AI Clustering Meltan Cards by Ability Similarity in TCG

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Meltan card art from Stellar Crown SV07 by Yuka Morii

Image courtesy of TCGdex.net

AI Clustering Meltan: Exploring Ability Similarity in the Pokémon TCG

In the ever-evolving world of Pokémon TCG analytics, Meltan from the Stellar Crown set (SV07) stands out as a charming case study for how artificial intelligence can parse ability and move similarity across a diverse card pool. Meltan is a Basic Metal-type Pokémon with 60 Hit Points, illustrated by Yuka Morii, and it wears the badge of a Common rarity. The card’s clean, two-attack profile—Stampede and Beam—provides a compact yet meaningful footprint for clustering algorithms to latch onto. As we dive into how AI might group Meltan with other cards, we’re not just talking about numbers; we’re exploring a strategy lens that blends mechanics, art, and market curiosity into a single, shimmering thread. ⚡

“If you map every card to a vector of its abilities, energy costs, and stage, clusters emerge that reveal surprising kinships. Meltan’s simple dual-attack loadout is a perfect anchor for visualizing similarity in the Metal family.”

Stellar Crown, identified in databases as SV07, is a set that leans into starry aesthetics and polished engineering—traits that pair nicely with Meltan’s metallic lineage. The card’s two attacks, Stampede and Beam, offer a small but insightful playground for AI to explore. Stampede costs a single Metal energy and deals a modest 10 damage, while Beam ramps up to 40 damage at the cost of Metal plus two Colorless energies. This creates a natural feature pair for clustering: energy cost profiles and damage output. A clustering model might represent each attack as a vector in a multi-dimensional space, where the first axis captures energy color (Metal vs Colorless), the second axis captures the quantity of energies, and the third axis tracks damage. Meltan’s proximity to other Basic Metal attackers with similar, lean-energy offense becomes an informative signal for deck archetypes and collection patterns. 🔧

Breaking down Meltan’s card data for AI-friendly grouping

  • Category: Pokemon
  • Name: Meltan
  • Set: Stellar Crown (SV07); card count official 142, total 175
  • Rarity: Common
  • Type: Metal
  • Stage: Basic
  • HP: 60
  • Attacks:
    • Stampede — Cost: Metal; Damage: 10
    • Beam — Cost: Metal, Colorless, Colorless; Damage: 40
  • Retreat: 1
  • Illustrator: Yuka Morii
  • Regulation: Standard and Expanded legal
  • Pricing notes: CardMarket data (as of 2025-10-30) shows non-holo meltans averaging around €0.04, with holo variations typically higher (approx. €0.11 on average).

From an AI perspective, Meltan’s simple energy cost structure—one Metal for Stampede and a heavier Metal plus two Colorless for Beam—presents a clean, interpretable feature space. In clustering experiments, Meltan often sits near other Basic Metal Pokémon with compact, energy-efficient offenses. The inclusion of Colorless in the second attack creates a natural gradient that helps differentiate mid-range vs. low-energy strategies, a nuance that clustering algorithms love to highlight. When you visualize clusters in a reduced-dimensional space, you’ll often see Meltan gravitating toward peers that emphasize reliable single-energy triggers with a later-stage payoff, echoing many metallic archetypes from the same era. 🔬

For players, these insights translate into practical play and deck-building intuition. In a format where you’re leaning into Metal heavies, Meltan’s Stampede can be a reliable early-turn poke, while Beam’s higher damage ceiling rewards thoughtful energy pacing and resource management. Clustering results might group Meltan with other quick-start attackers who reward careful timing rather than brute-force energy ramps, suggesting a family-like deck core centered around efficient energy use and efficient attacks. In the real world of tournaments and casual play, understanding these similarities can help you anticipate which cards synergize well with Meltan, and which ones tend to diverge in terms of energy curves and damage windows. 🎯

Art, lore, and the collector’s angle

Yuka Morii’s illustration for Meltan adds a tactile, metallic charm that’s easy to recognize when scanning a binder. The Stellar Crown set’s aesthetic often emphasizes crisp linework and starry accents, making Meltan’s simple silhouette pop without overpowering the composition. For collectors, Meltan’s Common rarity paired with a non-holo presentation (with a reverse variant available) makes it a friendly entry point into the SV07 collection. Market data suggests Meltan remains accessible for most budget-conscious builds, especially since the card sits within a broad, affordable price range. Keeping an eye on fluctuations in standard-grade pricing can be revealing; even small upticks in the non-holo Meltan price can signal shifting interest in metal-type decks or in set-specific nostalgia. 💎

From a lore perspective, Meltan’s lineage as a metal Pokémon aligns thematically with a clustering narrative: the idea that seemingly humble or common pieces can share essential structural traits, and that a few key differences—like the energy demands of two distinct attacks—can reposition a card within a broader strategic ecosystem. This mirrors how AI recognizes clusters in datasets: group by core similarities, but respect the outliers that reveal new pathways. 🎴

As you explore Meltan through the lens of AI-driven clustering, you’ll notice that the card’s neat, two-attack design serves as an ideal proxy for more complex cards down the line. The resulting clusters aren’t just academic; they mirror the real-world decisions players make when building decks, evaluating card usefulness across formats, and deciding which pieces to invest in for future collections. The fusion of strategy, collection, and storytelling is what makes the Meltan story so engaging—and a perfect example of how data-driven insight can enhance the joy of Pokémon TCG hobby.

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Looking for more perspectives on the data-driven side of gaming? Dive into a few other articles that illuminate cross-format analysis, market dynamics, viral growth strategies, and more—each offering a window into how experts view the Pokemon universe through different lenses.

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