Another Mew Counter: Straight Gengar VMAX

Hello to all PokeBeach readers! It’s Gabriel Semedo again with another Pokémon TCG article, and this time I’m bringing you yet another deck focused on beating Mew VMAX: a straight Gengar VMAX build with Path to the Peak.

The more time passes, the more we learn about Mew VMAX’s absurd strengths, and the more we understand that beating this deck takes more effort than we thought. Umbreon VMAX as a tech in Single Strike Urshifu VMAX builds seemed like a good way to beat it, but now it’s clear that you need a lot more to get a truly good matchup against it. Fortunately, this Gengar VMAX deck pulls it off. In addition to devoting all its resources toward one outstanding counter, the list has four copies of Path to the Peak to slow down Mew VMAX’s incredible speed and consistency.

But while the focus may be on beating Mew VMAX, anyone who thinks that Gengar VMAX can only win this one matchup is wrong. It has two solid attacks that cause problems for many other parts of the metagame, and Path to the Peak has a big impact in several matchups. This list started to catch my eye after some good online tournament results, but it wasn’t until I ended up facing two Gengar VMAX decks in one in-person tournament that I realized how powerful it is. I decided to test it further.

Mew VMAX versus the Metagame

More and more, the metagame has been turning into Mew VMAX on one end and decks that try to beat Mew VMAX on the other. Pretty much every deck has some contingency plan for the Mew VMAX matchup, which makes Mew VMAX itself a less interesting choice. I recently decided to play Mew VMAX myself in an online tournament to get a feel for the deck’s position in the metagame. All the decks I faced had Darkness Pokémon and/or Path to the Peak, and even so I won several of my games, which goes to show that despite an unfavorable metagame, Mew VMAX has enough power to overcome these obstacles.

If the metagame continues the way it is, I think that for Mew VMAX to remain a viable option, the list would need to undergo some reformulation. As it is, Mew VMAX has a lot of tricky matchups. One of the options is to stop using Mew VMAX for a while and only return to it after the metagame shifts again. The other option would be to invest a little more in Genesect V as an attacker, minimizing the focus on Mew VMAX and Meloetta. The emphasis on these two Pokémon causes the deck to suffer from the metagame’s numerous Darkness-type Pokémon, such as Galarian Moltres, Galarian Moltres V, Umbreon VMAX, Gengar VMAX, Sableye V, Eternatus VMAX, and Galarian Obstagoon.

With counters running rampant, I don’t feel comfortable playing Mew VMAX these days, but even still you have to recognize its strength and the fact that you will probably face it in most tournaments, especially at the first tables. With that in mind, Gengar VMAX with Path aims to capitalize on its presence, further improve the matchup, and even take it from mildly favorable to very favorable.

Let’s take a look.

This concludes the public portion of this article.

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