Exit Strategy — Using the Final Weeks with Lost Origin to Prepare for Silver Tempest

Hello PokeBeach readers! It has been a while, but I am happy to be writing you all another article! A lot has happened since last time, including three Regional-level tournaments. The first of these events was the Lille Regional Championships. This event saw a few surprises, but even those surprises were not that crazy. One of the more notable phenomena was the emergence of Blissey V / Miltank, a deck that many players had written off by now, that got second place! Despite this result with an unpopular deck, however, Mew VMAX was still the deck that took down the event, further cementing the Double Turbo Energy build’s place in the Standard format.

Over the weekend after Lille, there were two more Regional-level tournaments in Southeast Asia, with one in Malaysia and one in Indonesia. The first of these events had one of the most surprising results that we have seen in a long time, with not one but three Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR decks in the Top Eight, but not just that, the deck also ended up winning the event with a perfect 10-0 win-loss record. I was especially satisfied by this particular result, as I have been preaching for quite some time now that Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR will inevitably do extremely well at a large event, and despite being partially correct for the Peoria Regional Championship, the big win in Malaysia really solidified my point. Surprisingly, this was not the only surprise that came out of the Malaysian regional tournament; in addition to the three Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR decks in Top Eight, a Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX deck made Top Eight as well! This is Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX’s first Top Cut (in the Masters Division) since Tord Reklev’s second-place finish at the Vancouver Regional Championship several months ago, which is a bit surprising — it makes sense when you think about it, however, both because the deck fell off surprisingly hard following the release of Astral Radiance, largely thanks to a dramatic spike in the popularity of Manaphy, and also because of the variety of new tools that the deck got with Lost Origin as well as a relatively good Lost Zone toolbox matchup. The results of the final Regional event, which took place in Indonesia, were a bit tamer once again, but this time Kyurem VMAX took down its first major event since being released. The rest of the results from Indonesia was also pretty tame, but there were quite a few Mew VMAX decks in Top Eight, making up 50% of Top Eight in total.

Unfortunately, these tournaments are marking the very back end of the Lost Origin format, with just the Regional Championship in Warsaw, Poland this weekend remaining. I say unfortunately because, in my opinion, this format is one of the better ones that we have had in quite some time, with a healthy amount of deck diversity and no oppressively strong best deck in format to be named. As we approach the Silver Tempest meta, I am filled with both fear and excitement about the upcoming format. I, along with many of friends that I have spoken with, are a bit concerned about the new Lugia VSTAR / Archeops decks being a little too strong, but at the same time, I am ecstatic that Archeops, one of my favorite Pokemon, is getting its first playable card since Noble Victories Archeops, as that card is certainly one of my least favorite cards ever printed. Despite the set’s low volume of super impactful cards, Silver Tempest is certainly going to be a hugely impactful set on the Standard format due to just how strong the new Lugia VSTAR deck is. Lugia VSTAR will not be the only big deck in the new Standard format though, and many of the decks from this current format will continue to be strong in the new format. As such, the focus of this article is going to be mostly on those decks that stay good, why they stay good, and how to approach building new versions of these decks. Without further ado, how about we start by taking a look at the decks in the current format and see what stuff is going to stick around and what stuff is going to fall off with Silver Tempest.

What stays good?

As I said previously, the Silver Tempest format will more than likely look very similar to the current Standard format, with many of the top threats remaining at the top, but some decks are definitely expected to say goodbye to Standard. Despite my previous claims about the deck, Hisuian Zoroark VSTAR is almost certainly going to fall off in the new format, largely because it just does not hit the necessary numbers against Lugia VSTAR in a remotely reliable or consistent way, a problem that is exacerbated by lists that play Radiant Gardevoir. The Loving Veil Ability makes it go from difficult to impossible to take a one-hit Knock Out on a Lugia VSTAR without major techs that would negatively impact the deck’s consistency, which simply is not worth doing, as there is no great solution to the problem of Lugia VSTAR being too bulky while also having access to strong single-Prize attackers if it needs them.

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!