aroramage |
Prepare for the next era of
Garbodor-style Abilities!
Naturally, Alolan Muk brings new
life to the Muk line-up, and he's bringing back the
old-fashioned Muk powers too! First things first, let's
get that attack out of the way - Crunch is a hefty
4-for-90 move that has a 50/50 chance of getting rid of
an Energy. Honestly, the low damage output combined with
the coin flip make this attack not as good as it could
be. Maybe if they bumped up the damage or took out the
coin flip, Alolan Muk could've been usable on the
offense, but as is, there's no good to it.
But now we get his Ability, which
is usually the more important part of these kind of
Pokemon: the Power of Alchemy! Aside from having an
interesting name, the Power of Alchemy is relatively
simple; while Alolan Muk is in play, all Basic Pokemon
lose their Abilities in the hand, in play, and in the
discard pile. Basically it's Silent Lab on a 120 HP body
instead of as a Stadium! And given the next rotation
will likely knock Silent Lab out of Standard - and
potentially the Garbodor from BREAKpoint, though that's
not as likely - Alolan Muk looks like a strong contender
as the next option for decks looking to paralyze their
opponents.
...except that Alolan Muk will come
with all the downfalls of Silent Lab. While neutralizing
the Abilities of Basic Pokemon covers a wide field, it
doesn't cover some of the big Abilities found on
evolutions. On top of that, there are Abilities that are
showing up on Pokemon-GX now, some of which have to
evolve from a previous stage, meaning Alolan Muk won't
do much good against these Abilities.
So naturally, Alolan Muk's usage
will rise and fall with the competitive relevance of
Basic Pokemon with strong Abilities, and while there are
some prime examples here and now - looking at you,
Volcanion-EX - I'm certain that later on, we'll find
there to be even more Abilities that can be neutralized
readily by Alolan Muk's Power of Alchemy. And we'll be
ready for them.
Rating
Standard: 3/5 (at the moment, he's
a strong option to have around, but he may not see as
much use early on in favor of what's already around)
Expanded: 2.5/5 (provided that it
all rotates out though, he's got a great chance at being
a key element in many decks working to counteract Basic
Abilities)
Limited: 4/5 (and Ability negation
is a strong strong Ability to have - for free, no less!)
Arora Notealus: Alolan Pokemon are
probably some of the most refreshing changes to Pokemon
in a while. While it's always exciting to see new
Pokemon in each region, I think the regional variants
idea is an even better alternative to changing the
line-up. If Muk can go from just a Poison-type to a
Poison/Dark type and get rainbow colors, why not have
other Pokemon introduced with other changes? Heck,
Vulpix goes from Fire to Ice! Who'd have thought of
that?
Next Time: Take a throwback to a
time from long ago, with a Pokemon that can travel
through time!
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Otaku |
Time for our first
look at another mechanic that is both new and old as we
review Alolan Muk (Sun & Moon 58/149).
In the core video game series, certain Pokémon from Gen
I have different Types than usual justified in-game by
the Pokémon adapting to the unique island setting.
In the TCG, these Pokémon will follow the naming scheme
demonstrated by today’s card: “Alolan” followed
by their regular name. The card’s name is actually
a pretty important stat; cards with the same name fight
for the same allotment of deck slots (usually capped at
four) and even if they are radically different, work
with the same Evolutions. By giving them a
distinct name, the Alola forms are functionally
different Pokémon in the TCG. The TCG has employed an
almost identical mechanic on and off since 2000 (or in
Japan, since 1998)! Though I did not realize it
when I selected Alolan Muk as our first Alolan
form Pokémon, it covers some of the similar mechanics
that have denoted either an “owner”, altered stats or
both. I was going to get pretty thorough, but that is a
topic for an article all on its own, so, for now I’ll
just quickly explain Alolan Muk relative to
Muk (BW: Next Destinies 53/99), Muk (BW:
Plasma Freeze 46/116), and Team Aqua’s Muk.
