Special Conditions and Item Lock — Making Vikavolt V Work Post-Rotation

Item lock is one of my all time favorite aspects of the game! It feels like I just talked about the deck, but that was before the format changed with the rotation. When I covered Vikavolt V the first time, I included Mareep, the go-to option for creating a lock at the time. The latest online event showed us Dustox as another option, but that too fell to the rotation. Moving forward the options are more limited, but there’s some good ones. It’s worth mentioning that Electropower has bit the dust as well, so this deck has changed completely. A few things remain the same: You have Tapu Koko Prism Star and Turbo Patch (these will be in most lists.) Mareep may be gone, but there’s Amoonguss. Come to think of it, Amonguss’ Bursting Spores Ability may have had potential before the rotation, though now it’s all that’s left. You use Scoop Up Net on a Foongus, drop it back down, then you’ve got your opponent’s Active Pokemon Asleep and Poisoned. A recent large tournament introduced a Vikavolt V / Pikachu and Zekrom-GX variant, combining both decks for some interesting options. This is something I talked about originally, playing a Pikachu and Zekrom-GX to clean things up with its Tag Bolt GX attack in the late game. In addition to these fine ideas, there’s a more typical Vikavolt V list I’ve been working on, brandishing Galarian Slowbro V for extra damage and Yell Horn for added disruption. I’ll be highlighting all three of my updated lists for these decks today!

Vikavolt V / Amoongus

This concludes the public portion of this article.

If you'd like to continue reading, consider purchasing a PokeBeach premium membership! If you're not completely satisfied with your membership, you can request a full refund within 30 days.

Each week we post high-quality content from some of the game's top players. Our article program isn't a corporate operation, advertising front, or for-profit business. We set our prices so that we can pay the game's top players to write the best content for our subscribers. Each article topic is carefully selected, goes through multiple drafts, and is touched up by our editors. We take great pride in our program!