The Impact of Brilliant Stars

Hello again everyone! In my last article, I promised my next article would be an overview of some of the key cards and decks coming out of our new February set this year, Brilliant Stars. The set is now a few days post-release and we’re already starting to see tournament results trickle in from both Limitless and physical tournaments, such as a big one at Full Grip Games that I’ll cover in this article. There’s lots to break down, so I’ll just jump right in. 

I’ve heard many players saying they believe Brilliant Stars (BRS) to be one of the more impactful sets in recent years. I think this is for two key reasons.

First, the set introduces the VSTAR mechanic. These evolve from Basic Pokemon V similarly to VMAXes, but the key difference is that they give up only two Prizes instead of three, with the trade-off of a bit lower HP. This is potentially huge for the game, as one of the biggest complaints from competitive players (myself included) in the past two years has been the existence of three-Prize Pokemon (Tag Teams and VMAXes). Returning to a format centered around two-Prize Pokemon, as we had for many years before Tag Teams, will hopefully increase the length of games, increasing the number of decisions players need to make and ultimately increasing the skill cap of competitive play.

Second, this set reprints Ultra Ball, one of the best and most ubiquitous Trainer cards in the game’s history, but one that has been absent from Standard since before Worlds 2019. For anyone unfamiliar with Ultra Ball, it is simply the most consistent “ball search” card in the game’s history, letting you search for any Pokemon in your deck with no other qualifications. The two-card discard is also a benefit for many decks, with some decks playing heavily out of the discard pile (think Mad Party) and others relying on aggressively thinning unneeded cards to improve their draws throughout the game. Ultra Ball was pretty much an instant 4-of inclusion in any deck while it was legal, and its rotation shook up the way decks have been constructed in the last two years. Players who started playing after Worlds 2019 will need to adjust accordingly since they will be dealing with this important Item card for the first time. 

I think the best way to illustrate the impact VSTARs and the Ultra Ball reprint will have on Standard is to go through some of the top decks from the past weekend’s $2000 tournament at Full Grip Games in Ohio. A number of high-level players such as Kevin Baxter, Riley Hulbert, Brian Miller, John Mostowy, Darin O’Meara, and my teammate Frank Percic were in attendance at this 152-player event, with Riley ultimately taking first place with a new archetype. I’ll break down the Top 8 decks from the event, then offer some thoughts on how the SSH-BRS format might develop from here on out.

A lot of the debate prior to Brilliant Stars’s release was around which variant of Arceus VSTAR decks would immediately be the best. Everyone recognized that Arceus VSTAR was a very good card, but players were theorizing Dark, Water, Lightning, and Duraludon-focused builds, with no results to indicate which was the best. The Duraludon variant, which keeps things simple with the Arceus and Duraludon lines comprising the only Pokemon in the deck, was actually one of the top picks we were considering on UNDNTD for our first tournament in this format, although ultimately Frank decided his Flygon V/Beedrill concoction was the better play for Full Grip (more on that later).

What makes Arceus VSTAR so good and what enables it to be paired with so many different typings and concepts? Both the VSTAR and its basic V have similar attacks (Trinity Charge and Trinity Nova) that accelerate three basic Energy out of your deck onto your Pokemon. Eerily similar to Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX’s Ultimate Ray attack, this is an extremely powerful Energy acceleration attack and enables you to set up a strong secondary attacker on your Bench while still dealing a considerable 200 damage if you use Trinity Nova. As a Colorless type, the type(s) of Energy you play doesn’t matter, so you can combine Arceus with any secondary attacker or suite of attackers you want for a given strategy or metagame. Also key to Arceus’s potential is the VSTAR’s Starbirth Ability, a very strong Ability that grabs any two cards from your deck once per game. If you’ve played with Computer Search in older formats or in Expanded, you know how powerful an auto-search for any one card is— here it’s been multiplied by two! Starbirth both adds to the consistency of Arceus decks by ensuring you can grab any missing pieces for your setup, and allows these decks to play 1-of techs and have easy access to them at any point.

Riley exemplifies classic “first tournament of the format” deckbuilding here, filling his list with 4-ofs to maximize consistency, while avoiding 1-of tech cards in an unsolidified metagame. If you watch any of his games from Full Grip’s stream, you’ll notice his deck pretty much sets up perfectly every game, owing to that core consistency. The “big three” Supporters in Standard for months now have been Professor’s Research, Marnie, and Boss’s Orders; Riley plays 4 of each of them. He also plays 4 Ultra Ball, illustrating my earlier point about Ultra Ball having an immediate impact on deck construction. Because this list plays 4 copies of so many of its important consistency cards, a few early Ultra Ball discards won’t hurt, and you have access to whatever Pokemon you need to have that perfect setup in the first couple of turns. 