Like Team Aqua’s Muk must Evolve from Team
Aqua’s Muk, Alolan Muk must Evolve from
Alolan Grimer, while the other two Muk
can evolve from either plain Grimer. Yes,
even Muk (BW: Plasma Freeze 46/116), which
I usually refer to as Muk [Plasma], the
“[Plasma]” isn’t actually part of the card name.
Recently, I was surprised to find Japan is still getting
new cards in their equivalent of our XY: Black Star
Promos, so if we ever got something like Muk
BREAK, it would only work with Muk and
Muk [Plasma], since both count as plain Muk.
Okay, so with that
out of the way, Alolan Muk is a Psychic Type, so
if you attack with it, you can exploit the Weakness
found on decent chunks of the Psychic and Fighting
Types, but you’ll also have to deal with almost all
Darkness and Metal Type Pokémon being Psychic Resistant.
The tricks specific to Psychic Type Pokémon can help
Alolan Muk, but the only one I think is really going
to be relevant is how Wobbuffet (XY: Phantom
Forces 36/119; Generations RC11/RC32)... and
I’ll explain that a little later in this review.
Similarly, some of the effects that can help with [P]
Energy, and the pool of useful Psychic Types aren’t
going to gain much from this card that wouldn’t also
apply to other Types. Alolan Muk is a Stage 1,
so while it isn’t super easy to slip into most decks, it
isn’t too difficult; besides decks actually built around
a particular Stage 1, several based on other Stages (not
even just Basics) have managed to succeed while working
in a 1-1 or 2-2 line of a Stage 1. Alolan Muk
has 120 HP, which I think is just a bit more likely to
be OHKO’d than not if it is Active. It is enough
that Bench hits, supporting attacks, etc. still probably
won’t work. Unless those attacks are from a
Psychic Type and apply Weakness because Alolan Muk
is Psychic Weak. This can be an issue because
there are already some solid Psychic Weak and Psychic
Type Pokémon on the competitive scene (often one and the
same), so those decks won’t have to add anything to deal
with Alolan Muk and the ones that do don’t may be
able to copy what already works. Alolan Muk
lacks a Resistance; typical, though it might have helped
in a close matchup. What really hurts is the
Retreat Cost of [CCCC]; this is the current printed
maximum and is usually well beyond what you can pay, so
build your deck to compensate.
Alolan Muk
has an Ability and an attack. The Ability is
“Power of Alchemy”, and it shuts off the Abilities of
all Basic Pokémon whether they are in play, in the
discard pile, or in hand, like Silent Lab.
This is where Wobbuffet and Alolan Muk
being a Psychic Type matters; Wobbuffet has the
Ability “Bide Barricade”, which shuts off Abilities of
Pokémon in play while Wobbuffet is Active, but
does not affect Psychic Type Pokémon. So
Power of Alchemy will shut down Bide Barricade, instead
of giving us a ruling headache. I am worried
seeing this Ability; I don’t think Basics having an
Ability is a problem, just the tendency of the designers
to do a bad job of balancing out the overall design of
many non-Evolving Basic Pokémon. I actually think
most Evolving Basic Pokémon should have an
Ability, as it is the easiest way to allow them to
contribute instead of just being stepping stones for
Evolved forms. Power of Alchemy doesn’t prevent
this, but it suggests it isn’t happening and the status
quo will continue. It likely needs it to
continue, because if we go back to the most potent
Abilities showing up on Evolutions, Alolan Muk
becomes pretty pointless after another rotation or two.
For [PPCC] Alolan Muk can use the attack
“Crunch”, which does 90 damage and allows you to flip a
coin; if “heads” you discard an Energy attached to the
opponent’s Active. While overpriced, this isn’t
absolutely awful but is probably so high that you’ll
only end up running Alolan Muk as a Bench-sitter
for the Ability, even in a Psychic Type deck.
There are some forms of [P] Energy or general Energy
acceleration you could mix with Alolan Muk, but
apart from Lunala-GX it hasn’t proven effective,
and even if Lunala-GX ends up working, I don’t
expect it to have room for Alolan Muk.
