"We dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokémon, and we succeeded..."
In the golden-age of Pokémon, Mewtwo was the end-all, be-all, strongest and coolest Pokémon in existence! In which applied to every branch of the Pokémon IP. But when Mewtwo made its second appearance in the TCG, boy did it prove to meet everyone's expectations as the OG Legendary Pokémon!
While Mewtwo was featured initially in Base Set
, it wasn't that great, in fact, we don't have a single archived deck from the format featuring the card, similar to Charizard. But when WotC printed the third-ever Black Star Promo card, (quickly being reprinted as Promo #14), Mewtwo made a massive impact on the game! See for yourself in our Base Set- Fossil format page, Mewtwo is everywhere!
While I know you can read... Mewtwo's first attack allowed you to attach 2 Energy from the discard pile to itself. While in today's standards that may not seem like much, just think back with how the game worked back in 1999...
There were no rules in how many of which card you could play per turn (except for Energy Cards), thus players were often discarding cards from their hand multiple times per turn via cards like Computer Search
, Professor Oak
, Item Finder
and Energy Retrieval
. Not to mention the fact that your opponent was also discarding your Energy with Energy Removals
and the simple fact that retreating exists.
So, there were almost always Energy in a players discard pile to be attached to Mewtwo with its Energy Absorption attack! Besides, you could often spend a turn on prioritizing energy acceleration over dealing damage in a era in which the damage ceiling was low. But, with that, the average Pokémon's HP was also low, esspecially Basics. But thanks to the ability to discard so many Energy off your first turn, it was more often than not worth the turn or two of energy acceleration.
But what's self-energy acceleration without a good attack? Mewtwo's Psyburn attack did 40 damage! Sure, you laugh now in an age of 200+ damage attacks being considered child's play... but at the time, 40 damage on a Basic Pokémon, like the famous Hitmonchan
, was big damage! Sure, you could find some other Basic Pokémon that did more damage than that, but they always came with stipulations, like damage based on the total amount of Energy on the Defending Pokémon, or flipping coins, or self-recoil damage. Mewtwo's attack is a simple, clean, guaranteed 40 damage.
To add, the format also had PlusPower
, which made for some crazy turn-two Knock Outs / donks for 80 damage. (While the more modern Plus Power cards were Items that went straight to the discard pile, thus theoretically could have been brought back into hand via something like Item Finder or Dowsing Machine
, the original Base Set print required it to be attached to the Pokémon until the end of the turn.)
Fun Fact: Mewtwo was designed by the creators or Pokémon and drawn by Ken Sugimori long before Pikachu was ever created! Check out some of our archived formats featuring Mewtwo in some cool decks:
- 1999 Base Set - Fossil
- 2000 Base Set - Team Rocket
- 2000 Base Set - Gym Era
- 2000 Prop 15 / 3
- 2001 Base Set - Neo
- 2001 Team Rocket - Neo Genesis
- 2001 Team Rocket - Neo Revelation
- 2002 Team Rocket - Legendary Collection
Throughout Mewtwo's (WotC PR) lifespan, the entire time it was legal, it was never not playable! Now, like most cards throughout history, it died down with each new set, as more powerful cards were printed each year. But there was really no other Pokémon as playable as this Mewtwo in the early era of the game.
While you can check out all the awesome decks featuring Mewtwo from the formats listed above, I would like to feature one of my favorite decks from the BS-FO format here to wrap things up!
This is a list I have built in my retro deck collection at the moment, and I love it! When the rare opportunity to blay Base Set arrises, this is usually my go-to deck, of which I'm almost confindent was originally a Jason Klaczinsky list. While the deck is primarily a Wigglytuff deck, most games are often centered around setting up Mewtwo to do early big damage, while the rest of the Pokémon are just sort of set up as you go.
My favorite reaction that often occures when playing this deck, is when up against a Haymaker opponent - I flip over a Jigglypuff and they'll simply smile. But into my first turn, I'll reveal a Mewtwo, discard Energies via natural gameplay, and accelerate 2 Psychic Energy onto Mewtwo in the same turn. Their faces instantly change to "oh crap" haha.
If you build BS-FO as part of your retro collection, I highly recommend this deck. Especially with the inclusion of Muk's "Ability lock" like Poké-Power, the deck can be broken!
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