Hello SixPrizers! Stephan here with another CotD! Today we will be looking at Mew Prime, and why it might still be good. As usual, I will review attacks, HP, retreat, typing, weakness and resistance. But you already know that, so let’s quit rambling and get to it.
HP
Mew Prime has an awful HP of 60. It is 1HKO’d by Donphan Prime, Reshiram BLW, Zekrom BLW, Magnezone Prime, itself, Mewtwo-EX, Reshiram-EX, Zekrom-EX, Kyurem-EX, and you can even 1HKO it with a Magikarp HS; play four PlusPower and then a Junk Arm for PlusPower and attack with Splash.
Now, you may be wondering how a Pokémon that can be 1HKO’d by just about anything can be good in the current format, but its greatness doesn’t lie in its HP, but rather its Poké-Body.
Attack/Poké-Body
Well, I am writing about these both at once because they are almost the same. His attack, See Off, allows you to search your deck for a Pokémon and put it in the Lost Zone, for the cost of a P Energy. Now, you may be asking yourself, “How can putting Pokémon in your Lost Zone be good?” Well, I used to play a Mew Prime/Lost World deck; its goal was to put six Pokémon in your Lost Zone and then play Lost World to allow your opponent to declare themselves the victor, but it was just for laughs.
The real reason why Mew Prime is good is because of its Poké-Body. It says that Mew Prime can use the attacks of any Pokémon in the Lost Zone, as long as it has the required Energy to use the attack. Whoa! That makes this Pokémon able to use a wide variety of attacks. Why don’t we look at a few Pokémon to put in the Lost Zone with See Off?
For one G Energy, this Pokémon does 10 damage for each Pokémon in play, both yours and your opponent’s. So, for one G Energy, you can do up to 120 damage. That makes it an instant See Off target.
Foul Play, for 2 energy of any type copies one of the defending Pokémon’s attacks. This is awesome against Zekrom BLW, Reshiram BLW and such. It can be useful, but it can also be bad, depending on the Pokémon you are attacking, so be careful what attack you decide to Foul Play.
Pidgeot TM
Pidgeot’s “Headwind” attack makes the Defending Pokémon’s attack cost two C Energy more until the end of your opponent’s next turn. This can kill things like Zekrom BLW, and should be used with Double Colorless Energy. It can be fun and disruptive, and you should definitely throwing in two of this guy and four Double Colorless Energy when building a Mew Prime deck.
A lot of people don’t know what Banette from Triumphant does. For a Psychic energy (which fits Mew Prime perfectly) it allows you to flip a coin, and if heads, choose an Energy on your opponent’s field and put it in the Lost Zone. You know that place you go every morning before you have your coffee? Imagine all your opponent’s Energy there, as they sit helplessly.
I was testing a Mew/Banette/Chandelure NDE 20 deck for a while, and I did beat The Truth, CaKE and a Durant with it. It was fun, but it needs work. The idea was to constantly remove Energy from your opponent’s field by Lost Zoning a Banette and then using Mew Prime to copy its attack, and using Fliptini to re-flip failed coin flips. It is a lot of fun, and you should try it out.
Chandelure NDE 20
This Pokémon is great at spreading. It can do 30 damage to your opponent’s Active Pokémon, and 30 to two of their Benched Pokémon for one R Energy. It is a great See Off target that really helps your Durant matchup, and you should try it.
Jirachi UL/CL
This is a weird idea to go with Chandelure NDE. The idea is snipe and devolve. While you might not have to Lost Zone it, you can still use it and devolve those Eelektriks after you hit them with Chandelure’s “Flame Burst” attack. It is interesting, but I haven’t tested it, so I will leave that up to you.
This is very interesting because it can Poison for four damage counters in between turns. That is crazy! He can also hit for 30 damage anywhere on your opponent’s field, and all for the cost of one P Energy. But, the problem with this See Off target is that your opponent can just retreat or have a 180 HP Basic active. This is another one of those cards that is affected by your meta.
The purpose of this card is to act kind of like a Pokémon Catcher that Poisons and Confuses the target for a P Energy. It can be really good, but with Skyarrow Bridge around, it became a lot less effective, so it is not the most amazing target anymore.
This little guy is fun. He can stall decks like 6 Corners that don’t have energy acceleration, but almost everything has energy acceleration, so he is not as effective as he used to be. This is another one of those Pokémon that used to be okay, but isn’t great now.
The idea is to swarm “Hurl Into Darkness” easier than Gengar Prime can and put six Pokémon in your opponent’s Lost Zone and then use Lost World to declare yourself the winner. You all should know this.
Swanna BLW + Tyranitar Prime
pokemon-paradijs.comThis is fun, but it ends up destroying you instead of your opponent. The goal is to use Swanna’s “Feather Dance” to increase all the damage you do by 40, and then use “Darkness Howl” to do 60 damage to everything on the field. But, after you attack, you also KO yourself, so it is meant as a fun deck, and I wouldn’t play it in an official event.
Well, that just about covers that, so let’s get on with this.