While this list was clearly perfect for the Full Grip tournament, I wouldn’t expect it to go unchanged as the format evolves. In discussion with Isaiah Bradner recently, we both felt that Collapsed Stadium doesn’t really offer much value in most games and there might be a better Stadium to play in the deck— perhaps Crystal Cave or Training Court. Riley presumably just wanted to include four copies of some Stadium to ensure consistent outs to Path to the Peak, and certainly the deck should move forward with this high Stadium count for that reason, Collapsed Stadium might just not be the most valuable pick.

One last aspect of this list I really like is the one copy of Single Strike Mustard. This is actually a great way to lock up the Mew VMAX matchup as well as make a few other matchups even more favorable. Smart Mew VMAX players will immediately target the second Duraludon V you play onto the board and OHKO it, meaning they only have to get through a single Duraludon VMAX in addition to an Arceus VSTAR. With Mustard, you can skip the evolving step entirely and avoid placing down that second Duraludon V, forcing your opponent to Knock Out two Duraludon VMAX after dealing with the initial Arceus VSTAR, which will strain their resources much more heavily. With Starbirth, it is easy to fish out this single copy of Mustard when you want to use it.

Most of my group chats and testing partners agree that Arceus VSTAR/Duraludon VMAX will remain a top deck for the rest of this format, and it’s certainly something that needs to be respected as we gear up for the first Regional Championships of the season.

This archetype was also played by Kurt Spiess (4th place) and Joe Turrentine (8th place). 

This is something like the fourth deck in PTCG history to have the title “Dark Box,” which is why I don’t like calling it that, but the basic premise is using either Galarian Weezing (to slow down the opponent) or Hoopa (to provide chip damage) in the early game, before setting up huge-damage combos with Galarian Moltres and Sableye V. An Inteleon line is the glue that holds everything together and enables both those late-game combos and Quick Shooting damage to make sure all the math adds up.

This deck offers a good example of where simply sticking four Ultra Ball into lists may not be the correct decision. Specifically, I think Inteleon decks should be careful about running too many copies of Ultra Ball, as they are already extremely consistent with the existing Quick Ball/Level Ball/Evolution Incense engine and may not be able to afford the extra Ultra Ball discards as much as “turbo” decks with more 4-ofs can. I’ve been testing Jolteon VMAX in the new format and don’t think it should play more than 1-2 Ultra Ball. If I were to continue playing the Suicune V deck I found success with last format, I don’t think I would add any copies of Ultra Ball. 

Sure enough, Mike played only two copies of Ultra Ball in his list while Kurt and Joe each played zero copies. As was cautioned on Twitter the other day, just because Ultra Ball was an auto-4-of in every deck in past formats doesn’t mean it should be approached that way in the current game, and that’s being proven correct by these tournament results. Inteleon is a different engine than most of the stuff we’ve had to work with in competitive PTCG for the previous decade, and as crazy as it would’ve seemed to say a few years ago, these archetypes simply do not need to play high counts of Ultra Ball to thrive. 

There’s been some debate recently over whether this archetype should play Galarian Weezing or remove it to make room for more consistency or other attackers. I am currently in favor of keeping the Weezing line. Although it does slightly decrease the deck’s consistency, it’s not by much, and it makes your early turns much stronger by slowing down your opponent’s setup. Without Weezing, your first few turns are very low-value as Hoopa is pretty much your only other viable attacker, which forces you to burn multiple Scoop Up Net early so you don’t have them to reuse Drizzile or Inteleon for your big late-game combos. Basically, I feel that without Weezing the deck is simply “too fair” and there’s no reason to justify playing it over other decks in the format that can have much stronger early games.

