Arceus VSTAR: Was It Secretly Good This Whole Time?

Hello PokeBeach readers, I’m back again! Last weekend, Brent Tonisson, James Cox, and I participated in a Conquest match — the main tournament format of Hearthstone, but for Pokémon — for $1,600 against Isaiah Brander, Jon Eng, and Regan Retzloff. We ended up winning the match in a close Game 9! Per the rules of the format, we had to bring five decks and get a win with all five of them. You can still play a deck after it has lost, but once you win with a deck, it is gone. Hearthstone uses classes to prevent players from doubling up on decks. There was a rule in place preventing us from doubling up on decks, so the five decks we chose to play were [card name=”Gardevoir ex ” set=”Paldean Fates” no=”29″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Giratina VSTAR” set=”Lost Origin” no=”212″ c=”name”][/card], [card name=”Snorlax” set=”Pokemon GO” no=”55″ c=”name”][/card] Stall, [card name=”Mew VMAX” set=”Fusion Strike” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] … and [card name=”Arceus VSTAR” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”123″ c=”name”][/card]! The Arceus deck was the most wacky one in our lineup, but it managed to get a win against the American team’s Snorlax Stall deck thanks to the PTCGL timer! In testing for this match, the Arceus deck felt like it had a ton of potential even outside of the Conquest format. In this article, I will be going over why we decided to look at Arceus, what made us decide on the deck, and how I would play it for an open tournament.

Why Arceus?

[cardimg name=”Regigigas VSTAR” set=”Crown Zenith GG” no=”GG55″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

The thing that made us initially think about Arceus was Mike Fouchet’s post on Twitter with a table with each deck’s Day 2 win rates against each other for major events. This didn’t seem too special at first, but he later posted each deck’s overall Day 2 win rate. Arceus VSTAR ended up at number one, which was shocking, as it hasn’t seen much success being played by anyone other than Makani Tran in this format. On the surface, it is very puzzling as to why Arceus is a good deck right now — when you look at the list, it’s just Arceus VSTAR, [card name=”Bibarel” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”121″ c=”name”][/card], and [card name=”Path to the Peak” set=”Chilling Reign” no=”148″ c=”name”][/card], with a 1-1 line of [card name=”Regigigas VSTAR” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”114″ c=”name”][/card] that occasionally manages to attack. Because of this, the deck can’t attack with anything other than Arceus VSTAR for most of the game, and 180–200 damage seems quite weak compared to the rest of the format.

However, James and I quickly discovered that this was all the Arceus deck needed to be successful. It turns out that many decks just can’t deal with a 280-HP Pokémon taking two-hit Knock Outs on everything while constantly under a lock from Path to the Peak!

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The main innovation that Makani made to this deck drastically improved its consistency: the 3-3 Bibarel line. It makes setting up the first Bibarel very easy, and even allows you to reliably set up two of them. This allows you to burn through your deck very quickly, especially when combined with [card name=”Skwovet” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”151″ c=”name”][/card] to reset your hand as needed. Once you’ve got a couple Bibarel online, this deck plays very similarly to Mew VMAX: you just rip through your deck with your draw engine and play either an [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”name”][/card] or a [card name=”Boss’s Orders” set=”Rebel Clash” no=”154″ c=”name”][/card], whichever helps you more.

While setting up multiple Bibarel is more difficult than just getting a few [card name=”Genesect V” set=”Fusion Strike” no=”185″ c=”name”][/card] into play, Arceus does have a pretty big advantage going for it: not being weak to Darkness. This is one of the biggest issues that has plagued the Mew VMAX deck for a while, since it makes it line up very poorly against [card name=”Charizard ex ” set=”Paldean Fates” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card]. If the Charizard player sets up a Charizard ex, there is very little the Mew VMAX player can do, as it can take a one-hit KO on their entire board while being very difficult to KO in return. While Arceus VSTAR does have to two-shot a Charizard ex, it also gets two-shotted back in the early game, and Arceus can put Path to the Peak into play every turn, which Charizard notoriously struggles with. So, with all that, why hasn’t Arceus VSTAR seen more success?

