Moving Forward — A Post-Worlds Reflection on the Format
Hello PokeBeach readers! Isaiah here, and I am happy to writing another article for you all!
Last time, I talked about my top picks heading into the World Championships, and while I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the format, I was blown away by how accurate my assessment ended up being. Some of my conclusions were pretty obvious, such as Regidrago VSTAR clearly being the best deck, with decks like Charizard ex and Lugia VSTAR being not too far behind it. What surprised me, though, was my correct prediction that both Iron Thorns ex and Roaring Moon ex were good plays for the event — and they ultimately played each other in the finals! When I saw that this was the case headed into Sunday, my jaw dropped. I thought there was a good chance for both decks to make decent runs, even considering playing them myself up until the final day before the event, but I did not expect them to perform that well. To me, this was also maybe the biggest indicator that my testing process for the event was strong because, while there was not much to discover about the format, I do think that I was able to come to all of the right conclusions about what to expect.
As for my personal run at the event, I finished 5–3, losing my win-and-in match for Day 2, with Regidrago VSTAR. Like many others, I identified very early on that the deck was by far the best deck in the format, and I decided that it was in my best interest to put as much time as possible into optimizing my deck list for the event. My group of friends all agreed with me. Ultimately, six of us ended up playing the following deck list:
Capturing Aroma over the fourth Nest Ball, but functionally the deck list was identical. Five of the six in our group made it to our win-and-in games, including myself and fellow writer Charlie Lockyer. Unfortunately, Charlie and I both lost, but two of the other three were able to make it through — Ian Robb and Vance Kelley. After Day 2 had concluded, Vance did not quite make it to Top 32, getting up to 8-1-1 but narrowly losing the last two matches. Ian, on the other hand, was able to make the miracle 4–0 run all the way to Top 8, where he unfortunately was unable to advance. Overall, I think our deck list was incredibly successful, and I am really proud of the product we were able to put together. While I do think that our list was strong for that event, I do wonder if it is good enough going forward, and that’s going to be the primary focus of today’s article: How do we adapt to the results of the World Championships?
Using the World Championships to Prepare for Baltimore
Beating Regidrago VSTAR
At this point, it is no secret that Regidrago VSTAR was by far the most successful deck at this year’s World Championships, making up half of the Top 8 and having six more in the rest of Top 32. This level of success is usually pretty uncommon at the World Championships, especially with such a large percentage of Top 8, so naturally, adapting to this is the key thing going forward. The deck was played by just over 24% of the event’s players, which is a similar rate to Lugia VSTAR when it was at its prime back in late 2022, so it’s fair to assume that it too could end up being the most popular deck in the next format.
Beating Regidrago VSTAR can be a very challenging task, as the deck has an unreal amount of versatility while also being extremely consistent and powerful. You can never hope to beat it in a long game because if they understand you’re taking it slow, they can easily just save Legacy Star to recover game-winning resources. That’s why Gardevoir ex has pretty much ceased to be a competitively viable deck at this point, as the deck will always get outpaced by Regidrago VSTAR in the early game, and by the time Gardevoir ex is able to set up, Regidrago VSTAR is just way too far ahead for a comeback to ever be realistic. Decks that pace themselves similarly to Regidrago VSTAR, where you produce powerful threats on your second turn, such as Lugia VSTAR, are generally pretty good against Regidrago VSTAR, but Lugia VSTAR in particular can be teched against with Temple of Sinnoh, giving Regidrago VSTAR a reliable way to win the game by canceling out its opponent’s benefits.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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