Arcanine – Pokémon TCG Highlander

Sturdy with power and sustainability, Arcanine dashes into Highlander with reliable Energy acceleration and an arsenal of punishing traits your opponent will have to be careful for.

Strategy Points:

• “Burning Road” provides a reliable way to stream Fire or Fighting Energy to Arcanine. Allowing for movement with Magcargo, Flareon, Emboar, or Gigalith.
  • Energy Switch and Stark Mountain are fast reliable options for Energy movement.
  • Infernape and Huntail appreciate the increased Energy count on your board for more flips and damage respectively.
  • Golem and Barbaracle can deal a lot of damage by discarding Energy cards from the hand. Allowing for this Poké-Power to swiftly stream those resources back.
  • Moltres (Fire) and Zapdos (Fighting) work in tangent with this Poké-Power and “Legendary Ascent” to quickly get three Energy for their high damage attacks.
• “Blazing Mane” counterattacks with Burn, creating a baseline 20 damage punishment that can be further supported with: Volcarona, Shiinotic, Butterfree – Level X, Heatran – Level X, Wela Volcano Park, and Full Flame.
  • Nidoking and Rocky Helmet increase the base counterattack damage to 60, before any of the previously listed support options.
• “Fighting Tackle” is a reliable way to deal with Pokémon-EX. With a plethora of previously mentioned options to further increase damage, as well as using Cherrim and Quagsire to bring the one hit Knock Out range to 100.
• Regular Growlithe’s “Stoke” will allow for Arcanine to use “Fighting Tackle” next turn with just one more attachment. If you go second, you can attach a Fire and Double Colorless Energy to do “Take Down” on that turn.
• Hisuian Growlithe’s “Singe” can be used with the “Blazing Mane” burn combo cards to quickly do a lot of damage for no Energy. This can also be used in a mid to late game play when you recover this Pokémon with Rescue Stretcher or Super Rod.
• Arcanine Break:
• The HP increase for Arcanine makes the wear and tear of “Blazing Mane” last even longer on average. All while allowing for even more potential “Burning Road” plays.
  • You can use Super Potion before using “Burning Road” to heal the 20 Break Evolution damage and potentially 40 more, without having to discard an Energy if Arcanine doesn’t have any.
• The versatility on “Turbo Flame” to attach any two kind of Basic Energy makes for it as a great priority to get a Knock Out with.
  • The previously mentioned Golem and Barbaracle are great for discarding multiple Energy cards here. Battle Compressor, Scorched Earth, and Professor’s Research are also great options.