Top 2 Decks for POG 2021　　

Every year, Pokemon holds a World Championships for the VCG, TCG, And Pokken Tournament. Due to the global pandemic we have all endured, all official Play Pokemon events have been suspended for a year and a half. With this being said, the Pokemon Online Global Championships (POG) have been a “replacement” event to look forward to. Although it is run is not parallel to the World Championships, it still has given us an event to look forward to over the past two years! Last year we saw Isaiah Bradner take down the Pokemon Online Global Championships with his trusty Pikarom Vikavolt deck. It is now time to crown a new champion in the world! The 2021 rotation is set to land upon us very shortly, and gone will be set like Team Up, Unbroken Bonds, Unified Minds, Hidden Fates, and Cosmic Eclipse. Although we will be losing all of these valuable sets soon, the Pokemon Online Global Championships 2021 format will include them, making it one of the only major tournaments to have this many sets legal. With all of these sets being legal comes limitless possibilities! Let's take a look at my favorite two pokemon online decks for the event! 

Below is my Rayquaza VMAX list! Currently, this is my top choice for the Pokemon Online Global Championships next month. One of Rayquaza VMAX's biggest weaknesses in the post-rotation format is Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX (Battle Styles), as well as being able to attack over and over consistently. Now, let's take a look at my current list. 

4 Rayquaza V EVS 110

3 Rayquaza VMAX EVS 111

4 Mareep EVS 54

4 Flaaffy EVS 55

2 Dedenne-GX UNB 57

1 Tapu Koko {*} TEU 51

1 Marshadow UNB 81

2 Mew UNB 76　

4 Professor's Research SSH 178

2 Boss's Orders SHF 58

1 Marnie SSH 169　

4 Quick Ball SSH 179　

4 Level Ball BST 129　

2 Evolution Incense SSH 163　

2 Pokémon Communication HS 98

2 Stormy Range EVS 161

3 Switch HS 102　

2 Air Balloon SSH 156　

1 Pal Pad SSH 172

8 Lightning Energy 

3 Fire Energy 

Total cards - 60

I recently spoke about this card in pretty good detail in my most recent article here on PTCGO Store. The strategy of this deck is to set up multiple Flaafy (Evolving Skies) on your bench and then accelerate lighting energies onto Rayquaza VMAX to deal massive damage! Clocking in at 320 HP will be one of the hardest Pokemon to one shot in the game, and the strength it has to knockout anything in the format gives it the potential to dominate the meta. 

With the upcoming rotation, this is quite possibly the biggest card we will be losing. Luckily for us, this event's format will have our trusty friend Mew (Unbroken Bonds) legal! With Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX’S recent dominance, it will be critical to build your list to counter the matchup. The biggest obstacle hindering this deck from dominating is our engine being taken out, and with Mew, it will make it significantly harder for them to crumble the foundation of this deck. 

This card has seen itself in a handful of lighting decks over its time in the standard format. Although this will be the card's last ride in standard, it is poised to have a huge effect on the game in its last tournament! Pokemon VMAX’s have such an incredibly high amount of HP. This deck will need to recover sometimes lighting energy in one turn to take knockouts, and having Tapu Koko Prism Star puts much less pressure on the deck to achieve that strategy.

Rayquaza VMAX is expected to make a big splash in the Pokemon TCG when it becomes legal! This deck is consistent and can one-shot anything in the format. I expect Rayquaza to be one of the most meta-defining decks in the game, and I am excited to see how it performs. Now let's look at my two other choices.

Currently, this is my second favorite deck in the format. Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX (Battle Styles)  has been a deck that has dominated the format for the past year, and now it has more tools than ever! Let's take a look at the list!

