MrScaryMuffin
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LOST KITTY (Responds to Mewgar)
By: Murray Chu
Division: Masters (Vancouver, BC)
Format: HGSS-on
Date: June 17, 2011
Rather, it's not Mew that is lost, but your opponent's Pokemon! Lost Zoned, that is.
When Lost World first came out this year, LostGar was a deck that received a fair amount of attention. Arguably, this attention was undeserved. Although Lost World decks had done well in Japan up to that point, the international format, with the entire SP engine still in place, did not afford a medium-paced Stage 2 deck a chance to truly shine.
With the upcoming rotation, Lost World decks may finally get that chance. The HGSS-on card pool is relatively small, with few opportunities to set up quickly and even fewer to disrupt. With that in mind, I put together a fast and disruptive variant of Mewgar that has done fairly well against most HGSS-on meta-decks during league testing. This is a deck that I have built over a month or so of testing. It is the fastest and most consistent build that I've seen so far and has enjoyed a solid 70-30 win rate against the majority of meta-decks.
Lost Kitty (Mewgar)
Pokemon: (20)
4 Mew Prime TR
3 Gengar Prime TR
4 Mime Jr. CL
2 Slowking HS/CL
2 Slowpoke UD
2 Mr. Mime HS/CL
1 Ditto TR
2 Cleffa HS/CL
T/S/S: (31)
3 Pokemon Collector
3 Dual Ball
3 Switch
4 Twins
1 Good Rod
2 Judge
3 Cheerleader's Cheer
3 Lost World
3 Pokemon Communication
4 Professor Juniper
2 Seeker
Energy: (9)
5 Psychic
4 Rainbow
Card Explanation
Mew: Ideally, you'll want to start off with a Mew or a free retreater that will allow you to push Mew up to See Off on the first turn. Your prime target is your Gengar Prime, of course, so that you can use its Hurl into Darkness attack on subsequent turns and continually toss your opponent's pokemon into the Lost Zone over the next six turns and win. There should almost always be a benched Mew with 2-3 energies on it so that you can take advantage of your opponent's bad hand and hurl multiple pokemon in a single turn.
Gengar: Unlike the previous format, where most choice attackers hit around 80-100, the HGSS-on format sees 130-150 being the magic number that most decks aim to dish out in a single attack. As such, I did not find it viable to run a full Gengar line and opted to just keep the stage 2 card for my Mew to See Off. Unfortunately, as I will not be drawing into prizes with this deck and will be aiming to access this card on my first turn, I am forced to run three copies of Gengar in order to all but eliminate the chance of them all being prized.
Mime Jr.: This deck forces your opponent into a race between their prizes and their Lost Zone. Since you can only Lost Zone pokemon with an attack, this means that you cannot claim victory until the turn after you Lost Zone six pokemon. In essence, you will automatically be two turns behind in the race, especially if you do not go first. In order to win, you must do either one of two things:
a) Prevent your opponent from taking a prize for two turns while you continually Lost Zone their pokemon, or
b) Hurl multiple pokemon in a single turn
Mime Jr. enables you to do both. For method a, you will be able to Lost Zone the top card from your opponent's deck while using Mime Jr.'s Sweet Sleeping Face poke-body to prevent return KOs. In the meantime, you can also buy time to set up a Mew on your bench while your opponent continues to draw cards. Mime Jr. also has the added benefit of removing problem cards from your opponent's deck and, if they are running lots of Junipers, will help you to deck them out faster, giving them another headache to deal with.
Slowking: Slowking's Second Sight Poke-Power is what you need to make Mime Jr.'s Sleepy Lost attack super-effective and will allow you to disrupt your opponent's set up by making their top decked card an utterly useless one. With Second Sight, you can see if you can Sleepy Lost a pokemon. If you do, your opponent will draw the next card, which means you will see at least two new cards next turn. If they do a search and shuffle, you will be able to see three new cards instead.
Slowpoke: Really only in the deck for Slowking. Starting with Slowpoke would be considered a terrible start if you don't have a Switch handy, but in the worst case scenario, you can still throw a Rambunctious Party and get partially set up.
Mr. Mime: This should be of no surprise. Mr. Mime's Trick Reveal power is needed to plan out your turn. Not only will you see whether you should be attacking with Mew or Mime Jr. this turn, but you will also know what cards will be useless for your opponent when you use Slowking's Second Sight. You should be using it at the start of every turn unless you did it last turn and nothing has really changed.
