The Almost Versatile Mew Prime

Today I’ll be discussing about my favorite card of this format – Mew Prime. Back in the days I was a big fan of Mew ex because it gave almost limitless possibilities for deck building. Mew Prime is far away from Mew EX’s glory and unfortunately it’s almost unplayable due it’s ridiculously HP and the fast format. Thankfully it might see more play in the future, when Eviolite and Archeops are released but I will get back to that in this update later on.

I’m bored of Mew/Yanmega/Muk variants and other Mew decks that are considered “metagame” and since this updates name is “The almost versatile Mew Prime”, I’ll try to dig deeper into Mew. I will be analyzing the wanted MewBox but there will also be a few crazy combos, metagame deck in different way and lots of thinking during the way so sit back and enjoy the almost versatile Mew Prime.


Mew Prime + Swanna (BW#37) + Tyranitar Prime
NOTE: IT DOES ACTUALLY WORK! LOOK AT THE COMMENT AREA!
This is one of the fun combos I have always wanted to try. It’s way too hard to pull of competitively but if you want to try it sometime, I will give the list later in this update. So first, you Lost Zone Swanna and Tyranitar into lost zone with Mew’s See Off attack. After that you attack Swanna’s Feather Dance with Mew Prime. After that, you simply attack with the Tyranitar’s Darkness Howl attack with the same Mew you hit the Feather Dance.
The funniest part comes now if you look at what the attacks do - because of Feather Dance, Darkness Howl does 60 damage to each Pokémon that isn’t Darkness Pokémon. In practice it means that if your opponent has full bench, probably all of their Pokémon are KOed with only 2 Darkness Howls which are powered with Feather Dance. That’s some heavy spread. And to be more akward combo, Mew KOs itself, with Darkness Howl and Feather Dance, it does 120 damage to itself(20+40x2 weakness=120). With Black Belt, things may got even more out of hand because then Mew Darkness Howl’s to your opponent’s active Pokémon 100 damage – whoa!
This one is almost impossible to pull out in a normal game but it sure is one of the most awkward combos that modified format has ever offered. However if you want to try this combo out here is a list for you.



Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
2x Swanna(BW)
2x Tyranitar Prime
2x Jirachi(CL)
3x Oddish
2x Vileplume
1x Relicanth(CL)
1x Cleffa
1x Absol Prime
=18

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Communication
3x Twins
2x Rare Candy
1x Flower Shop Lady
4x Professor Juniper
2x Switch
2x Defender
2x Pokémon Catcher
3x Junk Arm
1x Pokegear 3.0
2x Black Belt
=30

Energy:

4x Rainbow
7x Psychic
1x Darkness Energy
=12


The strategy is easy - lost zone Swanna and Tyranitar T1 and T2 with Relicanth or Mew. If you happen to start with Absol, then do it T2 and T3. After that make sure you do the things in right order. As you can see the deck has Vileplume but it has also many Trainers. These all cards have a meaning in the deck. In the turn you’re going to do Feather Dance with Mew you things in this order

1) Check if your opponent has any Pokémon he can’t OHKO your Mew with and has a big retreat. If you find a suitable one, Catcher it. If you couldn’t Catcher anything then skip step one and go straight to the step 2.

2) Attach as many Defenders to Mew as you can (2 are easily searchable with Twins).

3) Evolve Plume and play the Black Belt if you didn’t play a supporter earlier this turn.

This way your opponent is trainer locked and there is greater possibility that your opponent can’t deal 80-100 damage to Mew or to Catcher to the bench to stop the effect of Feather Dance.

As I look at the deck, it seems very much playable at least for fun purposes. Give it a try if you want to see your opponent’s whatisithisIdonteven-face.




Mew Prime + Combee(UD#44)

This combo abuses Mew’s HP which is in a way funny because Mew has so few HP. So the combo is to See Off Combee, give Rainbow Energy to the benched Vespiquen and start hitting 80+poison with Enraged Assault. Enraged Assault needs only 1 Colorless so Rescue energy for Mew is super in this deck. Vespiquen’s body also defends you from your opponent’s snipers (Yanmega etc.) It’s fast, consistent, but yeah Mew has too few HP, so it will have huge problems in competitive gaming. Here’s a list if you want to give it a shot nevertheless.



Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
4x Combee
3x Vespiquen
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
3x Vileplume
1x Sunkern
1x Sunflora(HS)
1x Cleffa
=21


Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
3x Pokémon Communication
4x Sage’s Training
3x Professor Oak’s New Theory
4x Rare Candy
3x Cheren
2x Black Belt
2x Energy Exchanger Unit
=25

Energy:

4x Rainbow Energy
3x Rescue Energy
7x Psychic Energy
=14


I don’t like this deck . There – I said it! Of course it needs Vileplume and Vespiquen protects Vileplume so Vileplume is totally safe. The problem is Mew’s low HP even though it has greater HP than Combee and the low damage output. 90 isn’t enough because you can’t use Catcher. And you can’t use Catcher because you need Vespiquen alive and Vileplume in play. This deck sounds fun in theory but doesn’t work in practice. Enough said.


Mew Prime + Octillery(UL#6) + Wobbuffet(HGSS Promo#04)

Once again, start by See Offing Octillery. After that you use Octillery’s Switch Cannon and bring Wobbuffet as your active Pokémon. Then retreat Wobbuffet(How? It will be explained in the list) and continue using Switch Cannon with Mew when your opponent’s is unable to retreat because of Wobbuffet. This is deadly slow way to play but I can see some potential for it even in tournament use. Here’s a list with short explanation.


Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
2x Octillery(UL)
2x Wobbuffet
3x Doduo
2x Dodrio(UD)
3x Oddish
2x Gloom
2x Vileplume(UL)
1x Cleffa
=21

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Pokémon Communication
3x Rare Candy
1x Professor Elm’s Training Method
2x Twins
1x Pokegear 3.0
4x Sage’s Training
2x Seeker
2x Catcher
2x Junk Arm
1x Fisherman
2x Professor Oak’s New Theory
=27

Energy:

4x Rainbow Energy
1x Water Energy
7x Psychic Energy
=12


Well, I’m not surprised that once again this deck has Vileplume in it. And for obvious reason, this is a stalling deck that needs to prevent Switch. The strategy is simple: See Off Octillery, build Vileplume and start hitting with Octillery’s first attack. It snipes 30 to bench and lets you switch the Octillery (Mew in this situation). You bring Wobbuffet and your opponent’s Cleffa has surprisingly a retreat of 2. Reuniclus retreat of 5 etc.
You use Dodrio to help Wobbuffet retreat (usually done with turn energy) and Fisherman to get retreated energies back. You can also try fitting in Metagross(UL) but I don’t like playing stage2 Pokémon once again with Vileplume. The obvious Catcher/Seeker combo is here as well because you can use Seeker to bring up Plume, Catcher something annoying from your opponent’s bench and evolve Plume right back onto another Oddish/Gloom.

As I said earlier this may even work. Even though it wouldn’t be a tournament winning deck, it will give your opponent’ a lot of frustration and hard time. In Swiss rounds I see this kind of deck work quite decently.




Mew Prime + Lucario(CL#14) + Relicanth(CL#69)

This is a combo that is old but was never really played on tournaments. However, I love the synergy between all these 3 cards. When you See Off Relicanth, you add 20 damage to Lucario’s attack and again when you use Relicanth’s Prehistoric Wisdom to Lost Zone a Pokémon, you add 20 damage once more. In theory, this deck is perfect because it has built in starter in it but unfortunately this deck is too slow. You need 5 turns for a true set-up and by then your opponent has already overrun you. Thankfully this deck is very consistent while set-upping so I’ll give you a list of this one as well.



Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
1x Riolu
2x Lucario(CL)
4x Relicanth(CL)
2x Absol Prime
1x Crobat Prime
1x Jumpluff
2x Zoroark(BW)
=17

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
2x Pokégear
3x Pokémon Communication
2x Switch
1x Energy Exchange Unit
3x Pokémon Catcher
3x Professor Juniper
4x Cheren
2x PlusPower
3x Junk Arm
2x Black Belt
=27

Energy:

3x Rainbow
4x Double Colorless Energy
7x Psychic Energy
=14


Thank god no VilePlume this time. This deck has a few oddballs. I consider 14 energies a high amount. It’s because you NEED T1 See Off or Prehistoric Wisdom – no exceptions. I also put in Zoroark and Jumpluff because you need fast damage sometimes. Crobat is for an easy Baby KO or poisoning big retreat things like Donphan Prime. You can easily start See Offing them with Pokémon Communications. Energy Exchange Unit – you need the DCE. And last but no least Black Belt. This deck may be behind prizes because of the huge set-up time so Black Belt helps to get rid of Big guys pretty easily. Black Belt also works through the trainer lock so it’s great against Vileplume decks.
I would love to play with this deck if it was faster. It has great synergy like almost no deck in the current format and it’s different. I just need Palkia G back to the format…



