Matchup Notes for the Lugia format because I was bored

---

Matchup notes because I was bored
Here are some notes for controllable aspects of the relevant meta matchups. Recommended reading for anyone attending a major tournament in the Crown Zenith format.

Lugia

Mirror. Look for two-prize turns and try to deny two-prize turns from the opponent. Keep Lugia on the bench unless you’re ahead or if it’s getting at least two prizes. Raikou can sometimes get 2- or 3-prize turns, he’s the goat. Lumineon can kill a little guy and get itself out of the way. Lummy is ok to bench sometimes though, because he gets boss on their two prizers. Duns/Mana are situationally useful/necessary as defensive options against their Raikou. Guru isn’t always an insta-play because it plays into raikou. Stoutland can sometimes be used to close games, but sometimes it is a liability.

LZB (Ray). Don’t use stout if they are highly likely to respond KO with a one-prizer. Stout is best when: their hand is weak, they don’t have the counter on board, you marnie them, turn 2 going first, when you have two prizes left and you saved it. Some combination of those conditions are best for stout. If you can save it until the last two prizes, you will win the prize trade. If your Archeops become endangered then you may as well load up stout so you get to use it at some point. Manaphy on the turns they’re most likely to raikou, or just super early (turn 2 going first, turn 1 going second). If you rando bench mana mid game they will just Sableye it and get free 50 damage elsewhere. Basically you win by trading one prizers and denying them multi-prize turns/playing around their options.

LZB (Kyogre/Seal Stone/hybrid). Many of the same principles apply as Ray, such as when to use Stoutland. However, you look for good spots for Stoutland more proactively because it’s likely that your Archeops will die, therefore unlikely that you will be able to end the game with Stout. If you’re attacking with a single-prizer early (often the best option, sometimes stout or lum though), their best option is to ninja both your Archeops. On exactly that turn, bench Manaphy. When it’s too early to Sableye, they won’t have any good options to attack on that turn unless they have the giga nuts. They try to end the game with either Kyogre or Raikou Sky Stone Boss. If you leave Lumineon on the board, you’re begging Kyogre to kill you. If they suspiciously leave Lugia alone, they’re looking for raikou sky boss combo to end the game. You can counter this by benching Dunsparce at exactly the right time (late-game), or depending on the prize count, forcing a response to Stoutland. If they don’t have Manaphy, raikou can insta win the game. Don’t bother targeting Manaphy though, its too easy to get back. Sometimes you have to bench duns early to avoid insta-losing though. If you didn’t use Manaphy on their Greninja turn, you want to use it on exactly the kyogre turn.

Mew. If there is a convenient opportunity to one shot a vmax with powerfuls plus belt lugia or Yveltal you take it for sure. Sometimes it wont happen. Punching a Mew for at least 210 is fine. Raikou can get a 4-prize turn off the Mew plus the oricorio (or meloetta). This is a common combo and well worth ignoring Yveltal for. Sometimes the mid or late-game comes down to echoing horn, so you save one prizers to bench them all at the right time play around the horn. Charizard is particularly good because it nukes any two-prizer and doesn’t need archeops to power it up. If you play v-guard, it goes on the initial lugia vstar asap. Try to avoid benching Lumineon, unless you have to if your hand is dead or it’s enabling the four prize play. Being picky about your supporters isn’t too important as long as you are attacking. For Yveltal games, save vacuum for parasol.

Goodra. Lugia’s attack is a resource to remove temple, so try and keep it around. Same goes for vacuum and pumpkin. Raikou scoops an easy two prize play, but if Yveltal is more convenient in the situation, that’s fine too. Looking for a two prize play with stout is very good, as you will be denied stout in the late-game. Of course, the early boss kill on Goodra is also a great way to get two prizes. So you look for all of those. You never want to hit into a fully-tanked up goo, except sometimes with Yveltal when it’s convenient.

Duraludon. Save vacuum for parasol, pumpkin for temple, and powerfuls for the big combo if you play cologne (and if no powerfuls are prized). You don’t always need cologne, and you don’t always need Yveltal, but it all depends how the early turns shake out. Try to protect Yveltal and save it for the right moment. Early big lugia can get four prizes if youre going first, or just taking out the arc and leaving them with a naked dura is fine too. You need to be aggressive but also adaptable by not throwing away or committing too many key cards.

