In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban

by **Champion Blackwolf** Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:19 am

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In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban Mawile10

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Mawile is a third generation Pokemon, available in four zones in Ruby, on Victory Road only in Emerald. You won't find it in Sapphire because they put Sableye instead. It was average back then, and now is almost useless under its base form. Its base stat total is 380, and keep in mind that Mawile doesn't evolve, that's why it's considered weak with a 380. Its best base stats are attack and defense, 85 each. Once again, it doesn't evolve. The others are at 50 or 55 each. It has good abilities but it's so weak that those abilities don't even help it. It can have Hyper Cutter (you can't lower its attack, but it's so low you don't even need to), Sheer Force (offensive moves with secondary effect gain power, but with the low power it has it'd better keep the effects) or Intimidate (lowers enemy attack on switch-in, it will save you for one turn and then you'll get wrecked). Without a Mega-Evolution, Mawile had basically no future. Its good side, though, is the dual typing it gained with gen 6: steel/fairy, removing fighting, poison and steel weaknesses, leaving fire and ground only (but those are quite common types).
There is your Mega-Evolution. Mega-Mawile gets a 105 base attack, 125 base defense and 95 in special defense, the rest doesn't change, for a total of 480. It seems low for a mega, but that one mega has the ability Huge Power. Its attack stat doubles. Thanks to that, Mega-Mawile now has the highest attack stat ever. You need a base attack of 259 if you want to surpass it, and that's impossible. Mega-Mawile is out of reach unless something else gets Huge Power. We have the highest possible attack, combined with Swords Dance and Sucker Punch. Aaaand it's banned.

How to play it?

[img] In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban Mawile11

In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban Mawile11

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Ordinary Mawile: PU tier. Don't play it above. Really hard to use, better avoid it. But if Mawile is your favourite Pokemon and you absolutely want to play it, I've found three ways.
-First way: mega-like set. Intimidate to lower enemy attack to compensate the poor bulk (and lose your ticket to Valhalla). You can also get sheer force to compensate your low power. Focus sash because it sucks that bad, or leftovers if you have huge guts. Setup with Swords Dance, hit harder with Play Rough and Iron Head for some stab power, and Sucker Punch to compensate its low speed. Setup against a staller or I don't give it more than two turns to live. 248 HP 252 Atk 8 SpD, adamant.
-Second way: a personal set, based on my love for tanks that hit hard. Well, there's no Regirock or Aggron here, no choice, it's Mawile. Assault vest and Intimidate (I hate that ability but I had no choice), to compensate the poor bulk. Then you have Power up Punch for attack, Play Rough or Iron Head for the STAB, then Sucker Punch to compensate the lack of speed. Last move, either Counter or Metal Burst because it's going to get badly hurt, you can as well counterattack this way.
-Third way: just use it as a meatshield, that's its best role.

[img] In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban Mega-m10

In the moonlight n°17: Mawile's road to the ban Mega-m10

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Mega-Mawile: Uber tier. Highest attack ever, priority move, good defenses, intimidate before mega-evolving, swords dance justify its ban. Swords Dance first, then unload Play Rough and Iron Head. In case you face a strong attacker, faster than Mawile (that's really easy), you have Sucker Punch to deal heavy damage (or kill) before the opponent has time to hit. 248 HP, 252 Attack, 8 SpD, adamant nature.
While Mawile sucks in its regular form, the mega is ridiculously strong. Basically the story of a Pokemon below average who dreamt of becoming strong, so much that when he finally got what he wanted, he went too far and ended up playing cards with Blaziken, Lucario and Kangaskhan.

By Champion Blackwolf. Sorry, I'm late again. Next topic: Aegislash.

by **Woyaojinkela** Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:31 am

Im not familier with Mawile but I thougth mawile is viable in NU, considering it was actually in the tier for a while

by **Champion Blackwolf** Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:51 am

It could have been, but with Pokemon like Charizard, Omastar, Rhydon, Steelix, Piloswine, Claydol, Magmortar, Electivire, Pyroar, Golurk, Ferroseed, it doesn't stand a chance. I've never seen a Mawile while laddering NU.

by **Woyaojinkela** Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:11 pm

you r right, the recent tier changes messed mawile up :^)

by **Champion Blackwolf** Fri Jun 17, 2016 6:43 am

And you made me realize I missed an important point in the article: I should have referred to all these Pokemon as the reason Mawile is useless in NU, instead of leaving them for a comment.

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