MeesieMew - the rise of a rogue

Chandelure's Pokedex -entry speak for itself

Hi everyone!


It’s been a while since I’ve done a real deck article, so I decided to give you one today. As you can see, the deck of this article is MeesieMew, which placed to top8 in the ECC and got a lot of hype since it was a rogue deck. It hasn’t yet lived up to its expectations in the U.S. but it has still gotten random top placements there.

The reason, why I haven’t been doing deck entries for a while is that there really isn’t that much new decks. Other option would be doing an entry about Fighting decks of the format (Terrakion and Landorus) but I’ve gotten so many requests to review MeesieMew that it was an easy choice. In fact, I asked the deck’s creator – Mees Brenninkmeijer – to write this article for me but unfortunately he was busy. I hope you still enjoy this article!

Let’s take a look at the list of this deck.

Pokémon:

4x Mew Prime
4x Yanma
4x Yanmega Prime
2x Terrakion
1x Chandelure (NEX)
1x Jumpluff
1x Crobat Prime
1x Shaymin
=18

Trainer:

4x Pokémon Collector
4x Professor Juniper
3x Professor Oak’s New Theory
3x N
2x Pokegear 3.0.
3x Pokémon Catcher
2x Switch
4x Junk Arm
2x Lost Remover
3x PlusPower
1x Super Rod
=31

Energy:

4x Rainbow Energy
4x Prism Energy
3x Psychic Energy
=11

As you can see, this list is not a skeleton. I decided not-to-use a skeleton list because I think there is only a bit of variation to be done to this deck. Most of the techs, you want to lost zone with Mew Prime, stay the same in this metagame. There’s also only a little variation to be done in the trainer lines of this deck but I’ll get back to that later on in this article.


Strategy:

The strategy of this deck is probably the most complicated of the format. It pretty much depends on what you are playing against. Against each deck, you have the certain Pokémon, you want to See Off with Mew and use their attacks. However, there are few things that you will do in each game.

1) You want to get a T1 See Off
- No matter what you’re playing against, you want to get T1 See Off and Lost Zone something. The deck has 4 Yanmas, 4 Mew Primes and 2 Switchs so the odds for this are high.

2) You will probably take a prize or two with Yanmega’s Linear attack
- Yanmega is the MVP in all the situation, where you need to get the last prize and you don’t have a Catcher in your hand. Sonicboom is also a very decent attack if you – for some reason – don’t have energy on your attackers.

3) Terrakion is important
- Well, there wouldn’t be 2 of them if it would’t be good? I’ll get to why Terrakion is so good, later on in this article.



Card Explanations

Every card of this deck has a meaning for each match-up so I’ll talk about how to play each match-ups in this part as well.

Mew Prime

Mew Prime is the main attacker of this deck. Each energy in the deck aims at See Off and you want to get it T1. Mew Prime only has 60 HP, which is very low and T1 Mewtwo EX gives it a very tough time but once Lost Zoned something, Mew Prime will OHKO Mewtwo EX back. One of the reasons why Mew Prime is so good in the current format is that, it can OHKO Mewtwo EX. You’ll attack with Mew Prime throughout the game.

Yanmega Prime

Yanmega Prime is good against various of match-ups. It isn’t the main attacker of this deck but it’s very important part of this deck. First of all, Yanmega is very good against the fighting decks that are very hyped at the moment. Terrakion or Landorus can neither OHKO Yanmega Prime, which is huge. Unfortunately, Yanmega’s Sonicboom doesn’t apply to weakness, otherwise, it would be a godly tech against Terrakion.

Yanmega can also be used against CMT as a Tornadus counter. CMT with a high Tornadus count is one of those things that give this deck a very hard time. This deck has no ways of OHKOing Eviolited Tornadus but Tornadus doesn’t OHKO Yanmega either, so Yanmega is good against Tornadus.