Ditto: As a one-off card in this deck, Ditto is not super important, but it does aid the Lost Zone strategy tremendously and adds to the disruption that you will have going on with Slowking, Mime Jr. and Judge. An added benefit is that Ditto will pretty much force your opponent to focus on evolving their bench, which will make your Seekers more potent.
Cleffa: Cleffas are in the deck for two big reasons. The first reason is the typical "it's a hand refresher and attack blocker" that is seen in other decks. However, the main reason why Cleffa is in my deck, and probably one that you wouldn't expect, is that it is a free retreater. With 2 Cleffas joining the ranks with 4 Mews and 4 Mime Jrs., I will have a whopping ten free retreaters in my deck! What I found previously was that starting off with a Mr. Mime, Slowpoke, or Ditto active absolutely killed my momentum and was not something that I could easily afford. The fact that Cleffa can refresh my hand after a Judge is a bonus, but the main reason I run it is for consistent starts. Honestly, I would much rather have something else in here if I thought I could afford it.
Pokemon Collector and Dual Ball: Your standard fare here. Since most of my pokemon are basics, starting off with either of these in my hand is great. I opted for a 3-3 split as both are good in almost any situation. I haven't found the need or desire to add more yet.
Switch: I use the HS ones because the art is much cooler. That is all.
...
...
Oh yea, switch is needed to move a bad starter pokemon and to also rotate a Mime Jr. that doesn't wake up returning back to you. You can Twins for them in a bind and then Good Rod it back to the top of your deck for the next turn.
Twins: Almost all Lost World decks should be running four Twins as they will almost never have the lead in prizes. Twins will get you one card you need, along with another Twins for the next turn. Usually I use Twins to grab energies, Mew or Mime Jr., or switch. If I'm in a position to plan far ahead, I might go for a Seeker or Juniper, along with a Lost World with my final Twins.
Good Rod: With no other recovery options and no real rush to regain trainers, I opted to run a Good Rod in my deck for emergencies. Also, I have two reverse foil Good Rods in my binder and only a couple of Junk Arms that I'm running in my other test decks :lol: So far, it has done well to grab what I need when I needed it, so I'll be keeping it until I start needing better options.
Judge: Judge is my big time disruption card. Combined with Slowking's ability to deny useful cards to your opponent, you can control the entire game right from T2. Judge has the additional bonus of refreshing your opponent's hand so that you can see if there are fresh pokemon for you to hurl.
Cheerleader's Cheer: Cleffa is often not the best option for getting more cards into your hand since you want to Lost Zone as often as possible. Cheerleader's Cheer is actually a great card for this deck, as you will draw a healthy three cards into your hand and will force your opponent to add more cards into their hand, potentially giving your Mew more hurl bait. Use Slowking's Second Sight first and you can put your opponent between a rock and a hard place: If they draw, you can attach a second energy to your Mew and hurl two pokemon this turn. If they don't draw, you can retreat for Mime Jr. and Sleepy Lost it instead. Either way, you get to draw three cards!
Lost World: Your win condition. Just like Gengar Prime, three is needed in this deck to greatly reduce the chance that all of them will be prized. Normally you will need to Twins for this, but in an emergency, you can Second Sight yourself for it and, if it's not there, refresh your hand with Juniper and Cleffa's Eeeeek.
Pokemon Communication: A staple in most other decks, I run it here mostly for the Slowking. Three copies is a good number, as you will want your Slowking up by T2 in order to get the most out of the disruptive Second Sight.
Professor Juniper: I am constantly playing out my whole hand, especially after I Judge. Junipers are by and far the best way to refresh your hand in this deck. Once you have most of your tech basics down, the consistency cards are fairly useless anyways. Just be sure to play Lost World first if it's in your hand!
Seeker: I only run two in my deck because I plan on using Mime. Jr and Twins for the most part. The only time I would be using Seeker is when I want to hurl multiple pokemon in a single turn. This scenario shouldn't come up too often in a single game, which is why I do not bother with a high number of this card.
Energies: Eight is about the minimum number of energies that you need for a Lost World deck (numbers from testing the regular Lostgar in a MD-on format). I run nine for consistency. Four of them are Rainbows just for cheap thrills, as you are able to copy the attack of any pokemon in the Lost Zone (not just your own). If I can't possibly Lost Zone a pokemon on a turn, I can buy time by inflicting a disruptive status ailment, such as sleep or paralysis, on my opponent. I would typically need a rainbow or two to do this. The self-inflicted damage is really nothing, as you should expect to lose your Mew after a hurl anyways.
