To Beguile with a Weavile! - with 0kamii

[0kamii]

Hey, everybody! It's 0kamii, and welcome to my final VGC analysis of the 2017 season!

First off, allow me to express how thankful I am for all the support I've gotten since starting this series back in January with my Emolga post. Speaking of, that post now has over 4,000 views! Goodness me. I never would've thought.   But anyway, seeing as how Worlds is this weekend, I doubt anyone will be using a Weavile on their team, especially since it appears that its place in VGC this year was kind of a fluke. Weavile has a lot of weaknesses to a lot of common mons this metagame, and it can't hit back very hard against much. Sure, it works well against Garchomp and other Dragon-Types, but so does Tapu Koko, and Lele, and Alolan Ninetales, and Porygon2 with Ice Beam. Eh, you get the point. But even though Weavile is less than stellar, you guys voted, and so my last VGC analysis for this season will be Weavile! And I must say, I am beguiled by this pokémon...

Type:

 

Weaknesses: x2, x4, x2, x2, x2, x2
Resistances: x1/2 , x1/2 , x1/2
Immunities:

 

As you can see, Weavile's shortcomings begin right at its Type. Which if any of my other analyses have indicated, is no good. Weavile, in this manner, reminds me an awful lot of Rampardos. In that they start with a severe handicap thanks to having one of the worst defensive types in the game, Ice-Type. While Ice is almost always nice to have thanks to the abundance of Dragon-Types running around, Weavile's role becomes nihil once you realize that we have super-effectice Fairy-Type damage flying around to deal with Dragon-Types like Garchomp and occasionally the likes of Salamence, Goodra, and Kommo-o. Not only that, but Weavile itself is also weak to Fairy-Type, which hurts it even more. An immunity to Psychic looks good on paper, but only until you realize the only heavy Psychic-Type this format is Tapu Lele, which also happens to be Fairy-Type. Weaknesses to Bug and Steel are managable thanks to all the available Fire-Types this format, but having a 4x weakness to Fighting really hits it home. Thanks to Hariyama, Close Combat Arcanine, and Pheromosa running around, you probably won't get more than a move off with Weavile before it goes down. Yeah, four weaknesses are bad. Six is practically unusable. At least in competitive play.

Stats:

HP: 70 (130 - 177)
Attack: 120 (112 - 189)
Defense: 65 (63 - 128)
Sp. Attack: 45 (45 - 106)
Sp. Defense: 85 (81 - 150)
Speed: 125 (117 - 194)

 

Unlike my last analysis, Weavile's stats makes it rather apparent what it's niche is supposed to be. With a base Speed of 125, it's faster than most other pokémon this metagame, will sole exceptions being Tapu Koko, Pheromosa, Aerodactyl, Jolteon, and Talonflame, and all but one of those are super-effective against Weavile. Its defenses are about as bad as Lucario's, and because of that a Focus Sash is pretty much a must. Weavile won't be suviving a hit from anything really, and you probably won't get off more than one move with it by the time it's OHKOed. Especially with the number of things that Weavile is weak to, Weavile is just overall not going to last very long in this metagame. I can see why it only every broke B- tier.

Abilities:

As usual, I'm going to keep the section on Weavile's abilities short. Both are fairly useless in a competitive setting. Pressure is Weavile's normal ability, and all it does is double the amount of PP usage by your opponent. While is it useful for speeding up stall matches, otherwise it's not exactly helpful. Most matches are over in around 10 turns anyway, and unless you opponent is running moves that all only have 5 PP, Pressure isn't going to do that much good. Pickpocket, Weavile's second ability, is just bad. It forces Weavile not to hold the Focus Sash it desperately needs, and even then you can only hope to steal something useful like a Life Orb or a Terrain Seed that then activates instantly. It's just not very good. Pressure is probably better, but only marginally.

Movepool:

In Singles, Weavile is a star. It has strong STAB in Icicle Crash, Ice Punch, and Ice Shard, not to mention Knock Off, Night Slash, and Punishment. However, we're talking about VGC Doubles, and here, Weavile's STAB means almost nothing. The few pokémon that Weavile can hit for super-effetive damage are all in lower tiers, pokémon like Drifblim, Alolan Marowak, Dragonite, and such. Against all of the primary contenders like the Tapus, Garchomp, Arcanine, Snorlax, and Celesteela and other higher tier mons, Weavile is weak to all of them and barely does a scratch back. Except to Garchomp and Bulu. For coverage, Weavile has access to a few useful moves. It gets Shadow Claw, Brick Break, Aerial Ace, X-Scissor, and Poison Jab. Though none of these moves particulary make up for Weavile's flaws. If only Knock Off was legal for Weavile in Gen 7, maybe then it'd had a bit more use? For support moves, Weavile gets Fake Out, Toxic, Feint, and Taunt. So it's not entirely useless on the supportive front, but it doesn't really have the bulk to stick around long enough to take advantage of it.

