MewPerior Goes 5-2 at Wisconsin Regionals

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Hi everybody! My name’s Matt Ludwigson. I’ve been playing Pokémon for over a year now and this is my first tournament report / deck analysis article.

Even though I haven’t been playing this game long, I have played Magic: the Gathering competitively for over 5 years. I apply a lot of what I know about the strategy of that game to this one and I think it helps me be a better Pokémon player.

What inspired me to write this article was my 5-2 performance at Regionals, where I narrowly missed out of Top Cut, and I thought it would be interesting for people to learn what I played and how I came up with my build of MewPerior.

I understand that Pokémon decks are usually kept secretive but I feel getting ideas and lists out there helps the Pokémon community evolve each deck and helps to sustain a healthy metagame. Well, let’s just dive right into this.

When I initially heard about Mew Prime I instantly knew I wanted to play it. With my background in M:tG I was really excited for a combo based, straight forward, heavy hitting Pokémon deck.

My roommate and I tried looking for a list online to get a baseline to start playing the deck to see how it operated. Much to our dismay we were unable to procure a list so we decided to throw one together from scratch. Reading forums really gave us a good place to start, seeing as we kind of already know what the deck was weak to… Dialga G LV.X and Mewtwo LV.X! Here is what we started with:

Pokémon – 144 Mew Prime 2 Rhyperior LV.X LA 3 Sableye SF 2 Absol Prime 1 Drifloon UD 1 Drifblim UD 1 Houndoom G PL

T/S/S – 124 Pokémon Collector 2 Bebe’s Search 2 Palmer’s Contribution 4 Energy Exchanger

Energy – 3212 P 6 D 4 Special D 4 Rescue 4 Call 4 Double Colorless

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The ideal game plan is pretty simple: Get a Mew active and Rhyperior LV.X in the Lost Zone on the first turn, then use Mew’s Poké-Body “Lost Link” to attack with Rhyperior LV.X’s “Hard Crush” for massive damage due to the high energy count to collect 6 Prizes over the next six turns.

The deck wasn’t consistent enough for me so I made a few minor modifications.

-1 Absol Prime
-1 Dark Energy
-1 Psychic Energy

+1 Luxury Ball
+1 Rhyperior LV.X
+1 Combee (SF)

As I battled with the newly tuned deck I realized that cutting energies was not a good thing. I really liked what the Combee and Luxury Ball added to the deck though.

After playing another 15 or so games with the deck and drawing many opening hands, I realized the deck needed to be rebuilt from scratch and looked at from a different angle. Here’s the list I ultimately played at Regionals to a 5-2 record:

Pokémon – 134 Mew Prime 3 Rhyperior LV.X LA 2 Absol Prime 3 Sableye SF 1 Combee SF

T/S/S – 124 Pokémon Collector 3 Palmer’s Contribution 3 Judge 1 Dual Ball 1 Luxury Ball

Energy – 3518 P 7 D 4 Special D 4 Rescue 2 Call

This new list was all about not clogging the deck up with things it didn’t need. It is much more streamlined this way without all the chaff of the extra Pokémon and the clunkiness of the random supporters/trainers.

With Drifblim gone running Bebe’s Search isn’t necessary anymore and there are so many Psychic Energies that having one in your opening hand is almost a given, so the Energy Exchangers were out.

I designed this list to be as consistent and resilient as possible, however leaving it with a glaring weakness to a Dialga G LV.X or Mewtwo LV.X. I intentionally chose to not tech against them so as to not mess with the consistency.

The Cards to Play

Here is a breakdown of all the cards I played or considered playing:

Mew: This is your primary attacker. His attack “See Off” is one of two ways of getting your Rhyperior LV.Xs in the Lost Zone, which allows you to attack with Hard Crush due to Mew’s Poké-Body. His low HP of 60 is by far his biggest weakness. When playing you have to pretty much assume he will be Knocked Out every turn after attacking.

You play around this by trying to get as many of these onto your bench as possible, as well as using Rescue Energies, Combee and recovery Supporters to keep the flow of Mews going. It doesn’t matter if your opponent takes up to 5 Prizes knocking these guys out as long as you take 6 Prizes first.

Rhyperior LV.X: This card is played entirely for its attack Hard Crush. Having this in the Lost Zone allows Mew to attack for typically 100-200 damage. Two were run initially but then upped to 3 to increase the odds of having one in your deck and keep them from getting prized or stuck in your hand.

Sableye: This is your secondary starter. Ideally you want to start with Mew every time but running this increases your chances of not starting with one of your awful tech cards. In addition it is excellent for set-up, consistency and recovery.

