Can Lightning (Rapid) Strike Twice? — Urshifu / Inteleon for Worlds
Hey everyone! It’s Charlie and I’m happy to be back with another article. I’ve been working hard for the past few weeks on my Worlds preparation, and while I’d like to say I have a great idea of what the metagame will look like or that I have a crazy rogue deck that beats everything, that’s unfortunately not yet the case. I’ve been taking time since NAIC to broaden my perspectives as much as possible, which means trying out pretty much everything that’s viable in the slightest.
Through this process, I’ve played many bad decks, but it also gave me the chance to try out some decks I’d previously written off, like Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX / Inteleon VMAX. Obviously this deck isn’t bad because it just won the largest Pokemon tournament of all time, but I hadn’t really given it the chance it deserved or worked on a list for it before. However, after messing with the deck a bit, I’m happy to say it’s much better than I initially thought it would be. Assuming you set up, this deck’s matchups are some of the best in the current format and very few decks have direct answers to it. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX / Inteleon VMAX really feels like the quintessential “win or go home” deck for this year’s World Championships — you can draw hot and win the event, or draw poorly and find yourself at the bottom tables fast.
Cyrus Davis’ list for the deck was already very strong, so I started with her list and worked to try and optimize a few of the counts for consistency. Here’s where I ended up; I’ll explain all of the card choices and why I chose to make changes below.
Three Inteleon VMAX
This Pokemon is your main attacker in quite a few matchups, including against Gardevoir ex and Duraludon VMAX decks, so a 3-3 line of Inteleon VMAXis really strong. Furthermore, you intend to set up two Inteleon VMAX in many games because of its Double Gunner Ability. Being able to place 40 damage on two of your opponent’s Benched Pokemon in a single turn is honestly incredible, and when combined with Radiant Alakazam for a combo, can even enable Yoga Loop on a Manaphy with no damage counters on it. For any line where you’d like to get two in play during a game but don’t need them urgently, a 3-3 is usually a good choice, so I think sticking with this will work well.
Two Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX
This Pokemon VMAX such an incredible card that it surprises me Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX hasn’t seen play for a while. 330 HP, an efficient 2HKO attack in Gale Thrust, and an insanely powerful second attack in G-Max Rapid Flow that lets you snipe 120 damage onto any two Pokemon is really the complete package for an attacker. It likely has something to do with the fact Lugia VSTAR decks have never been a great matchup, but with the resurgence of Arceus VSTAR decks, Urshifu once again becomes extremely good. You only need a 2-2 line of Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX because you very rarely use more than one in a game; benching the second to prevent a Boss's Orders KO on one of them is the only real use for it. I’d keep this count at 2-2 and only prioritize setting up Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX early in the Arceus VSTAR and Lugia VSTAR matchups because it’s much harder for them to answer Urshifu than Inteleon VMAX.
Two Octillery
This is the engine that makes this deck better than the pile of assorted Pokemon V that it looks like at first glance. Octillery‘s Ability to search any Rapid Strike card is so powerful when you have at least one of every type of card with a Rapid Strike tag. Rapid Strike Search can find every Pokemon that isn’t Radiant Alakazam or Lumineon V, a tech Item like Echoing Horn , a draw Supporter like Korrina's Focus, your main switching card in Tower of Waters, and most importantly Rapid Strike Energy to fuel all your attacks. Once you get an Octillery up and running, the deck no longer struggles to find pieces since you can always get the missing piece with Rapid Strike Search. Although you can only use one Rapid Strike Search a turn, it’s still worth it to play a 2-2 line because having Octillery in play is essential. I would consider a third copy of Remoraid to make it even easier to find, but with the amount of search we play for it, I think it’s reasonable to stick with the 2-2.
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!
