Hello, Cut or Tap! My name is Piper Lepine, and as you may know, I just won the Toronto regional championships with Mewtwo V-UNION control! This article goes over my group’s thought process in building and testing the deck, why we played the cards we did, how to navigate the different matchups, and looking at the deck for the upcoming Arlington regionals.

Table of contents (with audio’s starting time point)

• Why did I play Mewtwo V-UNION in Toronto? (0:50)

• The decklist (5:40)

• List explanation (6:38)

• Looking forward: potential changes (13:54)

• General tips for playing control (17:22)

• Matchups (23:47)

• Conclusion: looking to Arlington (32:14)

Why did I play Mewtwo V-UNION in Toronto?

When I choose my deck for an event, there are a few main things I look for. An overarching theme I have noticed in my deck choices is reducing variance and luck. The first thing to look for is good matchups across the board, so that means having a solid game plan against most, if not all of the meta, as I do not like relying on hitting the right matchups to do well.

Also, I want a consistent deck, as this reduces the chances of me losing games to bricking, as I am confident enough in my play that I want to rely on skill with my decks, which leads to my next point of loving to play higher skill level decks. Outplay potential is a huge aspect in the game, as you can win games with plays your opponent didn’t think of, and these scenarios become much more common with more skill intensive decks.

Finally, I also like to play more off-meta decks, because off-meta decks are unexpected, people aren’t going to test against them, so while you are already going to have a gameplan, your opponent will likely be trying to figure out what to do. Furthermore, your opponent isn’t going to have techs for your deck, so a lot of decks will end up being favorable matchups, and you can sometimes even win unfavorable matchups. With my criteria for a deck choice established, why, out of all the decks I could’ve played, did I choose Mewtwo control?

All the way back at Baltimore, my friend Mikey Sanagustin played Mewtwo V-UNION to a Top 64 finish. After that, we had been working on the deck over the Lost Origin format. However, we could not get it to consistently beat Giratina or Kyurem, both of which were popular, and top decks. Then Lugia arrived in Japan. This card, in a relatively underwhelming set, changed the meta drastically. Not only did it boast a solid Giratina matchup, it did effectively the same thing as Kyurem, but better, and with more variables to mess around with. With the rise of Lugia, two of our worst matchups were gone. The question arose, can we beat Lugia? This is where a lot of my contribution to the list started.

I like to think of my testing as less actual gameplay, and more theory and data based, and this works really well for me. Of course, we tested many games with the deck, but without this backbone of theory-ing, we would not have come up with the list until after LAIC. When I was going through the many online tournaments on https://play.limitlesstcg.com, I realized: if we can spam Yveltal, Lugia will run out of energies, especially with a high Crushing Hammer and Flannery count. This gave us our starting list. After some testing, our Lugia matchup felt great, giving us confidence in the list, and with the heavy Yveltal, our Mew matchup was also really good. Furthermore, Mewtwo gave us a great Lost Box matchup, as well as a strong gameplan to rely on against the more fringe decks in the meta – something Sander’s list doesn’t provide as much of.

The one thing that was in the back of our minds this whole time was, what if control does well at LAIC? Would we have to pivot to a new deck? A new control list? Well, Sander went and Top 8’d LAIC with Yveltal control. This is where the panic started to set in. As control had such a strong finish, would people really counter it?

Our answer, no. There are a few reasons our testing group reached this conclusion, the first being that control is going to be such a small percentage of the meta; most people will hit one or none, and not be scared of it, thus not teching for it. On top of this, the techs Sander’s list was weak to, ours was not, since there are many points where Lugia, Mew or Lost Box cannot deal with a Mewtwo. Thus, even if lists played some techs, they would need something stronger like Espeon, or Cyllene and Pal Pad, and at that point, they are likely cutting consistency cards that are overall good, for techs for a niche matchup. So if we can dodge them in the earlier rounds, we wouldn’t hit them.

Our last reasoning for playing control was similar to me playing Radiant Charizard/Inteleon to Baltimore. If the average player were to test against these higher skill level decks, they may not be playing perfectly, as the lists are relatively new, giving not much time to test. As we had been testing Mewtwo for around a month, we were all very confident in playing the deck well, so we could outplay some of our opponents, and have some surprise factor with the V-UNION. With this, we were set on around 58 cards of our list, a week before the event, and feeling confident in our deck.

The decklist

List explanation

Mewtwo V-UNION

As stated earlier, Sander Top 8’d LAIC with a control list that didn’t play the V-UNION, so why did we? Well, we were considering Sander’s list, but after seeing Vini’s loss in Seniors Finals to Lost Box, we were scared of hitting Lost Box with that list. Also with Lugia having a huge target on its back, Mewtwo gave us consistency in those matchups. This meant we didn’t have to hit the top three decks, something the Articuno/Inteleon deck relied on in order to do well, as well as not having any outright auto losses.

4 Yveltal

One of our earliest debates with the list was whether to play 3 or 4 Yveltal. We ended up on 4 as, especially after Lugia’s dominance at LAIC, we wanted to make spamming Yveltal as easy as possible, and as little prone to prizing variance as possible. This was further justified by Yveltal’s importance in the Mew matchup. The downside to 4 Yveltal is that you lower your odds of starting Snorlax. Furthermore, unlike Sander’s list, once you discard enough Powerful Colorless Energies against Lugia, you can wall with a Mewtwo, so the 4th Cry of Destruction becomes a lot less important.

