The ghostly trio, set to come out in the new Fossil expansion set (all of the cards I am writing about in this article are from Fossil), are a big improvement over existing psychic pokemon, especially over the basic version gastly and haunter. The line is expanded with the release of the first Gengar. I will try to show how this trio is so good. Gastly: Gastly is the basic pokemon of the group. He has 50 HP, which is a little above average when it comes to basics. Gastly has no retreat, which is excellent, and his first attack, which is a 10 plus a 50% chance of paralysis, is your average basic attack. His second attack is even better. For two psy energy, you can retrieve any two energy cards from your discard pile, which works just like at energy retrieval. The penalty of using this attack is that Gastly will take 10 damage, well worth it. Haunter: Haunter is an odd stage 1 pokemon. His major downfall is that he only has 50 HP, a 0 increase from the Gastly stage. His second major downfall is a lack of a powerful attack. He only has a 10 attack which will put the defending pokemon to sleep, but this is pretty good. Sleep, in this case, is just like a chance of paralysis (you flip a coin at the end of your turn, if tails, they remain asleep and will do so until the end of their turn, thus, they cannot attack you), with a possibility of lasting longer. Haunter's power comes from his pokemon power, which makes the enemy flip a coin, if it is tail, Haunter will take no damage and will not be affected by other effects. Haunter is very good against Mr. Mime. He also has a 0 retreat cost. Gengar: Gengar is a pretty good pokemon, with 80 HP and a 30 attack which will do 10 damage to a benched pokemon, and only a 1 retreat cost. The attack works very well with Gengar's pokemon power, which allows him to move 1 damage counter around the opponent's pokemon, thus giving him the ability to do a lot of damage from the bench. The main advantage of the ghostly trio is the fact that they all have low retreat costs and that they are resistant to fighting, but have no weakness. These are my opinions on the new ghosts. If your opinions differ from mine, let me know at vortex11@gkfremontlaw.com