A New Challenger! Mewtwo V-Union / Arceus in Pokemon TCG Standard

Hello again everyone! The Pokemon World Championships is fast approaching, and everyone is preparing their hardest. While there is only the Pokemon Go set added the format has still adapted since NAIC, with new decks being tried out all the time. One deck which has started to gain traction after coming second at a notable Pokemon TCG Standard online tournament recently is Arceus VSTAR / Mewtwo V-Union, and in this article I will examine the deck and go over its strengths and weaknesses

When Sander Wojcik came third at NAIC with Mewtwo V-Union Stall, it suddenly brought the previously dismissed mechanic to the forefront of most player’s discussions. Since then, the player base has been trying to find ways to use Mewtwo V-Union and it has found a home, with Arceus VSTAR.

4 Arceus V BRS 122
2 Arceus VSTAR BRS 123
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 159
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 160
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 161
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 162

4 Professor's Research BRS 147
3 Adventurer's Discovery FST 224
2 Marnie CPA 56
1 Peonia CRE 149
1 Boss's Orders BRS 132
1 Cook FST 228
4 Hyper Potion CPA 54
4 Ultra Ball BRS 150
4 Quick Ball FST 237
4 Trekking Shoes ASR 156
1 Ordinary Rod SSH 171
1 Pal Pad SSH 172
1 Pokégear 3.0 SSH 174
2 Tool Jammer BST 136
1 Choice Belt BRS 135
4 PokéStop PGO 68

8 Psychic Energy 5
4 Double Turbo Energy BRS 151

This deck list came second at a recent prominent online tournament and the strategy is clear. In similar fashion to Arceus VSTAR / Duraludon VMAX, this deck tries to power up its big threat with Trinity Nova and then play the whole game with one or two Pokemon in play. You rely on healing and the power of your main attacker to carry you throughout the game.

However, Duraludon VMAX has been falling by the wayside lately because it struggles to put on pressure against the fast game plan of Palkia VSTAR. While Duraludon VMAX is a slow attacker, Mewtwo V-Union is everything but that. Final Burn does 300 damage, taking a one hit knockout on any VSTAR Pokémon without a Big Charm and Psysplosion to wipe your opponent’s board of Sobble and Drizzile.

On the other hand, the scariest option Mewtwo V-Union has is to use Super Regeneration, which heals it for 200. Some decks, like Palkia VSTAR and Arceus VSTAR / Inteleon, have no way of dealing over 200 damage in one attack to a lone Mewtwo V-Union. In situations like these, Mewtwo can take a stalling route to either try and deck out the opponent or eventually use Hyper Potions to heal off an attack and then attack yourself. You also have access to Tool Jammer.

I think Tool Jammer is a very strong card right now because it acts both offensively and defensively. It allows you to take a one-hit KO on a VSTAR Pokemon with a Big Charm as well as prevent them from using their own Choice Belt. 

This deck also one-ups Arceus VSTAR / Duraludon VMAX with its options for starting Pokemon. While Arceus VSTAR / Duraludon VMAX has the risk of opening a Duraludon V, you can’t start with a Mewtwo V-Union, so this deck can guarantee that you start with Arceus V! This lets you forego cards like Switch or Escape Rope, which you need when playing Arceus VSTAR / Duraludon V, in favor of making your engine more streamlined.

Another aspect of this deck’s engine is Pokestop.

Once you’ve set up with this deck, the only non-Item utility card you need is Boss’s Orders. This lets Pokestop grab everything you need – Hyper Potion, Tool Jammer and Ordinary Rod are all great cards to find off a Pokestop. Pokestop also lets you discard V-Union pieces in the early game, which is incredibly helpful because this deck usually needs Mewtwo V-Union in play by turn three. Pokestop also serves another purpose in this deck: it bumps an opposing Path to the Peak. One of the biggest weaknesses of Arceus VSTAR / Mewtwo V-Union is that it is extremely weak to an early Path to the Peak and having four Stadium cards can help mitigate that weakness significantly.

Pokestop isn’t the only way this deck has of assembling Mewtwo V-Union, it also has Adventurer’s Discovery.

Adventurer’s Discovery’s only clause for searching is that it can only search for Pokemon V; it doesn’t specify that it must be either a basic or evolution Pokemon. With that, you can search for Mewtwo V-Union pieces with Adventurer’s Discovery and since it grabs three Pokemon V, it gets you very close to assembling Mewtwo V-Union by only playing one Supporter card! Therefore, being able to use Starbirth is so important. It doesn’t just get you to using Trinity Nova on turn two, it also lets you quickly assemble a Mewtwo V-Union! You can grab Adventurer’s Discovery and Ultra Ball off your Starbirth and instantly discard two V-Union pieces and have the other two in hand.

