Retro (Neo) - Slowking

Since Wizards of the Coast wasn’t a fan of issuing erratas (they had previously declined to issue them for printing errors on Weakness and also attacks), they decided Slowking would be played as written. This had catastrophic consequences for the game, as players could now activate as many as four Mind Games Pokémon Powers, meaning up to four coin flip opportunities to block each Trainer the opponent attempted to play. Players paired Slowking with Sneasel, which protected

Since Wizards of the Coast wasn’t a fan of issuing erratas (they had previously declined to issue them for printing errors on Weakness and also attacks), they decided Slowking would be played as written. This had catastrophic consequences for the game, as players could now activate as many as four Mind Games Pokémon Powers, meaning up to four coin flip opportunities to block each Trainer the opponent attempted to play. Players paired Slowking with Sneasel, which protected it from Super Energy Removal and allowed it mow down Pokémon after Pokémon with its Beat Up attack. Murkrow also easily fit into the deck, with Slowking blocking Trainers that could escape Murkrow’s Mean Look. Since both Murkrow and Sneasel had free retreat, this also made it easy to access Cleffa’s Eeeeeeek Turn 1, allowing Slowking players to follow up the powerful Lass & Eeeeeeek combo with a Slowking before their opponent even got a chance to play any Trainers. While Alex Brosseau of the United States would find a way to defeat the mighty Slowking deck at the 15+ Standard event at the 2002 World Championships, the nearly two years leading up to that event were dominated by Slowking.

While players who played this deck generally focused on going for Sneasel’s Beat Up attack, the real strength of the Sneasel/Murkrow/Slowking decks was in Murkrow. Between the ability to strip away Energy cards with ER & SER, and Gold Berry & Healing Field allowing you to heal Murkrow, virtually any Pokémon could fall victim to a “Mean Look lock,” where Murkrow stranded a Pokémon active and then used Feint Attack to slowly wipe out the opponent’s entire Bench.