Overall:
 
You know, I'd hope to go out on a happier note than this. Weavile, if you'll remeber from my All Our Favorite Dark Pokémon post, is one of my very favorite Dark-Types. I'd love the chance to use one in VGC someday, but clearly this is not the metagame to do it. It just has too many weaknesses to too many common pokémon, and what little it can offer can already be done better by other supportive pokémon. But you know what, that's alright! As I love to remind everyone, no one thought a Pachirisu could be useful at an International Level tournament, and Se-Jun Park proved us all wrong. Not that I'm saying Weavile can do the same this metagame, but hey, I'm far from the best player in the world. Maybe there's a Worlds player that's already found a way to make Weavile useful? Albeit, probably as a sacrificial role, but useful nonetheless. All the same, let's wrap this analysis up with a moveset and partner recommendations.

The Set:

 

The Fast Beguiler

Weavile @ Focus Sash
Ability:
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp. Def/ 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Fake Out/Taunt
- Icicle Crash/Ice Punch
- Night Slash

 

There isn't really any way to run a Weavile this late in the metagame that hasn't already been tried. But regardless, I found moderate amount of success with this set. The split between Icicle Crash and Ice punch depends on how lucky you think you are. Icicle Crash does more damage, but Ice Punch is more accurate. I prefer Icicle Crash, mainly for the extra damage. As for Fake Out v. Taunt, that depends on what you think you're going to going up against. Taunt stops setup and Trick Room, especially on slow users like Porygon2, but Fake Out silences an opposing mon for one turn, provided they don't use Protect or switch out. Night Slash hits some common pokémon like Drifblim, Metagross, Mimikyu, and sometimes a rogue Oranguru. But mostly your best STAB move is going to be Icicle Crash/Ice Punch for the abundance of Garchomp running around. Protect is obviously standard for Doubles. If you want to swap out Fake Out/Taunt for Feint to break Protect, feel free to try. I didn't, but I imagine it's the same as Sebastian Escalante's Alolan Persian doing it.

Partners:

 

 

I featured this pair in my post on Arcanine in VGC this year, but that was to showcase a Justified strategy. Here, Intimidate is a must, and afterwards this pair can tackle most of the metagame for at least neutral damage. Just be aware of Choice Specs Fini, which can hit this pair hard. You can remedy this by giving Arcanine Wild Charge, but that's only if you don't mind recoil damage.

 

 

 

I thought long and hard about which pokémon could benefit from Weavile's coverage, and I honestly couldn't think of anythying better. Because of Bulu's slow Speed, it'll always win the terrain war, letting it hit opposing Tapus for very hard damage under Grassy Terrain. Not only that, but during the time I used a Tapu Bulu on it's own, I was OHKOed frequently by a Poison Jab from Garchomp. Weavile covers this. For this pair however, be cautious around Nihilego and Alolan Ninetales.

Conclusion:

Well, there you have it. The last VGC analysis of the season. I may sound like a broken record, but I'm still totally stoked for the World Championships this weekend, and I even have a can of Venom Energy saved for the occasion! They're very hard to find around here.... But regardless, thanks so much for all the support you guys have given me over the season, and I hope to continue the trend into VGC 2018. I'll probably take a much needed break from all this competitive battling, so from here on out until the 2018 season gets rolling, I'll be taking everyone other Wednesday off. So on a day I'd usual make a VGC post, I'll just keep it to myself. I'm definitely going to be making three posts a week still, just every other week I'll take a day off in the middle. In case you missed any of my other VGC analyses this season, the links are below:

1) Emolga
2) Alomomola
3) Rampardos
4) Poliwrath
5) Bastiodon
6) Jolteon
7) Drifblim
8) Arcanine
9) Lucario

Thanks so much for reading me over the season everyone! See you all after Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon comes out and we finally get us some Move Tutors. Maybe I'll even revisit some of these pokémon in 2018? I know I definitely want to redo my original Emolga post. So I'll ctach you all after Worlds. Maybe I can even do a post about it. Stay tuned, for tomorrow I post my first [RATE MY TEAM] since my 1st Place Emolga Team!

Thanks again everyone! Battle onwards, friends!

- 0kamii