To begin this article, I would like to introduce myself because this is my first official article for SixPrizes.com. My name is Michal “Charlie“ Bartosik and I am from Czech Republic. I have played the Pokemon TCG for 8 years and have won many tournaments in our country, but I never our Nationals.
Now I would like to start talking about card that I chose – Expert Belt from Advance of Arceus.
In my opinion is Expert Belt the best card from AoA. Expert Belt adds +20 damage to your attacks and gives you +20 HP. This is not for free, because this card makes the Pokemon that has Expert Belt has attached to it something like Pokemon EX – if your opponent knock out your belted Pokemon, they can take one additional prize. I think that this disadvantage fully balances the card and does not make the card imbalanced. This card makes a lot of interesting attacks really potent weapons that you can use now.
When I saw this card on a first glace I remembered Cresselia LV.X from Great Encounters and its very nice attack “Moon Skip“ that allows you to take extra prize card if you knock out your opponents Pokemon. In my strategy with Expert Belt I think that Luxray GL LV.X can be very helpful. You can Level it up and use its “Bright Look“ Poke-Power to take active one of your opponents weak Pokemon and KO it with “Moon Skip“ for 2 prizes immediately.
If your opponent is careless and puts their Expert Belt on one of their weak, low hit pointed Pokemon (for example because he will want to draw more cards for “Set Up“ or “Cosmic Power“) you can bring it active, use Bronzong’s G Poke-Power “Galactic Switch“ and re-attach energy card from Luxray GL. LV.X to your Cresselia LV.X (and you can already use “Full Moon Dance“ to move one of Bronzong’s damage counter to one of your opponents Pokemon) and go for 3 prizes KO! This is in my opinion a very nice strategy, to win fast or take a huge prizes lead over your opponent.
On the other side, you can play Expert Belt with many Stage 2 Pokemons like Rampardos from Mysterious Treasures (100 damage for 1 energy cards and 150 hit points is great even if your opponent can take extra prize for KO this Pokemon). Kingdra from Legends Awakened to is not bad candidate. Gardevoir’s “Psychic Lock“ with base damage 80 to is not look like bad choice (and with the release of Double Colorless Energy in next set it will set up a huge Plox comeback). I personally will be testing straight Nidoqueen Rising Rivals with Ampharos with Platinum and 4 Poke Healer + with 4 Expert Belt of course.
From Stage 1 Pokemons I like Blissey Mysterious Treasures, which will have 150 HP and its attack base damage will be 40+ number of attached energy cards to it. And one of the most interesting ideas for my is that you can attach Expert Belt to your Claydol and go for one hit knock out to Luxray GL LV.X and next turn you can Warp Point / Switch it back onto a bench.
Now I would like to talk about SP deck that gotta have a huge decision before it – Will they play Expert Belt or still play 4 Energy Gains?
I think that with release of Double Colorless Energy they will play more Expert Belts and only few Energy Gains as tech cards for situation speed up. The best part of Expert Belt is that if you bring to active your opponents Claydol via Bright Look you can easily attach second energy and Expert Belt for easy prize and strategical lead. You can play in all SP deck Mewtwo LV.X counter – Mismagius from Stormfront edition and you can easily discard Expert Belts from your damaged Pokemon to prevent your opponent from taking extra prize for its KO.
I think that Expert Belt has many possibilities to be played with many cards about I didn’t write here and I will like to see some you your tips in comments.
I hope that you like my short article and I will like to see any comments about it.
I wish you good luck on tournaments and a lot of fun in PTCG playing !
Michal “Charlie“ Bartosik
cw@email.cz












