Am I the only one who wants to see an
Evolved form of
Mienshao named “Mienshao Kahn”?
Stats
Mienshao
is a Stage 1 Pokémon, which means it
faces daunting odds of seeing play right
now: most attackers are aggressive basic
Pokémon or Pokémon EX, who require less
space in the deck and time to set-up.
The basics speed means in a deck
dedicated to running Evolutions, unless
an alternative target or threat
distracts, a player running an Evolution
likely gives up a Prize before getting
their first Evolved Pokémon in play.
Mienshao simply cannot match this
initial speed, though if it excels at
swarming, has great stats, or posses
great effects it can still be well worth
playing.
As a Fighting-Type, it falls into one of
those odd areas.
Terrakion (BW: Noble Victories
73/101, 99/101) and
Landorus (BW: Noble Victories
74/101)) see play, varying upon your
exact metagame.
It makes sense given the
popularity of Fighting Weak
Lightning-Type Pokémon, but there isn’t
a dedicated Fighting deck along the
lines of the Fire and Lightning decks we
have, so there is certainly a demand for
one.
Mienshao will be able to exploit
Fighting Weakness, but it’s got no real
support going for its Type other than
exploiting Weakness.
90 HP is small; we are in a format where
120 HP isn’t even safe from OHKOs by
some of the most popular Pokémon, and
even the “second string” tend to his 80
or 90 points of damage with relative
ease.
Expect
Mienshao to be dropped in a single
shot… especially by Psychic-Type Pokémon
due to its Psychic Weakness.
Yes, we all knew it was coming,
but I’ve still got to point it out:
Mewtwo EX is in almost every deck
that can afford a copy or two, and that
means almost every match you’re just
waiting for it to hit the board with
three Energy for a OHKO.
Of course, three Energy OHKOing
something isn’t really that obscene, but
since it is
Mewtwo EX, two of those Energy can
be provided by a
Double Colorless Energy or whatever
native Energy acceleration provides in a
deck, while that third Energy can be
your own attached to
Mienshao.
No Resistance is as disappointing but
likely insignificant as always, just as
the single Energy Retreat cost is small,
easy to pay, but also less relevant in a
format of OHKOs.
Mienshao did not arrive with killer
Stats, so it will need some great
Effects to compensate.
Effects
It has two attacks, which already bodes
ill: the Stage 1 Pokémon that really see
play usually have an Ability (or a Poké-Power/Poké-Body
if you’re facing something a little
older).
The first attack is Haul In and…
it should have been an Ability.
When we could speedily Evolve
and/or a Stage 1 Pokémon was unlikely to
be KOed second/third turn, we could get
away with giving them an attack that
aided in set-up.
Haul In is just such an attack,
letting you snag two Pokémon Tools from
your deck.
The effect is actually useful,
but not if I am giving up a Prize and an
Energy to do it.
Even as a coming-into-play Ability, it
might have been handy: the main strike
against Pokémon Tools is getting them
into your hand ASAP.
As a reusable Ability it could
have allowed some interesting use of
Pokémon Tools, maybe been an off-Type
TecH that seldom (if ever) attacked but
just feed your hand Pokémon Tools.
Even if you didn’t need most of
the Pokémon Tools, if you’re yanking
them out of your deck they can become
discard fodder.
Of course, you need room to run
them at all.
None of that matters though,
because while technically a decent
Energy price,
Mienshao is as good as KOed after
using this attack, making it at best
“better than nothing”.
The second attack is one we’ve seen many
times: Meditate.
This iteration is priced at (FC)
and does base damage of 30, but does and
extra 10 per damage counter on the
Defending Pokémon.
This really isn’t a bad attack,
but it isn’t good and certainly not
enough to outweigh the rest of the card.
In a hypothetical Fighting deck
it might as well have cost (FF) or
(FCC), the latter of course begging for
Double Colorless Energy so that
it could hit harder.
In a format that is geared
towards OHKOs being a finisher isn’t as
useful.
It can be threatening to Fighting
Weak Pokémon, but
Terrakion already does that and is
just easier to run.