Mew Prime + Gengar Prime

Mewgar is one of those decks that was hyped early on when HGSS-on format was rotated but it was quickly proved that it missed something. Its tactic is to See Off Gengar Prime T1 and start Hurl In The Darkness T2 and eventually win with Lost World. What did it miss then? There were 2 main issues. First, if you played Mew orientated version of Lostgar you needed usually total of 8 turns to win the game(T1 See Off, 6 turns Lost Zoning, 8^th Turn Lost World). It sounds fast but because of Mew’s low HP 6 prizes were taken way faster than See Offing, Lost zoning and declaring the victory. Secondly, if you played Gengar orientated version of Lostgar you were usually facing problems with consistency. Getting up 4 Stage2 Pokémons is very difficult without Claydol or Uxie.
I however love the build I had pre-Worlds with this deck. It was Mew Prime orientated version of Mewgar which was fast and could win even so early than T5. It has its problems of course because I didn’t play it for Worlds but it was one of the pleasantest decks to play with. Here’s my beloved deck list.

Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
1x Gastly
3x Gengar Prime
2x Spiritomb(TR)
2x Shaymin(UL)
2x Jirachi(CL)
3x Smeargle(Portrait)
1x Mr. Mime(CL)
=18

Trainer:

2x Pokémon Collector
4x Dual Ball
2x Pokegear 3.0
3x Switch
3x Junk Arm
4x Seeker
2x Super Scoop Up
3x Sage’s Training
4x Twins
1x Rare Candy
2x Lost World
=30

Energy:

12x Psychic Energy
=12


As you can see, this deck works directly through Mew Prime. There is 1 Gengar Prime if you happen to get it to play. There is a Pokémons that support Mew as much as they can. Jirachi and Shaymin load the energies to Mew so if your opponent happens to have 2-3 Pokémons in their hand you can lost zone them all at once. It happens quite often. 2 are easy to lost zone because of Seeker and if they draw a Pokémon from their prizes.

This deck works also through Smeargle. Smeargle has 2 missions in this deck. First they act like a starter; it’s great to find ANY Supporter from your opponent’s hand. This deck can easily play Junipers too with Portrait because it works through Basic Pokémons. There are many Switches to keep Portraits going late game as well. Smeargle’s second function is to work as another Mr. Mime. With Portrait you can look into your opponent’s hand and see if there is Pokémons – this can be very useful. Portrait also guarantees almost every time a draw Supporter for you so you can use Seeker every turn possible and not to worry about drawing.

The strategy is to keep Portraiting, Seekering and Spooky Whirlpooling your opponent. Remember you can always SSU and Seeker Spiritomb many times during your turn to guarantee that your opponent has a Pokémon in their hand. I’ve won many games with this deck in turn 5 and hopefully this deck will once be playable – I would love to play this in the future if it ever becomes playable.



Mew as a counter

Mew isn’t usually considered as a tech but it works greatly as a tech. Many decks struggle with Gothitelle/Reuniclus decks because they aren’t able to OHKO Gothitelle. Gothitelle’s Psychic weakness is extremely rare and that’s why Mew has to be taken in the consideration when thinking of Gothitelle counter. Mew however isn’t an easy card to use a tech because you can’t just attack with it and OHKO your opponent, but you have to attack first with See Off to get Mew attacking something useful. Mew won’t likely survive after the See Off so you must play at least 2 copies of Mews in your deck if you want to run it as a tech.
The other thing which makes Mew hard to use is its energy cost. See Off needs Psychic energy. No deck runs Psychic energy so the only way to get Mew hitting is to play Rainbows which makes Mew unplayable for energy accelerating decks like Emboar/Feraligatr/Typhlosion variants. Mew however does work as a great tech in a deck like stage1 because it’s natural for them to play Rainbow energies. You can also build a stage1 deck around Mew Prime. Here is one example how to put Mew Prime into you stage1 deck.


Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
2x Minccino
3x Cinccino
1x Jumpluff
2x Zorua
3x Zoroark
1x Tyrogye
1x Manaphy
=17

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Professor Juniper
2x Pokegear 3.0
4x Cheren
4x PlusPower
4x Junk Arm
3x Pokémon Catcher
3x Pokémon Communication
2x Professor Oak’s New Theory
1x Revive
=31

Energy:

4x Double Colorless Energy
2x Rainbow Energy
6x Psychic Energy
=12


Mew could work here great because it’s a certain T2 Zoroark/Cinccino/Jumpluff if you can See Off T1. In this deck the main hitter is Mew but of course you can use your secondary attackers as well. The Pokemon lines seem funny but after you think about it it’s just normal with Mew Prime. Also, there is 1 Revive which you can use various ways during the match, to get anything you need from the discard pile back to play.
I don’t usually play Tyrogue but in this kind of Stage1 deck I had to do the exception. 4 PlusPowers and Junk Arms are just begging of Tyrogue. The deck is also very Supporter heavy and that’s why I play Pokegear 3.0 as well because it’s simply awesome in stage2 decks with high supporter count. I have tested this deck a bit and its main problem is to OHKO everything. Catchers don’t always do the job always because you can’t draw every time everything you need. This deck is great against Gothitelle and slower decks but it struggles with decks that match its speed. I recommend trying this out if you like stage1 decks; it’s a bit different view into stage1 deck building.


MewBox

First I was sure that I wouldn’t include MewBox into this entry but because I got so many requests for MewBox analysis I thought – well why not.. Quite frankly MewBox is the only true metagame deck that includes Mew Prime as a main attacker. I will give you the skeleton of the deck and then explain how it works.

Pokemon:

4x Mew Prime
3x Oddish
1x Gloom
2x Vileplume
3x Yanma
3x Yanmega Prime
2x Cleffa
Xx Tech Pokémon
=18

Trainer:

3x Judge
4x Sage’s Training
3x Copycat
4x Rare Candy
2x Professor Elm’s Training Method
3x Twins
4x Pokémon Collector
3x Pokémon Communication
=26

Energy:

4x Rainbow Energy
5x Psychic Energy
Xx Tech Energy
=9


=53


Strategy:

MewBox reminds of good old times because it has no straight strategy. Every match-up is played differently and how you play the match-ups are up to your teches. Usually the strategy involves around very slow spreading damage and getting prizes from the easy places while making your opponent unable to do anything. The deck is a combination of spreading, special conditions, slowing down the game and disturbing.


I will list here the most popular teches for MewBox (I’m sure I will miss some) and explain briefly what their main purpose in the deck is. Before starting, these all teches are to use with Mew Prime so no 1-1 lines just 1-2 copies of each.

Muk(Sludge Drag)

Muk continue the tradition of Drag Offers. Changing your opponent’s active Pokemon is always great and with Trainer lock it becomes even more powerful. Sludge Drag makes the new active Pokémon Confused AND Poisoned just for 1 energy. It fits this deck perfectly because Mew already uses Psychic Energy for lost zoning. So against what is Sludge Drag used? Well anything with big retreat. The best examples would be Emboar and Magnezone. Special Conditions don’t affect Abilities but Sludge Drag also stops Magnezone’s Magnetic Draw because it’s a power. Muk is a staple tech in this deck because it works against every bug guy in this format and gives you time to snipe your opponent’s bench with Yanmega Prime.


Jirachi

Jirachi is also essential for the deck’s main strategy. You try to get trainer lock set-upped as fast as possible and if your opponent is able to Candy few Pokémon you can devolve them with Jirachi and they won’t be evolving them back with Rare Candies. In fact, it usually helps you to get KOs with Jirachi if they have Candied because Basics have less HP than stage1s. Jirachi works perfectly with decks main strategy and its trainer engine (Sages) – Jirachi is a must card for every spread deck.
 

Jumpluff

Jumpluff is the first non-Psychic Pokémon but it’s also considered as a staple tech in this deck. Why? Since it can hit 120 for 1 energy. Jumpluff is the heavy hitter this deck need once in a while. It’s almost impossible to KO things like Tornadus, Zekrom or Reshiram if you don’t have Jumpluff in your deck. Jumpluff’s Leaf Guard can occasionally save your Mew from being KOed. Jumpluff is almost as versatile in this deck as Mew Prime itself.


Gengar Prime

Gengar Prime isn’t a staple but I like it’s versatility in this deck. When you think of Gengar Prime, you usually think about Lost Zoning and Lost World. The thing is that this deck can play Gengar Prime even though it doesn’t run Lost World. What’s Gengar Prime then for? It’s capable of many things. First, lost zoning with Hurl In The Darkness is great disturbing against your opponent. What would be better than to lost zone a stage1 version of his stage2 evolution line, while he/she is under trainer lock? Your opponent can’t evolve through Candy so it may be that you can just take the easy prizes with Yanmega from Basics.