Using Impersonate will slow down your ideal game plan of being able to attack with Mew right away but it is guaranteed set-up for the upcoming turns. Also when you are running low on Mews you can “Impersonate” for a Palmer’s Contribution to shuffle them back into your deck to keep the stream of Hard Crushes going. There’s also the chance for random donks.

Absol Prime: This guy is your worst-case-scenario emergency attacker. Initially it started out as just a way to Lost Zone Rhyperiors that got stuck in your hand, but it ended up being an excellent back up attacker. You can usually build one of these up on the bench while attacking with Mew.

A single Special D Energy allows him to 1HKO most Pokémon SP. He can also 1HKO Gengar SF without worrying about Fainting Spell taking out your precious Mews.

Combee: Combee acts like a fifth Mew. You really have infinite bench space because all you really need is a few Mews on it and you’re good. He allows you to get back a Mew that may have been discarded from Hard Crush without worrying about Power Spray.

Judge: This is the only card in the deck that interacts directly with your opponent. Once your Mews are up and running your hand doesn’t mean anything, so being able to shuffle in your opponent’s hand can be devastating for them. It is also a way to get more energies back into your deck to increase Hard Crush’s damage output that would otherwise just sit in your hand.

Palmer’s Contribution: Palmer’s adds so much depth to the games. Its main purpose is to grab five energies and shuffle them back in your deck, thus increasing the percentage that you would hit energies off Hard Crush. It can also retrieve dead Mews to keep the Mew train going.

Dual Ball: Dual Ball acts just like a Collector. I started with two and then cut one to play a Luxury Ball instead. Luxury Ball is a guaranteed Pokémon where you would still need to win coin flips to get the same effect from Dual Ball. After playing in Regionals I wish I would’ve played two of these instead of the 1-1 split. The card is really good for consistency, granted you can flip some heads.

Special D Energy: Having the ability to donk with Sableye is nice to have, as well as being able to attack with Absol for 80, a key number against SP decks.

Rescue Energy: Mew has 60 HP and dies all the time. Having more ways to get him back from the dead is a welcome gift.

Call Energy: This card is very situational. You never want to be in a position where you have to use it. If you are starting with Absol and going first, it can save your life, but every other time it really doesn’t do much. If you are starting with Sableye and don’t have another Pokémon on your bench you use this if you feel you’re going to get donked. If you were to run more techs, then more Call Energies become necessary.

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Drifblim: His attack “Take Away” is an out to anything that normally couldn’t be Knocked Out by Mew, such as Dialga G LV.X or Mewtwo LV.X, and “Balloon Tackle” is a very energy efficient back up attack.

Houndoom G: His second attack “Dark Slash” allows you to KO Dialga G LV.X due to his 2× weakness to fire without having to run any Fire Energies.

Stantler: Sableye is by far the best for this deck. Having the option to grab Collectors or to Judge was key in quite a few games. I briefly considered playing Stantler for his Call for Family attack. Unlike Pokémon Collector which puts Mew in my hand, Stantler could help with not getting donked on the first turn. Not to mention Stantler is an all-around cool dude.

Bebe’s Search: The main reason for this card is to tutor up Drifblim because there is no other way to get him. Or to be cute it could grab a Rhyperior to remove with Absol or put a Rhyperior back into your deck.

Energy Exchanger: This card allows you to “exchange” an energy in your hand for an energy in your deck and is used primarily to grab turn one Psychic Energies or mid to last game Rescue Energies.

The Cards Not to Play

This is list of cards I would NOT recommend playing for this particular version and why:

Azelf: If you plan on running one or two Rhyperior LV.X this card might be necessary but you should NEVER be running only one. Two could be the right call but even then why run Azelf when you could be running another Rhyperior? With such thick lines and a lack of techs, this card isn’t necessary.

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Delcatty PL: The idea behind this card is to put two energies from your discard pile on top of your deck to do more consistent damage with Hard Crush. This isn’t necessary in this list because of the high energy count. Running Delcatty would require more slots dedicated to setting it up than can just as easily be replaced with more energy for the same overall effect.

Also, running techs like this become unreliable once you’re already attacking because Hard Crush could potentially discard some or all of the line, making it worthless. The argument that Delcatty could be used as a way to attack through Dialga or Mewtwo is pretty weak.

I mean, you really think this guy is going to stick around long enough to take a few prizes when your opponent has one of those guys? And nobody wants to start with a lone Skitty.

Regice: Since I first started researching this deck I’ve seen a few lists running Regice. I don’t think this card is necessary at all. He is really bad to start with or have active at any point in the game, he also doesn’t add anything to the deck.

