V is for Victory – Victini VMAX / Mewtwo in Standard

Hello to all PokeBeach readers! It’s Gabriel again, bringing another article about the Pokémon TCG! This time I’ll talk about Victini VMAX / Mewtwo and Mew-GX — one of the best decks of the current format, in my opinion — but before I start on this fantastic new deck, I want to talk a little about the current metagame, which has finally started to change for the better.

Since Sword & Shield was launched, we’ve seen a clear change in the way the Pokémon TCG has been played. Basically, the format got a lot faster, with many games only lasting about four or five turns. Cards like Professor's Research, Dedenne-GX, and Crobat V became integral to most decks, as they offer enormous draw power and enable you to find all the cards you need in one turn. To cap it all off, we have a great deal of Pokémon capable of achieving very high damage from the second turn of play.

Spearheading this change and forcing the format to follow in its wake, Arceus and Dialga and Palkia-GX / Zacian V (ADPZ) emerged, a practically perfect deck without any obvious weaknesses, capable of winning over virtually any strategy. Since then, the format started to hold ADPZ as a gold standard; that is, no deck could compete in the format without some way of dealing with it. (As we now know, the best ways to beat ADPZ are either to be extremely aggressive in the first turns of the game or to slow down the game with Crushing Hammer.)

Nowadays, ADPZ remains a strong deck. It is no longer the absolute best deck in format, but its early aggressive strategy will continue to wield huge influence over the rest of the format for a long time yet. Even when Arceus & Dialga & Palkia GX is rotated out of the Standard format, other fast, hard-hitting decks like Eternatus VMAX will continue to represent the aggressive side of the format.

Victini VMAX / Mewtwo is one such aggressive deck, capable of dealing with the strongest decks because it too can take Knock Outs and achieve high damage very early in the game. Unlike the strategies we currently have, however, Victini VMAX achieves its aggressiveness without having to make much of an effort. For one thing, Victini VMAX is the first Fire Pokémon in a long time that can be competitive without relying on Welder.

As soon as I started playing Victini VMAX, it was immediately clear to me that this Pokémon will be popular for years to come. It’s a Pokémon already being considered in the post-rotation format, as it’s capable of punishing Pokémon V and VMAX, in addition to being easily energized without the help of Welder — which will also be rotated soon. When you play Victini VMAX, you start to get a sense of what the Pokémon TCG will look like next season, and the impression I have is that it will be a much healthier format than we currently have.

The version of Victini VMAX that I’m going to review today is in combination with Mewtwo & Mew-GX, which, in addition to having great synergy with Victini and Welder, is well positioned in the metagame on its own. We will probably see Victini VMAX being combined with several other Pokémon, however, because its attack costs only [R][C] — a very minimal investment. It’s perfectly possible to make a Victini VMAX / Dragapult VMAX or Victini VMAX / Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX deck, for example. I’m sure that I will explore this Pokémon a lot yet.

But back on the main subject of today’s article, I want to present the version of Victini VMAX that I liked the most so far — inspired by Shuto Itagaki, and totally fitting for the metagame we have today. The idea of ​​combining Victini VMAX with Mewtwo & Mew GX is very simple. Everything that is a Pokémon V and VMAX will be fought by Victini VMAX, while everything that is a Pokémon-GX will be fought by Mewtwo & Mew-GX.

In addition, the deck features the Fire type and the Psychic type, which are probably the best metagame types to take advantage of the weakness of other great decks like ADPZ, Zacian LucMetal, and Urshifu VMAX Rapid and Single Strike.

Now, let’s review today’s deck!

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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