Regi. Use duns and mana. One time I started duns and it died. Then I star summoned it back and I won. Lol. Marnie Yveltal is a situational gift energy counter, so I think Yveltal is better than raikou. You just go fast and hope they don’t draw the nuts. Lum kills goodleki and gets itself outta the way and saves the energy most importantly. You need to conserve energy as much as possible because you’re gonna go through a lot of attackers and energy.

Rayquaza

Lugia. Play around Marnie with Guru and by playing cards out of your hand aggressively. Rayquaza is needed as an instant response to Stoutland. Otherwise, Raikou is often the best attacker. Lost Mine is needed asap if they are blueballing your raikou with their Manaphy. Your Manaphy on the bench whenever an incoming raikou would be possible. Whenever they don’t have Manaphy you just destroy them with Raikou.

Mirror. Spam the crap out of Sableye. Clearing Manaphy is great and strategically spreading ones and twos elsewhere. This allows for two prize turns with Sableye. Zig can help out here too if you play it. When Manaphy is not on their board, you can situationally use raikou for more overall damage than Sableye and an easier two prizes. Try to limit your low-hp mons on the board so they don’t get as much value from their Sableye. Saving switch carts and nets are useful for healing against their Sableye. Keep Manaphy on the board unless for some reason you don’t care if they raikou.

Kyogre. This matchup is basically the same as mirror but they have Greninja instead of Raikou. Greninja is slightly weaker as an attacker and easier to play around, so keep that in mind. Also when they don’t play hand disruption you can aggressively use guru before shuffles or lost zones to upgrade your hand.

Mew. Play to building two big Rayquazas and winning the game with two attacks. Cram and Sableye are sometimes free attacks but they are low priority. You will be getting harassed with Judge, lost city, and path, so only go in when you’re able to take three prizes at once. It’s ok to chill and go a couple turns without attacking. Also you want to thin out useless crap as much as possible so that you don’t get bodied by judge or Roxanne. If you happen to get two prizes at some point, you can raikou for one (if they have a little one in play) and then you only have to use rayquaza once. You can situationally play towards this line as well.

Dura. Similar to Mew, don’t waste resources unless you’re getting three prizes off a Ray attack. If they let you ignore the Arceus and KO two dura to win, then ignore the arceus because it’s a waste of resources. However, sometimes they make you kill it, so that’s just an extra ray attack which is annoying. This opens up the possibility of both your rays getting lost zoned which there’s really nothing you can do about if they play a bunch of lost city.

Goodra. I’ve never played this matchup but it seems straightforward. You need the resources for two big rays because Goodra is a big lad, so you play to that. And try to take two prizes elsewhere, such as with cram or Sableye on their little ones. Sableye can also set up a little bit of ping damage on Goodra which seems useful. Try not to go far behind because Roxanne might stall you out later on.

Regis. Goon raikou to take two prize turns. Sableye is also an efficient attacker. Even using ray once isn’t the end of the world, sometimes you need to. If you have Eiscue you are playing this matchup on easy mode. Goon Raikou is the best play though, try to do that twice for two two prize turns and you’ll win. Guru for marnie, Manaphy for Teraspark, etc.

Kyogre/Sky Seal Stone/hybrid

Lugia. Whatever your Stoutland counter is needs to be ready from early on, especially if you’re leaving something in the active that stout can kill. If not, it’s less of a priority. Preemptively benching zam/lax is fine. Manaphy for raikou, guru for marnie if you have colress in hand, etc. If they’re attacking with some random thing, you can go ninja on both archeops and then Sableye them for a lot of pressure. If they early bench mana, you can Sableye it and then play to kyogre. If they have mana wash, you lose, this new tech is so fake and terrible for kyogre. I guess you can boss it?! But keeping boss around for raikou seal stone is a good win con.

Mirror/rayquaza. Basically same thing as it is for rayquaza.