Running so many energies Mew should be able to 1HKO any Pokémon, so the need to switch out there active doesn’t net you anything.

Snowpoint Temple: Mew only has 60 HP so he gets killed by just about anything. Pixies wearing an Expert Belt can even 1HKO him. When playing against this deck with SP I even Knocked Out a Mew with an Unown Q!

I understand playing a few Snowpoint Temples so Mew could survive longer, but really how much better is 80 over 60 HP? Snowpoint Temple would prevent many of the random KOs your opponent would get, but there main attacker is still going to be able to 1HKO Mew.

Evolving Techs: I’m not against running techs in general, just any tech that involves evolution. With any of those the deck would have to be drastically changed. You would now have to run some number of Bebe’s Search to get the stage 1 Pokémon, and that means cutting other cards in the deck for it.

pokebeach.comThe only techs I would endorse would be basics. I’m even thinking about cutting an Absol for a Houndoom G in my future builds of this deck. The reality of the deck is, you need to be as consistent as possible and playing a bunch of Pokémon/Supports/Trainers/Stadiums that don’t actually do anything for the deck is counterintuitive to want you want to be doing.

Gyarados Version: I do not condone this version of Mew. I think this list is very inconsistent. It requires far too much set up. If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m all about consistency. In addition to not being as consistent it plays some pretty bad cards, like Regice. I feel that my version of Mew has a very good matchup against any SP deck that isn’t running Dialga G.

This deck seems like it would lose to any version of SP. All they have to do is “Bright Look” a guy with a high Retreat Cost (like REGICE!) and then snipe you to death with Garchomp X. The better looking lists I’ve seen that played both Gyarados and Mew seem like an unnecessary hybrid that should just be a straight up Gyarados list.

Pokémon – 224 Magikarp SF 3 Gyarados SF 4 Mew Prime 4 Sableye SF 1 Regice LA 2 Crobat G PL 2 Uxie LA 1 Azelf LA 1 Unown Q MD

T/S/S – 304 Pokémon Collector 3 Cyrus’s Conspiracy 1 Bebe’s Search 1 Judge 1 Palmer’s Contribution 3 Junk Arm 3 Pokémon Reversal 3 Pokémon Communication 4 Poké Turn 2 Pokémon Rescue 2 Warp Point 1 Luxury Ball 2 Broken Time Space

Energy – 84 P 2 Warp 2 Rescue

Playing MewPerior

The game plan is simple: Collect 6 Prizes before your opponent does. You’re doing this by setting up an attacking Mew faster than your opponent can get up and running. Now due to Mew’s low HP he will be getting KO’d pretty often, giving your opponent a prize. Most games will come down to trading prizes back and forth, with the winner being whoever can take the prize lead. That’s why it’s essential to get Mew active so early to get the prize lead.

pokebeach.comThis is especially true against SP. They normally wouldn’t have any trouble KOing six 60 HP Pokémon, but they do have trouble if you’re firing back for 100+ damage every turn and taking out their resources. SP cannot keep up against that kind of damage output and will quickly fall behind.

Most Gengar lists aren’t a problem for you either. Vileplume hardly has any effect against you. “Shadow Room” can’t 1HKO anyone in your deck and it’s very possible to keep all your Trainers and Supporters out of your hand to prevent Mew from being KO’d by “Poltergeist”, meaning Gengar has to 2HKO your Mews.

The biggest issue can be “Fainting Spell” which can keep Gengar even in the prize race. Gengar Prime may seem troublesome since you are feeding right into its win condition, but with your low Pokémon count and high damage output, you usually end up Knocking Out all of their Gengars and collecting 6 Prizes before they can get anywhere near Lost Zoning the six guys they need to win.

Most other matchups play out very similarly. You set up a Mew and attack with it. Doesn’t matter if you’re attacking a Gyarados, a Machamp, a Magnezone or a Scizor, they all crumble to a Hard Crush (just remember to not attach any special energies to Mew when facing Scizor).

From my experience several opponents would try hiding behind their high HP guys, not expecting you to have enough damage to take down their threats. This plays out very well for you since it allows you to take out there biggest threat in one attack.

Here is a general rundown of how the first couple of turns should ideally go.

Turn 1: Start with Mew. Attach a Psychic Energy to him and put Rhyperior X in the Lost Zone. If you happen to be going second, before you attack, play a Pokémon Collector and grab 3 more Mews. If there are less than three, grab however many are left and Combee. If you don’t have a Pokémon Collector, which will happen sometimes, Dual Ball and Judge are your next best plays. The whole goal is to find more Mews or Combee.