The second attack of Gengar Prime also serves the strategy of this deck perfectly. It’s one more spreading attack. If you combine Sludge Drag and Cursed Drop with Mew Prime, you will do some severe damage to your opponent’s field. Cursed Drop is one of the best spread attacks there are, so it’s perfect.

If you want to go crazy with Gengar Prime you can add 2^nd and 1 Lost World and take the Lost Zoning option into account when thinking of how to win games. One good example would be against things like Emboar which you could first drag into the active position and then start Lost Zoning with the help of your Judges.


Cinccino

Cinccino is a better/worse Jumpluff, it’s up to your opponent. If your opponent plays smart, Jumpluffs base damage may be only 80-90 but because the decks in this metagame run usually many Basics on the Bench, there isn’t need usually need for Cinccino in this deck. Cinccino hits the guaranteed 100 every turn but it requires 2 energies. Well, you can consider running DCE if you want to play with Cinccino.

Leavanny

It’s the only we have – lol. Leavanny could be used for the set-up in the emergency situations. At least you’re guaranteed to get Vileplume up with this. Using Leavanny’s first attack with Mew would be super-slow but it may be worth trying if your MewBox suffers from lack of the set-up.

Leafeon(CL)

This is an obvious combo with Sludge Drag. After Sludge Drag, you get Leafeon hitting 100. That’s usually enough considering damage suffered from Poison. In comparison to Jumpluff, Leafeon is better because it doesn’t require Grass Energy. But it does nothing if your opponent isn’t affected by Special Conditions. Leafeon is worth considering but not necessary.


Zoroark

Zoroark is a god in this metagame. As long as Pokémons keep hitting more than they have HP/ the same amount they have HP, Zoroark will be among the best teches. Zoroark OHKOs Reshiram in ReshiPlosion, Magnezone Prime, Zekrom, Cinccino etc. Almost half of the metagame. Zoroark’s only con in this deck is that it requires DCE. This deck doesn’t necessarily want to run DCE so if you start running DCEs, I suggest you put other Pokémons there too that can use it.

Pokémon Catcher

Yeahh… Well you can use Catcher before you evolve your Vileplume. This can help in various situations (e.g. when your Muk is prized, discarded etc.) and I encourage you to try it. It can do ugly things with the next tech in the list.

Spinarak(HGSS)

Probably the most horrifying reminder of that we don’t have Warp Energy in our format. If your opponent plays Cleffa to the active position and you can set-up Plume – hit Spider Web against the Cleffa and shake your opponent’s hand – you have just won the game. Just Spider Web until time and turns run out and then take the first and only prize of the game.
Reminder: This doesn’t work against decks that can kill their own Pokémon (Reshiplosion)!

Aipom

Aipom is related to Spinarak. It can manipulate your opponent’s active Pokémon by making it energyless. This can buy you time or make you win the game. The point is to move the energies from your opponent’s active Pokémon to anything worthless (for example to a Baby Pokémon). This way your opponent can’t hit and may run out of energies eventually. Once they run out of energies, the field is ready for Yanmegas to start sniping around. Aipom and Spinarak are the cards in this deck that require the most skill to use correctly. You can’t give easy prizes with your deck to your opponent, so if you decide to run Aipom or Spinarak be certain that you have the skill required.



Naturally I can’t explain too in-depth how the deck works because I should go every match-up one by one and analyze different scenarios. In general, MewBox is a deck that requires skill to play but it also requires even more skill to play against. You can make the game easy for your opponent if he is playing MewBox and you just lay every Pokémon on your bench like a brain-dead whenever you have access to them. MewBox is no deck for beginners and I’m pretty sure that there are only a handful of players in the whole World that can pilot it 100% correctly all the time. 





The future of Mew Prime

Well, as I said in the beginning of this blog, the next set gives promises about Mew being playable. We have Archeops that stops evolving completely and Eviolite which is auto Defender (tool) for Basics. Mew can use this both well and in fact it can run both in its deck at the same time. Eviolite will give Mew the desired extra 20HP so it’s out of Donphan’s and Yanmega’s OHKO range. However, so will get all the basic Pokémons and trust me, the future is Basic Pokémon decks’ future. The future seems bright for Mew as well as for other upcoming Basic decks but that’s a whole another story.



That’s it for today. Hopefully you enjoyed this blog update because it was my first time doing this kind of update. I hope you comment on something about this so I know are this kind of entries welcome in the future!

// Be back to The Deck Out this week for my Battle Road report and more!!