Lugia VSTAR Never Goes Away! Should You Play It?
Hello everyone! Recently the Lille Regionals took place in France, and Toronto is coming up just around the corner. Fusion Mew VMAX actually won Lille, reminding everyone that it remains an extremely powerful deck. Fusion Mew VMAX suffers a horrible Charizard ex matchup, which gatekeeps it pretty hard, especially in American Regionals, however, one lucky Fusion Mew VMAX player was able to run through the entire event while only running into one Charizard ex (and somehow beating it?!). Regardless, taking a bad matchup to one deck is usually a reasonable risk, and Mew VMAX’s upsides are too massive to ignore. As always, Mew VMAX is extremely fast, powerful, and consistent. It also has decent matchups aside from Charizard ex, so it makes sense that it was able to pull off a Regional win. Interestingly, Konsta lost to two Arceus VSTAR and a Giratina VSTAR deck during his tournament-winning run with Fusion Mew VMAX, which are usually great matchups for the deck.
In second place at Lille was an interesting Lost Box list that somehow made space for four Cross Switcher, a Canceling Cologne, a Ditto, a Spiritomb, and a second Roxanne. Losing only a Lost Box in swiss rounds, it had a slim chance against Mew VMAX in finals without playing a Drapion V. Contrary to popular belief, Spiritomb is nearly useless against Fusion Mew VMAX, however, it was a reasonable inclusion because the more popular Mew VMAX version as of late was the Double Turbo Energy version with Grabber. I have no idea how the deck has space for all of those unusual cards, but it evidently works. It is a classic example of trading off consistency for power cards. The optimal sweet spot probably lies somewhere between this list and normal ones.
The rest of Top 8 actually had two more Mew VMAX, with one more being Fusion and the other being the Double Turbo Energy-build. Aside from that, Top 8 had Chien-Pao ex, Lugia VSTAR, Gardevoir ex, Giratina VSTAR, and a rare sighting of Hisuian Goodra VSTAR. Overall, I would say these results are highly unexpected. It seems the meta continues to evolve, yet remains fairly open-ended for a variety of decks to do well.
Lugia VSTAR is a deck that refuses to go away and has been performing well lately. I would probably avoid playing it myself because it is weak to Charizard ex and Miraidon ex, which are both decks that Americans like to play. An ever-widening meta benefits Lugia as time goes on, however, as other decks will cut into the meta share of Charizard ex and Miraidon ex. In any case, Lugia VSTAR is a popular deck that is worth considering and understanding. Today I will discuss the deck in depth, as it is one of the few decks I have not covered in the current format.
A Look at Lugia VSTAR
As I discussed in my last article, Lugia VSTAR completely dominated the recent Sacramento Regionals, and now it’s also made Top 4 at Lille. The Lille list and the winning Sacramento list are nearly identical — the only differences are minor, with the Sacramento list playing fourth Professor's Research and fourth Jet Energy over a fourth Boss's Orders and fourth Gift Energy. I think I prefer the Lille list. Here it is:
List Breakdown
This is basically the standard Lugia VSTAR list, though it lacks the combo of Radiant Charizard and Luminous Energy. Radiant Charizard is quite strong and useful, but there is only so much space in the deck — I would consider cutting a Nest Ball and a Gift Energy for that package, but it is not entirely necessary. You could also consider cutting a Snorlax. As usual with Lugia, your first turn or two don’t involve a whole lot of action. As long as you’re able to get that turn-two Summoning Star, you should be good to go.
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!