Hello everyone! This is Elena from Gaia Storm TCG and welcome to another article here. Today I want to cover one of the most anticipated and competitive decks from Rebel Clash: Dragapult V Max. This psychic Pokemon is undoubtedly one on the best V Max Pokémon in the game and has been present in the standard format since it was officially release. Is it the next deck to beat? What are is strong and weak points?

 

Yes, Dragapult was probably the most wanted card from Rebel Clash and the one which raised more in price during the first days of the set. In Japan, Dragapult was a top contender and had been winning major events for months, so it was understandable that expectations were high. And now, after some weeks of testing, Dragapult has proven to be in fact a very good deck for Standard but far away from the Tier S some people anticipated. With a heavy focus on damage spread, Dragapult is able to lead the game to a state where it can wipe the entire opponent field and get all the 6 prizes with a final attack.

 

Dragapult is undoubtedly one of the most powerful V Pokémon for a good number of reason. To begin with, it is one of the few Pokémon in the format that is able to place damage in other target than the active. We know there are cards like Pikachu Zekrom or Mewtwo Tag Team (copying Nagagadel GX) which can attack benched Pokémon but Dragapult exceeds them. For just two psychic energies, Dragapult deals 130 damage and then puts 5 counters anywhere. That means, for example, that you can choose to spread some damage to the bench, preparing for future KOs or just go with all to the active. And note that Dragapult’s extra damage comes from counters: Mew can’t protect benched pokémon from it.

 

Speaking of damage counters, they are precisely the best weapon Dragapult has! And the deck surely has multiple options to distribute them. Let’s do some quick numbers: 5 damage counters are placed with each attack. If Dragapult has attached 2 Horror Energies, 4 damage counters will be placed in the active Pokémon when your opponent wants to respond. And not to mention if Dragapult happens to have a Giant Bomb as a tool… Albeit very situational, that could potentially mean an additional 100 damage. That’s a total of 190 damage!

 

Now, not everything in this environment is ideal for Dragapult. We’ve said at the beginning of the article that although it is for sure a top deck, it still struggles against a number of strategies. Having to manually attach two energies to attach, Dragapult suffers against any sort of energy disruption cards like Crushing Hammers or Team Yell Grunt. It is true that some versions of Dragapult have opted to run a thin line of Malamar to mitigate the consequences but there is not a lot of bench space to always set it up. In addition to this, bear in mind that no matter what, Dragapult will always need two turns to attack so it is really a problem to face very speedy decks like Pikachu Zekrom with Boltund or other strategies that can deliver a KO to the V Max like baby Blacephalon. It will all come down on the level of aggression that these type of decks can maintain through the game.

 

All in all, Dragapult is for sure one one the most powerful decks for the upcoming weeks so you really should have a clear strategy against it. Thanks for reading!