Alolan Muk – Pokemon Team Up Review

aroramage

Turns out there’s an Alolan Muk in this set, which not only aids Alolan Grimer from yesterday but also has its own use. It’s no Power of Alchemy, but it’s definitely a potent power! And a bit putrid too…

Alolan Muk is a Stage 1 Darkness Pokemon, 120 HP, with a Fighting Weakness, a Psychic Resistance, and a Retreat Cost of 3. Gunk Shot prompts you to inhale as much as you can before closing one nostril with your finger and blowing as much snot as you can onto your opponent’s cards, though if you are unable to the entire room will appreciate you not doing that and just resorting to the 3-for-80 that Poisons the Active Pokemon. Adventurous Appetite meanwhile lets Alolan Muk devour any Items among the top 6 cards of your opponent’s deck when it evolves from Alolan Grimer, with your opponent shuffling back the filthy remains into their deck while the Items go to the discard pile.

We’ve seen plenty of these effects before, and Alolan Muk is no exception to seeing play. Items are a big part of the game, and it certainly helps to get rid of your opponent’s. Combined with Garbodor even, you can fuel up their discard pile easily for a Trashalanche attack! You also get the benefits of Ditto <Prism> and any of the Alolan Grimer you put into play prior to evolving into Alolan Muk, and if you need a good means of getting it back into your hand to re-use again, there’s always Acerola!

Course after the Ability gets used, it becomes tough to really sell Alolan Muk as an attacker, since Gunk Shot…well, it’s not that powerful. But definitely keep an eye on Alolan Muk, since Items are still going to be a major part of most decks!

Rating

Standard: 3/5 (a pretty good Ability to use in general)

Expanded: 3/5 (though his attack is a bit lacking)

Limited: 3.5/5 (some pretty good Items to get here)

Arora Notealus: Alolan Muk will likely not take the place of the current Alolan Muk (SM), at least not as a majority piece. I think it’ll likely be the tech’d copy that works against Item-heavy decks, of which there are a fair number. And again, it combines well with Garbodor’s Trashalanche! It’s hard to compete when your deck starts getting slowed down by rainbow goop!

Next Time: Time for a flashback to a time when goop was just one color.

Otaku

Please pardon another tardy review. Alolan Muk (SM – Team Up 84/181) seems like a logical follow up to yesterday’s review and will hopefully come to a more satisfying ending. This is a [D] Type Pokémon, not so great at exploiting Weakness (only some [P] Types are [D] Weak) and having to deal with all [Y] Types being Resistant (unless I missed an exception). There are many pieces of [D] Type support but none of it really stands out right now (and may never); at least none of the Standard or Expanded-legal anti-[D] Type effects have proven worthwhile. Being a Stage 1 is adequate; not as easy to run as a Basic “Evolution line” but still reasonably fast and space efficient. Ditto {*} has made it more feasible to TecH them into your deck as well. 120 HP is decent enough; once your opponent’s deck is in full swing, a OHKO is quite probable but early-game (or any other time when their setup is lacking) Alolan Muk is only a little more likely to be KO’d than not. [F] Weakness is dangerous and means [F] Type decks have a good chance of scoring a OHKO as soon as they can attack, while [P] Resistance might let Alolan Muk survive a few attacks that would have otherwise been OHKO’s.

Alolan Muk has one Ability and one attack. The Ability is “Adventurous Appetite”, and it only triggers when you evolve one of your Pokémon into a copy of this card. At that point, you have the option of looking at the top six cards of your opponent’s deck and discarding any Item cards you find, then your opponent shuffles anything not discarded back into their deck. A six-card range is serviceable; it does not guarantee you’ll discard even one Item, but I don’t expect the odds are too terrible against typical, competitive decks except, perhaps, late game. While many Items are redundant or have somewhat specialized uses that may not be needed in a given match, many Items are vital for setting up your field, maintaining the flow of your deck, and sometimes even specific strategies. You aren’t likely to cripple an opponent’s entire deck with this discard, even if you managed to hit six Items, but you should be able to make your opponent sweat and maybe even badly damage some aspect of their strategy.

Alolan Muk’s attack, “Gunk Shot”, is fairly straight-forward. It requires [DCC] to do 80 damage and Poison your opponent’s Active. The pricing means it could be used in a mostly (but not entirely) off-Type deck, and can take advantage of some of the easier forms of Energy acceleration (like Double Colorless Energy). 80-for-three isn’t obviously competitive, like it was years ago, but isn’t bad, either. Poison means it fakes being 90, so even before other effects on either player’s side of things, it will 2HKO all but the largest non-Pokémon-EX/GX, largest basic Pokémon-EX/GX, and Evolved Pokémon-EX/GX. If this was the main focus of the card, it’d be disappointing, but I think it is clear that the Ability is the star of this card, and that means this is a quality “filler” attack. It could be better, but for what it actually is, it is good. Not likely to see use too often, but still good.

Thanks to Ditto {*}, Alolan Muk is actually low-risk, low-reward generic disruption. It might whiff, but then you’re just out Ditto {*} and a spot on your Bench. Maybe you’re feeding into some anti-Ability effect, maybe your opponent can benefit from stranding Alolan Muk up front or KOing it instead of something else, but these are hardly the worst drawbacks we’ve seen on something competitive. Backing up actual control decks, it is one more way to eat at an opponent’s resources. Perhaps the most obvious, but also deck-specific, use is to partner this Alolan Muk with Garbodor (SM – Guardians Rising 51/145, 51a/145), as another means of feeding Garbodor’s “Trashalanche” attack. Today’s Alolan Muk sometimes has to compete for deck-space with Alolan Muk (Sun & Moon 58/149), which is widely played because its “Power of Alchemy” Ability negates the Abilities of Basic Pokémon. Most decks have a Basic with an Ability, but not every deck relies on or even uses the Abilities from Basic Pokémon the entire game. Most of the decks running the original Alolan Muk are NOT running it maxed out, either, so running both in the same deck is very much an option.

I’ve never run into today’s Alolan Muk used as generic TecH, but I have run into examples of other decks using as I just stated in the PTCGO, while playing in the Standard Format. When it comes to results from competitive play, a quick search only brought up a single instance of it in a well-placing deck. In that example, both Alolan Muk were run as singles, with a single Alolan Grimer and Ditto {*} to get them to the field. Not enough to rate this card as highly as I’d expect to after going through it step-by-step, but the metagame is the metagame. It might have some chops for Expanded as well; most of its potential uses remain intact there, simply facing more competition and anti-Ability effects worth playing. I expect Alolan Muk to be a great pull for the Limited Format; the attack and stats are more relevant here than the Ability, but the Ability can still be good. Decks aren’t going to have a lot of Items, but you’re looking at six cards out of 40. Items are more likely to be important or filler, for better and worse.

Ratings

Standard: 3/5

Expanded: 3/5

Limited: 3.5/5

Alolan Muk hasn’t been showing up as much as I expected when I first saw it, but at least it joins the ranks of cards with a tiny bit of success already, and enough substance we’ll at least need to keep it in mind while it remains legal.