Summary Strategy:
Go second if possible. Try to achieve item lock on your first turn using Melody & a manual (L) attachment to charge up Vikavolt.
Boost damage output with Zapdos & Choice Band. Limit opponent with item lock, hammers, and Path to the Peak.
Pivot with Koko SSH. Kill Blisseys (Mews/Calyrex) with Koko BST.
Decklist:
Pokémon: 10
3 Vikavolt V - Main attack & lock
1 Tapu Koko V BST 50 - Blissey donk
1 Tapu Koko V SSH 72 - Pivot/Draw/Attack
1 Zapdos PGO 29 - Attack boost
1 Lumineon V - Supporter draw
1 Crobat V - Surge draw
1 Minccino BRS 124 -
1 Cinccino SSH 147 - General draw
Trainer: 19
4 Melony
3 Professor's Research
1 Marnie
1 Boss's Orders
1 Bird Keeper
1 Serena
1 Avery
4 Pokégear 3.0
4 Quick Ball
4 Ultra Ball
3 Crushing Hammer
2 Fan of Waves
1 Choice Belt
1 Air Balloon
1 Forest Seal Stone
1 Escape Rope
1 Pal Pad
1 Ordinary Rod
3 Path to the Peak Stadia
Energy: 9
4 Basic {W} Energy
3 Speed {L} Energy
2 Basic {L} Energy
3 Energy Search
3 Vikavolt V - Main attack & lock
1 Tapu Koko V BST 50 - Blissey donk
1 Tapu Koko V SSH 72 - Pivot/Draw/Attack
1 Zapdos PGO 29 - Attack boost
1 Lumineon V - Supporter draw
1 Crobat V - Surge draw
1 Minccino BRS 124 -
1 Cinccino SSH 147 - General draw
Trainer: 19
4 Melony
3 Professor's Research
1 Marnie
1 Boss's Orders
1 Bird Keeper
1 Serena
1 Avery
4 Pokégear 3.0
4 Quick Ball
4 Ultra Ball
3 Crushing Hammer
2 Fan of Waves
1 Choice Belt
1 Air Balloon
1 Forest Seal Stone
1 Escape Rope
1 Pal Pad
1 Ordinary Rod
3 Path to the Peak Stadia
Energy: 9
4 Basic {W} Energy
3 Speed {L} Energy
2 Basic {L} Energy
3 Energy Search
In-Depth Thoughts:
So I play online exclusively, and the deck is optimised with that in mind. For anyone playing on the new TCG Live, you know that the Lugia problem is compounded compared to real life. Instead of 35% of the meta, it feels like an anecdotal 60%~ish of decks are Lugia. The reasons for this and how the development team are borking the new app as much as the old are a topic for another thread, but needless to say, your TCGL deck's primary concern these days needs to be 'Can it beat Lugia + Blissey variants?'
Hitting them for weakness while shutting down their stupid-fast acceleration seemed like a solid plan and so it is proving. I can consistently (4 in 5) beat Lugia variants, and I handle most other decks one way or another. Mew is the biggest frequent struggle. Miltank or Decidueye are also tricky.
You want to go second and get the lock on immediately. You have a few things to do here and about half the deck is made so that you can achieve this.
1) Get Vikavolt in the active
2) Put a manual (L) attachment
3) Get a (W) in the discard
4) Use Melony as your supporter to attach to Vika
Bonus) Path to the Peak into play
Bonus #2) Choice belt onto Vika
That's the ideal result. It's not the end of the world if your lock doesn't start immediately, but the sooner the better.
1) All the balls, 3x Vika, free-retreat Koko, escape rope are all good here. A lot of the deck is built to increase draw too, with Speed energy, Cincinnio & some supporters all focusing on additional draw intead of discard+draw, or shuffle+draw.
Another rope or a single switch is my 61st card if I can cut something today as this is the most frequent reason the T1 lock isn't achieved.
2) Between (L) and Speed energy, our count (5) is a bit thin tbh, but hopefully the energy search resolves this if we're not using it for (W). Again, lots of draw cards helps here.
