Not an upload has gone by, without someone asking for Alolan Muk. The attempt to build a decent Alolan Muk deck… cost me everything. 160 HP is a strong stat for a stage 1 EX evolution, that’s it. That’s the one good thing about Alolan Muk. For 3 energy, Chemical Panic deals 80 damage and afflicts its target with a random special condition. The defending pokemon will end up Poisoned, Burned, Confused, Paralyzed or Asleep. Seems like a really fun pokemon amirite? Maybe, if you're a sociopath. A dog chasing cars kind of guy, who doesn’t just appreciate life’s uncertainty, but thrives because of it. I’m not that guy. This pokemon upsets me.

The biggest issue with Muk is the fact that it can inflict confusion. In pokemon pocket there’s a specific clause for certain special conditions, confusion, paralysis and sleep overtake one another. Why? Because of the original games? It’s not like a pokemon can be burned and poisoned at the same time there anyways! Sigh.

Here’s my Alolan Muk deck.

Behold, the one Muk deck I didn’t grow to hate. We confuse and poison early in the game, to then send in Muk to provide us with an attack that won’t bring us shame. We do this thanks to Spiritomb’s Confuse Ray. As we attack, we flip a coin, if heads the defending pokemon will be confused. As long as the pokemon doesn’t run away, confusion will remain. With poison barb in the mix, once Muk goes in the status roulette will narrow down to 3. Burn, Paralysis and Sleep. This makes the outcome more predictable, and helps Muk be a little bit less terrible.

Salandit is our fifth basic pokemon, synergizing with our full set of poison barb, Salandit’s attack with deal 50, mirroring the offensive prowess of a skarmory.

After countless tests, this Alolan Muk deck is what works best. The bad RNG can be difficult to digest, join me on this session so I can finally put this pokemon to rest.