Lillie – Celestial Guardians
Date Reviewed: May 21, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
The 9th best card of Celestial Guardians is Lillie (A3 155, 197, 209)! She’s a Trainer-Supporter who lets you select one of your damaged Stage 2 Pokémon, then heal 60 damage from it (or all it’s damage, if less than 60). Lillie is available at three different rarities: ♦♦, ★★, and ★★★.
There are no effects in Pocket that reference Trainers, but there are three that affect Supporters. They’re found on Gengar (A1 122; A3 222), Gengar ex (A1 123, 261, 277; A3 234), and Psyduck (A1 057). Gengar ex can prevent your opponent from playing Supporters, via its Ability, while Gengar ex is Active. The other two have single Energy attacks that do a little damage, while preventing your opponent from playing Supporters during their next turn.
Supporters tend to be twice as powerful as the equivalent Item card, as demonstrated by X Speed (P-A 002) and Leaf (A1a 068, 082). To compensate, you’re restricted to using one Supporter during your turn. If you’re new to Pokémon – Pocket or the full TCG – note that you cannot use a Supporter during your opponent’s turn.
Lillie’s specific effect is one of healing. The bad news? Her effect only works on Stage 2 Pokémon; you cannot use Lillie on a Basic or Stage 1 Pokémon. The good news? She’s heals 60 damage. That’s more than enough to erase the damage from a light attack, and to more than halve the damage from a medium attack, and put a big dent in larger attacks. At least, if the Pokémon being attacks survives so it can then be healed.
Lillie is our seventh healing Trainer card, so let’s take a look at her competition: Big Malasada (A3 142), Erika (A1 219, 266), Irida (072, 087), Mallow (A3 154, 196), Pokémon Center Lady (A2b 070, 089), and Potion (P-A 001). Big Malasada and Potion are Items, while the rest are Supporters. As such, we won’t expect as much out of them, but being an Item only matters if your deck (or you) are uncomfortable having to choose between a healing Supporter and a different Supporter.
Big Malasada heals 10 damage from an injured Pokémon, and if that Pokémon is afflicted with any Special Conditions, randomly removes one. Potion simply heals 20 damage from an injured Pokémon. Not bad. In fact, even now Potion is still at least kind of good, and was plainly good before we had a more robust Trainer pool. Big Malasada looked good to me at first, but it seems its effects are just a little inadequate in the current metagame. Plus, Big Malasada can only target your Active Pokémon.
Irida heals all your injured Pokémon that have a (W) Energy attached by 40. Even more generic is
Pokémon Center Lady: anything with damage and/or at least one Special Condition can be healed by 30 and have all Special Conditions removed! Erika heals 50 damage but only for (G) Pokémon, while Mallow heals all damage, but not only discards all Energy from the Pokémon you heal with it, Mallow is also restricted to just cards named “Shiinotic” or “Tsareena”.
Time for some Poké Math! While we don’t know exactly how valuable removing all Special Conditions is considered to be by the devs, if the X Speed/Leaf relationship holds true, a purely damage healing Pokémon Center Lady should heal 40 damage (twice that of Potion). She actually heals 30 damage, so the remaining 10 damage must at least approximately be the value of removing all Special Conditions.
Then there’s Erika. If the preceding relationship is true, then restricting its usage to Grass-Types is only worth another 10 points of healing, while Lillie is only enjoy +20 healing by restricting herself to Stage 2 Pokémon. On paper, this makes Lillie look kind of bad. Yeah, she’s the highest fixed amount of healing, but going from working on anything to only healing a specific Stage isn’t worth much. Moreover, Stage 2 Pokémon require the most deck space. Is there even room for Lillie?
Turns out, the answer is yes, but only for certain decks. Your Stage 2 has to be a major component of your deck, and you probably should also be running Rare Candy (A3 144) for the added speed boost to said Stage 2. While most of the current success of Stage 2 decks stems from Rare Candy, several are packing Lillie for that extra healing. I didn’t think they’d have enough room when I first saw Lillie, but hey, I’m happy to have been proven wrong. The exceptions are better suited to another of the healing cards I mentioned, or don’t have room for any.
Fans of the full TCG may have been disappointed when they read Lillie’s effect. I was, and it wasn’t just because I thought Stage 2 decks would lack room for Lillie. Lillie (Sun & Moon 122/149, 147/149; SUM – Shining Legends 062/073; SUM – Ultra Prism 125/156, 125a/156, 151/156) is a Trainer-Supporter that lets you draw until you have six cards in hand, unless it is your first turn. In that case, you get to draw until you have eight cards in hand. Even if extremely nerfed, it’d have been nice to have a second draw Supporter…
Rating: 3.75/5
Lillie is not required in every Stage 2 deck. Sure, I think all of them would run her if they had room, but many don’t. Fortunately for Lillie, a lot do! She’s not always the first choice of healing. Decidueye ex (A3 012, 180, 198)/Meowscarada (A2b 007, 073) decks prioritize Erika, but might still include a Lillie. Garchomp ex (A2a 047, 084, 093)/Rampardos (A2 089) decks seem to always pack a double Lillie, probably because it’s a double Stage 2 line with good HP scores but one Stage 2 that self-injures.
Lillie is less likely to see play in mixed company, that is, decks where there’s a significant non-evolving Basic and/or Stage 1 presence. Which should come as no surprise, but I’d be remiss not to state it clearly. However, I must warn that Lillie’s Rating is… iffy. Stage 2-focused decks are popular right now, but not dominant. I cannot tell you if she’s already peaked, or if she’ll be a regular sight in most Stage 2 decks until we hit A4…
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