Lycanroc – Celestial Guardians
Date Reviewed: May 18, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Note: This article accidentally went live about 30 minutes before it was ready to be posted. My apologies if you’re one of the few readers who saw it before it could be corrected.
The eighth best card of Celestial Guardians is Lycanroc (A3 101)! This Fighting-Type Stage 1 Pokémon evolves from Rockruff. It has 100 HP, (G) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and the attack “Blood Fang”. For (F)(F), Blood Fang lets this Lycanroc do 50 damage to the opponent’s Active, plus 50 damage if the opposing Active’s remaining HP is higher than Lycanroc’s current HP. Lycanroc is available at the ♦♦♦ rarity.
The (F) Type has one piece of true, exclusive support: Lucario (A2 092, 170). Lucario’s Ability increases the damage attacks from your (F) Pokémon do to the opponent’s Active by 20. The Ability stacks, so a second copy means +40. Passimian ex (A3 104, 187, 205) acts as pseudo-Type support. This is because its Ability takes the (F) Energy attached to Passimian ex, and when it is KO’d, moves that (F) Energy to one of your Benched Pokémon, not caring about the receiving Pokémon’s Type.
There are two Pokémon with anti-Fighting effects. Snover (A2 044) has an attack for (W) that does 10 damage, but it does 40 (10+30) to (F) Types. Staraptor (P-A 047) has an Ability that reduces the damage it takes from attacks made by (F) Pokémon. Another important aspect of Typing is exploiting Weakness. Taking into account what sees plays and the actual damage done by Lycanroc, it’s “okay”. There are at least some competitively played Pokémon where Weakness makes – or helps make – the difference between a OHKO and 2HKO, or 2HKO and 3HKO.
Stage 1 Pokémon require more time and deck space than Basics, but less than Stage 2 Pokémon. Thanks to Rare Candy making it possible for a Stage 2 to only require the same amount of time to setup, while Stage 2 Pokémon enjoy the stats and effects they’ve always had, I’d put fully evolved Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokémon on more or less even footing. Otherwise, just be wary of an opponent’s Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084) preventing an Active Rockruff from evolving.
Lycanroc has 100 HP, neither durable nor particularly vulnerable. Early game, or other times when your opponent’s setup is lacking, Lycanroc can take a hit. Against a deck with its full setup, odds are Lycanroc gets OHKO’d. The card’s (G) Weakness unexpectedly hurts, as it allows Beedrill ex (A2b 003, 079, 107), Decidueye ex (A3 012, 180, 198), and – on “heads” – Exeggutor ex (A1 023, 252; A3 231) to score OHKO’s they’d otherwise have missed. Lycanroc’s (C) Retreat Cost is good and affordable, even without Retreat Cost reducing effects.
Blood Fang is a good attack, though not a great one. The base 50 damage for (F)(F) is underpowered, but as long as the attacking Lycanroc’s current HP versus the opposing Active Pokémon’s current HP, it enjoys a +50 damage bonuses. 100 damage for two Energy, without coin flips is good. Yes, there’s a condition to be met, but it’s a relatively predictable one. Between Weakness, Lucario’s Ability, and/or Red (A2b 071, 090), there are even some Basic Pokémon ex that Lycanroc can OHKO.
Lycanroc evolves from Rockruff, and DeNA – or whomever designs the cards – did not phone it in this time. Well, for one of them, as we’ve got two options: Rockruff (A3 098, 172) and Rockruff (A3 099). Both are Fighting-Type Basic Pokémon with 60 HP, (G) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and an attack priced at (F). Rockruff (A3 098, 172) knows “Signs of Evolution”, which searches your deck for a random card that evolves from Rockruff. Rockruff (A3 099) can use “Tackle” to do 20 damage.
