Hello, Cut or Tap readers! The new season is officially underway, with a few major tournaments already in the books. This includes a Special Event in Spain, a Champion’s League in Japan, and a Regionals in Pittsburgh. I myself was able to place in the Top 4 at Pittsburgh with a relatively straightforward Lugia VStar list, a deck which has been in a good spot in the current meta with many even to favorable matchups. It will likely remain strong (and even gain an interesting option!) entering the new format, when the 151 cards become legal, starting with Peoria Regionals in just a couple of weeks. Today, I will recap my Pittsburgh list and run with the deck, as well as discuss how I feel about it going into the future.
您好，Cut or Tap 读者！新赛季正式开始，一些重大赛事已经在酝酿中。这包括西班牙的特别赛事、日本的冠军联赛和匹兹堡的地区赛。我自己能够在匹兹堡以相对简单的 Lugia VStar 列表进入前 4 名，这副套牌在当前的版本中一直处于一个很好的位置，许多甚至是有利的对决。当 151 张牌合法化时，它可能会继续保持强劲（甚至获得一个有趣的选择！）进入新赛制，从几周后的皮奥里亚地区赛开始。今天，我将回顾我的匹兹堡清单并随身携带，并讨论我对未来的感受。

Decklist  套牌列表

As a starting point, I think it would be best to discuss the list that I used at Pittsburgh Regionals.
作为起点，我认为最好讨论一下我在匹兹堡地区赛中使用的列表。

This list does not feature any unique cards, but I think that it is best to build Lugia to be straightforward, as you will be favored to win the vast majority of games where you can set up two Archeops on the second turn. I want to talk about two main choices with the list that I made for Pittsburgh that were hard to decide on, and I was unsure about until the night before the tournament.
此列表不包含任何独特的卡片，但我认为最好将 Lugia 构建得简单明了，因为您将被看好赢得绝大多数可以在第二回合设置两个 Archeops 的游戏。我想谈谈我为匹兹堡制定的名单中的两个主要选择，它们很难决定，直到比赛前一天晚上我才确定。

After upgrading to Stage 2 you will see the rest of Andrew Hedrick’s article and an audio recording of this article by Andy Hyun:
升级到第 2 阶段后，您将看到 Andrew Hedrick 文章的其余部分以及 Andy Hyun 的本文录音：

Audio Player

Squawkabilly ex vs. 4th Professor’s Research
Squawkabilly 前任 vs. 第 4 位教授的研究

At first glance, Squawkabilly seems like a card that should be an automatic inclusion in Lugia VStar, and I started with it in my list as well. It can bail you out of a bad hand on Turn 1, as well as get Archeops into the discard pile before your opponent could put them on the bottom of the deck with Iono if you did not have access to an Ultra Ball. However, the card also has some massive downsides. Obviously, putting an extra weak two-prize liability on your board can often be punished by your opponent taking an easy knockout on it later. Benching Squawkabilly also takes up a spot on your bench that could prove to be valuable, depending on what options you want access to later in the game. Additionally, the only outs to Squawkabilly that could not just get Lumineon V instead are just two copies of Nest Ball.
乍一看，Squawkabilly 似乎是一张应该自动包含在 Lugia VStar 中的卡，我也在我的列表中从它开始。它可以在第 1 回合将你从一手坏牌中解救出来，如果你没有 Ultra Ball，它可以在你的对手用 Iono 将它们放在牌堆底部之前将 Archeops 放入弃牌堆。然而，这张卡也有一些巨大的缺点。显然，在你的牌面上放置一个额外的弱的两奖负债，通常会因为你的对手稍后轻松击倒它而受到惩罚。Benching Squawkabilly 也会在你的替补席上占据一个位置，这可能被证明是有价值的，这取决于你想在游戏后期使用什么选项。此外，Squawkabilly 唯一不能只得到 Lumineon V 的补牌只是两个 Nest Ball 的副本。