There is just a small, remote chance.
As I stated
earlier, Alolan Muk must Evolve from Alolan
Grimer, and right now we only have one: Sun &
Moon 57/149. It is a Basic Psychic Type
Pokémon with 80 HP, Psychic Weakness, no Resistance, and
Retreat Cost [CCC]. The HP is on the high end of
what is typical for Evolving Basics and is enough that
sometimes the Weakness will matter, but that Retreat
Cost is painful, almost as bad as the slightly
larger score on Alolan Muk. It is quite
likely Alolan Grimer can get stuck in the Active
spot, though it probably won’t last long there if your
opponent is attacking. It isn’t all bad, though;
Alolan Grimer can attack for no Energy.
Busting out some shorthand I haven’t had to use in a
while, for [0] Alolan Grimer can use “Super
Poison Breath” to flip a coin; “heads” means the
opponent’s Active is Poisoned, while “tails” does
nothing. Not great, but good enough for the cost.
If you do invest quite a bit, for [PCC] you can use
“Pound” to do 40 damage. This is both underpowered
- you want to be doing about 90 for three Energy -
and overpriced, because you really shouldn’t have
most Evolving Basic Pokémon in play long enough for
them to accumulate three Energy; they ought to have
Evolved before then, barring sufficient Energy
acceleration.
Alolan Muk
has potential to become the new Bench-sitter decks
include to combat Abilities, at least so long as there
are enough Basics with worthwhile Abilities to deny. Sun
& Moon has given us Oranguru - guess what
we’re reviewing next week? - and we’ve seen at least one
Basic with a potent Ability revealed in Japan (though
not here, yet). Plus we have the many sets from
the last half of the XY block that are still legal in
Standard play… but we also have some significant
competition as well from these older cards. Silent
Lab is Alolan Muk as a Stadium; do you want
to give up space for a Stage 1 line, or use up at least
some of your Stadium slots? Some decks might need
the Stadium for something else, but we also have
Garbodor (XY: BREAKpoint 57/122); its “Garbotoxin”
Ability shuts down all other Abilities, but for
better or worse requires you attach a Tool to
Garbodor for it to Activate. If you have
Abilities on your own Evolutions or don’t want to mess
with extra Tools for Garbodor, then once again,
Alolan Muk has a niche of its own. Then
there is Hex Maniac, a Supporter you can use to
shut down Abilities for both players until the end of
your opponent’s next turn. Finally, there are more
deck specific options, such as attacks that can shut
down Abilities. Putting it all together leaves
very little room for Alolan Muk. Expanded
play has more ways to deal with Stadiums and Tools,
which would help Alolan Muk, but it also
has more Evolutions with key Abilities, as well as
Battle Compressor to make Hex Maniac more
effective, so I am thinking it is worse of here… until
someone pointed out that Trevenant BREAK decks
can use Alolan Muk for an even stronger lock.
For Limited play, I only see four Basic Pokémon with
Abilities: Wishiwashi, Pyukumuku, Eevee,
and Oranguru, but those are all worth countering,
so I’d include Alolan Muk but probably as a
Bench-sitter.
Ratings
Standard:
3/5
Expanded:
3/5
Limited:
3.5/5
Summary
I had almost talked
myself into awarding Alolan Muk lower scores,
but my otaku sense started tingling, by which I mean
I was scared I might be wrong. Whether or not I
should have, I had to do a minor rewrite and resubmit
this review, because the Tuesday night I was reading up
on Pokémon (like you do) and sure enough, I missed that
this is reportedly becoming popular in Trevenant
BREAK decks for Expanded play. So the kind of
niche which I wasn’t sure I could find in Standard,
found me and was in Expanded, where I acted like it
couldn’t exist.
When I first looked
at this card, Alolan Muk got a “C+” both times,
which translates to about a 3.25/5. I was going to
rate it lower, and fear of another oversight makes me
want to rate it higher… but I’m going to stick with the
above scores, with the caveat that it could easily go up
or down depending upon the shifting metagame.
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