Lunala ex – Celestial Guardians
Date Reviewed: May 11, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
After a much needed break, we return with our countdown of The Top 15 Cards Of Celestial Guardians!
Up first is Lunala ex (A3 087, 186, 204, 238), a Psychic-Type Stage 2 Pokémon that evolves from Cosmoem. It has 180 HP, (D) Weakness, the Ability “Psychic Connect”, and the attack “Lunar Blast”. Once per turn, Psychic Connect lets you select one of your Benched, (P) Pokémon, then move all (P) Energy attached to that Pokémon to your Active. Lunar Blast costs (P)(C)(C) to use, and let’s Lunala ex do 100 damage to the opposing Active. Lunala ex is available at three different rarities: one ♦♦♦♦, two ★★, and one 🜲.
As a Pokémon ex, Lunala ex is worth two points when KO’d, and has to deal with Meowscarada (A2b 007, 073), Red (A2b 071, 090), Oricorio (A3 066, 165) Sudowoodo (A2a 036, 079), and Tauros (A1a 060). Other than Oricorio, the Pokémon in question all have attacks that do extra damage when used against an Active Pokémon ex, while Red is a Supporter that lets anything do +20 damage to the opponent’s Active Pokémon ex. Tauros is the only one of them that no longer sees a lot of play.
As for Oricorio, this recent addition brings an Ability to Pocket that is familiar to players of the full Pokémon TCG: “Safeguard”. This Ability prevents all damage and effects of attacks from your opponent’s Pokémon ex that are done to the Pokémon with Safeguard. Yes, that means this Oricorio, but I doubt this will be the only Safeguard Pokémon we see in Pocket. If anything, I’m surprised it took this long for DeNA to release one.
Lunala ex joins Gardevoir (A1 132) and Mythical Slab (A1a 065) as (P) Type support, but I haven’t seen either of those two used frequently (or successfully) in several sets. There’s also Comfey (A3 080, 168), whose Ability protects your Pokémon from Special Conditions if they have at least one (P) Energy attached, but regardless of the Pokémon’s own Type. In terms of exploiting Weakness, there’s nothing currently being played where it will enable a OHKO or 2HKO for Lunar Blast.
Stage 2 Pokémon are doing better than they ever have before in Pocket! Sadly, not because of improved card design, but because of Lillie (A3 155, 197, 209) and Rare Candy (A3 144)! The former is a Supporter that heals 60 damage from one of your Stage 2 Pokémon, while the latter allows you to evolve a Basic Pokémon directly into it’s Stage 2 form (you still need the Stage 2 in your hand). Rare Candy does not work on a player’s first turn, nor on the first turn a Pokémon hits the field.
Being a Basic is still the better deal, but both new and old Stage 2 Pokémon have become better due to the added speed and/or reliability Rare Candy provides. Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084) is seeing play again. It’s Ability prevents the opponent from evolving their Active Pokémon. This can vary from not mattering, to shutting down your deck; it all depends upon whether or not match-specific circumstances require you evolve something while it is Active.
Lunala ex has 180 HP; even for a Stage 2 Pokémon ex, that’s great! Only 10 shy of the maximum printed HP score1, it makes Lunala ex difficult to OHKO. The heaviest hitters2 can still do it, but this is enough that some decks will struggle to pull it off reliably, if at all. (D) Weakness is still a major threat; Darkrai ex (A2 110, 187, 205, P-A 042) is still a major part of one of the most successful and most played decks right now. Lunala ex sports a great Retreat Cost of just (C)!
Psychic Connect can be a bit confusing, so let me explain it by comparing and contrasting it with the “Wash Out” Ability found on Vaporeon (A1a 019, 072). Psychic Connect can only be used once during your turn.3 Psychic Connect requires you select one (P) Type Pokémon on your Bench; all (P) Energy attached to that Benched (P) Pokémon are then moved to your Active Pokémon. Wash Out can be used as many times as you want (and are able) during your turn. Each time you use it, you select a (W) Energy attached to one of your Benched (W) Pokémon, and move it to your Active (W) Pokémon.
There are advantages to either. Wash Out lets move the (W) Energy from multiple Benched (W) Pokémon to your Active (W) Pokémon, even if you have to do it one (W) Energy at a time. Psychic Connect, on the other hand, does not care about your Active Pokémon’s Typing. Is that really worth being on a Stage 2 Pokémon ex versus being on a single point Stage 1? In a word, “no”, but that’s oversimplifying things. The Vaporeon in question is not a good attacker, and has a (C)(C) Retreat Cost.
So, let’s move onto Lunala ex’s attack. Lunar Blast does 100 damage for (P)(C)(C). There’s no other conditions or costs to it. Given how multi-Energy Type decks are a rarity, I do wonder if Lunala ex would have been better of had Lunar Blast been priced at (P)(P)(P) but also did more damage, or came with a bonus effect. 100 damage is just enough to 2HKO most threats, and OHKO many supporting or evolving Pokémon.
Lunala ex evolves from Cosmoem, which in turn, evolves from Cosmog. Currently, or only options for those two are Cosmog (A3 085, 171; P-A 067) and Cosmoem (A3 086). Both are (P) Type Pokémon with (D) Weakness and one attack. Cosmog is a Basic with 60 HP, a Retreat Cost of (C), and the attack “Teleport”. Priced at (C), Teleport swaps Cosmog with one of your Benched Pokémon; retreating without it counting as “retreating”.
