Standard Deck Tech: Hisuian Goodra VStar (LBX) - Top 2 Liverpool

Hello to all. I'm Rodrigo, bringing news about Pokémon TCG, and now I bring news of the Liverpool Regional, in England.

The winner deck was a Mew VMax deck, but I will also write about some of the Top 8 decks that deserve highlighting for their creativity or new mechanics.

That being said, let's discuss the second place, the Hisuian Goodra deck, used by Stéphane Ivanoff.

Decklist

Hisuian Goodra VStar: Main Attacker and Tanker

1) Attack - Rolling Iron (W)(M)(C): deals 30 damage and in the next round, the opponent can't play any Trainer Item type cards from their hand.

2) VStar Ability - Moisture Star: during your turn, you can heal all the damage this Pokémon has taken.

The deck consists in charging Hisuian Goodra as much as possible, due to the prerequisites of different energies it asks for: steel and water. With that, only the card Mirage Gate LOR 163 can fulfill this role. Considering that, we have the importance of Comfey LOR 79 with its Flower Selecting ability, which, if it's your active Pokémon, you look at the top 2 cards in your deck: one goes to your hand and one goes to the Lost Zone.

Following this reasoning of starting out with Comfey LOR 79 plus the combo with the Supporter Trainer Colress's Experiment LOR 155, it makes you look at the top 5 cards in your deck: place 3 in your hand and the rest goes to the Lost Zone, being able to help you set up, so you can resort to Mirage Gate LOR 163 as fast as possible.

Drapion V: Second Attackar and Mew-VMax "Counter"

It comes in only to hit double the damage to Mew VMAX FST 114, due to its weakness against the dark type, adding up 380 damage, which is more than enough, besides the energy cost exemption of the attack for each Fusion Strike Pokémon in play.

Considering these players put around three Genesect V FST 185 and one Mew V FST 113, it is more than enough for Drapion V LOR 118 to hit for free.

Cramorant: Single Prize Fast Attacker

1) Ability - Lost Provisions: if you have at least 4 cards in the Lost Zone, this Pokémon's attack won't ask for energy cost as tribute.

2) Attack - Spit Innocently (W)(W)(C): this attack deals 110 damage and isn't affected by weaknesses.

When you use the combo of Comfey LOR 79 and Colress's Experiment LOR 155 to discard cards to the Lost Zone, it ends up speeding up the activation of Cramorant's ability, besides the advantage of it being a Pokémon with the cost of one Prize Card less.

Recursive Pokémon

- Comfey LOR 79 comes in with its ability Flower Selecting, in which, if Comfey is in the active position, you can look at the top 2 cards of your deck and choose one to go into your hand, and the other will go to the Lost Zone.

- Radiant Greninja ASR 46 has its ability Concealed Cards, which makes you discard one energy card from your hand to draw 2 cards from the top of the deck.

- Lumineon V BRS 40 has its ability Luminous Sign, which makes it, if summoned from hand and placed in your bank, look for one Supporter card in your deck.

- Galarian Zigzagoon SSH 117 comes in to place damage counters, thanks to its ability Headbutt Tantrum, which, if placed from your hand to the bench, you place a damage counter on one of the opponent's Pokémon. And, with that, you can loop Scoop Up Net RCL 165 to retrieve it and place it on the bench again, placing the damage counters to close some Knock Out.

Trainer Cards

- Colress's Experiment LOR 155 is useful to look at the top 5 cards in your deck. You get 3 cards to your hand and the other 2 are discarded to the Lost Zone.

Besides Comfey LOR 79 with the ability of sending cards to the Lost Zone, Colress’s Experiment is another great boost regarding sending cards to the Lost Zone, being able to dynamize Cramorant LOR 50 to attack as soon as possible, and also secure the use of Mirage Gate LOR 163 with 7 cards in the Lost Zone and boost energies for Hisuian Goodra VSTAR LOR 136.

- Raihan EVS 152 is useful to speed up the Pokémon's charging, both alongside Hisuian Goodra VSTAR LOR 136 for its third energy to complete the tribute of its attack, to speed up your turn with Mirage Gate LOR 163 for two energies and the third one being through Raihan EVS 152's effect, and the fourth energy (the turn one), to prepare on another Hisuian Goodra V LOR 135 or Hisuian Goodra VSTAR LOR 136

- Roxanne ASR 150 is useful to sabotage the opponent's hand when they are on their way to get 3 Prize Cards or less to win the game.

- Boss's Orders BRS 132 is useful to pull a specific Pokémon from the opponent's bench to deal the damage to victory, to speed up the drawing of Prize Cards.

- Scoop Up Net RCL 165 is useful to retrieve a Pokémon in play to your hand that isn't GX or V, this way looping the damage of Galarian Zigzagoon SSH 117, to close out damages in specific Knock Outs in the game.

- Mirage Gate LOR 163 can only be used if you have 7 or more cards in the Lost Zone. You can look in your deck for any 2 different basic energies and attach them to a Pokémon in any way you'd like.

- Quick Ball FST 237 is useful to search for a basic Pokémon in your deck, with the tribute cost of discarding one card from your hand.

- Ordinary Rod SSH 171 is useful for its recycling effect, choosing one of the two options or both, which are:

1) Look for two Pokémon in the discard pile and place them in your deck.

2) Look for two basic energies in the discard pile and place them in your deck.

Stadium

Temple of Sinnoh ASR 155 is useful to cancel special energies effects, transforming them into miserable colorless energies, and in this format there is a predominance of two specific special energies: Powerful Colorless Energy DAA 176 for the Lugia VStar decks and Speed Lightning Energy RCL 173 in electric decks, particularly Vikavolt V.

Special Energies

- Capture Energy RCL 171 is useful to summon from the deck a basic Pokémon to your bench, in case you charge any of your Pokémon with it, as a way of speeding up your setup.

Advantages

- One of the deck's interesting goals is to go against Mew V FST 113 and Genesect V FST 185, due to the use of Temple of Sinnoh ASR 155 to prevent the energies Fusion Strike Energy FST 244 which they normally have.

- As a dragon deck, they have the advantage of not having any weaknesses, which makes Hisuian Goodra have its base 280 HP guaranteed and take massive damage with the damage resistance it has due to its attack effects, which is an extra charm in the format overall.

Disadvantages

- The possible slowness with the combo of Colress's Experiment LOR 155 to trigger Mirage Gate LOR 163's effect, and with the risks of, when using Colress's Experiment LOR 155 for the choice of cards that will go in your hand and the others in the Lost Zone, you must be careful so that basic energies aren't affected in these choices, as precisely the deck doesn't count with many brute energy recycling, just Ordinary Rod SSH 171, which there are two copies of, with only the chance of retrieving 4 energies in the process.

It is a consistent deck with the massive damages it can take, and even without the help of Fantina LOR 157, it can be very efficient with the goal it sets for itself, besides the dragon type benefits which, as they have no weaknesses, you don't take double the damage by any types in particular. And thanks to this strategy, it reached second place.

And now it's up to you: what did you think of the deck? You're welcome to comment down below.

See you next time!