What Year is it?! Lugia is BDIF and It’s Not Close…

Hello everyone! Welcome to the brand new Prismatic Evolutions format! This set is pretty bad in terms of playability, but the two little cards are about to make a big impact. You’ve heard enough about Budew, so it’s time to talk about Lugia VSTAR, one of the few decks that will not play Budew. Our resident Lugia VSTAR expert Ciaran did touch on Lugia VSTAR for a moment in his Chien-Pao ex article, and I’m here to explore it in-depth. It did not take me many games to realize how strong this deck is in the new format. The deck composition itself does not change much, but the environment around it has.

Why Lugia VSTAR?

Point one for Lugia VSTAR is that the meta has become less favorable for Iron Thorns ex. Not only that, but Iron Thorns ex’s primary partner in Dragapult ex has found better friends in Budew and Dusknoir. This superior version of Dragapult ex has already started dominating in the new format, so there is no real reason to play Iron Thorns ex with it anymore. Iron Thorns ex also greatly struggles against Dragapult ex / Dusknoir, which means that the annoying Lightning-type Pokemon is on its way out. Lugia VSTAR is happy to be rid of its Achilles heel, at least for now.

Budew’s existence only serves to benefit Lugia VSTAR. Despite its relatively low Item count, Budew can still be annoying; Budew slows down Lugia VSTAR’s setup, as you cannot search for Archeops and get it into play on the same turn after they use Itchy Pollen (unless you flip heads on Mesagoza), however, this minor inconvenience is nothing compared to the benefits that Budew provides. By slowing down the format overall, Lugia VSTAR becomes faster in comparison. Every other deck has to drastically change to account for Budew, while Lugia VSTAR does not. Lugia VSTAR also has several ways to punish Budew — Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex can trap it to buy time or even deck the opponent out at the end of the game, or else you can snipe it for an extra Prize. Iron Hands ex can also take an extra Prize against it, while Lugia VSTAR or Cinccino  can simply KO without even needing to set up Archeops.

Looking at the online metagame, Evolution-based decks like Dragapult ex and Gardevoir ex are the most popular, while Charizard ex and Ceruledge ex (of all things) aren’t far behind. Lugia VSTAR completely feasts upon all of these decks. Wellspring Mask Ogerpon ex and Iron Hands ex love farming Prize cards against small Basic Pokemon while applying tons of pressure. Previously, these decks would be able to mount a comeback with their high-HP Evolution Pokemon, but now Regigigas can swoop in and one-shot them with little effort. Want to KO my Archeops? Enjoy a 330-damage Jewel Breaker to the face. Although I would always take online results with a grain of salt, it’s no surprise that Lugia VSTAR has the highest win rate in the online metagame. Aside from Gardevoir ex which closely trails it, Lugia VSTAR’s win rate is higher than everything else by a significant margin.


This concludes the public portion of this article.

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that's a wild statement considering the last regional it placed in the top 8 was lille back in october
The point of this article is to talk about Lugia in the upcoming format, one that we have not had any official tournaments in yet. It is kinda wild that 2 cards make Lugia a top-tier deck again, but it's true.