Arceus VSTAR decks have historically struggled to deal with Giratina VSTAR and Gardevoir ex. Giratina VSTAR hits for exactly 280 damage and can play an early Path to the Peak to shut off Arceus’s Starbirth Ability. While Arceus’s own Path to the Peak is strong against Gardevoir ex, it struggles against an early Miracle Force, as the Arceus player has no way to take a one-hit Knock Out on a Gardevoir ex. If you just hit into it with Trinity Nova, they can reset it with [card name=”Professor Turo’s Scenario” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”171″ c=”name”][/card] or [card name=”Collapsed Stadium” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”137″ c=”name”][/card].

[cardimg name=”Full Face Guard” set=”Evolving Skies” no=”231″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Gardevoir ex and Giratina VSTAR are two of the strongest decks in the Standard format, so having tough matchups into them makes Arceus VSTAR less powerful in an open metagame. You can specialize your list to deal with either Gardevoir ex or Giratina VSTAR by including [card name=”Box of Disaster” set=”Lost Origin” no=”154″ c=”name”][/card] or [card name=”Full Face Guard” set=”Evolving Skies” no=”148″ c=”name”][/card], respectively. If the Gardevoir ex player takes a KO using their [card name=”Gardevoir” set=”Chilling Reign” no=”61″ c=”name”][/card] CRE on your Arceus VSTAR with a Box of Disaster attached, then the Box will trigger and KO the Gardevoir CRE thanks to the damage from Psychic Embrace. While Full Face Guard initially looks weird, as both Arceus VSTAR and Regigigas VSTAR have Abilities, the Abilities get turned off with Path to the Peak in play, which allows Full Face Guard to work for those Pokémon. Since the Giratina VSTAR player has no way to bump a Path to the Peak, the Full Face Guard will always be active and able to prevent a one-hit Lost Impact KO.

All that being said, we chose to play neither of these options in the Conquest match. Instead, we just went with a very simple and straightforward Arceus list.

[decklist name=”Arceus” amt=”60″ caption=”” cname=”Spiritomb” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”89″][pokemon amt=”18″]3x [card name=”Arceus VSTAR” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”123″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]4x [card name=”Arceus V” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”122″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”Bibarel” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”121″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]3x [card name=”Bidoof” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”111″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]1x [card name=”Regigigas VSTAR” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”114″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Regigigas V” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”113″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Skwovet” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”151″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Jirachi” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”126″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Spiritomb” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”89″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/pokemon][trainers amt=”28″]4x [card name=”Iono” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”185″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Boss’s Orders” set=”Rebel Clash” no=”154″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]1x [card name=”Judge” set=”BREAKthrough” no=”143″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Cheren’s Care” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”134″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Ultra Ball” set=”Sun and Moon” no=”135″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]4x [card name=”Nest Ball” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”181″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]2x [card name=”Lost Vacuum” set=”Crown Zenith” no=”135″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]2x [card name=”Capturing Aroma” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”153″ c=”deck2″ amt=”2″][/card]1x [card name=”Escape Rope” set=”Battle Styles” no=”125″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]1x [card name=”Choice Belt” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”176″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”1″][/card]4x [card name=”Path to the Peak” set=”Chilling Reign” no=”148″ c=”deck2″ divide=”yes” amt=”4″][/card][/trainers][energy amt=”14″]6x [card name=”Psychic Energy” set=”EX Ruby and Sapphire” no=”107″ c=”deck2″ amt=”6″][/card]4x [card name=”Double Turbo Energy” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”151″ c=”deck2″ amt=”4″][/card]3x [card name=”V Guard Energy” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”169″ c=”deck2″ amt=”3″][/card]1x [card name=”Jet Energy” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”190″ c=”deck2″ amt=”1″][/card][/energy][/decklist]

Card Choices

For the Conquest match, we knew that all we needed to do with the deck was get a single win. With this logic, we chose to focus as much as possible on consistency and accept that we were likely to lose to both Gardevoir ex and Giratina VSTAR.

