A Guide to Giratina VSTAR and the Lost Zone Engine

Giratina VSTAR shares the synergies and power-spikes of the lost-zone box of being Cramorant (LOR 50), Radiant Greninja (ASR 46) and Sableye (LOR 70) which scale well from early-game pressure into late-game closing. The deck-lists also often feature an additional attackers such as Drapion V (LOR 118) to aid in match-ups and Snorlax (LOR 143) to deal heavy damage.

Giratina VSTAR (LOR 131) is your primary attacker and one of biggest hitters into the meta-game, usually powered-up in the mid-game through the use of Mirage Gate (LOR 163). Giratina VSTAR is able to land impressive OHKO’s against opposing VSTAR Pokémon with its Lost Impact attack dealing 280 Damage and further accelerating your lost-zone through discarding two energy attached to any of your Pokémon in play.

Whilst 280 Damage might not be sufficient to OHKO a VMAX or ex Pokémon Griatina’s Lost Impact attack can leverage early game damage from your Cramorant to land the KO, set-up a significant multi-prize turn with Sableye or establish your lost zone to further enable a follow-up attack / secondary Giratina VSTAR to use its Star Requiem attack.

Giratina’s Star Requiem VSTAR attack guarantees a KO on your opponents active Pokémon provided you have at least 10 cards in your lost zone. This is an extremely powerful attack that can be used to heavily swing the prize trade or shut-down your opponent’s attackers. From 14 April 2023 and based on the cards in standard as at that date, there is no way that opponent’s can avoid this attack.

You are only permitted to use one Star Requiem per game and as such the timing of this attack and your target selection is fundamental.

ZO Tip: Opponents may try modify the damage taken by their Pokémon from Giratina’s Lost Impact attack through attaching a V Guard Energy or through benching Radiant Gardevoir, both of which reduce the damage taken by 30 and 20 respectively allowing them to survive the attack. Try play around this through effectively thinning your deck to draw into either a Temple of Sinnoh (negates the V Guard Energy), Path to the Peak (negates the Radiant Gardevoir) or Choice Belt.

Cramorant (LOR 50) is your early game attacker and is crucial in starting your prize mapping. Cramorant has the ability Lost Provisions which allows it to use its Spit Innocently attack for no energy cost and deal 110 Damage if you have four or more cards in the lost zone – a feat most lost box engine’s can establish early.

Cramorant is able to two-shot most Pokémon V, set-up for strategic KO’s with Radiant Greninja and/or Sableye as well as K.O most basic non-Pokémon V against opponent lost box decks.

If you are running the lost-zone engine than you need to understand when you should be attacking dependent on if you went first or second and have access to Colress’ Experiment.

ZO Tip: Always ensure you are planning when you will be attacking, losing out on this early-game damage and pressure from Cramorant can put you significantly behind in the game. Cramorant is an exceptionally strong source of pressure for a single prize deck / engine as its damage can lead to multi-prize K.O’s with Radiant Greninja or Sableye.

Radiant Greninja (ASR 46) is a hybrid Pokémon offering both consistency and aggressive pressure thanks to it’s Concealed Cards ability and Moonlight Shuriken attack.

We will cover the usage of Concealed Cards through our Thinning & Sequencing component of the article, in this area we will be focusing on the aggressive pressure that Radiant Greninja provides.

Radiant Greninja’s Moonlight Shuriken attack damages two of your opponents Pokémon for 90 Damage each, irrespective of if they are on the bench or in the active spot. This is an extremely powerful attack that is often used to K.O. opponent supportive Pokémon, establish board damage for a multi-K.O with Sableye or to claim late-game K.O’s against already damaged Pokémon.

Planning the usage of Moonlight Shuriken is often a core component in your match-ups against some of the meta-decks in the format.

Important Manaphy Note: If your opponent has Manaphy (BRS 41) in play its ability Wave Veil will prevent damage done to the bench, this is a hard counter to Radiant Greninja. In order to utilise Radiant Greninja Manaphy needs to be removed from play.