If it isn’t Weak it needs to have
taken (Maximum HP/2 – 30) points of
damage.
So a 130 HP Pokémon has have at
least 50 points of damage on it,
assuming no effects to boost/reduce
damage apply.
Usage
Mienshao
must Evolve from
Mienfoo.
You have two options: BW:
Noble Victories 69/101 and BW:
Next Destinies 67/99.
Neither have an effect that
really helps them survive long or
Evolve, so go with the latter: it has 10
more HP, and while it has a single,
luck-based attack, you shouldn’t be
attacking with
Mienfoo at all so you’re probably
desperate and need to take the risk.
Even the “big”
Mienfoo only has 60 HP, so
definitely Evolve them as quickly as you
can manage.
There is a second
Mienshao available: BW: Noble
Victories 70/101.
Its Stats are identical to
today’s version, and simply put its
attacks are worse.
For (C) it can hit for 30 and
ignore Resistant.
This kind of attack seems to
ignore that if you’re hitting for that
low an amount, bypassing Resistance
isn’t a big deal.
After all, the second attack does
50 for (FF); that is a horrible return
for pretty much any Evolved Pokémon but
still it hits just as hard as that first
attack does to Fighting Resistant
Pokémon.
If you really want to run today’s
version of
Mienshao, I am thinking you have to
open with
Landorus.
Ideally you can get it to hit
once with Gaia Hammer, beginning damage
spread.
You might need some
Electrode (HS: Triumphant
93/102) Prime for extra speed and Energy
attachments, or maybe use of
Exp. Share will be enough.
If you can get three or four
Landorus set-up (with each getting
one or two uses of Gaia Hammer off) the
accumulated damage can allow
Mienshao to actually be the cleaner
it may have been intended to be.
Those uses of Gaia Hammer should
rack up a few
KOs
of their own after all.
As for protecting
Mienshao on the Bench, that comes
down to it already being a probable OHKO
and
Landorus being the clear and present
danger; you’re probably better off if
your opponent uses
Pokémon Catcher (even if you’ve got
Energy or an
Exp. Share on
Mienshao) than taking down a
Landorus fully energized to attack.
Of course if you just want a
Stage 1 Fighting-Type Pokémon, see if
you can reinvigorate
Donphan (HeartGold/SoulSilver
107/123) Prime.
In Unlimited, don’t bother.
You’ve got the kind of search and
draw power that makes the first attack
worthless, and the offensive abilities
of most commonly played Pokémon (even
when not part of a first turn win, lock,
or a donk deck) clearly outshine it.
At least in Limited it can be
worth running.
Most of the time the first attack
won’t matter, unless you are fortunate
enough to pull at least one copy each of
Mienfoo,
Mienshao, and
Exp. Share.
Even without the first attack, it
is just a matter of if you can afford to
run a few copies of
Fighting Energy or not.
If your deck is already mostly
fighting, it is a no-brainer: the nature
of Limited means 90 HP is good and so is
the damage output from Meditate.
You’ll be 2HKOing a lot of
Pokémon.
Mienshao only needs that one
Fighting Energy, so you only need to
run three or four copies of
Fighting Energy for a single
Mienshao line.
As such many decks can afford to
squeeze it in even if it is the only
Fighting-Type they run.
Ratings
Unlimited:
1/5
Modified:
1.5/5
Limited:
3/5
Summary
Mienshao
is another Pokémon that would have been
great in many previous Modified formats.
Pokémon Tools are hard to search
out and as long as it wasn’t a format of
OHKOs, this would be a solid opener and
closer for Fighting-Type decks.
We are in a format of OHKOs,
however, and it just isn’t worth the
effort to get Pokémon Tools this way:
you just need to find a useful
“sacrifice” so your opponent pulls ahead
by a Prize and run a few copies of
Twins if you really need them that
bad.
Odds are you won’t have to even
try to get behind a Prize.
In a format where most Pokémon
are OHKOed, most won’t have enough
damage already on them for Meditate to
finish them off, or conversely have so
much damage from barely surviving that
Mienfoo (and just about anything
else) could do the job.
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