The 1-1 Regigigas VSTAR line looks very strange — it’s mostly for the aggressive two-Prize decks like [card name=”Roaring Moon ex” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”251″ c=”name”][/card] and [card name=”Miraidon ex” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”81″ c=”name”][/card]. Trinity Nova takes either a one-hit KO on a single-Prize Pokémon or a two-hit KO on a much larger Pokémon. However, there are a lot of key Pokémon in the metagame that have 220 or more HP, which is more than a Trinity Nova can deal to a Pokémon ex — Pokémon like Miraidon ex, Roaring Moon ex, and [card name=”Chien-Pao ex” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”61″ c=”name”][/card]. Regigigas VSTAR comes in handy in these scenarios, as it cleans up the game much faster than an Arceus can.

Ultimately, all you want to do with this deck is get Bibarel into play and use Trinity Nova on your second turn. To do this, you have an have an Energy in your opening hand to attach to your [card name=”Arceus V” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”165″ c=”name”][/card], since this deck doesn’t play [card name=”Raihan” set=”Evolving Skies” no=”152″ c=”name”][/card] or any other way to accelerate an Energy into play. To try and find that initial attachment, this deck plays 15 Energy. We did manage to include a small answer to Giratina VSTAR in here with three copies of [card name=”V Guard Energy” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”169″ c=”name”][/card], but these often end up being difficult to use on an early Arceus VSTAR, as you have to attach both a V Guard Energy and a [card name=”Double Turbo Energy” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”151″ c=”name”][/card] to avoid getting hit by a one-hit KO from Lost Impact.

We included [card name=”Capturing Aroma” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”153″ c=”name”][/card] over the tech Tools in this deck because it helps you with finding early Pokémon: if you already have the Bibarel in hand, then you don’t have to Starbirth for it! However, you can cut the Aromas for either Full Face Guard or Box of Disaster if you’re specifically worried about either Giratina VSTAR or Gardevoir ex.

[card name=”Cheren’s Care” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”134″ c=”name”][/card] was a last-minute inclusion to slightly improve the Charizard ex matchup. This matchup often involves both players taking two-hit Knock Outs over and over. This is because you can control when you take your Prize cards, and this is where the Cheren’s Care comes in. Since you’re both taking two-hit Knock Outs, resetting an opposing attack can sometimes buy you a whole turn! This can be crucial to buy back a turn you lost earlier by missing an attachment or missing the Arceus VSTAR, and you have Skwovet’s Nest Stash to put all the Energy from Cheren’s Care onto the bottom of your deck.

[cardimg name=”Skwovet” set=”Scarlet and Violet” no=”222″ align=”right” c=”none”][/cardimg]

Speaking of Skwovet, it actually serves a double purpose in this deck. It does help with your consistency by allowing you to reset your hand for Industrious Incisors, but it also prevents you from ever losing to Snorlax Stall. While it’s easy for you to get a Bibarel trapped in the Active Spot, Skwovet will allow you to put cards back into your deck every turn, preventing you from ever decking out! While this strategy won’t win you the game, it does guarantee the tie if you would otherwise lose that game. It does instantly win you the game if you happen to be in Top Cut, as you can use your [card name=”Escape Rope” set=”Battle Styles” no=”125″ c=”name”][/card] or [card name=”Jet Energy” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”190″ c=”name”][/card] to go ahead on Prize cards, then start using the Nest Stash loop until time is called and you win by being ahead.

[card name=”Jirachi” set=”Paradox Rift” no=”126″ c=”name”][/card] PAR is intended to counter [card name=”Sableye” set=”Lost Origin” no=”70″ c=”name”][/card] LOR. While this doesn’t seem like the kind of deck that has much of a problem with Lost Mine, it can actually be very annoying against your Bibarel. If your opponent plays a [card name=”Roxanne” set=”Astral Radiance” no=”150″ c=”name”][/card], then uses Lost Mine to KO your only Bibarel, then you will likely go on to lose that game, as it’s just too difficult to draw out of the Roxanne. Another option your opponent has is to trap the Bibarel in the Active Spot and Lost Mine around it, forcing you to find a Double Turbo Energy to retreat it. Additionally, in the Lost Giratina matchup, they can use Sableye to soften up an Arceus VSTAR that has a V Guard or a Full Face Guard attached, and then KO it with Lost Impact. Jirachi covers all of these scenarios, which makes it well worth the inclusion in this deck.