Yanmega is also good against Durant, which don’t have Special Metal or Eviolite attached to it. All you need is that you match your hand size with the opponent can you have an OHKO to Durant. Yanmas and Yanmegas also have free retreat, so Durant can’t disrupt the deck with Catchers even if you play them down.

Last but not least, Yanmega is used for sniping as earlier mentioned. One of the decks Lost Zone targets is Chandelure (NEX), which spreads damage all over the opponent’s field. Linear attack is a perfect attack to take the prizes in the late game from the already damaged Pokémon. This is especially good against decks that have Stage2 Pokémon like Magnezone variants and ReshiPlosion.

Terrakion

Terrakion is one versatile attacker in this deck. It works very well due its fighting type but it can also be Lost Zoned. Eelektrik variants are very popular at the moment and Terrakion is the best answer, our format has to them. It can OHKO with Revenge any fighting weak Pokémon of the format from Eelektrik to Regigigas EX. However, as I said, it can also be Lost Zoned. You may have to Lost Zone Terrakion in cases, your Jumpluff is prized and you want to get your opponent’s Mewtwo EX OHKOed.

Chandelure

As you can see, there is only one Chandelure and no Litwick or Lampents, so it’s a Lost Zone target for See Off. Chandelure is probably the card, you will end up lost zoning the most if your metagame is full of Eelektrik variants. Chandelure’s first attack “Flame Burst” hit s30 to the active Pokémon and hits 30 damage to two of your opponent’s benched Pokémon. As you know, 30 HP Tynamos are very common at the moment so if you go first and your opponent has 2 30 HP Tynamos in play, you just See Off Chandelure and hit the Flame Burst for 2 prizes. Fast Flame Burst can cripple Eelektrik variants’ set-up so badly that you’re able to kill all of their Elektriks and Tynamos before they get to attacking. Not only against Eelektrik variants, but Flame Burst is good against any set-upping stage decks. Whenever your opponent struggles in evolving  his or her Pokémon, you can take easy prizes from all kinds of Pokémon from Magnemites to Cyndaquils.

Chandelure’s second attack isn’t either bad at all. In emergency situations, you might end up using Inferno to hit for high damage. It discards all the energy from Mew Prime but it doesn’t matter because Mew Prime will be probably OHKOed the next turn anyways.

Practically, Chandelure is a heart of this deck. I would love to play 2 Chandelures in this deck but it’s a sad fact that the space in the deck is so tight that some compromises has to be done.

Jumpluff

Jumpluff has been played with Mew Prime as long as it has been around. Mass Attack is cheap and powerful attack. It’s especially good against two decks. First, Mass attacking with Mew Prime is a very efficient way to go against straight Celebi/Mewtwo EX deck. The player of Mewtwo EX has to play with a very small bench to avoid getting OHKOed. Sometimes, even that doesn’t help because this deck has PlusPowers. So, Mass Attack is the best way of getting rid off your opponent’s Mewtwo EXs, every deck in the format has a big bench nowadays.

The second match-up, where Jumpluff is more than useful is Durant. If you happen to get a full bench against Durant, you will get a lot of damage to Durant. If they have to Bench Rotom, you’ll be able to OHKO Durants with Mass Attack even if they have a Eviolite and Special Metal attached to them. Durant has a resistance to Mew Prime so it isn’t as good as it could be but it’s still a very viable way to play against Durant.

Once again, there is only one copy of Jumpluff, which is risky but it works. Usually, you will end up Lost Zoning Jumpluff almost as often as you’ll Lost Zone Chandelure.

Crobat Prime

Once again, Crobat Prime is another Lost zone target for See Off. Crobat Prime is a 50-50 card in this deck. You can consider as a tech but I like how it works in the current format so I added it to the real list. First of all, it’s a decent counter against Durant but not the best. 4-times Poison is good against Durant but sometimes Durant is able to cope with that.