Trekking Shoes also fills a similar role to Pokestop, since you need very specific cards and don’t have access to any support Pokemon you need some other way to supplement your draw. Trekking Shoes is perfect for this, since you can toss V-Union pieces if you see them and dig yourself to whatever card you need that turn.

With any V-Union deck, there is always the risk of having one of the V-Union pieces stuck in the prize cards, and Arceus VSTAR / Mewtwo V-Union is no exception. However, we do have a way of working around this with Peonia.

While it’s no Gladion, Peonia lets you see half of your prize cards every time you play it, so if you prized one of your V-Union pieces, you have a 50 percent chance to access it every time you play Peonia. However, there is a risk to this. If you prize a V-Union piece and don’t hit the 50 percent chance to get it with Peonia, you’re in a very tough position. However, you can still take prizes without using the V-Union with just Trinity Nova and since Peonia doesn’t require you to shuffle your Prize cards, you can start taking prizes from the section which you know contains a V-Union piece. Since the ultimate goal of this deck is to use two Arceus VSTAR and a Mewtwo V-Union, you do have several turns to extract the V-Union from your Prize cards before it becomes a real problem.

However, when I was trying out this deck list, I was having a couple of issues. The one-of Supporters (outside of Peonia, since you can Starbirth for it if you need to) were incredibly difficult to use since your Starbirth was so tied up in getting Mewtwo V-Union into play. I was also struggling to set up a decent amount of the time, and since you can’t afford to play any basic Pokemon other than Arceus V, cards like Quick Ball often become dead cards very quickly and only really function to thin out your deck. I was also having trouble with drawing into my main Supporter cards of Professor’s Research and Adventurer’s Discovery, so after some discussion, I landed on this list.

4 Arceus V BRS 165
3 Arceus VSTAR BRS 176
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 159
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 160
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 161
1 Mewtwo V-UNION PR-SW 162
2 Boss's Orders RCL 200
1 Peonia CRE 149
4 Hyper Potion SSH 166
4 Adventurer's Discovery FST 224
2 Ordinary Rod SSH 171
4 PokéStop PGO 68
2 Quick Ball SSH 179
2 Tool Jammer BST 136
4 Ultra Ball SUM 135
4 Professor's Research SSH 178
4 Pokégear 3.0 UNB 182
4 Trekking Shoes ASR 156

4 Double Turbo Energy BRS 151
8 Psychic Energy 5
 

When playing decks which require specific pieces, I usually like to streamline my deck lists and Arceus VSTAR / Mewtwo V-Union is no exception. Because the innate strategy of this deck is so powerful, I just wanted to focus on pulling it off as often as possible.

This list has increased the counts of Arceus VSTAR, Pokegear 3.0 and Adventurer’s Discovery to try and get the Mewtwo V-Union into play as soon as possible. I also went to two Boss’s Orders and cut the rest of the supporters. I think that outside of Professor’s Research and Adventurer’s Discovery (and Peonia), Boss’s Orders is the best supporter card in this deck, and I wanted to give myself more access to them. Smart opponents will often try and force decks like this one to draw into Boss’s Orders as often as possible, and that’s a good strategy since this deck can’t afford to play many. In the games where you need it, Peonia is so important to this deck that while it’s a weak card, you still need to play at least one copy to give yourself the option to Starbirth for it.

While two Quick Ball seems strange at first, this deck really can’t use them that well. The only Pokemon it searches for is Arceus V which makes it an incredibly weak card. Interestingly, the fact that it only discards one card is a downside in this deck because you would rather have more options to quickly get your Mewtwo V-Union pieces in the discard pile. Quick Ball just became too redundant too quickly when I played this deck, so I felt comfortable going down to two. I also went to two copies of Ordinary Rod.

It is very common to discard Psychic Energy to your Pokestop, so Ordinary Rod does a great job at recovering them. Ordinary Rod is also a very efficient answer to an opposing Echoing Horn.

Since the main plan of your deck is to use two Arceus VSTAR and a Mewtwo V-Union, you are quite weak to any Palkia VSTAR or Mew VMAX player who is playing Echoing Horn. Being able to shuffle your discarded copies of Arceus V back in and preventing them being knocked out is very important to the longevity of your game plan. I also cut the Choice Belt that was in the original list. Tool Jammer usually has the same utility as Choice Belt against a VSTAR deck but is better because it blanks their Choice Belts. While you can’t one-hit KO any VMAX Pokemon without Choice Belt, VMAX Pokemon have fallen by the wayside lately and you can still efficiently use a Psysplosion to finish off the VMAX and another Pokemon they have in play. I also struggled to find the Choice Belt when I needed it, so that made me feel very comfortable about cutting it.

Overall, I think that Arceus VSTAR / Mewtwo Vunion is a decent choice heading into the upcoming World Championships. While the strategy is very linear, I think that it’s still a good deck and can surprise unprepared opponents with how quickly it can get rolling. Thank you for reading, I’ll see you again soon with another article!