Mimikyu V – Battle Styles
Date Reviewed: April 16, 2021
Ratings Summary:
Standard: 2.50
Expanded: 3.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
Mimikyu V ( SW – Battle Styles 062/163, 148/163) is one of those cards where we need to start with its Ability. “Dummy Doll” may only be used during your turn, when you Bench this Pokémon from your hand. If you use it, this Mimikyu V doesn’t take damage from attacks by your opponent’s Pokémon until the end of your opponent’s next turn. Attack effects still work, and anything (effects or damage) from non-attack Pokémon functions, Trainers, or Energy cards. This means Mimikyu V can be a one-turn wall. Your opponent can use something that ignores effects on your opponent’s Active to bypass this protection, and your opponent can still use a Bench-hitting attack, or Boss’s Orders to promote something without protection. Benching Mimikyu V does not end the effects of Dummy Doll.
Mimikyu V knows the attack “Jealous Eyes”. For [P], this attack lets Mimikyu V place three damage counters on your opponent’s Active for each Prize card your opponent has taken. At best, you’re placing 15 damage counters with this attack, which isn’t bad for one Energy, but even with Dummy Doll for protection, it is rather scary to use at that point. Even if Dummy Doll protects Mimikyu V at that point, you wouldn’t hit hard enough to 2HKO most Pokémon VMAX. Even with the stall, your opponent needs to have taken at least three Prizes for this attack to be somewhat worthwhile. The cost is easy when Mimikyu V is in a Psychic deck, or one that can spare an Aurora Energy, but not elsewhere. Jealous Eyes is too good to just be filler, but lacking if it was supposed to be a clutch attack.
As a Pokémon V, Mimikyu V is worth an extra Prize when KO’d, is excluded from certain beneficial effects, but affected by certain detrimental ones. It also means Mimikyu V should have better HP than its baseline counterpart, and likely better effects (if only relative to costs). Mimikyu V is a Psychic type. Psychic Weakness and Resistance don’t matter to Jealous Eyes, and Psychic support is lacking in Standard and the best piece – Dimension Valley – won’t help Mimikyu V in Expanded. Being a Basic is the best; no waiting to evolve or extra cards required to field Mimikyu V, but remember that shutting down Abilities on Basics is easier in Expanded.
The HP, Weakness, and Resistance don’t matter as much as they normally would because of the Ability, but there are enough ways around the Ability, or you may have to resort to Mimikyu V when you cannot simply push for the win next turn, and then they’ll matter. 160 HP is as low as it gets for a Basic Pokémon V, and within range of the harder-hitting 2HKO strategies. It isn’t low enough to make the [D] Weakness totally irrelevant: attacks falling in the 80 to 150 damage range become OHKO’s because of it. Any Resistance is appreciated, and [F] Resistance might even come in handy soon, but I don’t expect it to provide a major advantage. A Retreat Cost of [CC] is a mild concern; while normally neutral, seems like Mimikyu V is a card you want Active for only one turn, then to hide on your Bench.
At first glance, I thought Mimikyu V was a lock for our countdown of the best cards from SW – Battle Styles. Then I realized that, while pretty much any deck can try and use it to stall for a turn, most of them don’t include [P] Energy. Which means most are basically giving up a turn of attacking to force the opponent to not attack for damage. In a metagame where Boss’s Orders (or similar gusting effects) weren’t a thing, where Phoebe wasn’t there so any VMAX can cut through Dummy Doll, that might still be enough… but in the present, it seems lacking. Mimikyu V isn’t bad, though… just a little underwhelming. In Expanded, it should still be decent, and maybe even help some serious stall decks… because we’ve got AZ, Scoop Up Net, and Super Scoop Up. Acerola as well, if you can safely get some damage on Mimikyu V. Bounce is a huge blessing here!