Moonlight Shuriken is a resource heavy attack as it requires you to discard two energies after attacking and requires two Water Energies and a third Energy to attack. Radiant Greninja is often powered-up through a mid-game Mirage Gate once there are seven cards in the lost zone.

ZO Tip: You may find in your practice with the deck that you are struggling to find the energies to pull of Radiant Greninja’s attack, ensure you are keeping a track of where your Water Energies are and how you can repurpose them. Always remember that you get a single attach for turn, sometimes the early game attachments to this Pokémon are extremely strong and provide you with multi-target Mirage Gates.

Sableye (LOR 70) is an extremely strong late-game attacker / finisher thanks to its Lost Mine attack which allows you to place 12 damage counters (effectively 120 Damage) anywhere on your opponents board.

Sableye is often used in a combination with Radiant Greninja to remove supportive Pokémon from play that often only sit on the opponents’ bench without requiring a Boss’ Orders.

Sableye is only available in the late-game as Lost Mine can only be used when you have ten or more in the lost zone. Due to this reason, you do not want to bench your sableye early in the game and should be focusing on establishing your lost zone. It is also often a prime candidate for recycling through Klara as it is an extremely powerful attacker that has unrestricted access to damaging across your opponents’ board.

Crucial Note: Damage counters are not defined as doing damage and as such Sableye is able to attack and spread damage whilst Manaphy is in-play.

ZO Tip: Whilst Sableye’s Lost Mine attack is simple to understand, the mastery of this attack is extremely challenging and inefficient usage of Sableye will cause you to miss out on crucial K.O’s and games. You need to understand how your early game damage transitions into Sableye and the plays your opponent can make to avoid Sableye taking multi-prize turns.

Drapion V (LOR 118) has been included as an attacker simply because of the prevalence of Mew VMAX in the format. Drapion V’s Wild Style ability often allows it to attack for no energy in this match-up and is an immediate counter into the Mew VMAX. Drapion V enables you to quickly answer to any threats from Mew VMAX opponents.

Giratina VSTAR utilises the lost zone engine / mechanic which is a double-edged sword. As a mechanic it can punish players if the wrong pieces are placed into the lost zone and prevent you from winning the game. However, it is also the best thinning mechanic in the game as it allows you to permanently remove cards that are not needed in the match-up / to close out the game.

As the lost zone grows so does the scalability of its power-spikes and the options for attackers. The sequencing of the use the components in the lost zone engine plays a vital role to achieve these numbers. Sequencing refers to the order which cards are played and how that can impact the game. 

Thinning is a term which increase the chances to draw a specific set of cards by reducing the total amount of cards in the deck, greatly increasing your probability to draw back into the core pieces at any given point in time.

The strongest attribute for any lost zone player is the ability for them to make an informed decision before needing to decide on what cards to send to the lost zone this mitigates the risk in lost zoning a key card required.

ZO Tip: To ensure that you make an informed decision at all times, your sequencing needs to enable you to have the information to make a decision. A general sequencing order can be established, however, might need to change based on the circumstances in-game.

In this section of the article we will cover the key cards that are used for thinning and sequencing in any lost zone engine deck and go into detail about how they are useful and any other considerations as to when you should or should not use them.

Radiant Greninja (ASR 46) is a Pokémon offering an extremely powerful consistency ability in Concealed Cards which allows you to discard an energy card from hand and draw two extra cards.

This is extremely powerful as it allows you to see more cards, effectively thinning the deck through discarding energy which can be recovered through energy recycler and/or Klara.

In terms of sequencing, you generally want to use the Concealed Cards ability every turn before using Colress’ Experiment or Comfey as it enables you to draw two additional cards and acquire more information for your lost zone decision making.

There are some instances when using Radiant Greninja’s Concealed Cards might such as: if you require the energy in hand to attach for a retreat, the energy you have in-hand is the last energy required for an attack or if you need to preserve your deck count.

Colress’s Experiment (LOR 155) is a supporter card that acts as a simultaneous draw, thinning mechanic and acceleration mechanic.