Cosmoem is a Stage 1 with 100 HP and a (C)(C)(C) Retreat Cost. For (C)(C), it can use “Stiffen” to reduce the damage it takes from attacks by 50, until the end of your opponent’s next turn. While not great, these are better than the filler we often see. Both have useful attacks, though with Cosmoem’s massive Retreat Cost, it may have been better off with Teleport. While it might have been too good, the fact that Stiffen requires two Energy can sometimes leave you unable to attack.
Cosmoem can also evolve into Solgaleo ex (A3 122, 189, 207, 239), as well as Cosmog evolving directly into Solgaleo ex via Rare Candy. Solgaleo ex is a Stage 2, Metal-Type Pokémon with 180 HP, (R) Weakness, (C)(C) Retreat Cost, the Ability “Rising Road”, and the attack “Sol Breaker”. Rising Road lets you switch a Benched Solgaleo ex with your Active Pokémon. For (M)(M), Sol Breaker allows Solgaleo ex to attack the opposing Active for 120 damage, but also does 10 damage to Solgaleo ex itself.
If you haven’t actually been playing Pocket lately, this is the elephant alchemical lion in the room. If consulted the listed tournament results over at LimitlessTCG at the time I’m writing this, you’ve already seen that Solgaleo ex/Skarmory (A2 111; P-A 039) decks are the third most played right now, with a 7.26% share of the metagame, and a 50.03% Win Rate. That’s just the most successful variant.
The best Lunala ex deck, right now, appears to be partnering with Giratina ex (A2b 035, 083, 096). While also a Pokémon ex, Giratina ex is just a Basic and has the Ability “Broken-Space Bellow”. This lets Giratina ex attach a (P) Energy to itself, without it counting against your once-per-turn attachment from the Energy Zone. The only drawback is that using that Ability also ends your turn. While you’re still giving up your attack, you can combo Psychic Connect to move that (P) Energy to your Active next turn.
This is where we get to the problem; Lunala ex is not a bad attacker, but it isn’t better enough than Giratina ex to make the combo worthwhile. Ideally, you need a (P) Type attack partner that doesn’t eat up much deck space4, can take a hit, and get itself to your Bench without discarding most of the Energy you have attached to it. Why? Because you’re then going to rip the remaining Energy from it’s now Benched self and toss it into your next attacker.
The Giratina ex variants only have a 0.73% Metagame Share and 39.17% Win Rate. I attribute this, at least in part, to them not having found the right main attacker for the deck (if one exists). It might seem obvious to, for example, use Mewtwo ex (A1 129, 262, 282, 286; P-A 050) but his big attack discards two (P)(P) from himself, and he’s got a (C)(C) Retreat Cost. That leaves little to no Energy to move off of it onto your next attacker, even if you use something like Leaf (A1a 068, 082) to aid in retreating.
I’m not seeing decks try Mew ex (A1a 032, 077, 083, 086), but I know why. Mew ex only has 130 HP, making it a little fragile for a Basic Pokémon ex. Ignoring that for a moment, its big attack only needs three Energy, it can retreat for just (C), and if you can make room in your deck, you can use Budding Expeditioner (A1a 066, 080) to bounce an Active, injured Mew ex back into your hand. Oops! Even if Mew ex survives being OHKO’d, either we bounce it or we retreat to cycle the Energy, not both.
Still, it gives me some ideas. What if we don’t use a Psychic Type? Psychic Connect only cares about the Benched Pokémon’s Type; anything that has (P) or (C) Energy requirements could be used. You just have to not care about looping your Energy over and over again… which, as we established, Mewtwo ex cannot easily do anyway. For this reason, some lists use Rayquaza ex (P-A 064, 065). It still needs (C)(C) to retreat, but at least it doesn’t discard its own Energy, and it has Ilima (A3 149, 191) to bounce itself, whether it’s Active or on your Bench.
However, we’re back to needing a lot of Energy to attack, we need to make room for Ilima, probably for Leaf as well, and remember Oricorio? It’s seeing enough play we’ll want a non-ex that can kill it. As neither Cosmog nor Cosmoem attack for damage, that’s more deck space eaten up. Which is the problem. Well, that and Psychic Connect being all-or-nothing with moving the (P) Energy from a Benched (P) Pokémon. It is not fun when you have enough Energy spread out on your Bench, but not on a single Benched Psychic Pokémon…
Rating: 2/5
I had almost two weeks to make this list, but we’ve got something I’m rating this low as part of the Top 15? Before writing the review, I was much, much more optimistic about Lunala ex. It wasn’t until writing this article that I realized this wasn’t just me not finding the right partner for Lunala ex. All hope is not lost! As hard as I’m being on this card, the fundamentals are there. Perhaps they’re giving us a deck one piece at a time…
1That still belongs to Venusaur ex (A1 004, 251; A3 230). Yes, Venusaur ex was reprinted as a ✵✵ rare.
2Like Charizard ex (A1 036, 253, 280, 284), with it’s “Crimson Storm” attack.
3If you have more than one instance of Psychic Connect in play – like having two copies of Lunala ex on your side of the field, then each can be used once during your turn.
4This hypothetical deck already has the Stage 2 Lunala ex and the Basic Giratina ex eating up both deck slots and Bench spaces.
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