Miltank

Looking back on the tournament, Miltank wasn’t great, so it’s probably on the top of the cut list. However, we played it to reduce variance. Miltank provides a great answer to many Arceus decks that North Americans love to use, and it can also pressure opposing attackers in certain matchups, such as Lost Box.

Radiant Gardevoir

Originally we were not playing a Radiant at all, but then we realized that a solid play from Lugia was to loop Lumineons. To combat this, we played Cape of Toughness. This part is a bit embarrassing, but I thought Gardevoir only reduced damage done to Vs by Vs, so I didn’t think it worked originally, but then we saw Sander playing it, and immediately cut one of the Capes for it, which solved any Lumineon looping issues we had.

No Galarian Meowth

Despite the obvious synergy with discarding pieces, I only missed Meowth 1 game, in 18 rounds. I feel like Meowth is only really necessary in formats where you need to set up a quick Mewtwo, which this format is not. Serena acts like a one-time Meowth, and it should be enough, especially if you’re careful with conserving discard outs.

Miss Fortune Sisters

This has to be my favorite card in the list, by far, and also the weirdest. As Chip pointed out in one of my interviews, you don’t expect to see such an aggressive mill card in a slower control deck, so what was its purpose? The two main matchups Miss Fortune Sisters contributed to are Mew, and Lost Box. Against Mew, you are able to get rid of switching outs, and damage modifiers, which allows you to win with a Mewtwo, or trap a Genesect V. Against Lost Box, it’s only really relevant against lists with OHKO potential on a Mewtwo, as you can get rid of their energy recovery for Mirage Gates, as well as their Mirage Gates. A trick you can use with Miss Fortune Sisters is Sidney, to see what your opponent is holding in hand, then Marnie, to get those cards to the bottom of the deck, then aggressively using Miss Fortune Sisters.

Serena

Serena was the last card we added to the list. We cut the last Cape for it, as Cape felt awful, and Serena gave a second gust option. Serena was one of our potential adds at the time, as well as a solid consistency option, and a great way to discard V-UNION pieces/Psychics, when you want to conserve other important resources in your hand.

0 Trekking Shoes

Besides Miss Fortune Sisters, the weirdest part of our list is the lack of Trekking Shoes. 4 Shoes had become a staple in the list, since it’s first showing at NAIC. The consistency, and discard potential seem great; however, many times you had to discard important cards. When you’re playing 4 Yveltal and 4 Twin Energy, you want to keep as many of those out of the discard and prizes as much as possible, which Trekking Shoes doesn’t do the best. Furthermore, if you were to take the first card off Shoes, you’re just using Judge Whistle, which in the past has been rightfully criticized; if you played 4 Judge Whistle, you were effectively playing a 56 card deck – something we could not afford to do in this meta.

4 Crushing Hammer

While other Mewtwo and control lists cut down on Hammers, we always felt they were great. A lot of times, a heads on a Hammer lets you use a Gormandize instead of Cry of Destruction, or a Research/nonessential supporter (i.e Sidney or Miss Fortune Sisters), rather than Flannery/Boss. Heavy Hammers also benefit against Lugia, as if you have a slow start, and are unable to attack with Yveltal 4 times, a combination of Hammers, Flannery and Sidney can usually get you to a 4th Yveltal equivalent. Hammers are also very strong against opponents with a Drapion that they have to manually power up (i.e Inteleon/Articuno) and against Arceus Duraludon, as seen in Game 1 of my finals match, where my flipping luck finally turned around with 4 heads. The last thing on Hammers was when we tested 0 and 2, it didn’t feel good. Even when you flip a ton of tails, there are a lot of influential heads flips that make them worth it, similar to Pokémon Catcher back in metas featuring Arceus/Dialga/Palkia GX with Zacian V.

1 Lost Vacuum

Lost Vacuum is our answer to Big Parasols. The other options people have played in Mewtwo are Tool Jammer and Tool Scrapper, but with the permanency and versatility to get rid of stadiums, Vacuum feels superior to the others.

1 Yell Horn

One of the later additions to our Mewtwo list was Yell Horn, which helps in pretty much every matchup. Horn works in combination with Pokemon Center Lady, where you can confuse both Actives, heal your confusion, and attack. Yell Horn really shines in matchups, like Arceus Duraladon, where they do only a little bit more than 200 damage, but is also really good at forcing retreats, or potentially stall an extra turn.

Galar Mine

Mine was our stadium of choice, and it was underwhelming to say the least. I don’t think Mine actively won me any games, it just occasionally made things a bit more awkward for my opponent. While Mine wasn’t great, I think it was the best stadium for this event, as PokeStop has a bit too much variance, sometimes discarding very important resources, Rose Tower isn’t that great overall, and we thought Path to the Peak would have been more harmful than helpful.

No tools

Another interesting point in our list was the lack of tools. As I mentioned earlier, we were playing Capes at one point, but eventually cut them as they weren’t really doing anything that Gardevoir didn’t do better. At one point we were playing Parasol, but we weren’t that scared of Regis, so we ended up cutting it.

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