Colress’ Experiment allows you to look at the top five cards of your deck, put three of them into your hand and send the remaining two to the lost zone. When going second, this often enables you to apply pressure with Cramorant.

As you are required to place cards into the lost zone, it is critical that you understand the impact on your game by placing those cards in the lost zone.

We have provided you with some of our internal questions when deciding what cards to lost-zone:

• “What will help me more next turn?”
• “What is my immediate play; following this decision?”
• “Do I lose access to anything due to what I have prized?”
• “Will lost-zoning anything impact the ideal prize mapping.”
• “What is my best attack for the next turn?”

ZO Tip: Through using Radiant Greninja’s Concealed Cards ability before Colress’ Experiment we effectively see a total of seven cards while only have to send two to the lost zone, thus improving our knowledge of what cards we have available and making an informed decision.

Additional Sequencing notes: You might deviate from the general sequencing plan, if you might want to play a different supporter for turn (Roxanne, Raihan, Klara etc.) and in those cases you may want to utilise the other mechanics before Colress’ Experiement. This is situational and you always need to be aware of how using Colress’ Experiment can shape your current and future turns.

Comfey (LOR 79) is the final thinning and lost-zone acceleration piece in the general sequencing triangle for lost zone decks. Comfey’s Flower Selecting ability enables you to look at the top two cards of your deck and put one of them into your hand whilst putting the other card in the Lost Zone.

This ability can only be used if Comfey is in the Active Position, however, the lost-zone engine decks often run a high count of switching items (which we cover later in the guide) that allow you to cycle through Comfey’s and utilize multiple Flower Selectings in a turn to advance your lost zone count.

As Flower Selecting requires you to make a choice between two cards, it is often the last piece in the sequence as the card limits you to the information you have at hand. When combined with a Concealed Cards and Colress’ Experiment you would have placed three cards in the lost-zone out of a total of nine cards greatly improving your decision making.

Comfey is an extremely strong card in the early-game and your engine requires this, you should ensure that you target sufficient Comfey’s with Battle VIP’s and Nest Balls. In the mid-game onwards, unless you are behind in your lost zone you should always lost zone these cards if available.

Mirage Gate (LOR 163) is a powerful energy search and attachment mechanism enabling you to attach two different basic energies to your Pokémon in any way that you like provided you have at least seven cards in the lost zone.

Mirage Gate is a valuable resource going into the mid-to-late game as it allows you to quickly power-up any attacker and secure K.O’s. The card is only as powerful as to the options available in your deck which is reliant on proper sequencing and thinning decisions at the earlier stages of the game.

This item card is often a requirement to power-up your attackers, ensure you have an accurate count on the Mirage Gates’ available to you at all times and the probability of drawing into them.

Mirage Gate often pairs well with Energy Recycler (BST 124) which can put back into your deck up to 5 basic energies that you had previously discard due to Concealed Cards, Retreating or K.O’s.

ZO Tip: Always remember to do a thorough energy count for resources that you have already committed (attached on board), discarded or lost-zoned prior to playing Mirage Gate as it can only search from your deck.

Sableye (LOR 70) has been included in this section as it is an attacker that needs to be sequenced and specifically planned around. Sableye has an exceptionally powerful attack in Lost Mine which we covered above and its value in the deck will be highlighted in the match-up notes below.

However, in order to maximize the use of Sableye you want to ensure that you can set-up or take multi-prize turns as well as consistently recycle the use of Sableye through utilizing your Klara.

This is an attacker that can easily clutch games or just outright shut-down opponents and its performance is often directly correlated to your early-to-mid game decision making.

The power of the Giratina VSTAR deck is reliant on your ability to place cards into the lost zone and failing to do so will put you significantly behind in the game.

When utilisng the lost zone engine you need to ensure that you maximise your early-game ability to lost zone cards through Comfey’s flower selecting ability whilst also setting up for your following turn through drawing into your Colress’ Experiment.

With such an importance on early game usage of Comfey’s the majority of lost zone deck’s run a large number of switching cards to easily allow for multiple Flower Selectings per turn.

