The Grass is Greener — Mewtwo and Mew-GX / Rillaboom

After last format was solved and stagnant, many of us players hoped that the new set, Battle Styles, would freshen things up. As far as I can tell, the format is a bit more varied now compared to how it was. Recently I’ve been playing Mewtwo and Mew-GX / Rillaboom, and that’s what I’ll be talking about today. I love this deck because it’s intricate and fairly skillful. This is what sets it apart from most of the other decks. It’s also consistent and has good matchups, which are necessary traits for a deck to be competitively viable. I want to introduce this awesome deck to you all because it’s one of the few decks right now that actually makes me have fun playing the game. Many competitive players, including myself, have become disillusioned with Standard recently, and this deck makes me forget that.

Rillaboom isn’t a rogue or unknown deck by any means. It’s actually been doing quite well in recent online events. Rillaboom is starting to get the exposure it deserves. I was surprised at the skill curve of the deck when I started playing it. It might be a little less consistent than some other decks, but it also has huge comeback potential to make up for this. There are two factors that can help it recover from sticky situations: Mallow and Lana and Rowlet and Alolan Exeggutor-GX Tropical Hour GX.

Let’s take a look at the list. I think that the list is already somewhat refined. I looked at lists that were being played and only made a couple changes on my own. There may be some room for improvement but I think what I’ve got now is close to perfect for the deck.

Mewtwo and Mew-GX / Rillaboom Deck List

This deck abuses Tag Call and Kricketune V to their maximum potential. Through Guzma and Hala, Capture Energy, and Super Growth, you can access almost the entire deck through Tag Call. Kricketune V offers stable draw power which is extremely useful after constantly depleting your hand with Guzma and Hala and Mallow and Lana. This is mostly used throughout the mid-game. Kricketune also makes you Reset Stamp-proof and sometimes helps recover off Marnie.

Although this deck only has middling damage output, it has great defensive capabilities and good matchups overall. You will usually settle for 2HKO’s against most threats. In return, there are very few Pokemon that can OHKO your Tag Team Pokemon GX with Big Charm. You always want to go second, getting a turn 1 Super Growth into Rillaboom and dealing damage from turn 2 onwards. In general, Mewtwo and Mew-GX is the preferred attacker due to its versatility, but this is not necessarily the case if the opponent plays Power Plant, Mimikyu, or Psychic-type attackers, so watch out for all of those.

List Breakdown

Two Rowlett and Alolan Exeggutor-GX

Aside from Super Growth being integral to this deck working, as it’s the only way to search out Thwackey and Rillaboom, Rowlett and Alolan Exeggutor’s other attacks are great as well. Calming Hurricane sets up almost everything from a 2HKO, followed up by a stronger attack, while also healing a little bit of damage. This healing combined with Big Charm actually denies Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX a 2HKO, and it results in a full heal with Mallow and Lana against Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX and other Calming Hurricanes.

Tropical Hour GX is a particularly devastating GX attack, and it’s often the GX attack of choice. It’s sometimes used for just the 200 damage, but the Energy removal effect is useful against matchups like Arceus and Dialga and Palkia-GX / Zacian V (ADPZ) and Eternatus VMAX in particular. In fact, Tropical Hour GX is the main plan against ADPZ.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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