Iron Hands ex Special Illustration Rare #248

Here’s another card that’s impacted the TCG’s meta, with what The Pokémon Company itself calls “one of the most exciting attacks of any Pokémon in [the expansion]”. Though perhaps that’s TPC slightly over-egging things, there’s no doubt it’s a powerful card, reminiscent of Arceus, Dialga and Palkia GX cards. For a large four Energies, Amp You Very Much will allow this metallic Hariyama to do 120 damage, and if that takes out your opponent, gains you an extra prize card.

That’s pretty huge, given Iron Hands ex is a Basic card, playable from the start, and capable of a hefty 160 damage for three Energy. If you design a deck around getting a lot of Energy into play as fast as possible, you could be taking two prize cards just for knocking out an opponent’s warm-up cards, which is very dangerous. Paired up with Miraidon ex, which can get two Energy out of the deck each turn without even being in play, and this is a monster.

It’s also undeniably a lot more fun to have in your deck when it looks like it’s in the middle of playing The Talos Principle, as in this adorable card from legendary Pokémon artist, Toshinao Aoki.