3) The balls are really the only way to get (W) in the discard early. You can also use a retreat - but that means you've made your manual attachment elsewhere. Later in the game you've more options with Cincinnio & Serena etc., so no worries there.
4) Poke Gear to Melony in a pinch.
Forest Seal can be used to find the missing piece in here somewhere, and sure we've no other use for V-Star powers anyway.
Pokemon:
VikaV is our main attacker here and you are nearly always using it's item lock attack. We boost this (and all attacks) with Zapdos for much more relevant 60-120-180-240 numbers.
Zapdos serves a secondary purpose in that it can go through V-walls like Miltank or Decidueye. Running a second copy is a consideration.
Crobat, Lumineon & Cincinno are self-explanatory for their abilities. Obviously you don't want the stadium out yet if you expect to play Lumineon or Crobat on the T1 surge. We use the Mincinno with 'Call for Family' attack as it's occasionally useful (especially with a (W) that can go to discard on retreat or KO)
The Koko with free retreat is there mostly as a pivot, sometimes for the draw-attack, and very occasionally for the 200 hit. Not overly useful, just a card I have. Probably the next card to be cut if I make a change?
The Koko without is for one reason and one reason only - killing Blisseys. So many times a Lugia deck will try to just load up on Special energy and windmill you. This guy stops that.
In the spirit of getting the T1 lock, we've four copies of Melony, & four copies of Pokégear.
Professor & Marnie are obvious, but it's worth noting that a lot of our draw is based around expecting to have a large hand which we don't really want to toss or shuffle, we just want to increase it - hence Avery & Bird Keeper. Avery is also pretty critical when it comes to Regi decks, Lost Zone decks etc. Bird keeper due to a few chunky boys.
A second Marnie would be nice, because decking yourself out is a real possibility with so much raw draw here/Cincinno/Speed Energy/Koko.
In terms of tools we have a balloon which is probably put on Zapdos, but keeping in hand as long as we can in case it's needed elsewhere. The forest seal gives us a useful V-Star ability - and we don't have another to use anyway.
Only one choice band is probably not ideal, but I don't know where we'd fit a second.
Ultra Ball and Quick Ball are maxed out, we want to find some early, we want to get the right pokémon out quickly, thin our hand for Dark Asset, and these are the only means of discarding (W) on T1 successfully.
We do tend to discard a lot early, and less later. So Pal Pad is to retrieve the precious 1-of Supporters we may want again - Boss Orders/Avery/Bird Feeder/Marnie to avoid self-deckout are the usual targets. Rod is for similar scenarios - while Melody gets the (W) back, we have a rather thin line of (L), and all the attacks we use need one or even two.
Lastly escape rope is one of our more important cards. Getting gusted is an easy way to break our item lock. We could really do with a second. We've gone rope over switch as the deck has a lot of disruption regardless.
For Stadia we have Path to the Peak, because Lugia->Archeops is broken. A 3-count, as you really want this out along with lock in place by the time Lugia evolves.
For energy Speed is great and ties in with our draw strategy. Energy search as another waay to get that T1 Lock on.
What I need:
I've been out of the game since Sword/Shield started. Now they've fixed/rebuilt the app I can play again, but I don't know the meta anymore except what I see in front of me. So any advice about obvious blind spots here, any cards I just don't know of that would be great additions etc.
The 61st Card:
If I had the space, I'd love to add:
-A second rope, or a switch
-A second Zapdos
-A second Marnie
-A fourth Vikavolt
-Tapu Koko V-Max (Just for the fun of it)
-A card that can attack with the 'ignore any effects' subtext
But to add that I'd need to remove
-Pivot Koko?
-A professor?
-A ball?
Thoughts and comments on a postcard. I'd especially like to hear from anyone who's played Vika variants over the past year.
If it were me, I would take out Lumineon, mainly to preserve bench space and to give your opponent one less free target on the bench. I'd probaly put in Radiant Greninja for more mass draw, even though Path conflicts with it.