Note: We have not focused on the use of Battle VIP Pass as we have chosen to highlight the consistency cards available to you at all points of the game. Battle VIP Pass is an extremely powerful card on your first turn and should always be utilised to position your early game positioning.

Nest Ball SVI 181 is a item card that allows you to search your deck for any basic Pokémon and put it onto your bench. This is a valuable resource that can find you the much needed Pokémon at hand to either secure your consistency (Radiant Greninja or Comfey), protect your bench (Manaphy) or start forming your attackers (Giratina V and Cramorant).

Important Note: Nest ball can only be played if there is an open spot on the bench as once a target is selected it will go straight onto the bench. You are not able to play it if your bench is full.

Switch Cart ASR 154 is one of many switching items within the deck that allows you to Switch your Active Basic Pokémon with 1 of your Benched Pokémon.

Switching out, without the need for retreating, allows you to cycle between Comfey’s and utilise multiple Flower Selecting abilities per turn and advancing your lost zone. We would like to highlight that decks will often play multiple copies of Switch, Switch Cart and Escape Rope to maximise this whilst also fielding Beach Courts for a free retreat each turn.

Switch Cart in particular is an extremely strong card and one that gets stronger as the game goes on, especially in mirror matches as it allows you to heal 30 damage from the Pokémon you moved to your Bench. This can significantly change the ability from opponents to take multi-prize turns.

Energy Recycler BST 124 allows you to shuffle up to 5 basic Energy cards from your discard pile into your deck which allows you to recover any energies that you may have been discarded through ability use (Concealed Cards). 

This is a crucial resource and should never be blindly placed into the lost zone. Energy Recycler not only enables recovery of energy and pairing through Mirage Gate but it also allows you to thicken the deck count, should you be at risk of decking out.

Klara CRE 145 is one of your crucial supporters that allows you to recover both Pokémon and energies from your discard pile allowing you to chain attackers in the late-game such as Sableye turn after turn even if it gets K.O’d.

Klara is extremely versatile and should be used strategically. In some match-ups using a Klara to recover a Manaphy is exceptionally strong if your list relies on this bench protection.

Colress’s Experiment (LOR 155) has already been established as a powerful supporter acting as a draw, thinning and acceleration mechanic. It is also part of the consistency of the lost zone engine decks as it allows you to draw cards and running a high count of Colress’ Experiments allows you to consistently utilise this card and its draw benefits.

As with any lost zone engine deck, you are constantly placing cards into the lost-zone which in theory means you selected a better card to keep into your hand. This puts you at a heightened risk of being susceptible to constant hand disruption plays by your opponent through Judge and/or Roxanne.

This will reset your hand and often require you to have to make tougher choices as to what needs to be placed into the lost zone as a mid-to-late game Judge / Roxanne can leave you without recovery or switching options leaving you vulnerable.

Another common vulnerability in the deck is the over-benching of Giratina V’s, whilst the deck is specifically built around this Pokémon it is not always required in some match-ups and putting it into play may provide an opening for your opponents.

Lost Impact is a very strong attack against Pokémon V, but it’s inefficient against decks that rely on Pokémon that give up only a single Prize card when Knocked Out.

ZO Tip: You always want to be playing around Judge / Roxanne combinations and always playing to your “outs”. As the match proceeds the win condition for you may change and as such a mid/late game hand disruption from your opponent might not influence your win condition if you had enough early game damage. Remember to thoroughly think through each lost zone decision as it has an impact for each turn thereafter.

