Unraveling the Genius of Cyrus: A Game-Changing Card in Pokémon TCG Pocket

Cyrus, a fresh Trainer card introduced in the latest expansion of Pokémon TCG Pocket, is driving me absolutely crazy. He’s driving me crazy because he’s, quite frankly, excessively powerful. Too powerful, to be precise. The Cyrus card is, by the majority of competitive game developers’ standards, overpowered. It is prevalent, found in decks with little to no authentic synergy. It is having a significant impact on the meta, bringing entirely new, dominant decks out of obscurity. Most importantly: it has compelled me to revamp my cherished Charizard and Moltres EX deck, which is personally quite upsetting. I’ve conquered every PvP scenario the game has introduced with variations of that deck, yet it is struggling. If this were League of Legends, where you have the option to ban one champion from the opposing team’s selections, I would be banning Cyrus every single time.

Yet this isn’t League of Legends – and genuinely, I’m relieved it isn’t. Cyrus is indeed overpowered, disrupting the balance of Pokémon TCG’s meta completely. However, it also isn’t truly overpowered at all – it may very well be the best thing that could have happened to the game’s casually competitive scene. Perhaps it’s an excellent lesson in what constitutes proper balance in competitive video games as a whole.

To take a step back for a moment: I truly believe TCG Pocket has been remarkably well-balanced thus far. There have been immensely popular decks, without a doubt – first came Pikachu EX, followed closely by Mewtwo EX, Celebi EX, a mix of various secondary tier selections like my Moltres-and-Charizard combination, and, well, probably still a lot of Mewtwo EX. (My sole complaint regarding the balancing so far would be that one: an already formidable combo of Mewtwo and Gardevoir was granted even more strength through the Mew EX and Legendary Slab cards that debuted in the initial expansion, Legendary Island. But let me not bore you with that again!)

Critically though, every one of these decks has had a solid, practical counter. The emergence of Celebi EX decks, which take a couple of turns to set up yet dish out nearly impossibly high damage once established, also led to the rise of many more common, seemingly mundane cards being used like Rapidash and Ninetails, which found themselves as the perfect counters to the game’s most powerful, rare cards. Similarly, the setup of TCG Pocket’s competitive play naturally lends itself to experimentation: only the rare “win five games in a row” challenges require you to select really optimized, on-meta builds. The other challenges, and regular PvP play, instead favor the sheer number of victories you can accumulate. Combined with quick games and the option to concede without penalty if you suspect you’re about to lose, it allows players to experiment with fun strategies without the risk of slipping down a ranked ladder.

Yet there has still been a slight, lingering sense of monotony in recent weeks, even with the steady influx of new cards and AI opponents. There are a plethora of different decks to choose from, I’ve realized, but they all operate in the same fashion. Except perhaps the Weezing-Koga deck (which had a brief moment in the spotlight early on), every deck that is at least somewhat viable in competitive play has revolved around one idea: stack a lot of energy onto a Pokémon, and then deal a significant amount of damage with it.

For some, admittedly, this resembles more of ‘gain a moderate amount of energy quickly, then deal a moderate amount of damage quickly’, as seen with the aforementioned Pikachu EX, or Marowak EX alongside the Blaine-boosted Ninetails and Rapidash. But fundamentally, the concept remains the same. There is a charging phase, followed by a damage phase that is roughly proportional to how quickly you can get to it.

And that is enjoyable! At its extremes, this is effectively akin to “turtling” or “teching” in an RTS, a generally less competitive approach of which I am a hapless admirer. There, you stall, you defend, you deflect and delay enemy assaults until you reach the optimal “age”, hit the pinnacle of the tech tree, complete all your preparations throughout the game, and unleash a devastating assault on your foes. Or at least attempt to – playing RTS games online often revolves around sending small troops of early-game units to scout and be rather troublesome, again and again.

Here, however, consider: waiting until you’ve got an entirely evolved Gardevoir to fight alongside your Mewtwo EX; or evolving a Seviper to team up with Celebi EX; or managing Misty’s money with your Gyarados EX or Blastoise, and so on. Personally, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the sub-optimal yet wonderfully silly phase of stalling indefinitely with Snorlax or Jigglypuff while gradually accumulating energy on Dragonite, twirling my imaginary mustache as I go, succeeding perhaps less than half the time. My truly competitive deck embodies this belief in the extreme: the Moltres EX and Charizard EX combination that necessitates gathering energy with one and gradually transferring it to the other, until the latter is fully charged and ready to deal more assured damage than any other card in the game.

The biggest issue is that it becomes less enjoyable if you’ve mostly been repeating the same process for a few months straight. Even the more unconventional counters to the meta – utilizing Psychic cards like Jinx, Alakazam, or Exeggutor, which deal more damage based on how much energy your opponent possesses – ultimately follow the same formula. You power them up, wait for the right moment, and either win or lose. Enter: Cyrus.

What’s frustrating – yet brilliant – about Cyrus is that it’s an incredibly simple concept that has completely flipped this status quo on its head. Now, you can not only compel your opponent to switch out their active card, but choose the card they have to bring back in, provided you’ve dealt at least some damage to it. , accumulating energy or stalling for the