1v1 Suspect Coverage: Mew

By Pokesartoolcay. Released: 2020/03/20.
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1v1 Suspect Coverage: Mew Art

Art by Kaiju Bunny.

Introduction

With 1v1’s bans of Dynamax and Sableye in recent months, Mew quickly rose to notoriety as one of the metagame’s biggest threats. Its presence was shortly decided to be problematic after those bans, warping the metagame around it with the combination of great bulk and Speed and invalidating the majority of defensive sets with Imprison + Transform. Furthermore, Choice sets that took advantage of Mew's amazing movepool and good offensive stats allowed it to beat common checks such as Dragapult and Sylveon, pushing it over the edge in the eyes of many players and council members, leading to its suspect.

Sets

Mew

Utilizing the fearsome combination of Imprison + Transform to win games, Mew is usually seen using this set in particular. The third and fourth slots can be tailored to the player's needs. Taunt and Substitute, with the use of Imprison, prevent slower Pokémon from being able to use such moves. Magic Room protects Mew from the combination of Trick + a Choice item. In certain matchups, Magic Room is not needed, as Mew can just use Transform on the predicted Trick. Shadow Ball is an option that allows Mew to win against Choice-locked Ghost-types such as Dragapult by rendering them unable to use their own Shadow Ball with Imprison.

Mew

These are examples of the Choice item sets that Mew can use. They are quite straightforward, utilizing Mew's immense coverage to KO threats. The main use of these sets is to beat regular checks to Mew's primary Imprison + Transform set such as Galarian Darmanitan, Sylveon, and Dracovish. These sets add to Mew's unpredictability, making the aforementioned Pokémon no longer safe to pick against it.

Pro-ban arguments

An overwhelming majority voted to ban Mew, for a variety of reasons. Many thought that the combination of Imprison and Transform, which causes the foe to KO itself with Struggle, was uncompetitive. This was augmented by Mew’s variety of moves such as Shadow Ball, Phantom Force, Taunt, and Substitute, which were all common countermeasures to Imprison + Transform. Others saw Mew’s banworthiness in its Choice sets. Due to its great movepool, Mew’s Choice sets could be tailored to whatever a team needed to cover, adding greatly to Mew’s versatility. This, along with its overall great stats that allowed it to do whatever it wanted and the almost complete lack of overlap between the checks and counters to the two categories, caused a good number of games to be turned into Mew set guessing, making it even more of a menace to deal with in both teambuilding and Team Preview.

Anti-ban arguments

A very small minority of 1v1 players wanted Mew to be kept in the metagame. They did agree that Mew was one of the best Pokémon in 1v1, but they felt that it didn’t go over the edge. It couldn’t run all of its sets at once, and, at times, they felt it quite obvious what Mew variant an opponent would be using, depending on how their team was comprised. Dropping certain moves on different sets, such as Close Combat on Choice Band sets, would leave it weak to Dark- and Normal-types such as Tyranitar and Snorlax. Some also felt that a powerful Pokémon such as Mew would centralize the metagame, making set prediction easier.

Conclusion

Mew's ban was one of the most one-sided in 1v1's history, with 96% of voters voting ban. Having lost its most centralizing Pokémon, the 1v1 tier has changed quite a bit. Its ban gives defensive Pokémon more opportunity to shine, losing their biggest counter, along with offensive threats such as Dracovish becoming better. Make sure to catch a game on the ladder!

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