Typing, Retreat, Weakness and Resistance
Let’s start with typing. The Psychic type is awesome because it allows you to hit Mewtwo-EX for weakness and 1HKO it. Psychic is just about the best type to be right now except for Fighting, so that is great. Its weakness is also Psychic, which doesn’t really matter because of its 60 HP. It will always be 1HKO’d anyway, so don’t think that being weak to Mewtwo is a bad thing. It has no resistance, so not the best. It would be nice to see it resist something, but oh well.
Artwork
I love the artwork. I just love the background. I love how it looks like it is coming out of the Lost Zone. I love the eyes. I love everything about this card’s artwork, and give it a 10/10!
Overall
The HP isn’t great, but the card’s versatility makes up for that a lot. It can 1HKO Mewtwo-EX, use plenty of different attackers and lock opponents out of things they can do. It is a fun card, and may have a place in the format now that it counters something. I give it an 8/10 in the current format, because of the things stated above. Well, I hope you all have enjoyed, and remember to +1! Until next time, keep testing!
-Stephan
Great CoTD!
MewBox can be an effective deck, but it really comes down to if you go first or not. If you can See Off T1 every time, then you are in a pretty decent position. If not, then you basically lose.
60 HP is just so so frail in this format. If it was just a little higher then maybe it could be more decent.
Mew EX is coming out in Dragon Blade/ Dragon Blast. It can use attacks of anything in play, so you aren’t forced to See Off T1. Unfortunately it only has 120 HP, which is really bad for an EX. Rayquaza EX/Eels is gonna be big by then and only 2 energy is an OHKO. Plus Zekrom and pretty much everything else in the format currently still take the OHKO as well, and this time it is for 2 prizes.
There is no proof that Rayquasa will come out before Mew EX, I’d predict the opposite actually, since Rayquasa is a Dragon-type.
I’d also predict that Rayquasa-EX would be better with Emboar or Typhlosion because 1. It makes RDL A LOT easier to use, and B: You won’t have to retreat every turn or set up 3 Eels.
Rayquaza EX and Mew EX are coming out in the same set in Japan.
Emboar constantly needs a hand to function, and Typhlosion is a stage two plus it puts a damage counter on Rayquaza. Oh, and Typhlosion probably won’t even be around by then anyway.
A: Didn’t Groudon and Kyogre come out at the same time as our current EX’s?
B: Typhlosion won’t be around by then anyway?
Let’s look at our possible rotations.
CL-on: Leaves us with random HS-block cards and confuses Japan for Worlds, not to mention only 7 sets.
BW-on: Leaves us with 6 sets, no Special Darks or Metals, no Rainbow Energy, no way of getting Basics, and no PONT or Sage’s Training.
ND-on: leaves us with 3 sets.
A. There were the Reshiram EX and Zekrom EX Battle Strength decks that we didn’t get. Nintendo of America didn’t want 8 EXs and their respective full arts all in one set. Plus, Dark Rush only had 4 EXs, so they added Groudon and Kyogre to our Dark Rush (Dark Explorers). They chose Zekrom and Reshiram over Groudon and Kyogre because kids probably liked them more. Dragon Blade/Dragon Blast have 6 EXs and their counterpart full arts. That means we will have 6 EXs a set.
B: First argument: Why is Zekeels better than Reshiphlosion? They both have 120 and 150 damage attackers. Zekeels is much more faster, and doesn’t inflict self damage.
I don’t care whether or not they rotate to BW-on, but that seems to be the case. BW changed the rules, made abilities, etc. 6 sets was the normal number of sets when beginning a season, before that one year when they kept DP and friends in the format.
C: Tool Scrapper says hi to Garbodor.
Oh, and Garbodor now has been determined that it prevents all abilities, not just ones affecting the discard pile. So that is one more reason why Eelectrik outclasses Emboar (if there wasn’t enough argument already…).
B and C are good arguments, but why won’t they release another battle strength deck?
Why is it that 6 is the magic number, also? Even primes had a set with 8 and they were pretty strict to 6.
I just don’t see them being separated because then we would only have 4 EXs with a random 2 leftover in our set after Dark Explorers. Where would they put those?? In our set after that?? That also means that Japan would have every EX from Dragon Blade/Blast and we wouldn’t for Worlds.
B: SAB gives Rayquaza free retreat, and you’d theoretically only have to sustain 2 eels throughout the game while attaching 1 or simply take cheap prizes with less energy.
Interesting article–I hadn’t thought about those forms of disruption earlier (cough, cough, Banette).
I must point out, although some of the ideas are fun (Swanna + Tyranitar), for Mew, there simply isn’t enough time for those shenanigans. You have pretty much one See-off target before the Mews start getting steam-rolled (and even with one, it’s difficult).
Points for creativity and highlighting probably my favorite Pokemon, though. And yes, the artwork is impressive!
T-Tar/Swanna was meant to be a leage deck, and thanks for the feedback!
