Cats for Cali — Why Mega Mewtwo is the Play and More Options for Vespiquen

Hello everyone! This is Grant Manley with another article for you guys. M Mewtwo-EX is a deck that is not talked about very much nowadays and I really have no idea why that is the case. I used to absolutely detest this deck, and my salty attitude was only compounded when my Orlando Regionals run was ended by it. Since then, I have gotten over any negative feelings about Mega Mewtwo and I see it as the best deck in Standard right now. This article will be heavily devoted to Mega Mewtwo and its place in the current Standard format. I am not personally going to Anaheim Regionals, but if any of you are, I highly encourage you to consider playing Mewtwo.

In this article I’m going to talk about some different things you can do with Mewtwo, though I am going to focus solely on the Psychic-type build. I placed first and third at the two League Cups that I played Mewtwo at, so I will go over my tournament reports from those events. Of course, I’ll also go into card counts and matchups and all of that good stuff for you. I also feel obligated to talk about Vespiquen some more. I know I’ve discussed the deck a lot in my previous articles, but the options for it are ever-changing. I still believe that Vespiquen is one of the best decks in the format. I’ve also never discussed Vespiquen’s matchups in-depth, so I plan on doing that today as well.

Mega Mewtwo

Here is a skeleton Mega Mewtwo list. What you do with the remaining slots is up to you.

Free Slots – 6

Since the skeleton list is so tight, it is no wonder that Mewtwo lists have barely changed since its first major tournament finish at Orlando Regionals. You could argue that the second Garbodor isn’t a necessary inclusion, but I would disagree. In case you are unfamiliar with the deck, it revolves around two attacks: Damage Change and Psychic Infinity. Psychic Infinity will be used most of the time, as it is a strong move used for its raw power and it has the potential to OHKO anything. Damage Change can be used by the Mega thanks to Shrine of Memories, and it is an alternate KO option against Pokemon with lower HP. It is always preferable to take a KO with Damage Change because it can heal Mewtwo as well. Learning how and when to optimally use Damage Change is incredibly important.

Garbodor is integral to the deck as well. The Standard format as a whole is very Ability-reliant right now. I often have to rush to set up Garbodor in most matchups. If I only ran one copy and it was either prized or discarded, I would quickly find myself in hot water (no Volcanion pun intended). Garbodor is useful against a variety of decks including Yveltal, Volcanion, Greninja and M Rayquaza-EX, all of which are potent Standard mainstays.

For the remaining six slots, you could add another Mewtwo-EX, a Tauros-GX, another Mewtwo Spirit Link, another Mega Turbo, some more Stadiums, more consistency cards like N and Trainers' Mail, a Hex Maniac, a recovery card like Super Rod or Karen, or even some more Psychic Energy.

Here is the list that I played at consecutive League Cups to close out the month of January.

I’m not sure if this is the most optimal Mewtwo list to use currently, as a lot of the cards were included as meta calls. I chose to play four N because I think that N is a great card for this deck. Mewtwo is quite clunky and it has so many moving parts. Oftentimes you want to refresh your hand without discarding its contents. Many cards such as Mega Turbo and the evolved Pokemon aren’t useful right off the bat. I also included Hex Maniac. Hex is very useful against Giratina-EX, which would otherwise be a massive threat. I also enjoyed using Hex on my first turn to block Abilities early on, before Garbodor has a chance to hit the field.

Another interesting choice is Karen. Karen was obviously intended as a failsafe against Vespiquen, which is otherwise not an easy matchup. I found that Karen worked very well against non-Vespiquen decks too. I used it to recover lost M Mewtwo-EX when they were discarded or prized. Karen also happens to be a fantastic agent of disruption. Lategame, when my opponent had many useless Pokemon in the discard, I would use Karen to clog up my opponent’s deck and make it difficult for them to find what they needed to close out the game. You can follow up the Karen play with an N on the next turn. Essentially, Karen makes lategame N even more devastating than usual. Of course, you want to have Garbodor out as well to avoid recycling Shaymin-EX for your opponent.

