Dracozolt VMAX

Alola trainers! Welcome back to the PoTown Store Blog! We are less than a month away from the Pokemon TCG World Championships, and I could not be more excited! I’ve been hard at work balancing between recording videos and playtesting for Worlds, trying to figure out the best deck for me to play at the tournament.

Whilst balancing this, I’ve been enjoying playing some whacky Pokemon TCG/Online decks such as the one I’m writing about today, Dracozolt VMAX! This is a long-forgotten VMAX, as most are outside Mew, Ice Rider Calyrex, Duraludon, Rapid Strike Urshifu and Flying Pikachu. I’m happy VMAX Pokemon are slowly becoming a thing of the past, and I hope that becomes even more true when we have the 2023 Standard format rotation.

However, for now, Dracozolt VMAX (Evolving Skies) is an entertaining one that has that nice edge against some of the more popular Pokemon Online decks such as Lunatone / Solrock, Regigigas or even Blissey V. These Pokemon decks are budget friendly and quite good to grind the Pokemon TCG Online ladder with, which lead to Dracozolt VMAX’s Spark Trap attack to be perfect against them. 60 damage for one Lightning Energy is nothing special, but the 12 damage counters in retaliation if Dracozolt gets damaged make this a fantastic deck. That KO’s a lot of the weaker Pokemon and lets you take advantage of healing cards such as Cheryl since you can heal and immediately attach an Energy and set up the Trap again. With 330 HP, Dracozolt VMAX is very difficult to take down in a single hit, and if you managed your bench correctly, the only way for your opponent to play around those 12 damage counters is to not attack, which is also pretty good for you.

Nothing special about the 4-3 line of Dracozolt VMAX (Evolving Skies), we don’t need more than that, and we want to only have one Pokemon in play as much as we can to ensure our opponents can’t use Boss’s Order or Escape Rope to deactivate the trap. By having only 1 Pokemon in play, we also get maximum value from Kabu, drawing eight cards instead of just 4. The deck, therefore, doesn’t need too much Pokemon search, so it only plays 3 Quick Ball and 3 Evolution Incense.

We have disruption with Marnie, Avery, Crushing Hammer, Path to the Peak and Tool Jammer, which can act as a Big Charm of sorts by disabling Choice Belts but also removing the effect of Cape of Toughness, Air Balloon or other Tools cards. Boss’s Orders can also help us trap something active or preemptively attack something before they attack us, such as a Blissey V building up Energy on the bench to try and OHKO our Dracozolt.

Cheryl, Pokemon Center Lady, Lucky Ice Pop and Team Yell Towel help us heal Dracozolt to ensure it can set up the trap as many times as possible. Timing these cards properly is critical to this deck's success.

Pal Pad helps the deck reutilize either disruptive resources or up to 6 Cheryl, helping maintain the focus on keeping Dracozolt alive as long as possible.

Energy-wise, we have 4 Speed Energy to help draw a few extra resources in hand, along with plenty of basic Lightning Energy to continue to use the Trap for as long as possible. You don’t need an Energy attachment every single turn with this deck, so it’s ok to miss an Energy drop here and there.

As far as matchups go, this deck is nothing to write about in terms of being overwhelmingly favoured against top-tier archetypes like Palkia VSTAR, Arceus VSTAR or Mew VMAX. It can definitely fend for itself and squeak out wins, but its biggest enemy, well-timed Marnie, can definitely be detrimental to its success.

However, this deck fills up a very specific itch of ‘I want to play a fun deck that will annoy my opponent and make them think through every attack they choose to do. It also rewards the user for choosing NOT to play cards, such as holding on to Energy, figuring out if you need to heal and by how much, figuring out when is the optimal time to bench the second Dracozolt V not to be punished, amongst other small decisions.

So whilst this deck is not the best suited to utilise at the Pokemon TCG World Championships, it certainly is a fun deck to grind the online ladder with and get some rewards whilst you’re at it. It’s also a perfect counter to the most popular deck online right now: Lunatone / Solrock. It’s a great budget deck that you can easily build with a few PTCGO codes, in case you’re tired of running into that deck over and over. I’ve personally had a ton of fun with this deck and have run into a lot of fun situations which have led to many thoughtful scenarios for myself and my opponent, along with crazy Sudden Death scenarios. Thanks so much for reading my newest article, and best of luck in your games!