Mew. Take two prizes and play to setting up the kyogre for four prizes. This plays around Roxanne. Kyogre is almost always the win con in this matchup. Two Sableye uses are usually good for two prizes. Mana and collapsed are annoying if they have them, but those cards are terrible so their deck sucks. They usually have two two prizers for kyogre, but if they don’t, you have to prep mew vmaxs which can be kind of annoying. If you have Drapion this matchup is pretty free and you can play to that instead.

Dura. This matchup revolves entirely around spamming Dragonite. If you don’t have dragonite, you will probably lose. The seal stone version can ko one arceus and one dura for game, but it’s kinda hard to do that sometimes without dragonite.

Goodra. Sableye can take little prizes, but you don’t want to clear their bench too much so that rope kyogre can take three to end the game. Sableye preps the Goodra for the kyogre. Dragonite is good here because otherwise idk how the hell you’re gonna punch through even one Goodra/ take six prizes. I guess the idea is take one little prize, dragonite to brute force through one goo, which results in going behind in prizes since you’ll need to rod the dragonite back and punch more. After that, you can win with rope Kyogre for three.

Regis. Try to stay in the game by taking one-prize turns as much as possible. Sableye is great if they have 120 hp leki on board to kill it. It’s ok to take one turn to spread ones and twos everywhere with Sableye so that Sableye can continuously take one prize KO’s. As long as you’re behind by no more than one prize the entire game, kyogre can clean things up with a two prize turn. Play to taking four prizes as fast as possible and then using kyogre. Dragonite is good here as well, just make sure to keep a switch card against regice. Guru for marnie, mana for Teraspark, etc. Greninja is complete bait in this matchup, but of course can be situationally useful because it’s a broken card.

Mew

Lugia. You basically try to harass them with path and judge to delay their setup. If that doesn’t work, you probably lose. Early oricorio is good to deny their quad powerful belt kill, but it can die to raikou later. If they ever punch your mew, you can collapsed to discard it or the oricorio to deny the raikou play, but I think collapsed is kinda cap in the deck. Time the parasol depending on the situation. Sometimes killing the archeops is best because it denies Yveltal and cripples them, but sometimes you’re after two-prize kills or taking Yveltal off the board/dealing with an immediate threat. But if you have nothing better to do let’s just bop their archeops. If you have a tiny brain and play the aerodactyl version I guess you can use that if you go first and draw the nuts.

Ray. Lost city is crazy good in this matchup. I try to LZ their ninja asap, and if they have ray on board, LZ that guy for sure. Psychic Leap/judge can minimize the risk of ray blowing up your mew, but everything is situational of course. Oricorio is good because it annoys ray, it will prob die fast but that’s ok. Judge and rox harass them at crucial moments or just when they have a big hand.

Kyogre. I mean if they have Drapion you lose. Playing around Kyogre isn’t too bad. LZ their ninja immediately and late-game judge harass them when it’s possible for them to kyogre or when their hand is way too big. Also only play down two genesect and use leap tablet ko if a mew vmax takes too much damage. Keeping double vmax on board in the late game is good because it makes it really hard for them to win with kyogre. However if you feed them like three genesect that is entirely your own fault.

Mirror. What do you want me to say. It’s a complete shit show. If you go first, focus on winning the prize trade. Going second you have to harass them with judge path and vacuum their forest seal stone if they play it down. Same deal if you ever whiff and fall behind.

Dura. This matchup is free you may as well take a nap while you’re playing it. Just save the echoing horn for a good time. If you can snipe the dura before it evolves you instantly win.

Goodra. You have to LZ the Drapion when they use it. Judge path can potentially delay the Drapion play. You can double gust goo to reset it, and or boss tablet leap comfey to heal after goo punches your mew. Of course, snipe off little goos or lumineon and use horn for two prizes whenever possible. Just go watch Liverpool finals tbh.

Regi. This matchup is pretty bad. You rely on gusts and lost city to strategically target whichever is best in the situation, usually gigas. Horn lost city can potentially mess them up too. Judge cross switcher can get around gift, and that’s probably even better if you have collapsed. I guess you can triple tablet leap once to avoid gigas from blowing up your vmax, but this matchup just sucks.

Dura plays itself. Regi plays itself. Goodra sucks. Also I’m too lazy to do the rest.

Reply · Report Post