Mastering Regidrago VSTAR Part 2 — Matchup Guide

Hello everyone! A few months ago, I wrote a piece about Regidrago VSTAR to help players better understand the deck, as it was dominating tournaments at the time. You can find it here, and I believe lots of the information there is still relevant and useful today.

Of course, some things change and some things stay the same. There is a lot more information to discuss about Regidrago VSTAR, and it is still dominating in tournaments. There is no question that Regidrago is still the best deck in the format. Every competitive player should be intimately familiar with the deck, and as usual, there are a lot of common mistakes that still occur, even at a high level.

Today I will be discussing Regidrago’s matchups in depth. Not only will this hopefully help all of you who are playing the best deck, but also to help you understand what Regidrago players are trying to do when you’re playing against them.. I’ll be trying not to overlap anything today with my previous Regidrago article, which included a lot about the mirror match, so I still recommend referring back to that one.

Deck Lists

There are many small variations in Regidrago VSTAR deck lists. Noctowl has become less popular, and so has Temple of Sinnoh. However, Cal Connor recently won the Toronto Regionals with Temple of Sinnoh, correctly reading that the prevalent Lugia VSTAR experts would get over their fear of Lightning-type Pokemon and continue playing it for this event.

That said, Lugia and Temple of Sinnoh are both relatively unpopular in the current metagame. Regidrago lists are mostly split on including Alolan Exeggutor ex. Hawlucha still sees some very sparse usage, but most don’t play it anymore. Finally, Grant Shen and company have had some success with PokéStop and Tera Orb, while most other players do not play these cards. The only real variation I think is relevant for matchups is whether or not the deck plays Alolan Exeggutor, which I would not personally play anymore, but it is a good card that is somewhat popular. There’s also Temple of Sinnoh that only matters for Lugia, which is a lot less popular than it used to be.

General Tips

I have gotten very comfortable going second with Regidrago VSTAR. There are lots of opening hands that require the use of a Supporter to do anything, especially in a non-PokeStop list, or any list with three copies of Iono. Fast aggressive decks like Raging Bolt ex or Klawf can really punish Regidrago for going first. Additionally, Regidrago has some decent turn 1 attacking options such as Cleffa‘s Grasping Draw, Squawkabilly ex‘s Motivate, or even Teal Mask Ogerpon ex‘s Myriad Leaf Shower. As such, I am now choosing to go second blind.

However, there are a few matchups where going first is important: Charizard ex, Gardevoir ex, and Gholdengo ex to name a few. It’s possible that going first blind is better, but it’s so close and difficult to evaluate. The most hotly contested one is the mirror match, in which I believe going second is better. You want to take the first two Prizes very badly, and being able to play two Supporters before your opponent makes that more likely, even though going second is a bit counterintuitive to an aggressive plan. A turn 1 Grasping Draw or Motivate are also both good options in the mirror.

I also want to remind everyone not to use the VSTAR Power early unless you absolutely have to! Legacy Star into a big deck is an extremely volatile Pandora’s Box with too high risk and little reward. It’s best to use the VSTAR Power when setting up a checkmate or comboing off to win the game outright. Regidrago is happy to play a slow game unless the opponent is applying overwhelming pressure. Leaving Cleffa in the Active Spot for a turn or two is perfectly fine, as that’s its intended purpose. You can’t sit there forever because the opponent will eventually gust-KO something, but you don’t want to halfheartedly rush into the fray without a solid game plan lined up.

I often find myself attacking with things besides Regidrago. While Regidrago is your main attacker, that doesn’t mean you always have to focus on it. Your goal is to win the game by whatever legal means possible, and sometimes it is easier or situationally better to attack with things like Teal Mask Ogerpon or a three-Energy Radiant Charizard. By keeping a completely open mind, you’ll end up doing this more than you’d probably expect, and that’s completely fine. This deck can easily make use of secondary attackers and extract lots of value from them.

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!