1 Passimian CRE 88

4 Rapid Strike Urshifu V BST 87

1 Medicham V EVS 83

3 Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX BST 88

1 Dedenne-GX UNB 195

1 Mew UNB 76　

4 Sobble CRE 41

4 Drizzile SHF 99

1 Inteleon SHF 100

3 Inteleon CRE 43

1 Tower of Waters BST 138

1 Switch HS 102　

2 Evolution Incense SSH 163　

1 Karate Belt UNM 201

2 Boss's Orders RCL 200

4 Quick Ball SSH 179　

1 Escape Rope BUS 163

1 Air Balloon SSH 156　

4 Level Ball BST 129　

1 Telescopic Sight VIV 160

2 Pokémon Communication HS 98

4 Professor's Research SSH 209

3 Marnie SSH 208　

2 Raihan EVS 152

4 Fighting Energy Energy 6

4 Rapid Strike Energy 

Total cards - 60

Clocking in at 320 HP, Rapid Strike Ushifu VMAX  is one of the toughest Pokemon in the game! The strategy of this card is to Gale Thrust early on and clean up multiple Pokemon on the field at once with its G-Max Rapid Flow attack! With Dark decks seeing such a surge in play, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX’s type coverage becomes even stronger! Punishing multiple decks in the format solely based on typing has really allowed this deck to thrive. Although Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX is great on its own, it has multiple other tools I will talk about below that really allow this deck to succeed.

From the brand new set Evolving Skies, Medicham V (Battle Styles) has burst onto the scene. It has been ages since Pokemon has printed a Medicham that was competitively viable, and this one is one of the best cards they have printed in a long time. Its attack, Yoga Loop, allows you to take an entire other turn if this attack takes a knockout on one of your opponents defending Pokemon. We have not seen this type of attack from a Pokemon since Dialga GX(Ultra Prism). Although the damage output is small, it takes one Rapid Strike Energy to use this attack. If used properly, it will almost surely win you the game. 

 

When インテレオン (Sword and Shield)  was first released, it was not really a card that saw much play. One of the things it always had going for it was it always seemed it had potential somehow. Inteleon was just a card that the community could not find a way to utilize and unlock its full potential. When Sobble (Battle Styles) was released, the Inteleon engine finally had a chance to thrive! Now we can use Sobbles' (Battle Styles) “Keep Calling” attack that allows you to set up an entire squadrine of Sobbles on your field! The opportunity to use multiple Drizzile and inteleon a turn makes the engine truly thrive. Urshifu plays many trainer cards, and it becomes easier than ever to grab them with Drizzile or Inteleon! The other Inteleon in this list is actually the one we will be using more often than the other one. With the expansion of Chilling Reign, the new インテレオン (Chilling Reign) was released to the world. Inteleon (Chilling Reign) will allow us to achieve six prize card turns and aggressively be able to two-shot anything in the format!

Raihan is the new card in this deck that completely changes the complexion of the deck! For the past decade, we have had some type of card in the format that allowed you to select 1-2 cards from your deck if a Pokemon had been knocked out or if you were behind on prizes. With Raihan's (Evolving Skies) release, we finally have another type of these cards back in the format!  Being able to GMAX Rapid Flow turn after turn, as well as being able to search for any card with Raihan, really fixes any problems that Urshifu had. Typically, if you can achieve the strategy of using GMAX Rapid Flow in subsequent order, you will win every game. Now with the addition of Raihan, it is easier than ever to achieve your ideal board state!

The most critical part of this deck can take multiple knockouts at once. In the past, the inteleon variant had a hard time finding room for Telescopic Sight. The main reason was that the Karate belt needed to be played onto a Rapid Strike Urshfiu VMAX  more often than not. With Raihan already accelerating with energy, the Karate belt is needed less, and it opens up the door to using Telescopic Sight. Currently, this list has one copy of Telescopic Sight and one copy of Karate Belt, but going up to two sights and 0 belts is actually something that I have considered and is worth testing more.

These are my thoughts currently on Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX / Inteleon. I think this deck has a ton of potential and has great matchups across the board. As long as you can set it up, it can beat anything in the format! Currently, I have listed this deck as my second choice, but it could rise to the number one spot in no time! Thank you to everyone reading my second article on PTCGO Store. I cannot wait to continue my venture with this awesome website, and I love writing  Content for you people! Make sure to check out all of the great amenities that PTCGO Store offers, and they are the best place to buy PTCGO codes! These are my thoughts on which decks are currently my favorite for the Pokemon Online Global Championships, and I am truly excited to see who takes down the event this year! I hope to speak with you again soon.

Gabriel Smart is a contributing article writer for PTCGO Store. Gabriel currently resides in the Sacramento, California area and has been playing the game casually since 2010 and competitively since 2018. He streams on Twitch under the name GabrielSmartTCG, creates competitive Pokemon content on Youtube under the name SmartTCG, and posts about his tournaments results and life on Twitter @GabrielSmartTCG. Outside the game, he is a huge baseball and basketball fan and loves everything to do with athletics.