A Perfect Storm - Palkia VSTAR

Alola trainers! Welcome back to the PoTown Blog! Astral Radiance is a fantastic set and I can’t quite believe how much the game has changed with the introduction of VSTARS. Of course, Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR is the main attraction of this set given how powerful it is due to its attack and its VSTAR Ability: Star Portal letting you power up yourself fully or any other Water Pokemon you’re using such as Radiant Greninja.

Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR decks should become the Pokemon deck to beat whether you’re playing on the Pokemon TCG Online or at live tournaments, so let’s take a look at one of its standard builds. Now, note that this card is very flexible and this is just one of many possible builds for it.

Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR offers a formidable attack with Subspace Swell which can deal up to 260 damage if both players have their benches full. Now, this won’t happen often, as your opponents will likely try and reduce the damage you deal with them by limiting their bench. However, this also means they limit their own options by having fewer Sobbles down, fewer alternate attackers or even support Pokemon.

Radiant Greninja plays a key role in this, both as a support Pokemon with its Concealed Cards Ability getting you extra draw and synergizing really well with Melony and Star Portal, which in turn lets Radiant Greninja pressure an opponent with Moonlight Shuriken out of the blue. Being able to KO 2 Sobble in a single turn can be devastating for any opponent trying to get going early on.

This deck is very versatile in what it can do each turn thanks to the Shady Dealings Ability from Drizzile and Inteleon. Being able to directly search for any Trainer we want once we evolve means we can play a lot of variety in our deck. We are (thankfully) not in a format anymore where every deck just plays 4 Professor’s Research, 4 Marnie and 3 Boss’s Orders.

Finally, Manaphy offers bench protection which is essential against the mirror match, where Radiant Greninja’s Moonlight Shuriken is a big threat, as well as against any Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX decks you might come across.

Being a Water-based deck, we can take advantage of the new Supporter card from Astral Radiance: Irida. This card lets us help in our set up by finding a Palkia V, VSTAR or any other Pokemon from the deck. We can also grab an Item card so we can get two Pokemon out by choosing any of our Ball search or another utility card such as Scoop Up Net, Choice Belt or our Item-based gust in Cross Switcher. Battle VIP Pass can also be searched for by a turn 1 Irida when going second, making our set up that much stronger.

We also have access to Melony to accelerate Energy and power up an attacker, as well as the brand new Roxanne for some really strong late-game disruption, especially combined with Path to the Peak.

Finally, with 7 Water Energy and 3 Capacious Bucket, along with the Star Portal Ability, powering up multiple Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR or our own Radiant Greninja shouldn’t ever be an issue.

Mirror matches can vary wildly for this deck as there are so many different builds being utilized. However, the starting coin flip is the biggest determining factor in my experience, hence why it’s a 50/50 matchup.

Most games against this deck come down to how solid a start each player got, but also if Mew VMAX can successfully get out of the Roxanne + Path to the Peak play in the late game. If they can they will usually be able to beat you, but if they whiff one or two turns you can usually turn the game completely in your favor.

Your higher damage output gives you an advantage in this matchup, especially if you manage to snipe 2 Sobble or Drizzile at any given point. If they have Manaphy down to protect their bench, then they likely risk getting their Arceus VSTAR OHKO’d towards the end of the game.

Arceus VSTAR has been paired with Jolteon lately to stop all Water Pokemon Abilities, which really shuts off our whole deck completely. Without the Inteleon engine fully operational, this deck will stumble quite a bit.

They can get back-to-back OHKOs on our Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR and we will never be able to OHKO them. Our best hope is early pressure with Radiant Greninja on their Sobbles so that they eventually whiff a Melony power up and thus an attack.

Even though they can keep their bench small, we trade attacks quite well and we can also pressure two Blissey V with Radiant Greninja, as well as being able to deal with Miltank fairly easily with Inteleon.

The Tool Jammer is key in this matchup to prevent Regieleki from OHKOing us with a Choice Belt attached. As long as they don’t get a perfect set up with a turn 1 attack, the trades will usually end up being favorable for us. A late-game Roxanne plus Sinnoh Temple can also be pretty strong against them.

Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR is extremely popular and does require quite a few PTCGO codes to build and trade for the necessary cards. You can also try your luck and purchase Astral Radiance code cards at PoTown Store to see if you can pull the cards themselves. Eventually, when we get our Pokemon TCG Live codes fully functional, I reckon this deck will be much more accessible to all players though. Thanks so much for reading my newest article and best of luck in your games!