One of Squawkabilly’s big advantages is that it cannot be turned off by Spiritomb like a Lumineon could, but Spiritomb has greatly decreased in play and has become almost a non-factor. My biggest issue with the card in general is that it is useless after the first turn of the game, unlike a Research which is excellent to have in hand at both the beginning and end of the game. While it may seem insignificant, the number of times throughout the tournament that you would draw the dead Squawkabilly vs. a Research that could get you a new hand of seven cards adds up, and I definitely felt the fourth copy of Research throughout the tournament as I often drew into it when I needed it. Another factor in my decision has to do with the other card choice that I made, which I will explain below.
Squawkabilly 的一大优势是它不能像 Lumineon 那样被 Spiritomb 关闭，但 Spiritomb 的玩法大大减少，几乎成为一个非因素。总的来说，我对这张牌最大的问题是它在游戏的第一回合后就没用了，不像研究牌在游戏开始和结束时都非常好。虽然这看起来微不足道，但在整个锦标赛中，你抽到死去的 Squawkabilly 对阵可以让你获得一手新牌的 Research 的次数加起来，而且我在整个锦标赛中绝对感受到了 Research 的第四个副本，因为我经常在需要的时候抽到它。我决定的另一个因素与我所做的另一张牌选择有关，我将在下面解释。

2nd Collapsed Stadium vs. Jet Energy
第 2 倒塌体育场 vs. Jet Energy

Because of the expected prevalence of Path to the Peak in decks like Giratina VStar, Mew VMax, and potentially Miradon ex, I did not feel super comfortable playing the deck without Pumpkaboo, a searchable way to bump the Stadium. I would have preferred to simply play a second Collapsed Stadium instead of the Pumpkaboo, but I was worried that I would be punished by a Path I couldn’t move one too many times to make the cut worth it. In the end, I searched for Pumpkaboo in key moments multiple times, so I think I made the correct decision on that end.
由于预期 Path to the Peak 会在 Giratina VStar、Mew VMax 和可能的 Miradon ex 等套牌中流行，所以我在没有 Pumpkaboo 的情况下玩这副套牌时感觉不是很舒服，Pumpkaboo 是一种可以搜索的撞击体育场的方式。我本来更愿意简单地玩第二个 Collapsed Stadium 而不是 Pumpkaboo，但我担心我会受到一条我不能移动太多次的路径的惩罚，从而使晋级变得值得。最后，我在关键时刻多次搜索了 Pumpkaboo，所以我认为我在这方面做出了正确的决定。

However, this left me in an awkward position with my list. If I wanted to still play two copies of Collapsed Stadium to make it easier to remove liabilities from my board, I was going to have to use the last “flex” spot in the deck. This was an issue because, in my earlier testing, I had found that I was often struggling to use my attacker of choice while not leaving myself susceptible to getting something stuck active with an opponent’s Boss’s Orders, due to running out of energy. In multiple situations, I had felt the lack of a 14th energy made it hard for me to play the deck how I wanted to. Additionally, I sometimes felt myself running low on non-Double Turbo Energy, which was an issue because that reduced the damage of my attacks. This often came up when trying to hit for 220 damage with Lugia VStar or 280 damage with Tyranitar V. I did not want to experience these issues during the Regionals, so I made the decision to play the Jet Energy over the extra Collapsed Stadium. This meant that I was going to have to be more careful about the liabilities I left on the board that my opponent could take advantage of. This was another reason that contributed to my decision to play an extra Research over Squawkabilly. I wanted to set up as much of the time as possible without using a delicate two-prize Pokemon, since it would be harder for me to remove it from my board before it could be knocked out. 
然而，这让我的清单处于尴尬的位置。如果我仍然想玩两张 Collapsed Stadium 以更容易地从我的棋盘中移除负债，我将不得不使用套牌中的最后一个 “flex” 位置。这是一个问题，因为在我之前的测试中，我发现我经常难以使用我选择的攻击者，同时又不容易因为能量耗尽而让对手的 Boss 命令卡住。在很多情况下，我都觉得缺少第 14 能量让我很难按照自己想要的方式玩这副套牌。此外，我有时感觉自己的非 Double Turbo Energy 不足，这是一个问题，因为这减少了我攻击的伤害。当尝试使用 Lugia VStar 造成 220 点伤害或使用 Tyranitar V 造成 280 点伤害时，通常会出现这种情况。我不想在区域赛期间遇到这些问题，所以我决定在额外的 Collapsed Stadium 上使用 Jet Energy。这意味着我将不得不更加小心我在棋盘上留下的负债，我的对手可以利用。这是导致我决定玩 Extra Research over Squawkabilly 的另一个原因。我想在不使用精致的两等宝宝可梦的情况下，尽可能多地进行设置，因为在它被击倒之前，我很难将其从我的棋盘上移开。