Pokémon (16)
4 Comfey LOR 79
3 Giratina VSTAR LOR 131
2 Cramorant LOR 50
2 Giratina V LOR 130
1 Drapion V LOR 118
1 Lumineon V BRS 40
1 Radiant Greninja ASR 46
1 Sableye LOR 70
1 Snorlax LOR 143

Trainers (33)
4 Colress’s Experiment LOR 155
2 Boss’s Orders BRS 132
1 Klara CRE 145
1 Thorton LOR 167

4 Battle VIP Pass FST 225
4 Mirage Gate LOR 163
4 Switch SVI 194
3 Switch Cart ASR 154
2 Energy Recycler BST 124
2 Escape Rope BST 125
2 Nest Ball SVI 181
1 Lost Vacuum CRZ 135
1 Ultra Ball SVI 196

2 Beach Court SVI 167

Energy (11)
4 Grass Energy
4 Psychic Energy
3 Water Energy

As with any lost zone focused deck the main purpose of the deck is to put cards into the lost zone thereby enabling the power spikes of early attacking (Cramorant – 4 in lost zone), energy acceleration (Mirage Gate – 7 in the lost zone) and late-game power plays (Sableye and Giratina VSTAR – 10 in lost zone), thus running a lot of switching options.

Giratina V’s Abyss Seeking Attack can put two energies into the lost zone which can really accelerate your lost zone count if you didn’t have the best hand or board state.

The deck currently features lost vacuum over Hisuian Heavy Ball simply to accelerate your lost zone count as you would need to use some bench space for a Giratina V. The Heavy Ball helps you out in mitigating annoying prizes especially with your one-of Pokémon so if you are concerned about that, it is an interchangeable option. Thorton is particularly useful if a crucial attacker was K.O’d useful and acts as a way of recovery for this card.

The two Stadiums for consideration are Beach Court and Temple of Sinnoh, are used for different situations as Beach Court helps in retreating and getting more Flower Selectings done, whilst Temple of Sinnoh helps nullify Special Energy’s effects, such as V-Guard, which Pokémon like Lugia VSTAR and Archeus VSTAR can use to avoid getting OHKO’d by Lost Impact.

We have outlined some of the key-aspects to consider against the top 6 expected decks in the SV1 meta game. This is not an exhaustive list and should only serve as a guide as to your decision making when going into tournaments; there is always a risk that that meta-game develops further than what we have predicated at the time of writing.

vs Mew VMAX you are able to have a straight forward prize mapping to victory by KO’ing two Mew VMAX’s. Giratina’s Star Requiem attack and Drapion V significantly swing this match-up into your favour as they are able to instantly trade and K.O a Mew VMAX thanks to the effect of Star Requiem and/or weakness from Drapion V.

Your early game focus is to ensure that you can accelerate your lost-zone through Comfey and Radiant Greninja sequencing.

Additional key match-up notes to consider when playing against a Mew VMAX deck:

• They often field a high count of supporters such as Boss’ Orders and Judge so expect to play around hand disruption and bench targeting.
• You need to manage your bench carefully and not leave Giratina V’s on your bench as they become prime Boss’ Orders targets. Try to only bench the two Giratina V’s just before you plan to use evolve them into VSTAR’s and use them, the opponent cannot kill two V’s in one turn so that is your window.
• Drapion V can be played at any-time, however, be vigilant of any Path to the Peak plays.
• Drapion V and Giratina’s VSTAR Star Requiem Attack are the prize map to victory.

vs Lugia VSTAR you are on a clock and the ability for your opponent to swing the match-up quickly is always building. At the end of the day, the match-up is often a coin flip and is generally in the favour of the player who was able to swing into their opponent first and claim the first 2-prizer.

You do have some benefits in this match-up as the only way they can OHKO your Giratina VSTAR is through a Tyranitar V with three single strike energies attached. Lost Impact is able to OHKO the opponent Tyranitar V through V Guard Energy and Radiant Gardevoir in play. The main problem in this match-up is the Lugia VSTAR with a V Guard Energy attached as you cannot OHKO it with your Lost Impact unless you have Temple of Sinnoh, however, be vigilant of Radiant Gardevoir in play.

ZO Tip: Ideally you do not want to use Star Requiem on Tyranitar V as you can trade well into a Tyranitar V, your prime target for this attack is the Lugia VSTAR.

