Two Turns, Six Prizes: Rapid Strike Urshifu in Expanded
Hello PokeBeach readers! In this article, I’m going to talk about an Expanded deck including cards from the new Battle Styles set. Now, before I get into that, I’m going to talk a bit about the first part of Players Cup III that took place this weekend.
Players Cup III
Going into the Players Cup III I saw Arceus and Dialga and Palkia-GX as the deck to beat with Centiskorch VMAX being a close second. I felt ADP was overall the strongest deck in the format, while Centiskorch VMAX was the most popular and gave the best chance for a player to make it through the first couple rounds due to its good matchup against the Zacian V decks. I also felt going into this event that I would have liked to include Power Plant in whatever deck I was playing because of how important Dedenne-GX was for Centiskorch VMAX and ADP.
With this in mind, had I qualified for the Players Cup III I would have been playing Eternatus VMAX with four copies of Power Plant and some Reset Stamp. I feel like Eternatus VMAX is the most consistent deck in the meta while also being flexible on deck space, meaning it is suited to deal with the majority of matchups. Now that I’ve gone over my thoughts on what the best play was for the Players Cup III, let’s get into Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX in Expanded.
Why Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is Good
To start, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is all-around a beast of a card, featuring high HP and high damage output for low Energy cost, similar to Golisopod-GX which was one of the most successful cards during its time. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX also has great typing for the Expanded format. Expanded is dominated by aggressive decks such as Pikachu and Zekrom-GX, as well as Turbo Dark. This puts Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX at a huge advantage coming into the format, however, that isn’t its biggest upside; the best part about this deck is Wide Lens.
Wide Lens is a card that has seen little competitive play but has always had talks about its potential. Now that Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is legal, it’s finally time for Wide Lens to see some action. With Wide Lens, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX can realistically end games in two turns; on turn one you can use Rapid Strike Style Mustard to get out a Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX and take a Knock Out with Gale Thrust, combined with the damage buffs from Diancie Prism Star, Regirock-EX and Strong Energy. This is then followed by a Rapid Strike Energy plus Wide Lens to KO two Bench-sitting Pokémon such as Dedenne-GX, Crobat V or even Darkrai-EX. This combo lets the deck consistently take four Prizes in a single turn, which applies so much pressure that most decks can’t handle.
Now you might be thinking; what if they don’t bench Dedenne-GX or Crobat V? Well, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX still has a ton of HP, and because of how the deck is built to still include some Basic Rapid Strike Urshifu V you can begin to chain Acerola to save any Prizes your opponent was going to take. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is the only deck that consistently end games on turn two going second — I think that is enough to confidently put Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX at the top of the tier list, as it is simply faster and stronger than any other deck in the format.
The List
Two Rapid Strike Urshifu V / Three Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX
While this is an unorthodox line, it makes sense for a deck like this. This deck aims to end games fast likely using only one Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX. The reason I still decided to include Rapid Strike Urshifu V is because of Item lock matchups, as well as decks that can withstand a single Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX. Playing some copies of Rapid Strike Urshifu V also allows the deck to have a secondary strategy in the form of chaining Acerola to reset your Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX and deal more damage, as well as negating Prizes for your opponent.
This deck could be revamped to not include Rapid Strike Urshifu V and go into a potential Jirachi engine but I felt that would take up too much room. Rapid Strike Urshifu V adds a secondary strategy along with some consistency vs Item lock decks, so I feel it’s the best variant of this deck currently.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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