These three lists from Full Grip are all mostly similar, as the archetype was already pretty well fleshed out by the end of the SSH-FST format and nothing really needs to change in the new format. We are seeing a copy of Choice Belt make an appearance here or there, which just adds a little extra power to Galarian Moltres’s attacks in the late game; this is a Trainer you should get acquainted with moving forward, as it is the successor to Choice Band which was a very heavily-played Tool card during its time in Standard a few years ago (and still sees play in Expanded). I have talked about this deck a bit in past articles, and didn’t have too keen an opinion on it in my $1k tournament recap, but I do have to admit it is well-positioned in the new format and is another deck you should be knowledgeable about if you’re preparing for the upcoming Regionals in March. As a final note, because I see questions about it from new players in Discord and on Twitter all the time, the reason Tapu Koko (or occasionally Castform) is played in these Dark decks is to act as a “pivot,” simply a free-Retreat Pokemon. Because this deck plays so heavily out of the hand and deck as opposed to off the board, your preferred attacker will likely not even be in play at the start of many of your turns. You simply promote the Tapu Koko to start your turn, set up your Galarian Moltres or Sableye V on the Bench with the help of Klara or Raihan, and free-Retreat into the attacker.

Gengar VMAX started gaining traction as a top-tier deck towards the end of the SSH-FST format, after some disappointing results in the beginning of the format caused it to fade away in favor of Single Strike Urshifu VMAX/Umbreon VMAX being the predominant Single Strike deck. Part of the resurgence was due to a new style of list focused around the Battle VIP Pass/Cram-o-Matic engine, a fairly “high roll” engine that enables you to pop off on turn one with VIP Pass and thin the excess copies later by discarding them with Cram-o-Matic. Jacob chose to stick with this style of list for the new format and it paid off with his Top 4 finish, although I disagree with some of the card counts in his list. In particular, when it comes to Battle VIP Pass you should either play 4 copies or none at all, as cutting to 3 copies results in diminishing returns pretty quickly in terms of your odds to draw one on turn one.

However, I understand the decision to cut some consistency from the other Trainer lines (3 Ultra Ball, 3 Cram-o-Matic, 3 Urn of Vitality) in order to play some necessary techs. With Duraludon VMAX being a top-tier deck in the format, you need a heavy Path to the Peak count to be able to damage it through its Ability, and Choice Belt is also needed in many cases to allow Gengar VMAX to OHKO Duraludon and other high-HP VMAX Pokemon. Note that Jacob chose to also include one copy of Single Strike Urshifu V, which is probably a must-play in Gengar VMAX in SSH-BRS as it can take important OHKOs in the mirror and against Arceus VSTAR. I also agree with his decision to play two Crobat V; I’ve seen lists running only one copy and think that is too greedy, as the draw from Crobat V is often essential to the deck and you can not risk Prizing or opening with your single copy. You also frequently want the option to use Crobat in the early game to set up and still have a copy in the late-game to dig through a thin deck for combo pieces, such as Urn of Vitality. In Jacob’s list where he’s cut some consistency for techs, having this additional draw is even more important. 

Gengar VMAX should remain strong for the remainder of this format and lists likely won’t deviate more than a few cards from this one, with the balance between consistency and techs being determined largely by the prevalence of Duraludon VMAX versus Mew VMAX in the metagame.

This archetype was also played by Max Mendez (7th place). 

We all know about Mew VMAX by now; it was far and away the BDIF of the SSH-FST format, and many players were predicting it to remain the best deck in SSH-BRS. I’ve covered this archetype previously and won’t go into it in too much depth here, other than to touch on a couple of the new Brilliant Stars cards that add even more dimensions to the deck.

Double Turbo Energy enables Mew VMAX to attack for just one Energy attachment. The deck already had the ability to power up a two-Energy attack in one turn with Elesa’s Sparkle, but Double Turbo Energy just offers another way to do this, adding some more consistency to the deck as well as letting you play a different supporter (i.e. Boss’s Orders) for the turn. 

Choice Belt lets Mew VMAX reach even higher damage numbers than before. Essentially, having a Choice Belt attached replaces one copy of Power Tablets needed to hit a certain number, since both add 30 damage. This means you a) have more outs in your deck to dealing +30 damage (plus, as a Tool, Choice Belt can be played down whenever you draw it since it sticks in play), and b) can conserve Power Tablets for a second big attack later. Mew VMAX’s OHKO potential, often as a result of Meloetta’s Melodious Echo attack, is part of the reason the deck is so good, and Choice Belt makes this aspect of it even better. 

Mew VMAX should absolutely continue to be one of the top decks in the new Standard format— its engine with Genesect V is incredibly consistent and powerful, and the deck can deal with almost anything you throw at it. However, Dark decks will continue to be played in attempts to counter it— just in the Full Grip Top 8 we can see four Dark decks. Mew VMAX can also struggle against Duraludon VMAX, especially the Single Strike Mustard strategy I outlined in the above profile of Riley Hulbert’s deck. Mike Fouchet noted on Twitter recently that he doesn’t expect Mew VMAX to win any of the Regionals in this format (although he does expect a lot of them in Top 8), with Azul Garcia Griego adding that he doesn’t plan to play the deck for any upcoming Regionals.

