Summoning the Stars — Tier 2 for Worlds?

Hello everyone! This is my last article before the upcoming World Championships! I am very excited to visit Japan for the first time, but I still have absolutely no idea what to play for the tournament. As of now, I’m keeping all of my options open.

Recently, I’ve written about most of the top decks in the current metagame. Today, I’ll be covering the rest of them — coincidentally, the decks that make up most of Tier 2. Even for those not competing at Worlds, this article will hopefully be helpful in understanding these decks, which are typically common at all levels of tournaments. Today we will be taking a closer look at Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX, Lugia VSTAR, and Mew VMAX.

Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX

Urshifu recently won NAIC, the largest tournament outside of Japan of all time, out of nowhere. This is a huge feat, all the more so since most players were not expecting this deck whatsoever. This was reflected by Urshifu’s small meta share, yet it was still able to win the event. Usually, an occurrence like this indicates an extremely strong deck that was slept on and underrated. However, Urshifu is one of my least favorite decks in the current format, and also one of the decks that I’d say I am least likely to play for Worlds.

I don’t personally like Urshifu because it is a clunky and high-maintenance deck. Its engine isn’t very strong, and it has some glaring bad matchups. For those reasons, I wouldn’t expect to see its success replicated at Worlds.

On the other hand, the deck is very powerful when all the pieces come together, and it has favorable matchups against some of the most popular decks, which is how it was able to win NAIC. Its matchup against Lost Box is quite good, and its Gardevoir ex matchup is passable. It can handle some Arceus VSTAR variants, and it’s also great against Chien-Pao ex. Cyrus’s winning run was also blessed by a few free wins against Miraidon ex and United Wings, which are extremely uncommon decks that happen to fold hard against Urshifu. Cyrus actually faced ten Arceus decks, which is an astronomically high amount, and did not have much trouble against them. However, Duraludon VMAX usually beats Urshifu, so I would count that against Urshifu going into Worlds.

As a matchup-based deck, Urshifu has some good matchups and hopes to run into them during the tournament. Against Mew or Lugia, it has a nearly nonexistent chance of winning. This is what dissuaded me from playing the deck when I tested it for NAIC and previous events. I tried getting it to beat its bad matchups, but this proved to be difficult, and the deck space is difficult to juggle while still retaining a functional deck. NAIC turned out to be the perfect time to play the deck. If you correctly read the matchups and play a consistent list, Urshifu always has the potential to be the silver bullet play for any given tournament. I don’t have much else to say about the deck or anything to add in terms of lists, so we’re going to move on.

Lugia VSTAR

Lugia’s results were not spectacular at NAIC, but it did make Top 8. I was considering playing it for NAIC myself. However, I expected a lot of random Spiritomb, which was annoying because I liked relying on Lumineon with that deck. Lugia was dominant in the Scarlet & Violet format, but it dipped in popularity in the Paldea Evolved format. There are more playable decks, and the other top-tier decks got significant buffs while Lugia did not. However, Lugia is still an extremely powerful deck with good matchups. It’s a deck that I am strongly considering for Worlds.

I tested the pure-Colorless version of Lugia with Snorlax and Wyrdeer V, and it’s just not that good. The good ol’ Single Strike version is still the way to go. Tyranitar V matches up absurdly well into the meta right now because Darkness-type Pokemon are effective against both Gardevoir and Mew. Tyranitar is also great against opposing Pokemon VSTAR such as Arceus, because it can still one-shot them with Single Strike Crush.

I psyched myself out big-time by worrying about Spiritomb at NAIC. Most Gardevoir lists have cut the card entirely, and Spiritomb alone isn’t even that good against Mew. Furthermore, Mew did not see great results at NAIC anyway. There is little incentive for anyone to be playing Spiritomb right now. Even if you run into it, the game is still very playable without Lumineon. The most likely deck to include Spiritomb right now is Arceus, which Lugia matches up well against anyway. Here’s my current list.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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