Turn 2: If you went first, play your first Supporter and follow the guidelines above. With Rhyperior X in the Lost Zone it’s time to start Hard Crushing. But before you do that, you want to see if there is anything that you can do. More than likely your hand is going to be garbage and full of useless energies. Generally you won’t be doing anything, so start Crushing.

Turn 3+: By this time a Mew is probably dead. Play Combee if you have it. Say you hit four or five basic energies off of your first Hard Crush and you don’t have Combee. Play Palmer’s Contribution putting back four and a Mew or five energies. Every turn after this is going to play out basically the same. If at any point you have a Contribution in your hand and five energies to bring back, do so. If you have a bunch of energies sitting in your hand then use Judge. Against SP you can use Judges to start messing with them, even if it isn’t a great time for you. Hopefully you’re not behind on prizes, and you should be able to grab 6 Prizes pretty easily.

Other scenarios and tips:

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– If you have to start with something other than Mew, you need to get some Mews as fast as possible. Sableye makes it easy; you Impersonate a Collector and grab three. If you start with Absol it’s going to be a bit more difficult.

Hopefully you have a Call Energy or a Dual Ball or Collector. The game plan is to get Rhyperior X in the Lost Zone. If you are lucky enough to start with Absol then hopefully you’re also lucky enough to have Rhyperior in your hand too.

– Regardless of who you start with you ALWAYS want to attach an energy on your active Pokémon. Everything in the deck retreats for 1 or less, so if you start with Sableye or Absol you want to have the energy on him to retreat on turn two so that you can attach an energy to Mew for his attack See Off.

– Anytime you can get a KO without attacking with Mew, do it. Donking with Sableye and attacking with Absol are the only two ways this will occur. The idea behind this is you are saving damage by keeping more energies in your deck, as well as keeping Mew safe from counter-attacks. Obviously if it’s your last prize it doesn’t matter who does the KOing though.

– If you’ve taken more prizes and you’re uncertain if you can take the last few, don’t be afraid to spend a turn re-setting up your Mews. Using Palmer’s to shuffle in a few Mews and then Impersonating a Collector to get them back can be a great play. You never want to do this if you are tied or they’ve taken more prizes than you.

– You should always be aware of how many energies could still be in your deck. It won’t be necessary for you to start counting energies right away, but after a few Hard Crushes you should start to look at your discard pile and count the number of energies. Add those to the ones in your hand and always assume that every prize is an energy. The reason to do this is to figure out the ratio of energies still in your deck and if you have enough damage to push through their last few Pokémon. If you don’t think you have enough energies left, you need to start thinking of other ways to get prizes. For me, that’s attacking with Absol.

– If your opponent can take the first prize and has the ability to kill a Mew every turn it is almost impossible for you to win unless they screw up. I wouldn’t be too worried about this though. Many players haven’t played very many games against the deck and don’t realize that you can easily deal 150 damage a turn.

Eventually they will goof up thinking you can’t kill their Magnezone and you destroy it. The key here is to be aware of what they could do to win and use your Judges to disrupt them more than help you.

– Dialga G is going to be a very tough match up and is almost an auto-loss except for the fact that you have Absol. If they stumble and can’t get Dialga X out early then you can take them down pretty easily. But if they happen to get one active then you’re in a bit of trouble.

Your Special D Energies cancel out their Special M Energies but you still need to attack twice with Absol to KO Dialga G LV.X. That doesn’t sound very hard but there are only a few Pokémon in the deck so having a Pokémon to put in the Lost Zone can be hard. The order that you want to pitch Pokémon is this; Rhyperior X, Sableye, Techs including Absol, Combee and then Mew. If they get Dialga X on the bench… you lose. There isn’t any way to interact with that. There aren’t enough Pokémon in the deck to kill all their Pokémon with Absol to get to Dialga X, so might as well scoop them up. Same goes for Mewtwo LV.X.

Tournament Report

Round 1 vs. DialgaChomp

pokebeach.comThis game was really dumb. He started with a Dialga G and I started with an Absol. Both of our hands were garbage and nothing important happened for the first few turns. I got my Absol ready to battle while he kept Deafening me… which doesn’t do anything, but he didn’t know that.

His first big play was to Time Walk for a Dialga G LV.X and leveled up. The turn after he did that I drew my first Collector and I had a big decision on my hands; what mix of guys am I going to get. I decided to get one Mew and two Sableyes. It was going to take me at least two hits with Absol to KO Dialga so I needed to play this smart.

It got to the point where I was one attack away from KOing Dialga when he peeled a Cyrus’s off the top. He searched for a Poké Turn and scooped up his Dialga, moved Azelf to active, re-played his Dialga G and shipped the turn.