Ratings
- Standard: 2/5
- Expanded: 3/5
Mimikyu V wasn’t the power play I expected when I first saw it, but I think it offers enough to be worth some experimentation. I could even see it star in its own deck… in Expanded. Imagine just bouncing Mimikyu V and supporting it with Lillie’s Poké Doll and/or Robo-Substitute. The latter mean you don’t lose on the odd turns where your opponent can punch through Dummy Doll while also scoring a OHKO, while Expanded’s bounce options just let you spam Dummy Doll.
Vince
Remember that I said in my Ditto-V review about Ditto-V not accidentally Knocking Out your Pokémon by its own ability?
Looks like I spoke too soon!
Mimikyu-V from Sword & Shield Battle Styles currently holds the distinction of having the lowest HP of a Pokémon-V at 160 HP, making it frail and easy to be KOed. However, it does have something to make up for it, as we shall see. Mimikyu’s Dummy Doll emulates it’s Disguise Abilith in the core series games, being able to soak any hit whatsoever and change into its Busted form. When Mimikyu-V is played from your hand into your Bench, that Pokémon takes no damage (although it can be affected by effects of an attack or any Trainer card, so it’s not total protection as it can be gusted for a different target) from your opponent’s Pokémon until the end of your opponent’s next turn.
In theory, Mimikyu can last for two turns at most, possibly more if Mimikyu still survived a hit. What else can it do? It’s attack, Jealous Eyes, costs a single Psychic energy and places 3 damage counters for each Prize card your opponent has taken to your opponent’s Active Pokemon. For early game, it won’t do much damage, but when your opponent has already taken 5 prizes, then Jealous Eyes can place FIFTEEN damage counters…at least TWICE! Just play Mimikyu on the Bench, promote it to Active and attack with Jealous Eyes; your opponent can’t damage you next turn; then you go for another Jealous Eyes!
While it seems appealing to have 300 damage on the board, there are some things to keep in mind:
-Mimikyu’s damage output is only great when the game heavily progresses such that the amount of prize cards your opponent has taken gets to acceptable levels.
-Damage counter placements is an effect, so it can’t exploit weakness at all. Also, Jealous Eyes gets stopped cold if they have something that prevent all effects of an attack. However, I believe this attack can get past Decidueye/Altaria’s protection since it only blocks damage from Pokémon-GX/V.
-Your opponent can use Boss’s Orders to bring out a different target other than Mimikyu and most likely OHKO your other Pokémon for game.
Not to say that those points makes Mimikyu-V hard to use, but these are mostly facts and the reality of how the opponent would react. Expanded is pretty complicated, mostly because there are very few cards – specifically certain Ultra Beasts from the Sun & Moon series – that can alter the amount of Prize Cards remaining, so your opponent can take more than 6 prize cards and the game can still continue! This can rarely help Jealous Eyes place more than 15 counters every turn. Also, something ridiculous occurred to me; even though Scoop Up Net excludes Mimikyu-V, with 4 Super Scoop Up and Scoop Up Cyclone, you can bounce Mimikyu-V and put it back into play on the Bench, giving itself another turn of protection (as many as five more turns of protection if the coin flips co-operated), making this ability incredibly powerful and annoying to your opponent who struggling to take the final prize (as long as ability lock isn’t present at the time).
Overall, Mimikyu has a niche, and may fit in any deck if you also have room for Aurora Energies, but to make the most of it, you have to save this Pokémon as your finisher, otherwise Jealous Eyes’s damage output is pitiful.
Ratings:
Standard: 3/5
Expanded: 3.5/5
I’ve seen similar abilities before on much older cards, maybe starting with Lucario LV.X, as it’s Stance Poké-Power also protects itself from effects and damage for one turn, so having this effect on a Basic makes it extremely efficient, and Mimikyu has a potentially great attack to use more than once. At the same time, I don’t know how often Mimikyu-V sees play, due to the limitations keeping it in check. I do think that Mimikyu-V is worth some consideration at best.
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