The Architect — Using Archaludon ex to Build Dialga VSTAR

Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to be writing another article for you all! Last time, I discussed the re-emergence of Iron Thorns ex at the Regional Championships level, especially in decks like Dragapult ex as a way to alter the pace of the game to establish a more powerful late game strategy. This strategy is going to be replicated by Budew in the upcoming format, which is a topic deserving of its own article, but it is not going to the focus of this article.

Of the the last couple of weekends, with the Birmingham, Rio de Janeiro, and San Antonio Regional Championships, we have seen several minor shifts in the meta. Regidrago VSTAR, while still commanding the title of being the best deck, has been producing results that are weaker than usual over the last couple of tournaments. Terapagos ex has made a massive resurgence with the departure of Klawf from the list of relevant decks. Both the traditional Dusknoir build as well as the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR build have seen success lately, with the former peaking at fourth in the San Antonio Regional Championships and the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR version making finals of all three events, including a win in Rio de Janeiro, to the surprise of many.

While the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR version has been a fairly decent deck for quite a while, it has always lingered in the lower tiers of the format, at least in my opinion, but a series of fortunate events has lead to the slight shift needed to allow the deck to emerge as a top tier strategy. However, despite this, Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR would still prove to be no match for two of the other best decks in the format at the two larger events, succumbing to Charizard ex in Birmingham and Gardevoir ex in San Antonio.

One other deck that did not put up particularly incredible results at either event, but it has been starting to pop up more and more lately, is Archaludon ex. Following its win at Champions League Osaka in December, Archaludon ex has surged to a position of meta prominence, amounting to around six percent of the meta in the Birmingham and San Antonio Regional Championships, with a positive conversion rate at both events as well, including a surge to ten percent of Day 2 at the Birmingham Regional Championship.

While I did not personally attend any of these events to get the chance to prove this statement myself, I confidently believe that Archaludon ex is one of the best decks in the Standard format, largely thanks to its ability to abuse Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR‘s Star Chronos, which is one of the best, if not the single best, attacks in Standard currently. Last weekend during the Birmingham Regional Championships, I was able to win a League Cup with Archaludon ex, cementing my belief in the deck, which was bolstered by its finishes in Regional Championships.

If I had gone to San Antonio, I almost certainly would have played Archaludon ex, and it is not super hard to see why I wanted to. The deck’s core strategy of swinging for 220 damage with a 300 HP Stage 1 is unbelievably strong on its own, with many decks struggling to contend with that power.

However, the deck really starts to show its strength with Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR. Now, the deck also has the ability to, simply put, answer every problem that could possibly be thrown its way. It is truly unbelievable what you can do by taking two turns in a row, often being able to come back by taking four (or more depending on the deck list!) Prize cards in a single “turn” if you set things up properly. This power is just completely unmatched any deck in the format, other than maybe the Briar decks like Charizard ex, but even then these decks have to use their combos to win the game that turn, with little utility otherwise.

On the other hand, Archaludon ex is able to use Star Chronos to either end the game outright or possibly set up a checkmate with a combination of cards like Iono and Boss's Orders to Knock Out whatever Pokemon you want and leave the opponent unable to win the game with the resources that they are left with on board and in their (likely small) hand. On top of this, the deck does have pretty universally good matchups, with one of the stand out matchups being Regidrago VSTAR. With their deck being mostly Pokemon V and Pokemon ex with 220 or less HP, it is very easy to take two Prize cards on the second turn, and from there it is easy to close out the game with repeated plays of Boss’s Orders and closing it out with a Star Chronos if needed.

Going beyond that, Charizard ex, while tough, is a pretty manageable matchup with the high HP of Archaludon ex and also, of course, Star Chronos. This is a trend that continues down the list of decks in the format, which is a large part of why I think that this deck is so good. Archaludon ex on its own is independently powerful, but the ability to abuse Star Chronos pushes it to the next level, turning the deck into a powerhouse that, honestly, does not really have a bad matchup beyond the fact that it is somewhat inconsistent.

In my opinion, the deck would likely be in contention for being the best deck in the Standard format if it was more consistent than it is, but the deck’s consistency issues are truly the only thing holding it back. In the interest of solving that problem, I have looked into building the deck with cards like PokéStop in order to dig a bit deeper, which has been a huge help, but it has not quite gotten the deck to the point I would hope for. Despite that, I do currently feel very comfortable with my deck list as it is, so without further ado, here is that deck list.

My Archaludon ex Deck List

As I have alluded to, the main focus of my deck list is understanding that Archaludon ex, while independently powerful, if infrequently enough to win games on its own. Instead, I have built to efficiently get to a Star Chronos play where I am able to cripple the opponent or win the game outright with the help of cards like Thorton, Counter Catcher, and others. Thanks to PokeStop and of course cards like Fezandipiti ex and Radiant Greninja are able to help dig deeper and deeper into the deck in order to put together this game winning combo.

The one unusual aspect of this deck list, though, is the inclusion of a small Dusknoir package. I will get into the details on this shortly, but this package, while it certainly negatively contributes to the consistency problem that I discussed previously, it does add a new dimension to the deck’s ability to obliterate the opponent’s board, either by helping you set up a Knock Out on a massive HP Pokemon like Charizard ex in one turn without previous setup or possibly take a fifth Prize card or other Knock Out.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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