Shadow Rider VMAX (March 2026)

Overview

Current list for Shadow Rider VMAX in the Expanded Format. The deck started out as being the BDIF of Expanded before greatly falling off throughout the SVI era until now. The addition of Chimecho CIN and eventually Lillie's Clefairy has propelled this deck back into the top 5 of the format, letting it deal with its toughest matchups, even Charizard ex and Roaring Moon ex. 

How to Play
Important to note, as with all decks in Expanded, don't follow such a linear gameplan. What I mean is

Overview

Current list for Shadow Rider VMAX in the Expanded Format. The deck started out as being the BDIF of Expanded before greatly falling off throughout the SVI era until now. The addition of Chimecho CIN and eventually Lillie's Clefairy has propelled this deck back into the top 5 of the format, letting it deal with its toughest matchups, even Charizard ex and Roaring Moon ex. 

How to Play
Important to note, as with all decks in Expanded, don't follow such a linear gameplan. What I mean is that I will explain how to play the deck in general, but it is best to adadpt to game situations as you see fit, rather than following what I say here every time since it will lead to very predictable outcomes for your opponent to exploit.

Shadow Rider VMAX: The main star of the deck. The idea is that you set up as many Riders as you can and accelerate with Underworld Door. Not only is this great draw power, but it also allows you to accelerate energies fairly consistently. Having 320 HP also lets you tank quite a few hits, which is why Rider is the only relevant 3-prizer deck in the format. In most but not all cases, you can start swinging for damage the minute you have a Rider charged up. Its less about trying to OHKO mons in the early game and more about slowly overwhelming your opponent. If your Riders take damage, you can retreat into a healthy one after building energies on it, or you can use cards like Scoop Up Cyclone and Acerola to heal it. Yes, you have to put everything back in to your hand but in the grand scheme of things, you're forcing a 3-KO game in most cases rather than just 2-KO. 

Trevenant & Dusknoir GX: Gengar & Mimikyu GX was once a staple of the deck, but its major flaws and ability of players to play around it made it obsolete, and it makes sense why. It was a fragile 240 HP 3-Prizer, Horror House does give you an extra turn to setup, but in the grand scheme of things, it does nothing to help you in the later stages of the game when your opponent has a way to overcome it. Case in point being Regidrago, where it makes up for the turn lost with Timeless GX and the fact it is able to do so many things so easily. The Poltergeist attack is also terrible, as it is very risky with little reward. TrevNoir GX however offers much more. Night Watch pairs very well with Marnie and is especially useful in the later stages of the game. But Pale Moon is a much better attack than Horror House since it effectively costs the same as Max Geist (Needs 3 energies for the full effect) and potentially stop a Pokemon from attacking, or forcing an awkward retreat. It also has more HP making it less of a liability. When Lillie's Clefairy ex releases in March, Night Watch becomes even stronger into Regidrago VSTAR, Lugia VSTAR with Dragons, and Dragapult since you now are dealing 300 damage to their dragons, disrupting their hand, and having access to an attack that could potentially KO them next turn. All of this support makes TrevNoir arguably more dangerous than Shadow Rider itself. It may even be possible to run 2 TrevNoir's in the deck. Reset Stamp is a game changing addition, as it allows you to bait KOs and punish opponents by reducing their hand size to 0 with Night Watch.

Chimecho: This card was technically still around during Shadow Rider's early days but given that it was a common card from Crimson Invasion, no one really knew it existed until now. Its attack prevents your opponent from playing Pokémon with abilities. I'm honestly surprised this card was forgotten about (which in fairness, had no use at all during SUM era and most of SWSH) because of how good it is. The vast majority of decks rely heavily on Pokémon with abilities, so being able to stall out effectively as many turns as you want until you get a good setup is huge. This works much better than relying on Horror House because again, it provides no long term benefit and you basically have to find Scoop Up Cyclone/Acerola if it has damage counters, or make it a LOT easier for your opponent to win. Chimecho helps solve Shadow Rider's weaknesses to dark decks like Charizard ex and Roaring Moon because for the former, they have no way to play around its attack and while they can manually evolve eventually, that is incredibly difficult to do when the majority of your deck becomes shut down by the little bell. They can't use Drizzile's ability, which also renders Irida uselss as well. At that point, you're able to get an incredible setup to the point when Zard sets up finally, it does not matter. For Roaring Moon, its somewhat similar although different in that you just prevent them from being able to setup their board at all. Of course, they could get lucky and draw into Ranger, but they don't have a way to get out of the lock without it. Neither deck, especially Zard, is capable of getting a Ranger in hand if they know you're going to use Bell of Silence. Even if they have it hand, you just play Marnie/Iono/N and guarantee they can't play Pokémon with abilities. 

Wobbuffet: Wobb is a good mon to have in the active once you get a few Riders into play. It can slow the game down for your opponent to allow you to set up your board. Its essentially a "you play the game at my pace" card. 

Temple of Sinnoh: Rider decks opted to switch to TOS when SIT released and its a good call. By using Shadow Rider V's Shadow Mist + Temple of Sinnoh, you can soft-lock your opponent's deck (if they run Special Energies that is) and allow you to set up your board, or just win if they can't counter this combination. Its particularly useful against Regidrago, where you can stall out a few turns or in rarer cases, use Faba a few times to make resource management more difficult for them. Crispin makes this less effective now but still very strong nonetheless. 

Other cards: Latias ex helps with retreating and helps save the Float Stones for Shadow Rider. Plumeria is a niche energy denial option that must be used when the time is right. 

Finishings:

https://youtu.be/S1S4Hlh5YaE?si=JscCeK9qiqwkPzqm