• A common strategy is to ignore the Lugia VSTAR all together and shutdown the Archeops through Radiant Greninja’s Moonlight Shuriken attack whilst following it through on later turns with Sableye. However, this is a sub-optimal strategy if your opponent has access to Radiant Tsareena as they are able to heal of the damage and prevent the Sableye from K.O’ing both Archeops.
• It is also important not to leave damage unchecked because your opponent might play Collapsed Stadium resulting in prize denial through your opponent discarding Pokémon with damage on.
  

vs Miraidon ex in combination with the damage boosts from Regileki VMAX will result in the capability for Miraidon ex to OHKO a Giratina VSTAR and quickly shutting down your ability to utilize Giratina VSTAR for multiple turns.

• In this match-up it’s ideal to use Cramorant early, Giratina in the mid-game and clean up with either Giratine VSTAR or Sableye.
• You don’t want to be wasting KO’s on their Regieleki VMAX’s because that might force you to a less efficient prize route – where possible try stick to taking two prize cards three times. Cramorant together with Snorlax can take KO on their two prize Pokémon, which should you prize trade in your favour.
  
• If you go first or second in this match-up it’s important to bench two Giratina’s because the can easily KO Giratina on their first or second turn with Miraidon ex.
  

ZO Tip: Miraidon ex and Regileki VMAX does struggle to close out games as they need 3 Energies to attack and their only Energy acceleration is Electric Generator. In the late game when they run out of steam is when you capitalize by using Roxanne and taking a KO on their Pokémon that they trying to power up.

vs Gardevoir ex your primary target is to shutdown their engine ASAP and effectively stall them out of the game. You want to try hit seven in the lost zone as quickly as possible and use Radiant Greninja to KO two of your opponent’s Ralts or Kirlias.

It is very difficult for your opponent to recover from that, as you would have eliminated their draw engine.

• If your opponent does bench Manaphy, it means less Kirlias to use Refinement with. You then use Sableye to take the KO on the Manaphy and set up residual damage forcing your opponent to attach less Energies with Psychic Embrace that might cause them to miss the KO and then go into your Radiant Greninja.
• If your opponent does recover their Manaphy with Klara, you do the exact same in your turn and recover your Sableye with Klara and just KO the Manaphy again, adding residual damage again.
• The prize trade should be in your favour as you should have taken some free prizes with Cramorant as Gardevoir does not tend to attack up until turn three.
  

ZO Tip: The best board state in this match-up is three Comfeys, a Cramorant, Sableye and Radiant Greninja. Do not use Klara to recover your Cramorant, you can simply replace the Cramorant with a Sableye. If your opponent attacks with Zacian V, you can use Snorlax which should KO Zacian V if your opponent Psychic Embraced to it otherwise your can use Sableye to mop up the Zacian V, and an additional Pokémon on the same turn.

vs Lost Box This is a very back and forth match, where you want to stay ahead in the prize trade at all times. It is ideal to go second in this match-up so that you can set yourself up to take the first KO.

• Giratina is not completely useless in this match-up, as putting a two prize Pokémon into play might seem like a liability. The ideal would be to use Giratina V’s Shred attack to take a KO then evolve into Giratina VSTAR in the consecutive turn to take another prize and boosting your Lost Zone to get you closer to 10 cards.
• The quicker you can use Sableye the better.
• Use your Klara(s) to recover your own Manaphy and Sableye frequently.
• If your opponent does not use Klara to recover their Manaphy that opens the door to use Radiant Greninja together with Sableye to take two easy prizes.
  

vs Girtatina VSTAR Mirror matches are always a tough one and comes down to who got the better start. Ideally you want to start second so that you can utilize Colress’ Experiment and take early KO’s with Cramorant, whilst limiting your bench to single-prize Pokémon. It is vital to bench your own Manaphy as soon as possible to avoid any bench snipes through Radiant Greninja.

Giratina V can be used when you can bench two at the same time and your opponent only has one Giratina V in play. This match-up is very tempo based, and if you can set the tempo and keep it in your favour, you should have no problem winning this match-up.

ZO Tip: Remember that Giratina V’s Abyss Seeking is a mechanism to advance the lost zone state which can be a difference maker in establishing Sableye plays.