Standard Deck Tech: Arceus VStar + Giratina VStar - Portland Regionals

The Canadian Landen Kaetler was the Portland Regional champion, with a deck who used the benefit of energy acceleration that Arceus VStar does to power up Giratina VStar, which has a very complex energy taxation, in addition to sending energies to the Lost Zone.

Let's understand how the deck works!

Decklist

Arceus V and Arceus VStar: Early Game Pokémon

Here we must pay attention to two things:

1) in its basic form, with Arceus V BRS 122 the best move right away is the Trinity Charge, where you attach up to 3 basic energies to your Pokémon V in the way you want;

2) then, with due emphasis to Arceus VSTAR BRS 123, which with its attack Trinity Nova, you can energize 3 energies to your Pokémon V in any way you want, but causing 200 damage as base damage. That's the primary purpose of the deck.

We also have its VStar/VPower ability, Starbirth: you can search your deck for any two cards you want and put them in your hand. And it's worth mentioning that all VPower, whether it's a VStar attack or VStar skill can only be used once during the game, so think wisely in your choice, whether you're going to use Arceus VStar or Giratina VStar's VStar.

Giratina V and Giratina VStar: the deck's raw attacker

1) in its base form, with the Giratina V LOR 130 second attack, Shred (G)(P)(C), Giratina V deals 160 damage and bypasses opponent's effects

2) Giratina VSTAR LOR 131, with its attack Lost Impact, deals 280 damage and with the setback that it needs to send two attached energies to the Lost Zone.

We also have its VStar attack, Star Requiem, where you automatically knock out the opponent's active Pokémon.

Recursive Pokémon: Card Draw Combo

- Bidoof CRZ 111 has the ability Carefree Countenance, which makes it not take damage on the bench from attacks. Very useful to gain time, so we can evolve it into Bibarel.

- Bibarel BRS 121 has the ability Industrious Incisors, which allows us, per turn, to draw until we have five cards in our hand.

- Skwovet sv1 151 has Nest Stash: if it's in play, it can activate its ability at any time during the game. You shuffle your hand and place all the cards on the bottom of the deck, then you draw a card from the top of the deck.

But what's the combo of Bibarel and Skwovet ?

If Bibarel draws up to five cards in your hand, the objective is to reduce your hand to less than five cards.

Using Skwovet, you reduce your hand to just one card and then combine the effect of Bibarel's ability, allowing to always draw five cards! And with that, if you want to renew your hand to look for resources, it is that's the looping you need to do on your turns - and best of all, they're all single prize!

Trainer Cards

- Professor's Research (Professor Sada) sv1 189 serves as “draw power”: discard your hand and draw 7 cards.

- Judge sv1 176 serves as a saboteur: you and your opponent shuffle your hands into the deck and each draw 4 cards in a row.

Remember how you have the recursive Pokémon card draws, with Bibarel BRS 121 and Skwovet sv1 151? That's what I'm getting at: you sabotage the opponent, but you never get hurt, since you can get your card draw back.

- Raihan CRZ 140 can only be used when one of your Pokémon has been Knocked Out. If happens, you take a basic Energy card to attach to one of your Pokémon in any way you like, and then you take a card from your deck and put it into your hand.

- Boss's Orders BRS 132 serves to pull an opponent's benched Pokémon to close a specific knockout. The card serves to pull any Pokémon, whether common, ex or V, it doesn't matter.

- Ultra Ball sv1 196 serves to search for any Pokémon, whether evolution or basic, and can be common or ultra-rare Pokémon, as long as you meet the requirement of discarding two cards from your hand to play it.

- Nest Ball sv1 181 is used to search for a basic Pokémon from the deck and put it directly on the Bench.

- Trekking Shoes CRZ 145 serves to look at the top card of the deck. You can choose whether you want to take this card and place it in your hand; and otherwise, you may discard that top card, and if you do, you draw the next top card from the deck.

- Choice Belt BRS 135: If equipped to your Pokémon, it does 30 more damage against V-type Pokémon (either VStar, VMax, VUnion).

- Cleansing Gloves BRS 136 : If equipped to your Pokémon, it does 30 more damage to your opponent's Active Pokémon that's Psychic-type. In this case, it is useful against games that have Mew VMax, in which case it would be ideal to use Giratina VStar to cause 280 damage and with 30 more damage from this bonus, you get 310 added, closing the account against Mew's HP.

Stadium

Path to the Peak CRE 148 serves to disable the abilities of any Pokémon that have Rule Box, that is, ultra-rare Pokémon such as ex and V (all types of V) in the format, in general.

Special Energies

This energy serves as damage reduction for the Pokémon it's attached to, with 30 reduced damage from attacks from the opponent's Pokémon-V.

This energy serves as a function of "Double Colorless Energy", but has the downside that you lose 20 points of damage on your attacks if you have this energy equipped.

Advantages

- It's a deck that doesn't need to use Comfey and Coloress's Experiment to synergize with sending cards from Lost Zone to use the Mirage Gate - so the practicality is to use Arceus VStar to hit fast and power-up and Giratinar VStar to make the knockouts.

- Since Arceus VStar has a weakness to the Fighter type (and for now, this archetype will only gain strength in Scarlet & Violet: Paldea Evolved ) are few that beat its weakness, and Giratina VStar itself being a dragon type, it has no weakness, being a brute Pokémon with a high HP and a high attack. It can destroy many decks with ease.

Disadvantages

- If your opponent is using stadium Lost City LOR 161 against you, because if one of your Pokémon is knocked out, you won't be able to recycle it.

- Deck that uses Temple of Sinnoh ASR 155 to sabotage special energies, which is minimal damage, since the main attacker will be Giratina VStar.

It's a strong deck, consistent and with a good part of hand control using Judge to disrupt the opponent and the Pokémon Bibarel BRS 121 and Skwovet sv1 151 to constantly do their hand recovery, being a pretty solid combo.

And now it's up to you: what do you think of the deck?

Until next time!