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Today we look at another honorable mention from our Top
5 list of new cards from the latest set:
Mewtwo (BW:
Legendary Treasures 53/113).
Mewtwo
is a Basic Pokémon (yay!) that is
not a
Pokémon-EX (while obvious, this will be one of its major
selling points).
Being a Psychic-Type will be important and not
just for hitting Weakness, but more on that later.
Mewtwo
enjoys 120 HP; this is enough to survive a hit much of
the time and is only 10 points less than the maximum
printed HP for Basic Pokémon that are not Pokémon-EX.
Psychic Weakness is shared by most other Psychic-Type
Pokémon making it a two-way street.
The Psychic-Type Pokémon that have other forms of
Weakness (fortunately for
Mewtwo) will
have only 10 HP left after taking a shot from this
card’s “big” attack (more on it later) save for
Chandelure EX
(the only outlier I found); important as Weakness
becomes less of a factor when something as simple as a
Hypnotoxic Laser
means you both OHKO each other.
Even the aforementioned
Chandelure EX
isn’t totally safe; the plausible combo of
Hypnotoxic Laser,
Virbank City Gym,
and Silver
Bangle score enough damage to OHKO even it!
The lack of Resistance “is what it is”; a common
occurrence even if I don’t like it, but a minor thing
even if present outside of very specific circumstances:
Resistance is no where as potent as Weakness.
The two Energy Retreat Cost is not technically
bad, but is not good; this is a format where getting an
Active “out of the way” is often important because it
has been afflicted or is just not the optimum play and
you need to generate maximum advantage.
As such, paying out two Energy is a bit much; it
isn’t a major issue because most decks will zero it out
or bypass manually retreating entirely.
Overall the stats are good but not great: what about the
attacks?
Power Edge is not as impressive as its name: 30 points
of damage for (CC) is merely “functional” as decks with
most forms of Energy acceleration can probably power it
up in one turn but it isn’t hitting hard enough to take
out even an Evolving Basic Pokémon without some help,
save the odd 30 HP card that still sees play.
It does have a strength and that is reliability
and how the Energy cost compliments its big brother,
Psyslash.
Psyslash costs a hefty (PPCC) and that you discard two
Energy from
Mewtwo but scores 120 points of damage.
On their own these two attacks definitely don’t
cut it, but this is probably the kind of pricing schema
that the game needs to get back to using.
If the deck can accelerate Energy, then as a
one-two combo you hit 150 points of damage… which means
most forms of damage boosting would put everything in
2HKO range. Again,
not brilliant but functional.
Basic Pokémon that aren’t a Pokémon-EX, can hit 120
damage reliably (no targeting restrictions, flips, etc.)
and can sometimes survive a “real” attack are worth a
second look, and that is what got me thinking about this
card.
Gardevoir (BW:
Next Destinies 57/99; BW: Dark Explorers
109/108) is a somewhat fragile (120 HP) Bench-sitter
that has been looking for a good partner.
If you don’t remember what
Gardevoir
does, its Ability causes basic
Psychic Energy
cards attached to your Psychic-Type Pokémon to provide
(PP) instead of just (P).
When it was new (or at least still new-ish) the play
seemed to be trying to beef up
Mewtwo EX or
being really daring and trying to beef up
Gothitelle (BW:
Emerging Powers 47/98; BW: Legendary Treasures
72/113).
Both cards had better partners in other decks, and
Mewtwo EX
probably still does.
So why use it with the new, plain
Mewtwo?
For waging a resource war: with proper management
it may be possible to “throw”
Mewtwo at
more costly opposing Pokémon and break even or pull
ahead in terms of Prizes and/or Energy.
The main concern is that you need to get ahead in Energy
enough that when a
Mewtwo goes
down, you have a second with two actual, basic
Psychic Energy
cards that Psychic Mirage (the Ability of said
Gardevoir)
is causing to provide (PPPP)… enough you can Psyslash
turn after turn.
