Vivid Voltage gave us some pretty strong new VMAX cards, but the strongest and arguably the best one is Coalossal VMAX! Coalossal VMAX has a whopping 330 HP & is a Fighting-Type, meaning it can also utilize Stone Energy to increase its HP even more! I have been able to play Coalossal recently to 2 online tournaments with nearly back to back Top 16 finishes! Here is the list I used, what it is about, and how to approach your matchups! 

The Decklist: 

Pokémon: 14 
- 4 Coalossal V (VIV)
- 4 Coalossal VMAX (VIV)
- 2 Oranguru (SWSH)
- 1 Phione (CEC)
- 1 Galarian Sirfecth'd V (VIV)
- 1 Dedenne GX (UNB)
- 1 Crobat V (DAA)

Trainers: 35 
- 4 Crushing Hammer (SWSH)
- 3 Great Ball (SWSH)
- 4 Quick Ball (SWSH)
- 1 Reset Stamp (UNI)
- 2 Switch (SWSH)
- 2 Tag Call (CEC)
- 2 Martial Arts Dojo (UNI)
- 2 Boss's Order (RCL)
- 1 Guzma & Hala (CEC)
- 2 Mallow & Lana (CEC)
- 4 Marnie (SWSH)
- 4 Professor's Research (SWSH)
 - 2 Air Balloon (SWSH)
- 2 Buff Padding (TEU)

Energy: 11 
- 1 Capture Energy (RCL)
- 4 Stone Fighting Energy (VIV)
- 6 Basic Fighting Energy 

This is the list I used to get 18th place at the recent Hegster Tournament; I had a slightly different list that I used to get 12th in the ChillTCG tourney, that build used 2 Weakness Guard energy instead of Capture and 6th Fighting. Some Coalossal lists I have seen online utilize cards like Hyper Potion & Recycle energy, which are fine, but with my build, we try to play a little more passive with cards like Mallow & Lana w/ Tag Calls alongside Crushing Hammer! 

The main combo with this deck is to use Coalossal VMAX's first attack, Eruption Shot; for a single Fighting energy, you do 40 damage, then you discard the top card of your deck & if it is an energy, you do 90 more damage, and you attach it to Coalossal VMAX! This means that you do 130 damage and self accelerate to Coalossal VMAX to power up its attack G-MAX Boulder which does 240 damage, a great way to sweep your opponent's V's! With Eruption Shot, we combine it with Primate Wisdom Oranguru to take an energy from our hand to the top of our deck to guarantee an energy hit for Eruption Shot! The nice thing about this attack is it OHKOs cards like PikaRom, Raichu & Alolan Raichu GX, and Boltund V! PikaRom is one of the most popular decks right now, so having a great type advantage is great! This card can also destroy Eternatus VMAX! 

Surprisingly enough, this deck also beats ADP! This is where the Crushing Hammers come in handy! Hammer was very helpful in this matchup to slow them down! This allowed me to either get a hit on ADP with Eruption Shot, and that is huge in that matchup as they start to damage you after they do Altered Creation, which usually takes a couple turns, especially with the Crushing Hammers! The Hammers really helped slow decks down where Coalossal was slower and did only 130 damage! Mallow & Lana was also good against ADP, where it made their Ultimate Ray weaker against my Coalossal, making it harder for them to 2 shot my Coalossal VMAX! I found that my best matchups with Coalossal were PikaRom, Mewtwo & Mew GX, Eternatus VMAX, and ADP! 

The matchup that was sort of 50/50 was Welder decks like Baby Blacephalon & Centiskorch. I found that against Centiskorch, going 2nd is the best way to go to try to minimize their energy attachments. If they go 2nd and build up a Centiskorch V with Volcanion, then Centiskorch VMAX just plows through the Coalossal VMAX, and we can't really tank! But going 2nd alongside Marnie spam can make the matchup a lot fairer! Once I realized this, I was able to beat the Centiskorch deck to make it to 18th place! By far, the worst matchups I had were LucMetal, Decidueye/Altaria & Orbeetle VMAX decks. LucMetal is too tanky and removes our energy with Lucario & Melmetal GX, which hurts us, so we can never really build up a big Coalossal VMAX. They also have Zamazenta V, which is immune to Coalossal VMAX and Coalossal V. This bad as it will get Ko'd by Zacian V; Galarian Sirfetch'd V is our best attack here, but even then, Zacian V can KO it. I don't really have a counter to Decidueye or Altaria other than Phione & Oranguru himself, but they don't really do much. Orbeetle VMAX just hits us for Weakness & since we need to attach energy to do more damage, we just play into Orbeetle's attack. This matchup is why I played Weakness Guard Energy originally since the deck was getting hype. 

Other than the LucMetal, Decidueye & Orbeetle VMAX matchup, I feel Coalossal VMAX can go toe to toe with nearly every deck in a tournament and win as it has favored matchups with PikaRom and Eternatus! Other cards I would consider putting in here are Weakness Guard Energy for Orbeetle VMAX/EggRow, 3rd Boss's Order, 2nd Reset Stamp, 1 Recycle Energy, 3-4th Switch & Tool Scrapper! 

Post By: Littledarkfury