Battle-hardened veterans and fresh new fans alike may find it puzzling that we're covering the best Tag Team cards in the Pokemon TCG so long after their heyday has ended. The Sun & Moon era's biggest and most notorious cards saw the sunset of their viability in standard rotation as Sword & Shield replaced the Tag Team mechanic with V and VMAX.
It's a valid question. Why are we talking about Tag Team cards in late 2022? Well, why not? Collectors will love them for years to come, and many players happily stack their decks with non-standard cards in casual play. Maybe VMAX and VSTAR Pokemon are more powerful overall now but don't underestimate the ability on display here.
6 Lucario & Melmetal
There's something about certain GX moves that makes them irresistibly nifty even today. Sure, V-type stuff has its own flair, and that flair can be absolutely devastating. But there was a creative spark to GX moves — those additional moves that could only be used once per game, a concept the Sword & Shield era has applied to V — that hadn't been seen in the Pokemon TCG in a good long while.
Take the Lucario and Melmetal GX card. Attach a single Energy of any type whatsoever in order to power up its GX move, which blocks 30 damage to all of your Steel-type Pokemon for the rest of the match. It's a constant buff, a protective wall, that doesn't take up your Tool card slot. In that sense, it's like a fun-filled secondary tool. If you've got another Energy card attached, you also discard all of your opponent's active Pokemon's Energy. That can really sting.
Lucario's main standard attack, Heavy Impact, has kind of a steep cost for its 150 damage output, and if you play it against VMAX and VSTAR titans, you may be underwhelmed. Still, Full Metal Wall GX shouldn't be underestimated.
5 Pheromosa & Buzzwole
When two Ultra Beasts combine their strength, the results ought to be reflected as potentially devastating. The TCG's designers took the hint here because Pheromosa & Buzzle GX can be a nightmare under the proper circumstances.
What of its regular attacks? They're... decent. 'Jet Punch' dishes 30 to one of your opponent's benched Pokemon for the low cost of one Grass Energy. Handy in a pinch, but hardly award-winning. 'Elegant Sole' hits for 190 with the relatively easy fee of two Grass and one of any kind, but it'll only hit for 60 every other turn.
So, 30 to an inactive Pokemon and 190-then-60 for the other. Again, it's decent but wouldn't score Pheromosa & Buzzle GX a spot on the list. Here's the kicker, and it predictably concerns the GX move: 'Beast Game GX' will smack the other player's active Pokemon for 50 with a single Grass Energy, but if you can manage to pump the card with seven (!) further Energy of any sort, this lets you take three more Prize Cards.
There's a not-inconsiderable chance that's a game-winning move right there.
4 Garchomp & Giratina
Garchomp and Giratina's GX move, the entertainingly-titled 'GG End GX', will flat-out remove any enemy Pokemon of your choosing, plus all cards attached to it, for two Psychic Energy and one Fighting Energy.
Should you happen to have fed this beast an additional three Fighting Energy, you can go ahead and obliterate two Pokemon of your choosing, instead. Now, imagine applying this to the modern VMAX cards. Let's say your opponent has two Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX in play. Let's nix them.
Garchomp and Giratina GX is a metal rod in an open field. No one is going to leave it be for long if it's remotely possible to attack it. More importantly, simply discarding a Pokemon technically doesn't count as knocking them out (contrary to our above word choice), so you don't actually draw prize cards. But you may very well have crippled your opponent's entire strategy, which is, you know, good.
3 Pikachu & Zekrom
Don't dismiss this one thinking its Pikachu half lends a "cute but weak" element to the card's capabilities. This is Pikachu in its prime, powered by the well-documented power of its partner.
'Full Blitz' costs three Lightning Energy and dishes 150 damage. Sure, that's not as epic nowadays as it was when Pikachu & Zekrom GX first appeared, but it's still pretty good, right? This is, after all, a Basic Pokemon (even if GX cards are, well, anything but basic). But more importantly, 'Full Blitz' allows you to search your deck for another three Lightning Energy.
Now you're armed with six of them, which enables the GX move, 'Tag Bolt', to not only do a flat (and fairly excellent) 200 damage to your opponent's active Pokemon, but lets you target a benched Pokemon and strike for another 170. Depending on what's out there, you might slay a wounded VMAX or VSTAR, or negate a looming threat like a Dracloak perilously close to becoming a Dragapult.
The main downside here is that, since GX moves are all once-per-game affairs, you now have six Lightning Energy stacked on Pikachu & Zekrom GX for no further reason. Hopefully, you've got some Trainer cards that'll let you fetch discarded Energy back into your hand later.
2 Reshiram & Charizard
Black & White's mascots both looked great during Sun & Moon. Reshiram selected a more obvious partner in the perennially popular powerhouse Charizard, and that decision paid off in spades. For a good while, Reshiram & Charizard GX wasn't just mighty; it was downright feared.
First, there's its HP. 270 was very nearly the peak back then. The only major downside to Sword & Shield's VSTAR Pokemon is that they have less HP than VMAX, and that tends to translate to the 240-270 range; but in Tag Team's days, 270 was the top of the crop.
Durability aside, this thing is also a beast on offense. 'Outrage' costs just one Fire Energy and one further Energy of any type, and it deals 30 damage plus another ten for every damage counter on Reshiram & Charizard. In other words, it can inflict up to 290 when our fiery duo is really feeling the pain. Toss in another two Fire Energy, and you've got 'Flare Strike', and that's 230 damage no matter what condition the team is in.
You can't use Flare Strike twice in a row, mind. But you can bust out the GX move, 'Double Blaze GX', which hits for 200 damage, plus another 100 damage if you've got six Fire Energy on it rather than just the three required. 300 damage is still totally terrific even in late 2022. More amazingly, this GX move bypasses every form of defense, including resistance, tools, and abilities.
1 Arceus & Dialga & Palkia
We come now, friends, to the end of days, the apocalypse known as Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX. This card drew so much ire that some players demanded that it be banned from standard. Many then went on to establish personal bans on it in casual play.
Enough with the dramatic preamble; we'll let its stats speak for themselves. At 280 HP, it was the monarch of hit points until Sword & Shield. 280 back then was the 340 of today. A Steel Energy, a Water Energy, and a third Energy of any variety does 150 damage with 'Ultimate Ray' and lets you seek out up to three basic Energy from your deck, attaching them to your available Pokemon in any way you see fit.
But its GX move, 'Altered Creation GX', is the real (controversial) talk of the town. When you've used 'Ultimate Ray', be sure to attach one extra Water Energy to Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX. Not only does 'Altered Creation GX' allow all of your Pokemon to deal an additional 30 damage every turn for the remainder of the match, but that second Water Energy you've given this card, every time one of these beefed-up Pokemon of yours knocks out a foe, you can grab another Prize Card on top of what you had already earned.
As you can imagine, that little bonus has won a ton of competitive games through the years.