What are Radiant Pokémon Cards

Posted by Magic Madhouse on 23rd Apr 2023

What are Radiant Pokemon Cards?

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is constantly changing and evolving, introducing new mechanics and card features. One of the most recent introductions to the game are radiant Pokemon, single prize powerhouses which have become a staple in almost every deck around. They have brought new life to the game with strong abilities and powerful attacks. We are going to take a look at everything radiant Pokemon and help you decide which one would be best for your deck.

What are Radiant Pokémon Cards?

The Pokémon Trading Card Game is constantly changing and evolving, introducing new mechanics and card features. One of the most recent introductions to the game are radiant Pokémon, single prize powerhouses which have become a staple in almost every deck around. They have brought new life to the game with strong abilities and powerful attacks. We are going to take a look at everything radiant Pokémon and help you decide which one would be best for your deck.

Radiant Pokémon cards were first introduced in the Sword and Shield set, Astral Radiance, and there have been a total of sixteen radiant cards printed. Each one is a shiny version of its regular form. They all have strong attacks or abilities and you are limited to only using one copy of one radiant card in your deck. This makes some interesting decisions as there may be several different radiant’s which work well in your deck, but you can only choose one. It is also important to note that because they have Radiant in their name, this makes them different from other cards of a similar name. For example, you could have four Steelix cards and one Radiant Steelix in your deck.

They also look different to most cards because they feature a special holo pattern which covers the full front of the card and they are textured, similar to a full art card. Sadly, it seems that radiant will have a fairly short run in the Trading Card Game as they have been discontinued for our upcoming Scarlet and Violet Base Set which is due to release in March 2023. Although, these cards will survive the guillotine of rotation in April, so we will have them around for at least another year.

What Defines a Radiant Pokémon Card?

All of the radiant Pokémon are single prize Pokémon, although they do have a ‘rule box’ which means any abilities they have are stopped by Path to the Peak, a very useful stadium card. The fact that these cards are powerful but only give up one prize card can really help in battles and can mess up your opponents' prize trade. Do they knock out your support Pokémon and take one prize card or do they target down your Pokémon and take two prize cards but leave your strong threat on the bench? It is these kinds of decisions that add a little more to the appeal of radiant cards.

Which Pokémon Have Got Radiant Cards?

As we said, there have been 16 Radiant Pokémon cards printed but of these, only 15 different Pokémon. This is because Radiant Charizard was first printed in the Pokémon GO set and it also received a reprint in Crown Zenith. Although the two cards featured different artwork, the card text is identical on both.

Here is a list of all our current radiant Pokémon and the sets they were released in:

Which Radiant Cards are Most Sought After?

The radiant Pokémon are split down into two groups when it comes to desirability, these being ones that are very playable and ones that are very collectable. The Greninja and the Charizard are the most playable and are often seen in lots of different decks.

The most collectable ones are ones which are fan favourites, such as Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur and Eevee. None of these cards are particularly valuable at this time, perhaps due to them being very new still and the Pokémon GO Charizard, despite being both very collectable and very playable can still be bought for less than £30.

Which Radiant Pokémon Should I Choose for my Deck?

All of the radiant Pokémon have their own unique quality that can help a wide variety of decks. We’ll take a little look at the best and most popular ones to see why they are so good and which decks they are best suited to.

Radiant Greninja - Greninja was released in the first batch of radiant Pokémon and immediately became a huge hit and remains one of the most popular today. Its ability, ‘Concealed Cards’ allows you to discard an energy card from your hand and draw two cards. It’s very nice to have your own built in draw engine and although it is limited to once per turn, you can combine this with Scoop Up Net to return Greninja to your hand resetting its ability, then return it to your bench and use the ability again. This also has fantastic synergy with other Pokémon which utilise attacks and abilities based on the number of energy in your discard pile. As we said before, its ability is stopped by Path to the Peak stadium so this is something to be aware of.

Radiant Charizard - All of the Pokémon GO radiant cards have been popular but it is radiant Charizard that is arguably the most useful. It is also the only radiant card which has been reprinted. It features all the same card text but has a different artwork on each. Charizard is used in a variety of decks for its massively strong attack, ‘Combustion Blast’ which deals 250 damage (and has the drawback of Charizard not being able to attack next turn). The attack costs one fire energy plus a whopping four colourless energy, so five energy in total. But fear not! Charizard also has an ability called ‘Excited Heart’ which says that for every prize card your opponent has taken, Charizard’s attacks cost a colourless energy less. So, if your opponent has taken four prizes, Charizard will be dealing 250 damage for a single fire energy. Add a Choice Belt onto Charizard and it will be doing 280 damage which is enough to knock out most VSTAR Pokémon. It’s easy to see why Charizard is popular in a lot of decks and will continue to be going forward.

Radiant Gardevoir - Radiant Gardevoir is another ability based Pokémon, this time though, its ability is that all of your Pokémon in play take 20 less damage from your opponents Pokémon V. This is a great ability which is often played in Control type decks and stops your opponents V Pokémon from taking one hit knockouts. If the opponent's Pokémon has a Double Turbo Energy attached as well then your Pokémon take 20 less again, so 40 less damage in total, which can be a huge swing. It may see less play in the future as we transition away from Pokémon V and into Pokémon ex, but for now it is still a useful ability.

Radiant Alakazam - Radiant Alakazam is a very useful Pokémon overall. It has an ability called ‘Painful Spoons’ which allows you to move up to 2 damage counters from one of your opponents Pokémon to another of their Pokémon. You can only do this once per turn, but that can be enough sometimes to make sure you get a knockout this turn or even set up damage for later in the game. It also has a useful attack called ‘Mind Ruler’ and you can use this attack for one Psychic and one colourless energy. It does 20 damage times the number of cards in your opponents hand. It can really catch people off guard as they are generally not expecting an attack from Alakazam and if they have 10 cards in hand then it will be doing 200 damage, which is certainly not insignificant.

Radiant Eternatus - Eternatus is one of the last Pokémon to receive a radiant version and it comes with a very strong ability. ‘Climactic Gate’ says that when you play Eternatus from your hand onto your bench, you may search your deck for TWO VMAX Pokémon and put them straight onto your bench. Although it does end your turn, if you can secure this in turn one then you immediately have two VMAX Pokémon in play and ready to battle. There are a lot of good VMAX’s currently in the format, although we will be losing half of them at rotation in April. It is still a very good ability that can have you set up straight away, the only question is, which VMAX Pokemon will you pair with radiant Eternatus?

That is just a quick overview of some of the best radiant Pokémon from each set release but I hope it has helped to give you an idea of the power of radiant Pokémon and how they can help you win lots of battles. With so many to choose from and the fact that you can only use one per deck, the most difficult part is choosing the right one for your deck! Whichever one you decide to go for, embrace the power of the radiant Pokémon and enjoy it!