Rockruff (A3 098, 172), like today’s Lycanroc, is good but not great. It grabs a random card that evolves from Rockruff, so I can see why you might not want Rockruff’s attack to play the card it grabs directly onto itself, as part of the attack. Unless you include multiple different versions of Lycanroc, or a hypothetical future Lycanroc ex, though, you’re guaranteed to get the one you want… and with Iono (A2b 069, 088), Mars (A2 155, 195), and Red Card (P-A 006) messing with hands, there have been too many times my Lycanroc fetched via Signs of Evolution disappeared before I could play it.
There’s also Lycanroc (A3 100; P-A 068). It shares the same stats as today’s Lycanroc, but has a different attack. For (F)(F)(C), this Lycanroc can use “Crunch” to do 80 damage, plus flip a coin. If “tails”, just the 80 damage is done, but if “heads”, a random Energy card attached to the opponent’s Active is discarded. Not bad, but not good, either. Needing three Energy, while having only 100 HP, hurts as as (F) Type. Remember, they don’t have any good Energy acceleration of their own.
I don’t always point that out, but let’s cover some video game lore included in the card art. Yes, the art. The illustration for Rockruff (A3 098, 172) depicts it at night, while the one for Rockruff (A3 099) shows it during the day. In the video games, Rockruff evolves at Level 25, but the Form of it’s Stage 1 depends on the time of day. Do it at night, and you get it’s Midnight Form, which is depicted on Lycanroc (A3 101). Do it during the day for the Midday Form, seen in Lycanroc (A3 100; P-A 068).
Not yet represented in Pocket is the Dusk Form, obtained when your Rockruff has the “Own Tempo” Ability – again, we’re talking in the video games – and reaches Level 25. Unlike some of the other Pokémon that involve Forms (or Formes), Lycanroc’s is not mentioned in its name. Unlike Fossil Evolutions, Pocket does not burden the Lycanrocs with a needlessly complicated mechanic meant to emulate or homage their video game evolution process. These are definitely good things, though I wouldn’t mind “Forme” (or “Form”) being added to all cards as another stat.
So… how’s Lycanroc (A3 101) doing in competitive play? It appears to have become a decent partner for Rampardos (A2 089). Rampardos is one of the Stage 2s to really benefit from Rare Candy, since it’s attack only costs (F). Currently, Rampardos enjoys four different variants, each staring a different supporting Pokémon: Garchomp ex (A2 047, 084, 093), Lucario, today’s Lycanroc, and Aerodactyl ex. Technically there’s more, but their Count, Meta Share, or Win Rate – according to LimitlessTCG’s listings – weren’t high enough for me to feel comfortable including them.
I listed them in order of performance. The Garchomp ex variant has 469 Count, meaning it’s 5.97% of the metagame Share, with a 51.98% Win Rate. That makes it the sixth most used deck right now. The Lycanroc is the 12th most used, having only 144 instances, putting it at 1.83% of the decks being used in the recorded tournaments. Still, it has a 50.36% Win Rate. The Lucario and Aerodactyl ex variants fall in the Garchomp ex variants and Lycanroc variants, in terms of Win Rate, though the Aerodactyl version has the lowest Count and metagame Share of the four.
This is good, even if it isn’t great. I don’t have Rampardos yet, so I tried the much less successful (and played) Lucario/Lycanroc deck. It didn’t perform good enough for me to use it for long, but neither was it so awful I’d never consider running it again.
Rating: 3/5
Lycanroc is a good card, though I probably shouldn’t have labeled it the eighth best card in the set. I don’t know if this was me overestimating it – or rather Rockruff – or because it was faring better in the standings at the time I finalized my list. Yes, Rockruff is what may have tripped me up; I misread (or incorrectly remembered) Signs of Evolution as placing the searched out evolution onto Rockruff, evolving it. That would have made it substantially better. As is, it still makes our countdown, but at least Guzma ought to have been higher.
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉 Click here to read our Pokémon Card of the Day Archive. We have reviewed nearly 5000 Pokémon cards over the last 25 + years!