Pidgeot TM used to be fun, but I don’t think it can be used as effectively in Mewbox anymore, and isn’t an automatic “put two in.” Almost every single successful deck right now has Energy acceleration, so they can easily manually retreat out of it, or pay the extra cost. And the most common card right now? Mewtwo EX, which Headwind does nothing to stop. (Much like how Muk UD isn’t as good anymore, too easy to get around.)
That’s just my most prominent opinion; the rest isn’t bad and gets some good coverage on the card’s uses.
If you look, it says; “You should definitly throwing two”. Here is supposed to be a try between “Definitly” and “Throwing”.
I thought it was meant to be, “You should definitely throw two”; missed that one while editing last night. But still, easy to confuse. It’s mentioned as countering Zoroark, which rarely sees play anymore. I haven’t seen them since around EP, so maybe it’s meta difference, but if that’s the only case, I dunno if it’s worth the space. Mewbox is fun, but it’s hard picking the right See Off techs. But eh, not a huge deal, just a thought on it.
Wouldn’t Kyurem work just as well as T-Tar for the spread with Swanna, or better?
Not really. Tyranitar has a single energy spread attack, while Kyurem’s costs three.
In comes Electrode Prime.
If you want to use the “Give up a prize” argument, you have to think about the T-tar thing too.
I like the mention of Banette as an option for some shenanigans. That + 4 lost remover + 4 crushing hammer sounds like a trollishly fun deck. I doubt you could really prevent your opponent taking 6 prizes that way, but it’s a possibility. Plus there’s the disappointing 25% chance you gave them a prize for nothing.
Outside of that, I’d say the list of viable see-off targets is really just:
Jumpluff
Chandelure NDE
Crobat
Muk UD (though it’s not amazing anymore)
Gengar Prime (though it’s definitely not that great, but using it in combo with Gardevoir might work).
Props on including Banette. Even if it’s just silly.
Slops on including Zoroark. Seriously, what does Foul Play do for Mew? And you need a DCE to do it too! With Mew already having enough problems with a consistent T1 See-Off, anything with over 1 cost isn’t useful. And any strategy requiring over 1 See-Off isn’t useful. That and the other see-off targets which definitely wouldn’t work in this metagame : Especially Aipom. What’s the point of seeing off a basic pokemon with 1 colourless cost?
I agree hat Mew/Banette isn’t very great, but I went 1-1 against CaKE, 1-0 against Durant and 1-0 against The Truth, and the one loss was a T2 Cobalion attacking, and all I had was Mew. I also agree with your list of See Off targets, but it is greatly affected by your meta.
I can believe Banette can beat Durant and the Truth. Those decks run low energy counts and no form of acceleration/recovery. CaKE also isn’t a great surprise, since they give you prizes and you can deny energy after. But if you’re proposing decks or ideas for the metagame, it should be able to deal with Tier 1-1.5 i.e. ZekEels, ZoneEels, CMT, Reshiphlosion?, Durant and I dunno what else people would consider up there at this point in time.
But the rest of the see off targets just wouldn’t work in any metagame. Zoroark is played around way too easily, and also as I mentioned, means you have to run prism/rainbow/psychic E to get the See Off, and then a DCE or Gardevoir just to be charged in one turn. If you’ve ever played Mew, you know you can’t rely on multiple energy attacks since your mews die in one turn (Gardevoir being the only real answer to this problem).
A better See Off target with DCE cost would be Mewtwo EX, to see off against decks running Mewtwo/Zekrom to return KO without giving up 2 prizes. That said, still a bad idea because of the DCE cost.
Jirachi/Aipom/Pidgeot/Swanna+TTar all just don’t work : Way too slow to be competitive (or in Jirachi/Aipom’s case just completely pointless because they’re already basics).
One other See Off target I could suggest would be Vanilluxe NV.
I tried a deck with Vanilluxe as See Off+Mew/Eelektrik/Victini/Vileplume. Eels just provide the extra one energy needed to charge a Mew in one turn, giving you time to manually attach an energy to benched mews some turns (i.e. getting a rescue energy on). Still had troubles but decently legit. 4 rainbow, 4 prism, 1 Psychic E, 3 electric E, 1 Rescue E for 13 total energy. An extra psychic, rescue or electric would’ve been nice, but didn’t have space. 2-2 Eels too. Could’ve just ran a cleffa to stall between turns instead of eels though, but then you give them a prize half the time, and mew already does that too frequently.
<3 Mew/Swanna/T-Tar
Such a stupid but awesome combo.
I really liked the Banette tech, and I almost wonder if it could work as a crazy tech in Durant as opposed to Smoochum. I don’t think it would be entirely necessary but with Prism energy who knows lol. I’m surprised Unfeasant BLW wasn’t mentioned
Durant really can’t afford to waste a turn using see-off to get Banette in the lost zone for Mew IMO.
yeah, I agree in terms of competitiveness, but I think it would be hilarious to annoy people even if it wouldn’t do all that well + I kinda forgot Banette was a stage 1 lol.
If Banette was a basic I would play that thing like crazy, I love energy denial :D