What’s Dead May Never Die – Adapted Meta Decks for Baltimore
Hello everyone! With Lost Origin right around the corner, many are ready to start playing with the new cards. However, there are still some major events coming up before Lost Origin becomes tournament-legal. In particular, I’m focused on the upcoming Baltimore Regional Championships.
The World Championships gave us some surprising results. Although the four Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR in Top 8 didn’t shock anyone, I doubt there is a single person that could have predicted Flying Pikachu VMAX / Arceus VSTAR / Hisuian Decidueye VSTAR would place first, second, AND third at Worlds. Arceus / Inteleon has seen a sharp decline in play, leaving us with a triangle of the top three decks. Flying Pikachu beats Palkia, Palkia beats Mew, and Mew beats Flying Pikachu. These are the top three decks in terms of popularity and strength at the current moment. Any of those three sounds like a reasonable play, but my goal is to find something that beats all of them.
Also worth noting is Radiant Charizard‘s recent popularity spike. The list has evolved considerably since I last wrote about the deck. It is now built to have a near auto-win against Mew, but it remains weak against Flying Pikachu. Its Palkia matchup is suspect and can go either way. With these matchups, Charizard is no better or worse of a play than any of the big three. It would be nice to play a deck that also has a favorable Charizard matchup, but if you’re beating the big three, you’re already in good shape.
For Worlds, I placed eleventh with Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX / Bibarel. The list was within one or two cards of the one I wrote about in a previous article! Since Worlds, this deck has slightly increased in popularity. However, it’s still quite poor against Mew. Its Palkia matchup is also very close, though it does very well against any Arceus variant. Overall, I consider it a reasonable play, but I don’t want to take an unfavorable matchup to Mew going into Baltimore.
Rounding out Tier 2 is Regigigas, which is seeing a surprising amount of play given its current Flying Pikachu predicament. That said, it’s strong against Mew and alright against current Palkia lists. I have attempted to solve the Flying Pikachu problem by playing four Escape Rope in my Regi list, which I’ll be discussing a bit later in this article. The Regi deck is a bit clunky and sometimes just feels bad to play, but it has great matchups in the current meta with Arceus / Inteleon more or less disappearing.
Mew Stops
First I want to talk about Mew. In particular, Michael Pramawat played a ridiculous version of Mew to make Top 8 at the London Open. He played the deck with no Fusion Strike Energy or Meloetta. While this lowers the damage cap of the deck and takes away the turn-one Meloetta play that strikes fear into the hearts of Arceus players, it opens up a few other options. This version of Mew is more consistent, and it’s also more resistant to Path to the Peak as it plays four PokéStop. The deck also plays Cross Switcher and Marnie, which are powerful options that Mew doesn’t normally use. The goal of the deck is to take two Prizes on every attacking turn, winning the game on turn four with three attacks.
I’ve slightly edited the original list, as there were too many different Supporters for my liking. Although Avery can be strong against Palkia, it’s not consistent. It’s not every game that you’re in a position to use Avery and have it make a noticeable impact. Here is my current list for Mew.
Oricorio was not originally in my list, as I didn’t see much use for it, but I’ve included it now because it’s a single-Prize Fusion Strike Pokemon that can be sacrificed in the Active Spot when you are forced to go second. Its Ability and attack have some utility as an added bonus.
With no Elesa's Sparkle and more of a focus on Cross Switcher, the deck is free to play other Supporters, though I only play Boss's Orders and Marnie. Marnie is quite good in Mew because the deck often finds itself with clunky hands and unable to draw more with Genesect V. This can happen at any point in the game. If cards like Ultra Ball don’t happen to be evenly distributed throughout the deck, you’ll be relying on Marnie to un-clunk your hand at some points. This has the added bonus of saving some cards for later instead of discarding them, such as Boss’s Orders and Echoing Horn. Finally, Marnie is helpful against Inteleon decks such as Palkia and Charizard. I never feel like there’s a need to be using anything besides Marnie or Boss for the turn. Cyllene can recover resources, but Marnie can help preserve the resources in the first place.
In this deck with Cross Switcher and no Fusion Strike Energy, PokéStop is the more logical Stadium choice over Rose Tower. Playing four copies is for better odds against Path, as well as maximizing overall consistency. Still, it is not something that gets mindlessly spammed. It’s a consistency boost, but it carries inherent risk with it. Carefully consider where your resources are and what more you need for the turn when deciding whether or not to use PokéStop. It’s powerful, but there are many times when you don’t have to use it.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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