[card name=”Spiritomb” set=”Paldea Evolved” no=”89″ c=”name”][/card] PAL is mostly for Mew VMAX, but it’s also solid against Charizard ex and Snorlax Stall since it shuts off their [card name=”Rotom V” set=”Lost Origin” no=”58″ c=”name”][/card]’s Instant Charge. Without Spiritomb, you would struggle against Mew VMAX, so having it is very important to shore up that matchup.

[card name=”Lost Vacuum” set=”Lost Origin” no=”162″ c=”name”][/card] initially looks weird in this deck, but after a few games, its inclusion started to make sense. This deck relies heavily on Starbirth, which makes other decks playing Path to the Peak very awkward to play against as you don’t have many ways to remove their Stadium. Lost Vacuum allows you to briefly remove their Path to the Peak and use Starbirth, after which you don’t really care about Path being in play. It also gives you a way to deal with [card name=”Forest Seal Stone” set=”Silver Tempest” no=”156″ c=”name”][/card], which many tricky opponents will leave unused on their board. An active Forest Seal Stone gives your opponent an immediate bump to Path to the Peak, so having a way to remove it can allow a potential Iono to stick.

While it can be tempting to cut the [card name=”Choice Belt” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”135″ c=”name”][/card], the card is quite strong against Giratina VSTAR, as it enables Trinity Nova to KO a Giratina V if you don’t have a Double Turbo Energy attached. It also allows you to KO a [card name=”Raichu V” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”45″ c=”name”][/card] or a [card name=”Raikou V” set=”Brilliant Stars” no=”48″ c=”name”][/card] even if you do have a Double Turbo Energy attached.

Conquest versus Open Tournaments

In the Pokémon Conquest format, you can simply accept losses to certain decks. Our group knew that we couldn’t lose multiple times to the same deck, so we went in simply choosing decks that we were confident could get a win. In Conquest, you are heavily rewarded for targeting a certain deck, and we tried to do that by targeting both Snorlax Stall and Charizard ex. It ended up working in the end, as four of our five wins were against Snorlax Stall!

This preparation process completely flips when playing in an open tournament. When playing a tournament like a League Cup or a Regionals, you’re rewarded for playing a deck with solid matchups across the board. This is why Charizard ex has succeeded so much in this format, as it is solid into everything and doesn’t take many auto-losses. Giratina VSTAR is in the same boat: its game plan is universally very strong, as opposed to very narrow. The nature of Regional Championships also means that you have the potential to lose against the same deck multiple times, which is impossible in Conquest.

If I were to play this deck for an open tournament, I would cut the Cheren’s Care and the two copies of Capturing Aroma for two copies of Full Face Guard and a second copy of [card name=”Judge” set=”Fusion Strike” no=”235″ c=”name”][/card]. The reason why I would add the Full Face Guards to this deck, especially for a Regionals, is to give you a higher chance of winning against Giratina VSTAR, as you can usually expect to see that deck doing well at a Regionals. Full Face Guard also is useful against Miraidon ex and Roaring Moon ex, as it pushes your Arceus V out of 220-damage-KO range. However, because cutting the Capturing Aromas makes your deck less consistent, I would also cut the Cheren’s Care for a Judge to shore things up. While Cheren’s Care can be incredibly powerful in the right situation, it doesn’t help you play the game at all, whereas Judge can draw you into Arceus VSTAR or Bibarel to help you attack. Judge is very helpful against Giratina VSTAR and Charizard ex, as both decks look to stockpile a massive hand early in the game, and having the option to reset them to four can be crucial. I wouldn’t go out of my way to tech for Gardevoir ex right now as it’s not being heavily played, so you are unlikely to see it multiple times over the course of a major event. If you do, early Judges and Boss’s Orders are sometimes enough to get you over the line!

Arceus VSTAR is a surprisingly solid deck. It initially looks like a worse version of Mew VMAX, but not being weak to Darkness really gives it an edge in the current metagame. Bibarel also doesn’t get shut off by Path to the Peak, letting you draw to your heart’s content while putting that disruptive Stadium into play. Good luck if you decide to give Arceus a shot, and I’ll see you next time!

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