However, the match-up where Crobat Prime really shines is Solo-Terrakion. Solo Terrakion doesn’t have any other Energy acceleration but Exp. Share and Crobat Prime’s quadruple Poison is probably the best way in the format to avoid activating Exp. Share. Exp. Share will only activate if the Pokémon is KOed by the damage from an opponent’s attack so when KOed by Poison, all the energy on Terrakion end up win the discard pile. And you know how many turns it takes to fully load a Terrakion again – 3 turns. Also, Terrakion’s Retaliate doesn’t activate if they’re killed by Poison either.

Crobat Prime can also be good against Poke-Power Pokémon like Magnezone and Typhlosion because Special Condition stops their powers for working. Of course, this is a rare scenario since Poke-Power decks are rare at the moment. In my opinion Crobat Prime wasn’t a necessary tech in this deck, but now it’s a very decent play thanks to the shift in the metagame.

Shaymin

Shaymin does here what it does in every game – moves your energy all over the place. This is how you can easily energy accelerate your Terrakion when needed. You can also get 2 energy on Mew Prime with Celebration Wind, so you can use Inferno or Retaliate with it. It’s a very useful and a must-have tech in this deck.


Pokémon Collector – Pokegear 3.0.

This is the best way to guarantee T1 Collector and a lot of Basic for the set-up. This deck NEEDS a T1 See Off, so there really isn’t a game, when you don’t want a T1 Collector. 4-2 line has been the optimal way to do this in almost every deck and MeesieMew isn’t an exception even though it’s a different kind of deck.

Professor Juniper

Juniper is hands down the best draw card in the format so there is no reason not-to-play 4 of them. Also, it works very well with Yanmega’s Body. The usual hand size in this format is from 5 to 6. After Juniper, it’s very easy to get your hand size down to these numbers. You don’t need cards like Judge or Copycat to do that and at the same time, you’ll be able to draw a lot cards from your deck.

Professor Oak’s New Theory – N

PONT and N are the best shuffle & Draw cards of the format so it’s only natural to play them in every deck. However, in this deck, there is a deeper meaning for these cards. First of all, PONT and N are both great cards to match the hand size with your opponent. As I said, the usual hand size is 5 to 6 cards and PONT gets to it as well.

The other reason for high count of shuffle & Draw cards is that you can’t afford having your Lost Zone targets in your hand in T1. If you have a Chandelure in your opening hand, you won’t be able to Lost Zone it with See Off. However, thanks to Shuffle & Draw cards, you might be able to shuffle it to the deck and be able to See Off it even though you had it in your hand.


Pokémon Catcher

Nothing too surprising hear. Since this deck can snipe you may be able to buy some time with Catcher for Linear attacks. Pokémon Catcher is just a must play in every non-trainer lock deck.

Switch

As I said before, this deck needs a T1 Mew Prime. However, the deck also has big retreat Pokémon such as Terrakion in the deck. Thanks to Switch, you may be able to get a T1 See Off, even if you have a Terrakion start. You might even play 3 Switches because of 2 Terrakions but it’s very close to an overkill.

Lost Remover

Lost Remover is always disruptive but its main objective is to deal with the toughest match-up of this deck – high count Tornadus CMT. Tornadus will lose steam whenever you lost zone their DCE so Lost Remover is the best card to disrupt CMT. Without Lost Remover, CMT would be a very close to an autoloss match-up.

PlusPower

PlusPower comes in handy especially when it comes to OHKOing Mewtwo EX. Thanks to PlusPower, you’ll be able to OHKO Mewtwo EX with an Eviolite attached to it. PlusPower is also very good when dealing with 40 HP Tynamos with Flame Burst. The extra 10 damage will prove to be useful in every single match-up. PlusPower is that good.

Super Rod

I think Super Rod is a great in this deck because it has limited resources. Super Rod can also recover discarded Lost Zone targets from the discard pile to deck so you can See Off them. This is especially useful in the early game, if you are forced to discard your Lost Zone targets with Juniper. You can also get back Psychic Energy with it (there are only 11 energy in the deck) and you can get back Mews as well with it. Some players opt to play Revive instead of Super Rod but I prefer Super Rod because of its versatility.

