Power creep is a concept very prominent in trading card games where the power of newer cards is constantly growing compared to cards that came before them. It’s rooted in the idea that to get people to buy new cards, they need to be better than the previous ones so that buying more becomes the requirement for staying competitive.
The recent reveal of an upcoming Delta Reign Pokémon TCG set and its mascot card Mega Rayquaza ex is a great example of how over the past 14 years, a similar mechanic has gotten way more power.
Let’s start by comparing Rayquaza EX from Dragons Exalted with the upcoming Mega Rayquaza ex from Delta Reign.
Rayquaza EX is a 170 HP Basic Dragon Pokémon while Mega Rayquaza ex is a bulky 280 HP Basic Colorless Pokémon. 110 HP increase is massive. Sure, the Mega gives out one more prize when KO’d so it mitigates the change a bit but it’s still indicative of the power creep.
Both cards have very similar attacks. Dragon Burst of Rayquaza EX costs Fire and Lightning. You choose either Fire or Lightning and discard all basic energies of that type from Rayquaza itself and do 60 times the damage of energy cards discarded.
The attack of Mega Rayquaza’s costs one Colorless more and reads
Storm Emeralda: 50x damage. This attack does 50 damage times the number of Fire and Lightning Energy attached to all of your Pokemon in play.
There are a couple of huge power creep differences between these two attacks. First of all, Storm Emeralda doesn’t discard any energies, so it takes way less resources to hit again the next turn. Second, it counts ALL Fire and Lightning energies on your board. That means:
- Energy on any Pokémon, not just Mega Rayquaza
- Counts special energies, not just basic energies
- Counts the amount of energy, not the amount of energy cards. If we get another effect like PGO Charizard’s Burn Brightly (all Fire counts as two), it doubles the damage of this attack.
Back in 2012, Rayquaza EX was paired with Eelektrik from Noble Victories that has an ability Dynamotor:
Once during your turn (before your attack), you may attach a {L} Energy card from your discard pile to 1 of your Benched Pokémon.
In 2026, Mega Rayquaza ex can be paired with Eelektrik from Ascended Heroes which is a reprint of the old one.
The difference is that in 2012, you had to constantly power up Rayquaza EX after it discarded its energies to attack again. In 2026, you can power up a second Mega Rayquaza ex or a lightning attacker on the bench to power up the attack.
If that wasn’t enough, Mega Rayquaza ex has an ability Champion’s Roar:
When you play this Pokemon from your hand onto your Bench during your turn, you may use this Ability. Look at the top 4 cards of your deck and attach a Basic Energy you find there to this Pokemon. Shuffle the remaining cards and put them on the bottom of your deck.
(It reminds me of Celestial Storm Rayquaza GX but that’s a story for another day.)