Rounding out this look at the Top 8 decks from Full Grip, we have the most unique of the five archetypes present in cut, a Suicune V-based deck teched out to include a variety of attackers that hit for Weakness in different matchups. This deck has existed for a few weeks and done fairly well in some Limitless tournaments, but again, this list has a couple of new Brilliant Stars cards added that may help give it the edge in some additional matchups.

Galarian Moltres (both the V and the “baby” non-V) has been one of the most effective Mew VMAX counters in the past few months, with either one easily capable of OHKOing a Mew VMAX for a very favorable Prize trade. Issac chose to complement his thick Moltres line with two copies of Galarian Zapdos V, hitting for Weakness against Arceus VMAX and Gengar VMAX— a choice which was proven correct, given that those two decks took first and third place respectively at Full Grip. To provide advantage against a third type, Issac added the new Zamazenta V from Brilliant Stars. Previously, Suicune V decks struggled against Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX, which is able to easily OHKO anything in a typical Suicune V list without being OHKOd in return. Zamazenta V gives you a way to return the OHKO against the Metal-weak Ice Rider, hopefully resulting in a favorable Prize exchange for you. 

We also see a copy of Choice Belt making an appearance here as well, which has some applications such as allowing Galarian Moltres to push up to 300 damage (which can OHKO VMAXes with one or two Quick Shooting pings), or allowing Suicune V or Galarian Moltres V to enter the 220-damage realm needed to OHKO many Pokemon-V. Finally, Issac chose to play three Ultra Ball, which I think seems like a solid count— I mentioned that Inteleon decks generally want to go lower on Ultra Ball, but this particular deck wants to get Dark Energy into the discard pile for Galarian Moltres V and Klara, and it’s also useful to thin out different tech attackers in matchups where they aren’t needed. 

Note that because of the four types of basic Energy being played, every single Pokemon in this list can attack, including the support Pokemon (the Inteleon line). I have always liked these kinds of decks because attacking with an unexpected Pokemon can throw your opponent off guard and also gives you multiple, nonlinear directions of play when you are not drawing optimally. I think these types of “toolbox” decks have a strong place in the format especially when the meta is solidified around VMAX decks or Arceus VSTAR, although I question this deck’s ability to consistently handle Duraludon VMAX and perhaps single-Prize-attacker decks. 

Looking ahead

This coming month marks the long-awaited return to the official Regional circuit, with Brisbane Regionals in Australia kicking off the season on March 12-13, followed by Salt Lake City Regionals on March 19-20 and finally Europe getting into the action with Liverpool Regionals on March 26-27. (You can check out the full 2022 major event schedule over on PokeStats.) 

Although I won’t be at any of the March Regionals, I will be attending a pretty big $2k tournament at Card Trooper Games in Kentucky the same weekend as Brisbane. I’m looking forward to playing some “games that matter” with this exciting new format. Feel free to say hi if you’re also going to be there! Or if you’ll be at Salt Lake City Regionals, say hey to my teammate Le Bui, who will be playing whatever spicy deck we and the other UNDNTD boys come up with in the next few weeks. You can catch me down the road at Indianapolis Regionals, New Jersey Regionals, and the North America International Championships. If this is your first season playing in Regionals or you’re just feeling rusty after a two-year break, consider hitting me up for coaching! 

As for deciding what the play is for these events— we still have a couple of weeks to test all the new decks as well as improvements to the old ones. My tentative “tier one” for the first weekend (Brisbane and Kentucky) would probably be Mew VMAX, Arceus VSTAR/Duraludon VMAX, and the single-Prize Dark deck. However, I think Gengar VMAX, Malamar, Entei VMAX, Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX, and various “toolbox” decks will also be viable plays. If I don’t bring you all another article going over some of these other decks before Brisbane/Kentucky, I’ll certainly have a follow-up article going over the results from that big weekend of major events. I’m especially interested in testing Entei VMAX (starting with Luke Morsa’s list), my old friend Ice Rider (with some updates like Cross Switcher from Marco Cifuentes’s list), and Zaya Cheville’s very fun Galarian Moltres V/Beedrill deck. 

Good luck with your Brilliant Stars testing and tournaments, and I’ll be back with another article soon…