Regidrago (December 2024)

Regidrago VSTAR's Apex Dragon attack is very reminiscent of several attacks from the past, letting you copy the attacks of any Dragon Pokémon from your discard pile. This includes evolved Pokémon, letting you use the excellent attacks on Dragapult ex, Giratina VSTAR, and Kyurem SFA without having to put those Pokémon into play. To power up the cost of your Apex Dragon attack you have Teal Mask Ogerpon ex's Teal Dance Ability to put Grass Energy into play then use Energy Switch

Regidrago VSTAR's Apex Dragon attack is very reminiscent of several attacks from the past, letting you copy the attacks of any Dragon Pokémon from your discard pile. This includes evolved Pokémon, letting you use the excellent attacks on Dragapult ex, Giratina VSTAR, and Kyurem SFA without having to put those Pokémon into play. To power up the cost of your Apex Dragon attack you have Teal Mask Ogerpon ex's Teal Dance Ability to put Grass Energy into play then use Energy Switch to move it onto Regidrago VSTAR. Regidrago VSTAR also has Legacy Star, which lets you discard the top seven cards of your deck and then take two cards from your discard pile and add them to your hand. This lets you recover important resources such as Prime Catcher and Energy Switch, and lets you dig deeper into your deck.

The attackers included in his decklist were all chosen for specific situations. Dragapult ex's Phantom Dive attack is very powerful against any evolving deck as Phantom Dive lets you set up to KO multiple Pokémon at once. Kyurem's Trifrost attack is also very strong, letting you deal a ton of damage to three Pokémon at once. This often forces your opponent to Bench Manaphy, but this is fine as you can then pressure your opponent's board with Phantom Dive. For the Pokémon to take a big KO, I chose to play Giratina VSTAR. Its Lost Impact attack lets you hit for 280, perfectly KOing an opposing VSTAR Pokémon.

Regidrago VSTAR is a very interesting deck to play. When you initially look at it, it is tempting to just jam your VSTAR power on turn two every game to try and get an attack, but it often ends up being much more complicated than that. Saving your VSTAR power is very important as a defense against an opposing Iono or Unfair Stamp. This deck also has many alternate attackers, with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex being a strong attacker in various situations. Its Grass typing can let you one-hit KO a Charizard ex, something this deck is otherwise unable to do. Additionally, you have Radiant Charizard to shore up your matchup against the aggressive decks such as Raging Bolt and Roaring Moon ex.

Regidrago VSTAR still has the same game plan it did at the World Championships, however the card counts have changed somewhat with Stellar Crown. You still play similar Dragon attackers, however I choose to include the second copy of Dragapult ex over the Hisuian Goodra VSTAR as Phantom Dive is much more important in the current format with so much Dusknoir.

Against Dusknoir decks, you want to take Prize cards very quickly to prevent them from using multiple Cursed Blasts, and using either Phantom Dive or Trifrost on turn two is the best way to do this. Many decks have cut Manaphy due to its ineffectiveness against Palkia Dusknoir (they can Cursed Blast to KO the Manaphy), and you can take advantage of that with an early Trifrost.

However, you have to be very careful when using Trifrost as it leaves you with no Energy on your Regidrago. If Iono knocks you to a low hand size with no energy on your Regidrago this can often result in you losing, as your opponent gets plenty of time to recover from the Trifrost. Because of this, I usually only go for an early Trifrost if I haven't used Legacy Star. The majority of the time with Regidrago I'm saving Legacy Star to draw out of an opposing Iono, as it gives you on-board access to two cards from your discard pile. Sometimes it can be worth delaying your attack by a turn to save your Legacy Star.

Many Regidrago decklists choose to just include Super Rod as their recovery card, however I prefer including two Superior Energy Retrieval and Night Stretcher. While this looks like I'm using an extra deck space, you do need to include three copies of Fire Energy as you lack options to chain Fire Energy if you use Super Rod. I prefer to play Superior Energy Retrieval because it's an extra way to discard cards, which is often useful to put attackers in the discard pile. Additionally, Superior Energy Retrieval puts the Energy into your hand, letting you immediately use Teal Dance and attach the Energy for turn. While you do lose some options to recover Pokémon, getting the cards back into your hand with Night Stretcher and Superior Energy Retrieval is very useful.

One last thing I would like to touch on is my decision to not include Hawlucha. While Hawlucha can be a strong card, as it lets you KO 70-HP Pokémon on the Bench with Phantom Dive, I have found it to be too difficult to use, as the Bench space is often taken up by a consistency Pokémon.