Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR Turbo — My Favorite Deck from Astral Radiance So Far
Hello readers! Gabriel again with another Pokémon TCG article and this time I will talk about Turbo Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR, a Japanese-origin deck that was successful in winning some online tournaments. I was one of the players who also won a tournament with the deck, so I want to analyze it — mainly because I think it’s a good option to use in the North American International Championship (NAIC) and Worlds 2022.
On June 7th the player Reiji Nishiguchi decided to play Turbo Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR in the 41st edition of the Late Night online tournament, a free and open tournament for players from all over the world to play, and he ended up winning the 320-player tournament with his never-before-seen deck. The following week, the deck won Late Night again, this time with another Japanese player, nicknamed Wavedaze.
These two factors were enough for me to decide to further test the deck, which stood out not only for the fact that it brought Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR to the competitive metagame, but also for the intriguing deck mechanics that made a Pokemon that needs five Energy to attack able to be powered up in only two turns. This mechanic, which involves Mew, Radiant Greninja, and Scoop Up Net, was also utilized by other decks, with the most prominent being a version of Turbo Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR — a deck that won the Melbourne Regional and had good placements in an important tournament in Japan.
Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR’s Place in the Meta
As I said before, several other “turbo” decks were created based on the list presented by Reiji Nishiguichi, but many consider Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR to be the best option for a turbo deck currently. In terms of strength and consistency, it’s perhaps the best version, but the metagame won’t give Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR peace of mind, as it’s a strong and popular Pokemon. A great example of this is the success of Arceus VSTAR / Flying Pikachu VMAX, a variant that only exists because it aims to beat Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR. On the other hand, Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR will have an easier ride; its Weakness is Fire, but Fire Pokémon are weak to Water — the type of Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR and other strong Pokémon present in the metagame.
Cboice of Pokémon
Four Mew
Finally a good deck with Mew from Celebrations! I expected Mew to be used in many decks, like Jirachi with the Stellar Wish Ability was, but in the end, searching for a Trainer card and searching for an Item card are quite different things.
The idea is to be able to open the game with Mew to be able to search for your Pokémon search Items to aid your setup. It’s important that you find Radiant Greninja as soon as possible, as its Ability offers great draw power while discarding Metal Energy for Metal Saucer. It improves your early game consistency and leads to better opening hands.
Two Origin Forme Dialga V, Two Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR
An Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR with five energy will win 80% of your games. The line of only two Origin Forme Dialga V and two Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR turns a lot of heads as it is your main attacker and there is the risk of not having Pokémon to attack at the end of the game, but in practice, this is a count that works well. It is important to say that because it is a turbo deck, its main objective is to use as few copies of Pokémon and Supporters as possible and more copies of Item cards, which have immediate effect and can be used without limit. The focus of the strategy is to load up Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR with five Energy fast, to be able to win in a few turns and not have to power up several attackers.
The main idea of the deck is to get off the VSTAR Power Star Chronos attack, which ends up being one of the best attacks in the game, although being difficult to achieve. With this attack, you can Knock Out an opponent’s Pokémon V, and on the next turn, you can swing for 280 damage and KO a VSTAR Pokémon. In many cases, it’s a four-Prize play. The biggest challenge in the game is finding a way to make this move, and sometimes this challenge takes time and intelligence to achieve.
In certain matches, you will find yourself in the position of having to play two Origin Forme Dialga V and accept that one of them is going to be Knocked Out. The opponent’s first and main criterion will be which of the two Origin Forme Dialga V has more Energy, as Knocking Out the one with the most Energy means you have more work to get the Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR powered up with five Metal Energy. In view of this type of situation, the idea is to leave the two Origin Forme Dialga V with as equal a number of Energy as possible and avoid using Metal Saucer at all costs. You need to keep the Metal Saucer on hand so when one of the Origin Forme Dialga V gets Knocked Out, you can juice up the Pokemon that’s still in play from the discard pile.
This concludes the public portion of this article.
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