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Fusion Strike is giving me serious deja vu. A November expansion released just weeks after a popular mini-set, featuring Mew on the pack art, and with a purple-and-blue color scheme… haven’t we been here before? While 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fusion Strike may look like Unified Minds 2 on the surface, I can already tell that it’s destined to have a bigger impact on the game than Unified Minds ever did. Perhaps the similarities to 2019’s post-Hidden Fates expansion lowered my expectations for Fusion Strike - or maybe I’m still riding the high from Evolving Skies, my favorite expansion of all time - but this set is no slouch. Boasting 284 cards, Fusion Strike is the biggest expansion in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon TCG history, and is explod🐷ing with amazing artwork, new mechanics, excitingꩲ chase cards, and perhaps most importantly, more dragons. If memories of Unified Minds made you think you could skip Fusion Strike, guess again.
I’m not here to knock Unified Minds - it had Umbreon & Darkrai GX, the best team-up card ever made. But there’s no denying that Unified Minds lacked the staying power of other Sun & Moon sets like Cosmic Eclipse. Coming out just a few weeks after Hidden Fates didn’t help either, and I was half expecting Fusion Strike, our 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:post-Celebration set, to suffer the same fate.
But Fusion Strike actually has a lot going for it, not least of which is its namesake, a new 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Battle Style keyword called Fusion Strike. Single Strike and Rapid Strike make their fourth appearance in this set, but are now joined by a third style that aims to be 🍷a ‘fusion’ of the two. Get it? It will take a few more expansions until we can see how Fusion Strike compares to the other styles, but already it seems to have an even greater emphasis on synergies and combos than the oth൲er styles, which is precisely what makes Battle Style decks so much fun to build and pilot. When the Battle Styles expansion released earlier this year, I expected keywords to be a one-off mechanic, but I’m pleasantly surprised to see how it has evolved throughout the year and Fusion Strike looks like a great addition to the system.
Expansions have been getting bigger and bigger every year for a while now. When⭕ they started eclipsing 150 cards, I started to get a little frustrated that it was becoming impossible to complete a set without buying singles online. At 284, Fusion Strike has found a surprising sweet spot. I opened more than 30 packs for this review, and even the 30th pack contained common and uncommon cards I hadn’t seen before. I know I’m never going to pull every card in Fusion Strike - not with 48 ultra rares and 20 secret rares floating around - but at least I get the satisfaction of seeing something new in almost every pack. I think 68 chase cards is way too many for a single expansion, but if V and VMAX cards were a bit more common, the ratio Fusion Strike has would be almost perfect.
Instead of looking at the entire expansion as one collection, the size of Fusion Strike has convinced me that there’s more value in building more focused collections. Since dragons made their return in Evolving Skies I’ve been keen to collect them specifically, and Fusion Strike brings back some of the best. A matching pair of Latias and Latios, as well as the Goodra evolution line, make this a must-have set for dragon collectors. As I look through the card lists, there’s so many opportunities for niche collections in this set. If you like the expressionist colored pencil style we saw in E🌜volving Skies&✃rsquo; Drampa, this set has a Pyukumuku, Voltorb, and Simisear that match it. You’ll also find the Gen 8 starters in V and VMAX form, gold energies, a nice ghost collection, includin♍g the Gigantamax Gengar everyone loves, and that alternate art Espeon VMAX from the Eevee Heroes Japanese set that didn’t make it into Evolving Skies. Whateve🐈r it is you like to collect, Fusion Strike definitely has it.
If there was a list of all the things Pokemon TCG players like, Fusion Strike would check all of the boxes. It doesn’t rely on a special Charizard to build hype like past expansions because it doesn’t need to. Competitive players will want to get in on the ground floor with the Fusion Strike Battle Style, while collectors will find plenty of fantastic alternate art chase cards to get excited about. Did I mention the breakdancing Genesect? How about Lucario V, Tyranitar V, and Pikachu V? I could spend all day listing off exciting things about this expansion and I’d♉ still somehow miss one that someone out there is excited about. Fusion Strike proves there are no more skippable expansions in Pokemon TCG, and after all the excitement of Shining Fates, Evolving Skies, and Celebrations this year, Fusion Strike still managed to impress me a lot.
A Fusꦓion Strike ETB and Booster Box was provided to TheGamer for this review. Learn more about Fusion Strike on the .