The last quirky thing about this list is the whopping three copies of Parallel City. I expected Rainbow Road and M Rayquaza-EX to show up, and I was correct. I do not regret playing three copies of Parallel City. Even against other decks, limiting the Bench to three is quite powerful. I can also use it to discard excess Shaymin-EX and Hoopa-EX to force my opponent to get through multiple Mega Mewtwo.

Here is how the first League Cup went.

• Round 1 versus M Beedrill-EX / Yanmega W
• Round 2 versus Turbo Darkrai-EX L
• Round 3 versus M Mewtwo-EX / Garbodor / Zebstrika W
• Round 4 versus Darkrai-EX / Hypno W
• Round 5 versus Jolteon-EX / Lugia-EX / Red Card / Delinquent Intentional Draw
• Top 8 versus Jolteon-EX / Lugia-EX / Red Card / Delinquent WW
• Top 4 versus Mega Gardevoir-EX / Xerneas BREAK / Salamence-EX LWL

While this League Cup looks uncompetitive because of the amount of non-meta decks I played against, the tournament actually had a high concentration of accomplished players. There were five Regional Champions in the Masters Division. The Beedrill deck was actually annoying to deal with because it discards its own Energy to limit Psychic Infinity’s damage and heals my attacks with Max Potion. However, Beedrill is inconsistent so I was able to beat it. Against Turbo Dark, I started lone Trubbish and lost after my first turn. I beat the mirror and Darkrai-EX / Hypno easily, then decided to ID into Top 8.

In Top 8, I played against a disruptive deck that happened to have a very poor Mewtwo matchup. Red Card and Delinquent are easy to play around if you know what you are doing. My Top 8 opponent actually ran four of each of those! He also played Mew, which could have potentially caused trouble if I was unable to get Garbodor out. In Top 4, I played against a very clunky deck but he was able to draw incredibly well and got the turn two Despair Ray in all three games. In the two games he went second, he got the turn one Geomancy. He only ran one copy of the Despair Ray M Gardevoir-EX. I think the matchup isn’t all that bad for me, but I couldn’t deal with the fast Despair Ray. I was able to pull off an awesome Karen plus N comeback in game two though. The third place finish got me 10 CP, overwriting a previous Top 8 finish due to the Best Finish Limit.

I played the exact same Mewtwo list the following day at another League Cup. Here’s how that went.

• Round 1 Bye W
• Round 2 versus Carbink BREAK / Zygarde-EX L
• Round 3 versus M Rayquaza-EX W
• Round 4 versus Giratina-EX / Raticate W
• Round 5 versus Vespiquen / Zoroark W
• Top 4 versus Turbo Darkrai-EX WLW
• Finals versus M Rayquaza-EX WLW

This tournament was not as stacked as the previous one, but I almost bubbled because of the early loss. I was happy to win my last League Cup of the first quarter to max out the possible points from League Cups. I got 20 CP, overwriting the previous day’s Top 4 finish. I think Carbink should be an easy matchup if I can get Garbodor out, but I was unable to do so. In round four I nearly lost to Giratina-EX / Rats because of severe dead draws, but I managed to make a nice comeback and win a close one there. Giratina-EX / Rats is a very poor matchup for M Mewtwo-EX. In the other Swiss rounds I beat M Rayquaza-EX easily and my friend with Vespiquen scooped to me immediately.

In Top 4, I beat Turbo Dark fairly handily. I think the matchup is in Mewtwo’s favor. The only reason I lost game two is because of the classic low-odds Lysandre topdeck off N to one. I beat Rayquaza in finals easily as well. Rayquaza is ridiculously unfavored against Mewtwo, especially with three Parallel City. Once again, I only lost a game to the low-odds Lysandre topdeck off N to one. To my opponent’s credit, he did run three copies of Lysandre. Chip Richey, who got Top 8 in Georgia with Rayqyaza, mentioned this option previously, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more Rayquaza players opting for three Lysandre in the future.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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