Note that if a
Mewtwo
survives through your opponent’s turn after having
attacked with Psyslash, the attack references Energy
discarded, not Energy cards: with Psychic Mirage in
effect you can discard a single
Psychic Energy
to meet the cost and thus another manual attachment
would re-ready Psyslash for the next turn.
So what are the flaws with this strategy?
Gardevoir
can’t be in play your first and will require both space
and skill to set-up, though at least multiples are
redundancies.
The deck also needs another way to accelerate
basic Psychic
Energy attachments because you still need two per
Mewtwo: odds
are a Mewtwo
will go down before taking its requisite KO and/or
having the next one prepped.
Throw in
Crushing Hammer or Abilities being shut off and
you’ve got another point of vulnerability.
There are some answers.
Silver
Bangle and
Hypnotoxic Laser/Virbank
City Gym put most Pokémon that see competitive play
into OHKO range… all if we ignore the tricks such decks
will usually try to make their own Pokémon last longer.
Silver
Mirror means Team Plasma decks have to dig for
counters (Tool
Scrapper, non-Team-Plasma-attacker, etc.) and while
that deck uses some non-Pokémon-EX,
Hypnotoxic Laser
puts all of those into OHKO range if they aren’t
sporting
Eviolite or similar tricks.
Exp. Share
might be worth it as well; if your opponent fails to
discard it, you’ll at most need a single Energy
attachment to prep Psyslash, though it would block other
Pokémon Tool usage.
Musharna
(BW: Next Destinies 59/99) with
Ether was
that combo that was “the next big thing” that actually
never was.
Trying it here would mean running two Evolution lines
but (but not two Stage 2) and once
Musharna is
online, you’ll get an extra card in hand while knowing
the top card of your deck once per turn per
Musharna in
addition to trying for
Ether.
There are several other attackers to consider as well;
Basic Pokémon that could be run as singles or doubles
for key situations;
Sigilyph (BW:
Dragons Exalted 52/124; BW: Plasma Freeze
118/116; BW: Legendary Treasures 66/113) and its
Safeguard can wall against Pokémon-EX while
Mewtwo EX is
still a great back-up or co-attacker when the extra
Prize upon being KOed won’t hurt.
You might even risk a Tool Drop variant, in which
case Mewtwo
is probably just a back-up attacker itself.
Like Gallade
from yesterday, it isn’t clear exactly what to do or if
it will work, but unlike
Gallade I
believe there is a real chance here.
Mr. Mime
(BW: Plasma Freeze 47/116) might eat up yet
another Bench slot, but with
Pokémon Catcher
now functioning like
Pokémon Reversal
and no attacking on the first turn, it should be
possible to set-up at least one
Gardevoir,
and if going first probably a
Mewtwo
before your opponent can start taking Prizes.
For Unlimited, you could make a functional deck out of
this, but there are so many other cards to use before
you get to what I still assume are the more impressive
decks.
Still lack a good means of testing ideas here or other
source of data, so this is more “Theorymon” than usual.
For Limited, if you can get enough Pokémon that
work with
Psychic Energy to run with it (and it doesn’t have
to be a mono-Energy-Type deck), this seems like a very
good pick.
Psyslash will OHKO most things that aren’t Pokémon-EX.
Just remember unless you get a double lucky pull
(from your initial boosters) and draw (from your deck)
of Double
Colorless Energy, you’ll have to alternate between
Power Edge and Psyslash.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1.75/5
Modified:
3/5
Limited:
3.8/5
Summary
While Mewtwo
is a long shot, I don’t think building a successful deck
that utilizes it is impossible or even improbable… just
very tricky and unlikely to be worth the hassle.
Still, if you’re looking to shake things up
without going truly bizarre, it is something to
experiment with and there is even that outside chance it
won’t just be functional but will be good.
As indicated yesterday, this was my number four pick for
my new card Top 5 list of BW: Legendary Treasures,
and probably should have been my number five pick.
My actual number five pick, yesterday’s
Gallade,
shouldn’t have made the cut and
Excadrill EX
should have been the fourth place pick (maybe even the
third).
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