In PTCG BRS Standard, Genesect, Inteleon, and Arceus Battle for Supremacy

When it comes to what the best Pokemon Trading Card game deck is, we usually think in terms of attackers. Mew VMAX, Jolteon VMAX, Ice Ryder Calyrex and the like. However, as we see regionals taking place around the world, and the kinds of decks that are winning those tournaments, the reality is much different. What wins tournaments isn’t really about the attacker. Ultimately, what we’re seeing being played out in major tournaments are these three different but powerful supporting Pokemon engines battling for supremacy.

Sure, these support engines pair particularly well with specific attackers, but the decks winning tournaments – indeed, the decks even doing somewhat well – are all based on one of these three support systems.

Remembering the Days of Inteleon

Inteleon had a long reign as the best card in format. Inteleon was present in nearly every top tier deck: Leafeon, Jolteon, Ice Ryder Calyrex and, of curse, Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX decks all leveraged the powerful Inteleon engine to secure victory.

That dominance finally changed when Genesect V came out with the Fusion Strike expansion. Suddenly, there was an equally powerful, if not more powerful, engine available to players. And the benefit of the Fusion Strike system, based on Genesect V, was that it was much easier to use. No longer do you have to keep every trainer card in mind at all times. Now you can simply just discard and draw as much as you like until you get the cards you need.

Arceus VSTAR Enables More Decks to Compete, Even without Inteleon or Genesect

Genesect V and the Fusion Strike system became the most prominent alternative to Inteleon. And Fusion Strike quickly became the most commonly played, top tier deck, winning a massive number of tournaments online. However, Fusion Strike has some glaring limitations that not even Inteleon has.

The main problem with running Inteleon is that it takes up a lot of deck space. However, plenty of decks can still sacrifice the decks space and be successful. However, Fusion Strike only works well with just about one deck. That’s not enough, however, to create a varied meta game.

The answer to this problem came in the guise of Arceus VSTAR. Arceus, the colorless Pokemon, can successfully be leveraged in almost any deck. What’s more, it is equipped with the most powerful ability in the entire game. Suddenly, plenty of decks and combinations of Pokemon with Arceus can be competitive. In fact, Arceus VSTAR decks (Gengar VMAX, for example) are winning regionals.

Today, despite that brief moment in time when Mew VMAX was the de facto best deck in format and dominating the majority of play share, we have a much more balanced standard meta game thanks to Arceus VSTAR. However, it’s hard to imagine a deck winning a major tournament like a Regional or bigger without leveraging at least one of these three engines.

Which engine will reign supreme? Well, given the recent win at the Liverpool regionals by an archetype many had discounted – that being Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX – one thing is clear: Inteleon and its very useful “shading dealings” ability is in no way irrelevant.