Ironically, we see decks that are not unanimously considered tier 1 winning events repeatedly. You should not play the best deck if you want to win an event; you need to play the best deck for a given meta. Consider the results from Salt Lake City Regionals. Almost all the decks in top 8 were archetypes that are normally considered to be tier 2 or lower. In the Silver Tempest format, Lugia presents itself as the new deck to beat. But Lugia is not just a new solid archetype, it is by far the biggest threat in the meta and convincingly beats almost any deck that does not tech for it. In this article I explain three options that serve as great counters to the new meta, mostly focused around beating Lugia while maintaining solid matchups to other popular decks in this format. This article is a hybrid of meta theory, deck building theory, and deck analysis.

Table of contents

– Understanding Lugia and how to counter it

– Audio file of article

– What about the other decks?

– Vikavolt Regieleki VMax

– Regis

– Lost Box

– Conclusion

Understanding Lugia and how to counter it

The Fundamental power which Lugia has is consistently setting up attackers which one-shot two prize Pokemon, while not being one-shot by other two prize Pokemon. In other words, Lugia is an incredible attacker because it will utilize multiple Powerful Energy and V Guard Energy, making it possible to one-shot consistently starting on the second turn, while being bulky enough to not be one-shot back. If you have not realized yet, being able to do both is incredible. Past that, it is a normal type, meaning the weakness can be removed by Dunsparce. The fact that we are in the late stage of a format means we have several well developed and consistent engines and Lugia will easily make use of the Bibarel or Crobat/Lumineon/Oranguru (Basic Pokemon based draw) engines.

There are a few ways that we can counter Lugia, breaking the aspects of the deck apart. The most obvious way to counter it will be through weakness, which means using a Lightning type attacker that easily knocks out Dunsparce. The Best way to do this right now is through using Regieleki (EVS). Serena will be a mainstay in the format because it is superior to Boss in general, but that being the case means the power of Dunsparce is bolstered, because it cannot be brought up through Serena. Conceptually, what is Regieleki? It is a one prize attacker that sets up a knockout on a lower HP Pokemon through two attacks. Looking at something similar, we have Sableye.

To attack the engine of the deck we can look to Lost Box. The Bibarel variants of Lugia need to have it in play to draw well in general, but Sableye will make quick work of it on turn two or three. However, the version which focuses more on Lumineon and Crobat is also in trouble against Lost Box because it plays three or four Path to the Peak. The Peaks are not as hard for Lugia to deal with, because Lugia’s attack will remove the Peak, however getting a Peak to stick before Lugia takes its second turn will effectively prevent them from doing anything for a turn (cannot get two Archeops into play with no VStar Ability). In short, Lost Box slows the Lugia player down while never giving up more than one prize per turn, and that will be true regardless of the Lugia variant being played.

The common theme between Regis and Lost Box is of course that they are entirely one prize decks. One of them attacks the engine, the other attacks the weakness. The goal they both achieve is keeping an even prize exchange through the early to mid game, followed by a big turn or two where they can take the lead. In the case of Lost Box the swing occurs when they use Radiant Charizard. For Regis, this turn will happen after the Dunsparce is removed from play and when the pilot can find a Choice Belt to enable a one-shot with Regieleki.

Another way to take advantage of Lugia’s weakness is through Vikavolt V, which gained a big boost from Regieleki VMax coming out. Vika will need to be able to knockout Dunsparce quickly, but a proper count of Boss and a Lumineon V will make this easily achievable. Vikavolt also earns itself a little more time through the item lock, meaning the Lugia player will not always be able to get an attack off on turn two. I will explain this deck in more detail later on in the article. Recently it has been the most interesting new idea for me and my list is pretty close to where I think the deck needs to be.

There is still a third aspect of Lugia that can be exploited. Lugia gains most of its power through the Special Energy which Archeops accelerates. However, Lugia does not normally play a way to recover those energy because the only splash-able cards in the format which can do so are Cyllene and Rosanne’s Back Up; both of of which only get back one Special Energy (2 if you flip 2 heads with Cyllene, 0 for 0 heads). Celebrations Yveltal is the best card in the format for removing Special Energy. Flannery, Crushing Hammer, and Sydney are other options that achieve this. Going a different direction, we can leave the energy in play and wall with Duraladon, which of course completely stops Lugia from damaging it. Duraladon will be more of its own deck, but Yveltal can be played in anything that has double Turbo or Twin energy. I will not be exploring these ideas in more detail in this article, but in the future I will likely have content for a deck that has energy denial, as well as a Duraladon list.

After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see an audio file of Andy Hyun reading this article here:

You must have a Stage 2 Membership or greater to see the rest of this post. If you don't have a Stage 2 account, you can Sign Up for one here.

Username

Password

Remember Me

 

 

Forgot Password

– Phinn Daniel Lynch