Tournament Recap  锦标赛回顾

One of the main reasons I chose Lugia for the event was because of its particularly strong matchup against Rapid Strike Inteleon Urshifu. That was a deck I myself had been testing, and one that I had heard other people were considering playing. However, I was finding myself without a good game plan against Lugia, which further encouraged me to switch to Lugia. Over the course of the first day, I managed to hit that matchup four times and won all four without dropping a single game, which helped me get off to an extremely strong start. If you can establish V-Guard energies on the Pokemon you want to avoid being knocked out and use Radiant Tsareena to heal off damage, the matchup is quite difficult for them, especially if you don’t play into a big Cheryl turn where they heal multiple attackers. Combined with hitting another good matchup in Lost Box a couple of times, and a bit of luck against Gardevoir in my last round, I was able to get through the first day at 8-0-1. 
我选择 Lugia 参加比赛的主要原因之一是它与 Rapid Strike Inteleon Urshifu 的对决特别强大。那是我自己一直在测试的套牌，也是我听说其他人正在考虑玩的套牌。然而，我发现自己没有一个好的对阵 Lugia 的比赛计划，这进一步鼓励我改用 Lugia。在第一天的过程中，我成功地打了四次那场比赛，并且赢得了所有四场比赛，没有丢掉一局，这帮助我有一个非常强劲的开局。如果你可以在你想避免被击倒的口袋妖怪上建立 V-Guard 能量并使用 Radiant Tsareena 来治愈伤害，那么对决对他们来说相当困难，特别是如果你不玩一个大的 Cheryl 回合，他们治愈多个攻击者。再加上在 Lost Box 中打了几次很好的对决，以及在上一轮对阵 Gardevoir 的运气，我能够以 8-0-1 的成绩度过第一天。

On the second day, I hit a lot of Comfey decks, including three Giratinas. Getting a Turn 2 Summoning Star and attacking with a one-prizer early in that matchup makes it difficult for them to navigate. Also, if they get ahead, you can often make a comeback by knocking out their Giratina VStar with a Tyranitar V in combination with an Iono to low hand-size, if they do not have another Giratina established. If they do have what looks to be an unbeatable board set up, you can occasionally try to run them out of resources in the late game by making your board all one-prize attackers and forcing multiple Lost Impacts for just one prize card. They sometimes have to put too many important cards in the Lost Zone early game and cannot get off enough attacks to deal with this.

The only matchup that I lost to was Miradon ex, once in swiss and once in Top 4. Despite my 0-2 record against the deck throughout the weekend, I do not think the matchup is terrible (especially with the reduction of Path counts in the deck), although it can feel bad to play due to the amount of pressure they put on you. In my first loss, I won Game 1, but had my only Lugia V knocked out before I had a second turn in both Games 2 and 3. In Top 4, I misplayed to lose an awkward game I would have won, and then drew a dead hand off an Iono to six to end my run. This is a matchup to test more and be slightly concerned about, but not one that I think is bad enough that it should scare people off of playing Lugia VStar.

Meta Changes and 151

In a couple of weeks, the new set 151 will be legal for tournament play, and it will be interesting to see how it will impact the meta. I expect to see small changes, but nothing major, so the most popular decks now should not drastically shift. The most impactful card from the set will be Mew ex, which is a card that many decks will be able to take advantage of. Being able to copy your opponent’s attacks without the necessary energy is extremely strong, and its Ability could occasionally bail you out of an Iono to a low hand size. Notably, the current deck that can utilize Mew ex best is Lugia. The card is extremely easy to power up with Archeops, making it a threat that Lugia can drop out of nowhere without any prior commitment. In addition, Mew’s free retreat could occasionally be useful for pivoting into attackers, although you often will want to keep it off of your board until you use it, due to it giving up two easy prize cards. 

In my mind, the most important (and impactful on the format) attack that Mew ex can copy is Radiant Greninja’s Moonlight Shuriken. Because you don’t need any Water energy to power up the attack when copying it with Mew, this becomes a huge threat to your opponent. Lugia can conceivably play down a Mew ex, power it up with Archeops, and bring up an opponent’s Radiant Greninja with Boss’s Orders to do 90 damage to two of their benched Pokemon, such as two Comfeys or Kirlias. All this takes beyond a normal Lugia setup is a way to find a Basic Pokemon and a Boss’s Orders, so this should not be very difficult to pull off on Turn 3 and is even in the realm of possibility on Turn 2. I believe that this will at least slightly modify the format as a whole, as this option existing makes both Lost Box and Gardevoir worse. Against matchups that can power up a Mew ex in one turn, they have to either not bench Radiant Greninja, bench Manaphy to stop Moonlight Shuriken being copied, or decide to not play around it and hope that their opponent is unable to pull it off without wasting too many resources. None of these options feel great for the decks, and I will be interested to see if and how they adapt. If they are unable to, they may slightly decrease in play. 