Strategy
An average game should look like this:
Set up: Start with a free retreater active. First priority goes to Cleffa, as you can afford to let it be donked, then Mew Prime, which has more HP, and then finally Mime Jr. In the off-chance that you don't have a free retreater, put up a single retreat pokemon and, in the worst case, put up the Slowpoke. Of course, bench as many pokemon as you can to prevent a first turn donk loss. Do bench Slowpoke and save one pokemon in hand if you have Pokemon Communication.
Turn 1: Priority goes to searching out a Mew Prime if you don't have one and attaching an energy to it. Put Mew active and See Off Gengar Prime.
Turn 2: Priority now goes to evolving Slowpoke to Slowking. Use Second Sight on your opponent's deck. If there is a pokemon there, retreat Mew for Mime Jr. and Sleepy Lost the pokemon card to the Lost Zone. Don't forget to attach another energy to Mew if you have it!
Turn 3 and onwards: Set up Ditto and Mr. Mime if you haven't already. Always make sure that there is a free retreater on the bench and, ideally a Mew with 2-3 energies on it. Trick Reveal at the start of your turn. If you can use Mew to hurl more than one pokemon to the Lost Zone (either with Seeker or convincing them to draw a pokemon card with Cheerleader's Cheer or just a nice hand) then do so. Otherwise, you can start disruption with Judge and Second Sight to deny them the cards they need and Sleepy Lost pokemon with Mime Jr., who will hopefully stay asleep.
If your pokemon gets KO'd, hopefully you'll be able to start a Twins chain to set up a Mew with multiple energies while stalling with Mime Jr. If a Mime Jr. doesn't wake up coming back to your turn, you can always use Twins to search for a Switch and then retreat back if you need to Sleepy Lost once more. Rinse and repeat for the whole game or until there are six pokemon in your opponent's Lost Zone, at which point you can Twins, Second Sight, Cheerleader's Cheer, Juniper, etc. for the Lost World stadium and win.
Other Possible Cards:
Spiritomb (TR): This is a typical card in most Lost World decks as it forces your opponent to shuffle their hand and draw six cards. The more cards the better the chance they will have pokemon for you to hurl. However, seeing how I aim to let Mime Jr. do most of the dirty work and I want to disrupt my opponent's hand with Judge and Slowking, Spiritomb is really unreliable as a partner for my heavily invested 2-3 energy Mew. In a Lost World deck that runs a full line for Gengar, it would definitely be a great tech, but not here.
Jirachi (UL): Jirachi offers the ability to recover energies from the discard which you can Seeker into your hand or use Shaymin UL's Celebration Wind to move them to your Mew for a multi-hurl on T2. Additionally, Time Hollow can return your opponent's evolution cards to their hand, allowing you to hurl them next turn if they can't obtain another rare candy.
Hypno (HS): Played against this tech in a mirror match the other day and thought that it could have some stall potential. However, adding another non-free retreater to your deck may not be in your best interest.
Match Ups
Overall, this deck is very fast and very consistent which, in a best of three tournament such as Worlds, is a great advantage. More often than not, you will have everything set up by your second turn while your opponent is attempting to get set up. The disruption options in the deck will hopefully delay your opponent from KOing your pokemon until you have a 1-2 card lead, putting you firmly on pace to win the match. A big problem card for Mewgar is Pokemon Circulator:
This card is more reliable than Reversal in my mind and, combined with Junk Arm or Good Rod, will ruin your strategy to stall with babies. I fully expect most decks to run 2-2 split between Reversal and Circulator for a consistent way to bypass babies at Worlds (especially Magnezone and maybe even Donchamp, as they can convincingly KO anything that is brought forward). However, in my testing these past few month, I haven't seen players at my league use it much yet and my match up analysis is based on these testings.
vs. Magneboar (Emboar/Magnezone/RDL): This match up is 70-30 in favour of Mewgar. With two stage 2 lines to set up, you'll have plenty of opportunities to disrupt and lost zone key pokemon, such as the headlining Magnezone, Emboar, and Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND parts. With Ditto limiting their bench space and their babies never being KO'd, you will most likely block one of the three headliners from ever coming down. Preventing the Magnezone from setting up is top priority, as you'll be aiming to lock down their top deck. After this is RDL, and I'll explain why below.
