon on the Bench. These Dark-type Pokémon then power up Eternatus' Dread End attack, which deals 30 damage for each of the deck's Dark type Pokémon in play. This can result in a potential damage high of 270 damage, more than enough to knock out the vast majority of Pokémon in the format.
Galarian Zapdos V acts as the perfect counter to this strategy by making us of its Thunderous Kick attack, which (when doubled by Eternatus' weakness to Fighting-type attacks) deals exactly 340 damage, equivalent to Eternatus' health. It's also bolstered in this effort by its Fighting Instinct ability, which can allow Thunderous Kick to cost only a single energy.
Galarian Moltres V
While Galarian Zapdos V is likely to see play as a tech card to counter Eternatus VMAX, Galarian Moltres V is equally likely to see play in those Eternatus decks, which snap up all the Dark type Pokémon they can. It's also uniquely well-suited to combat Zapdos V, as it's weak to Grass instead of the traditional Dark type weakness to Fighting. This lets it take a hit from its Fighting type companion.
Plus, Aura Burn puts Zapdos V only 10 HP away from a knockout, where it can easily be finished off with Galarian Zigzagoon's Headbutt Tantrum ability. It can also get to Aura Burn faster with the use of its Direflame Wings ability, which grabs Dark energy directly from the discard pile.