Muk (Undaunted UD 31) – Card of the Day

pokebeach.com kn3ll_ here with a short message before the Card of the Day: I will no longer be giving numerical ratings for cards, since some people aren’t mature enough to realize that they are nothing but my humble opinion. If you feel that you could write better Cards of the Day, please do! I enjoy reading CotDs just as much as writing them.

With that out of the way, Muk from Undaunted! A Stage 1 with 100 HP, Muk’s Psychic typing and weakness should both be considered grey areas in the format. 3 Retreat Cost isn’t my cup of tea; especially for a Stage-1. 100 HP, as you probably know by now, is not a fun place to be. But, with a bit of utility, Muk manages to be one of my favorite rogue options in the format.

For a single Psychic, “Sludge Drag” allows you to switch the Defending Pokémon with one of your opponent’s Benched Pokémon. The new Defending Pokémon enters play as Confused and Poisoned.

There’s a boatload of usefulness in this attack: Confusion makes it difficult to attack, and Poison adds insult to injury. Switching the Opponent’s Pokémon is always a nice benefit, nothing like dragging an Emboar out for your other Pokémon to snipe around (although I wouldn’t recommend this strategy for Muk).

It is unfortunate that there is nothing stopping your opponent from retreating, however, but you should be able to regulate this by making intelligent decisions on what Pokémon to Sludge Drag and when.

Muk’s second attack, “Pester”, for a Psychic and two C Energy, deals 50 damage. If the Defending Pokémon is affected by a Special Condition, you make this 80 damage. Obviously, you use this in combination with Sludge Drag, you get the 80. But what if you don’t want to switch the opponent’s Pokémon? Roserade UL’s Poké-power should fix this, although it will take your energy attachment for the turn.

Unfortunately, Muk’s undoing is the fact that even with his two-turn combo, he won’t be able to KO most of the big threats. His plan is to not have to deal with them, instead preferring to pick on weaker foes and Bench-sitters. But one day, Muk will be walking(?) on the wrong side of town and every big attacker in the game will knock the tar out of him.

Pros: Switches opponent’s Pokémon, good damage for decent cost.
Cons: Expensive retreat, 1HKO’d by BW Legendaries, ‘good’ damage is not enough.

On an unrelated note: Check out the DJ mix I made for SixPrizes here!

Reader Interactions

23 replies

  1. tim h

    Muk was just one of those cards that are good in prereleases and not much else.

    What’s with the techno? I mean, it’s not BAD, but it doesn’t really make sense… techno for 6prizes?

  2. stephen shirley

    i think you should have the rating but ay if someone doesn’t like it they should say why in a constructive way

  3. Francisco Zúñiga

    Another card that you can combine with the Awful Hypno H/S, but obviously it does nothing to a Steelix Prime. And the who that doesn’t want more numerical ratings are not mature as you say.

  4. John Kiefler

    Muk would also work well with Metagross from UL which has the pokebody Psychic float.  IF you have any psychic energies attached to the active pokemon the retreat cost for for that pokemon is 0.  It also has 2 very decent attacks.  Just my Opinion

      • John Kiefler  → DrMime

        Yes it would but its still the same challenge with Emboar or Magnezone or Gengar or any other good stage 2.  A lot of it relies on can you get it out without trainers or with out RC or something. 

  5. matthew green

    Can anyone think of a way to get something out of the active spot if you are using Muk with Vileplume other then retreating.

    If not it would be interesting to see your opponent get an Emboar retreated and still have enough energy to attack.

        • matthew green  → Martin

          Even if it does if you bring up machamp prime they would have to have another one to fighting tag it out. Cant tag out with Donphan on the bench. Plus donchamp is gimped without trainers

        • Sam Stevens  → matthew

          Well what about something like Muk/Vileplume as disrupt with a very small line of Metagross for retreating Muk after sludging, and something like Leafeon to attack and gain bonus from the status effects… 2 stage 2’s and 2 stage 1’s is slow but both Vileplume and Metagross are only support and if you set up Metagross before Vileplume you can Rare Candy both of them … This deck idea also requires minimal psychic energy counts as both Muk and Leafeon only use 1 to attack and free retreat after so there is more room for higher pokemon counts

  6. Anthony Smith

    Nice. The vileplume idea makes me want to try to build something.

    I can very much much appreciate the jcore at least. Will give a listen after league today.

  7. Mekkah

    This seems to be one of those Pokémon with an amazingly cheap useful utility attack, that gets nowhere on his own. :( The way I like Muk is the best is Lost Zoned and used by Mew.

  8. Emil lumen

    There’s no point of rating cards after a rotation cause its value is going up and down and with the new cards obviously getting a higher buff, most cards from HGSS just cant keep up.

    Yea Muk is pretty good, annoying back then and still annoying now, but i guess everyone else is probably thinking (Oh i’ll just 1 shot it with my reshiram or my zekrom, I’m safe free prize)

    The only cards worth rating for now are cards that are in top decks, the primes or cards that can be tech in to disrupt other decks. Like Bouffalant for Speed Zekrom or Rayquaza/deoxys. Shaymin, Pachirisu, Juniper, Cleffas, tyrogue. 

    No point in talking about how useless a card is. Just wastes time for the writer and the reader. (Unless your funny like someone who wrote the Bibarel Rumble article :D)

  9. Austin Mitchell

    This card would’ve made a much better rogue when it had Muk PL and Skuntank G to back it up. Also, the music is pretty sick. I’ll have to put aside an hour and a half to listen to the whole thing sometime.

  10. Adam Bigott

    Muk Vileplume = pretty solid rogue this format no lies.

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