vs. Reshiboar (Emboar/Reshiram/RDL): This match up is 50-50. The big difference between this and the Magneboar match up is that there is only one stage 2 line for your opponent to focus on, which means it can be up as soon as T2 or T3. A Ninetales draw engine would also be harder to prevent than a Magnezone draw engine. However, your biggest concern would be the fast set up of Rayquaza & Deoxys LEGEND. Smart players will recognize Mewgar and Junk Arm their Reshirams to the discard for Pokemon Communication in order to get RDL out. RDL will win the prize race with just three KOs and Mewgar just can't outspeed Reshiboar once it has been set up. However, if Mewgar manages to Lost Zone RDL in a way that prevents it from being set up, then it should be able to stall for the win.
vs. Donchamp (Donphan Prime/Machamp Prime):: This match up is 70-30 in favour of Donchamp. The main reason for this is because of Machoke TR, which can ignore Mime Jr.'s Sweet Sleeping Face Poke-body and deals 30 damage, enough for the OHKO. The solution for the Mewgar player here is to actually use Donphan Prime's Earthquake with a rainbow energy to hit back for weakness to KO the Machoke and then deny energies with Second Sight to the Donchamp player for the rest of the game for a difficult shot at winning.
vs. Zekrom: This match is 70-30 in favour of Mewgar. Needing 2-3 support basics in order to set up Zekrom will fill up the Zekrom player's bench, making Ditto TR's poke body even more effective against the Zekrom player. Zekrom, as we all should know by now, has the potential to donk on the first turn. However, in my own testing, a very consistent build with no anti-Donphan techs will still only donk about 30% of the time. Energy is typically the main problem with setting up Zekrom and your Slowking's Second Sight will only make that problem worse. Added techs will only lower that consistency and will add for more Lost Zone fodder unless that tech is Yanmega Prime, which I'll talk about below.
vs. Stage 1 decks (Cincinno, Zoroark, Yanmega, Donphan Prime, etc.): From testing, I'll say 60-40 in favour of Stage 1 decks. The main reason for this is Yanmega Prime. Most Stage 1 decks aim to take a couple of prizes before their opponent is set up, so they can't afford to be stalled by babies, which is why most stage 1 deck would have 2-2 Yanmega Prime to snipe around babies while they attach energies to their main/back-up attacker. Obviously, this is a problem for Mewgar, especially since the 40 HP Ditto TR is also within range of a OHKO from Yanmega Prime. However, in cases where Yanmega Prime is absent or Lost Zoned, Mewgar should have a fine time Lost Zoning pokemon with Seeker pick ups or Sleepy Lost
vs. Water decks (Blastoise, Floatzel, Feraligatr, Wailord, Samurott, Kingdra etc.): Again, from spot testing, I'll say 60-40 in favour of Mewgar. Most water decks will have at least two stage 2 lines, which is ample fuel for Lost Zoning. The two problem pokemon are Blastoise UL and Kingdra Prime, which can both snipe around your stalling Mime Jr. However, since the speed of most water decks are not that great, a single multi-hurl turn will usually seal the deal and win the game.
Mirror match: Obviously 50-50 here. In a straight up Mewgar mirror, you'll actually want to avoid going first and let your opponent See Off first so that you can use the attacks right away. Against a LostGar deck, you will need to aim to disrupt your opponent or else face Catastrophic results.
Dark Toolbox (Tyranitar Prime, Absol Prime, Mandibuzz, etc.): 80-20 in favour of the dark player. Luckily you won't see too many dark pokemon players in the meta-game due to the expected popularity of Donchamp. However, facing an Absol start with a Mandibuzz on the bench spells disaster in the truest sense as it pretty much guarantees that the dark player will be able to get a KO every turn and win the race.
vs. Crobat Prime: Another less likely to appear card, but Severe Poison works around Sweet Sleeping Face and Skill Dive will straight up KO babies on your bench, making this another 80-20 match up in favour of the opposition.
Conclusion
Well, that's all I have for you folks. If you want my thoughts on other match-ups, I'll be happy to test it out on Redshark. If you have questions or comments about the deck, feel free to post below and I'll be watching this thread like a hawk
If you live in the Greater Vancouver region, drop by Connection Games during the pokemon league and try out a game against this deck! I've also got a couple of "secret" rogue decks that I'm working on that I'll be happy to pit against your best builds. Cheers!
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