The Celestial Guardians update for Pokémon TCG Pocket has completely revolutionised the game’s meta but there’s one small card that has had a surprisingly big impact.
Most players were excited to finally see the introduction of Rare Candy to the digital version of the card game as the item allows basic Pokémon to skip the middle evolution and instead transform into its final Stage 2 form. For example, Charmander can evolve into Charizard EX as early as a player’s second turn without the need for Charmeleon.
This flipped the meta on its head as it has finally added to consistency to decks running Stage 2 evolutions. Before Rare Candy, the meta was all about utilising powerful basic EX Pokémon that didn’t need to evolve like Darkrai, Giratina, Arceus and Mewtwo, giving players much-needed consistency in a game that heavily features luck.
While Rare Candy is bad news for those EX decks, there’s an even scarier card that has become the surpirse package of the new meta: Oricorio.
The electric version of the small dancing bird, better known as Oricorio-Pom-Pom, doesn’t have particularly impressive stats with 70HP, a measly 50 damage Zzzap attack that costs two energy, and a one energy cost retreat. However, the Pokémon has a potentially devastating ability called Safeguard which means that it can’t take damage from attacks made by EX Pokémon.
This means that if people just shove powerful EX Pokémon into their decks without any other options, Oricorio completely bricks them from being able to do anything and automatically wins the game. That’s exactly what Twitch streamer Spragels discovered on the first day of the expansion. As you can see in the compilation below, he repeatedly caused immediate concedes from his opponents.
Oricorio is such a great card.. I LOVE what this has done for the meta
first deck we tried was lightning but you can use this in so many decks!
full vid below pic.twitter.com/Uw2pK12UUa
— spragels The Content Cowboy (@spragels) April 30, 2025
Many members of the community are delighted with this new card as it has essentially signalled the end of the dreaded “18 trainer” decks. This strategy saw players focus on a single Pokémon card, usually an Articuno EX, and build a deck of nothing but two copies of that Pokémon then fill the rest of the deck with powerful items and trainer cards to support it. A lot of players found this extremely frustrating and boring to play against as the strategy required very little skill to be effective. However, now a single Oricorio can render these decks completely ineffective.
Oricorio can pretty much fit into any electric deck to ensure you have a strategy against EX spammers with many players already finding tremendous success pairing the card with Pachirisu EX or the Pawmot evolution line which works extremely well with Rare Candy.
However, while the yellow Oricorio is without a doubt a meta-defining card it can’t really be called overpowered either. Any decent non-EX Pokémon can make lightwork of its 70HP to then clear a path for powerful EX Pokémon to then clean up. For example, the new Crabominable EX Pokemon should be ruined by Oricorio due to its electric weakness but the card that evolves into it, Crabrawler, is a fighting type with a 20 damage attack that is super effective against Oricorio and can take down the bird in two hits.
Still, because Oricorio exists, players now have to include non-EX Pokémon in their strategies and think more carefully while deckbuilding. With a new ranked season now underway, playing this card is the perfect way to score some free wins and quickly climb up the ladder, especially before other players realise they need to adapt.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
