Truly Shady Dealings — Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX / Inteleon
Hello PokeBeach readers! In my last article, I went over Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX in the Expanded format and how it is the most aggressive deck the Pokémon TCG has ever seen. In this article, I’m going to be bringing Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX to the Standard format but in a less conventional way; in standard Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX has already made a name for itself winning multiple online events and being a great counter to the top decks like Eternatus VMAX and Pikachu and Zekrom-GX which dominated the format before the release of Battle Styles. In this article, I’ll be pairing Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX with Inteleon to give it a consistency boost and an engine that allows it to play around with both its attacks very easily.
Why Inteleon?
The obvious question when looking at this pairing is why play Inteleon over Jirachi which would also get the Trainers that Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX needs to function? The answer to that is fairly simple; because Escape Board has rotated out of format, so Jirachi never gives you a bonus card as you always have to play a switching card to get out of the Active, meaning you never actually build up a hand with Jirachi.
With Inteleon, however, you can search your deck for any Trainer you need, removing the variance you get with Stellar Wish, as well as allowing you to play around with Amazing Rare Jirachi which will give you extra cards over time. An Inteleon engine also allows the deck to find one less switching card every turn as you don’t have to move both Jirachi and Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, you can switch out of your VMAX then follow up with an Air Balloon on your Amazing Rare Jirachi.
Overall this engine takes up about the same amount of room as Stellar Wish Jirachi since you don’t need to play Scoop Up Net, but it allows you to be more flexible on your turns and include bigger combos in your deck that are too inconsistent when running a Jirachi engine.
The List
Three Urshifu V / Three Urshifu VMAX
I chose to go with a pretty standard line of Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX as I felt it was the most consistent way to build the deck. If I was running a different engine I would try to max out both Rapid Strike Urshifu V and Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX as those engines are less consistent and rely more on drawing the Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX. With this list, however, I felt freeing up some space for techs would be stronger as the deck is already extremely consistent and this would allow it to have some more depth in the game plan.
Inteleon Line
In my original list I started with a 2-2-2 line of Inteleon, but quickly realised that Inteleon isn’t the star of this deck — it’s actually Drizzile that does most of the work. While Inteleon is extremely powerful and allows for some insane plays. The general strategy of the deck functions much better with Drizzile rather than trying to set up multiple Inteleon. Drizzile makes sure you always get your attack off, while also allowing for some extra utility when you already have your switching cards meaning you can then search for combo pieces such as Boss's Orders or Leon. If I were to change this line at all it would only be to add a second Inteleon as I felt the 3-3 Drizzile line has given the deck a significant boost in its chances to perform the best play every turn.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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