Junk Arm

You know:

Energy

4 Prism Energy and 4 Rainbow energy is a must, so you are able to use Mew Prime as versatile as possible. It also gives enough energy for Terrakion, so you don’t have to worry about finding the right energy at the right time. Thanks to Prism and Rainbow Energy, you’re able to See Off and use Jumpluff’s/Crobat’s/ Chandelure’s attacks with single energy. The total energy amount of this deck is 11, which is fairly low but since the space is very tight, 11 will do.



Tech Options

As I said, this deck also has various tech options. Here’s a quick look through the most popular ones.

Max Potion

This can be used with Yanmega Prime to deal with the difficult CMT match-up. Thanks to Max Potion, Yanmega Prime will stand 3 Hurricanes instead of 2 Hurricanes. This can make all the difference in some games.

Black Belt

Black Belt – just like Max Potion – is mostly against CMT match-up. With Black Belt, you’re able to OHKO every Tornadus that gets into your way. Black Belt is also good against any other deck since especially against Celebi variant, this deck is usually behind prizes. The 2 Pokegears in this deck help to get the Black Belt / Belts from your deck, whenever you need them.

Revive

As I said, this is the other option, instead of Super Rod. Revive is more of an straight approach, and you’ll usually be getting a Mew Prime with it. I think Super Rod is superior to Revive in many ways but some players enjoy playing a more straightforward style with Revive.

Judge/Copycat

Even though the deck has a thick Yanmega line, it doesn’t run a single Copycat or Judge. That may seem like madness. But as I said previously, when playing wisely, it’s not that difficult to get the hand size to the same amount as your opponent’s hand. Of course this requires a lot of concentration, but this deck needs a skillful player to play it nonetheless. Playing Judge / Copycats are the easy way to get to the right hand size with your opponent. However, I think they are worse cards draw-card-wise.


Problems

As I said, everyone had great expectations for MeesieMew but somehow it didn’t rise to the tier1 of the format. The deck obviously struggles for some reason; there are two main reasons for this.


1) CMT with high Tornadus count

This is by far the biggest issue of the deck. Tornadus is a non-EX Pokémon and this deck doesn’t have anything that’s fully against Tornadus. You can put in 2 Black Belts, 2 Lost Removers and max out the PlusPower count but a consistent Tornadus swarm will still give you a lot of problems. The biggest problem is that CMT is one of the most played decks in the format at the moment. Even though MeesieMew has a very good match-up against the other top contender of the format (Zekrom/Eelektrik) struggling with the other top tier deck hurts its tournament success a lot.

2) Going first

Everyone wants to go first. Anything with Mew Prime as the main attacker – it NEEDS to go first. The first 2 turns of each player are the most crucial one when playing with MeesieMew. If Zekrom/Eelektrik gets to evolve their Tynamos before you are able to KO them with Flame Burst, you’re in problems. Also, if you miss the T1 See Off, you’re in problems as well. Since this is a card game, it will take a lot of good luck to get T1s in a tournament with 6-7 Swiss Rounds and in top8 to top16. No matter, how consistent the build is, you’ll still get crappy starts and this isn’t a deck that often makes great comebacks.


Conclusion

All in all, I think MeesieMew is more than an interesting deck option at the moment but at the same time it has its own issues. I’m a huge consistency-lover so I wouldn’t be able to take it to a big tournament but it’s a fun deck to play, so it would make a great BR deck for me. However, I’m sure that it first some players’ play-style more than well.

I hope you enjoyed this entry since it’s been a while, when I last made a good old deck entry. I hope you found the article useful and informative!

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments /feedback!

P.S. The correction entry of The Deck Out goes global: Spain will be released later this week.