That was almost the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. His Dialga was now damage free and I didn’t think I had the resources to KO it. I got an easy KO on his Azelf but sadly that was the only prize I took. He made his Dialga active, leveled it up and retreated it.

That was game and I scooped them up. MewPerior has no reach. I couldn’t KO enough guys to get to Dialga and if I did somehow manage to do that I wouldn’t have had enough Pokémon in the deck to KO it. So I extended my hand and said, “Good Game.”

Result: Loss
Record: 0-1

Round 2 vs. Leafeon

This match was pretty uneventful. I had my standard start with a Mew and just started taking out Eevees every turn. She played a few Professor Oak’s New Theorys for the first few turns yet couldn’t find anything that could save her. I was really worried that she was going to drop Umbreon (UD) and ruin my day, but she wasn’t running it. I 6-0ed her in prizes.

Result: Win
Record: 1-1

Round 3 vs. Gyarados

I had an awesome hand but sadly she had the nuts; Magikarp, Regice and Pokémon Collector. As I talked about above, you never want them to take the first prize… well she did. It was pretty bad for me that she only had to get two Magikarps in her discard pile to KO my Mew.

After she took the first prize, we just kept KOing each other’s Pokémon until she had no prizes left and I sadly still had one. It’s really hard to come from behind. You really need your opponent to mess up or have nothing in their hand.

Result: Loss
Record: 1-2

Round 4 vs. Magnezone/Regirock

pokebeach.comMy opponent had no idea what I had in store for him, literally. I was pretty pumped to play against this deck. It doesn’t have a very quick set up so I felt like I had all the time in the world to do what I needed to do. I had my standard start and it crushed him.

He really didn’t know that I could easily do 150 damage a turn. He kept leaving his Magnezones active thinking they could take a few hits… well they couldn’t. I think he took 1 Prize and I then I swept him under the rug.

Result: Win
Record: 2-2

Round 5 vs. Gyarados

This time around I was more mentally prepared for what I needed to do to win. She had a fairly slow start which was really good for me. I had a solid hand that allowed me to get the first KO.

Eventually she ran her hand down to one card in an attempt to get her Gyarados set-up and smashing again. Once I took care of it, she was all out of gas and I eventually won because she had no more soldiers left for battle.

Result: Win
Record: 3-2

Round 6 vs. LostGar

During this match I was really happy that I ran Sableye. He started with two Gastlys and I was able to get a turn 1 KO with Sableye. The main reasons I did this were, first, to get ahead on prizes and, second, because I had a Collector in my hand. I didn’t know that he was LostGar to begin with but once I found that out it was really easy to play around it.

He made a big mistake not reading Hard Crush; he thought that I needed energy to use the attack. That’s when I eventually got him. I took six easy prizes and the game was over. Plus I only had 3 Pokémon in my Lost Zone, two of which I put there.

Result: Win
Record: 4-2

Round 7 vs. Sablock

pokebeach.comThis was by far the most intricate match I had all day. He had a start that made it look like he was playing BlazeChomp so I was really confused when he started playing Judges. Regardless, this was another game where I started with Absol, but luckily I had a Call Energy.

My draws were really clunky and he was having a hard time getting going too. I started taking prize after prize until there were only two left. He started to make a comeback. Blaziken FB was fairly good for him, he continuously Luring Flamed my Sableye so I had to keep retreating it.

It was really annoying for me, but I understood he was trying to survive. I did some cute tricks with Mew using Lost Zoned Sableye’s Impersonate to reset my Mew train.

Result: Win
Record: 5-2

I missed out on Top Cuts by coming in 22nd but it was still a pretty fun day. I met a bunch of great people (Seeker) and had a good time with my friends. During the tournament the staff’s printer busted so the last few rounds were pretty interesting. I plan to keep playing and tweaking this deck. On the off chance there isn’t a mid-season rotation I plan to battle with this deck during Battle Roads. The list that I will be testing next looks like this:

Pokémon – 124 Mew Prime 2 Rhyperior LV.X LA 3 Sableye SF 1 Absol Prime 1 Houndoom G PL 1 Combee SF

T/S/S – 134 Pokémon Collector 3 Palmer’s Contribution 3 Judge 3 Dual Ball

Energy – 3516 P 5 D 4 Special D 4 Rescue 3 Double Colorless 3 Call

Overall I feel this deck is a solid choice against the current metagame. It has a very strong game against LuxChomp, VileGar, LostGar and most other decks, but with weaknesses to some very specific threats (Dialga G, Mewtwo, and Umbreon.) I would highly recommend this deck to anyone that is either looking for something different, something straightforward or something fun. Happy Hard Crushing!