Another important attack that Lugia can copy with Mew is Giratina’s Lost Impact. While using Tyranitar V is preferred because of its higher HP, if you do not have enough Single Strike Energies left for a Single Strike Crush, a Mew ex could take a response knockout on a Giratina VStar. The option for other decks to do this against Giratina could also negatively impact its success. One interesting thing to note is with Mew ex’s ability to knock out a Giratina and the other threats it provides, it is now more reasonable to play Lugia without the Single Strike Energies. It can be a way to respond to your opponent with knockouts on Pokemon that you couldn’t without Single Strike Energies before, allowing you to build your deck differently. We saw this take shape in Yokohama, with two Colorless Lugia in the Top 8 of the latest Champions League. Personally, I still think that Single Strike Lugia is stronger as of now, but I will also be playing some games with colorless versions to see if they can provide an advantage. 

Because of the strength in the options that Mew ex provides, I would also like to find a spot for the card in Single Strike Lugia to see if it is as good in practice as it is in theory. However, when looking at my Lugia list from Pittsburgh it is tough to find a space for the card, but there are a few potential slots it could fit into. The first option is Radiant Tsareena. This card is obviously really good against Lost Box, but that is a decent matchup regardless and Mew ex copying Radiant Greninja also provides you with another way to pressure them. It is also useful for turning the matchup against Urshifu into a near auto-win, but it is favorable regardless and if you don’t expect it to be a huge portion of the meta, losing Radiant Tsareena wouldn’t be a huge deal.

Another potential cut is Pumpkaboo. If you don’t expect Path to the Peak to be as popular moving forward, it may be possible to cut it. This change would not be one that I would generally recommend, but depending upon the expected meta, it could be reasonable. With Miraidon switching off of the Path build and Mew losing popularity, I could see a world where the deck could play without Pumpkaboo.

The last “easy” cut you could make would be the 14th energy. Personally, I find the extra energy to be extremely valuable, as I stated earlier. However, I know that some people are fine playing the deck and have seen success with only 13 energy. One thing to consider before making this change is that Mew ex cannot use Single Strike energies to attack, and also often would get hurt by Double Turbo Energy reducing the damage of the attacks it copies, such as Moonlight Shuriken, only dealing 70 to Kirlia or Lost Impact hitting a Giratina VStar for 260.

In my testing, I think the best place to start will be to cut Radiant Tsareena to see if the deck is fine with a Mew ex instead against Lost Box and Urshifu.

Continuous developments in the meta could impact just how strong Lugia is moving forward. Urshifu’s win in Barcelona is a good sign for Lugia, as higher play rates of that deck will only make Lugia’s path to success easier. However, if Gardevoir players decide to add Temple of Sinnoh back into the deck, that could definitely be a slight issue for Lugia to deal with. Many Gardevoir players had cut the card due to it not being very useful outside of the Lugia matchup (and it even can be harmful to the Gardevoir player, as using it as a way to bump Path to the Peak prevents you from using Reversal Energy) as well as Lugia being a fine matchup without it. The card does give the Gardevoir player more ways to close out the game against Lugia though, meaning that higher rates of the card would make me more hesitant to play Lugia.

Lastly, if Charizard ex gains popularity after its Top 4 in Spain and the release of 70 HP Charmanders in 151, it would also make me a bit more nervous to play Lugia. While the matchup isn’t terrible, it also doesn’t feel great, and there are certainly other matchups that you would prefer to see.

Conclusion

Overall, Lugia is looking to continue to be one of the best decks going into future events with 151 legal. Whether or not Lugia can successfully include and take advantage of Mew ex remains to be seen, but the deck will continue to have an extremely strong matchup spread regardless of whether Mew finds its way into the final list. It will be important to watch to see how the meta continues to develop, to decide if Lugia is the best play for a given event, but it will certainly continue to be on my radar throughout the next format.

I hope this article helped to give you a little bit of insight on Lugia moving forward. Until next time, thanks for reading!