Pokémon Slowbro-Galar

[Dreadfury]

Type: Poison / Psychic

Base Stats: 95 HP / 100 Atk / 95 Def / 100 SpA / 70 SpD / 30 Spe

Abilities: Quick Draw / Own Tempo / Regenerator (H)

Notable Moves:

Shell Side Arm
Sludge Bomb
Belly Drum
Nasty Plot
Flamethrower
Earthquake
Ice Beam
Zen Headbutt
Psyshock
Slack Off
Surf
Psychic
Stored Power
Brick Break
Ice Punch
Drain Punch
Waterfall
Grass Knot
Thunder Wave
Poison Jab
Power Gem
Gunk Shot
Substitute
Iron Defense
Body Press
Liquidation
Shadow Ball
Calm Mind
Fire Blast
Hydro Pump
Focus Blast
Trick Room
Tera Blast
Block

Pros:

• Galarian Slowbro is blessed with a good defensive typing alongside a solid defensive statline and, if it so chooses, Regenerator.
• Galarian Slowbro's movepool is ludicrously good, with setup options, lots of utility options, and basically limitless coverage options on both the physical and special side to pick and choose from.
• Its signature ability, Quick Draw, can be run alongside a Quick Claw to give Galarian Slowbro a ~44% chance to activate its built-in cheat codes and go first within its priority bracket despite its atrocious Speed stat. This gives Galarian Slowbro a chance each turn to become a nigh-unstoppable setup sweeper with Nasty Plot or Belly Drum.

Cons:

• Galarian Slowbro's defensive stats are just solid; its low Special Defense and slightly lacking Defense can be its downfall when compared to its Kantonian counterpart.
• Galarian Slowbro is thoroughly outclassed from a utility standpoint by the excellent Galarian Slowking, which has almost all of Galarian Slowbro's bottomless special movepool and has both Future Sight (which Galarian Slowbro appears to have lost, for some reason?) and the phenomenal Chilly Reception to provide even more support for its team. Galarian Slowbro isn't necessarily bad, even if it lacks those two incredibly crucial moves, but Galarian Slowking is one of the best Pokemon in the entire OU tier due to the support it provides.
• Quick Draw sets essentially live and die by a coinflip, and are slightly more likely to fall over and accomplish nothing than they are to steamroll an entire team on their own. They are incredibly inconsistent and are, thus, quite gimmicky.
• You're probably a fucking degenerate if you're using Quick Draw sets.

Terastallization Potential:

• Tera Flying is overall the best choice, as it allows Slowbro-Galar to set up against Great Tusk with ease.
• That said, virtually any Tera type with defensive value (Dark, Water, Normal, Fairy, Fire, Ground, etc.) can work decently well on Quick Draw sets; the objective is to simply not get hit by the opponent by getting lucky.
• Tera Ground, Fighting, Poison, and Psychic can allow Galarian Slowbro to power up its STABs or coverage options.

Potential Sets:

Skillbro
Slowbro-Galar @ Quick Claw
Ability: Quick Draw
Tera Type: Flying / Fairy / Ground / Fire
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Belly Drum
- Shell Side Arm
- Earthquake / Tera Blast
- Drain Punch

A set named by me when I was drunk and browsing the Heat thread one day several years ago, the beauty (and irony) of Skillbro is that it truly requires skill to to be lucky enough to activate Quick Claw or Quick Draw each turn after setting up. The Speed investment allows Galarian Slowbro to outspeed Toxapex, OHKOing it with a +6 Earthquake before it can Haze your hard-earned Belly Drum away; you obviously have a 44% chance to outspeed it anyway, but it's better to guarantee you do. Drain Punch gives Galarian Slowbro a recovery tool, turning any Steel-type or Dark-type weak to it into a Hyper Potion and probably making your opponent forfeit due to sheer rage on the spot (potentially with a flurry of insults beforehand). Shell Side Arm becomes a physical move with this Attack investment and is Slowbro's strongest reliable STAB option. Tera Flying is a viable option to turn many Great Tusk variants into setup fodder, since one safe Belly Drum gives Galarian Slowbro a 44% chance to guarantee an OHKO each turn thereafter. Tera Blast alongside Tera Fire can be considered to muscle past Gholdengo and Corviknight, while Tera Fairy allows Galarian Slowbro to deal with Fighting-types like Great Tusk. Realistically, though; you can pick and choose nearly any Tera type for this thing; find a target you can get a surprise Belly Drum against, and after that you have a 44% chance of outplaying your opponent each turn.

This set fits best on Screens teams, as they can allow it to take less than 50% from one hit, get the Belly Drum off, and proceed to outplay your opponent 44% of the time.

Nasty Plot Skillbro
Slowbro-Galar @ Quick Claw
Ability: Quick Draw
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 212 HP / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Psyshock
- Ice Beam / Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower / Ice Beam

While this variant deviates heavily from the Belly Drum variant in that it's a special attacker with limitless coverage but cannot boost its Special Attack to such immediately-astronomical levels, it requires just as little skill to use effectively once it sets up. Use it on any team you'd use the Belly Drum variant on; 56% of the time it won't work anyway, just like that set!

Bulky Calm Mind
Slowbro-Galar @ Colbur Berry / Shuca Berry / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Flying / Fairy / Water
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock / Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower / Ice Beam / Scald
- Slack Off

This variant is much, much more consistent than its Quick Draw alternatives, and has a surprising amount of staying power. This variant of Galarian Slowbro differentiates itself from Galarian Slowking with its superior physical bulk, and it can serve as a strong late-game win condition for bulkier teams.

The Verdict:

Jokes aside, it's a much more offensive take on the fantastic Galarian Slowking in theory, except it lacks Future Sight and Chilly Reception which makes it a far, far inferior supportive mon. It can use its superior physical bulk to distinguish itself from its regal cousin, but it's not super consistent. Its setup variants are fun to use, but are extremely inconsistent and probably shouldn't be used in a serious setting as a result. I don't think it'll be OU, but it'll have some sort of a small niche in the tier (especially when some poor bastard bumps into the Belly Drum set and loses without being able to do anything but hope you get unlucky).

 

[Magcargo]

For some reason, GF gave Slowbro-G's already superior brother, Slowking-G, all these cool support moves like Toxic, Toxic Spikes, and Chilly Reception, while leaving Slowbro-G largely in the dust. Heck, they even took away some of its tools in the prior generation like Future Sight and Scald, so its gonna have a harder time in lower tiers too! Its espicially weird since its the only one that doesn't learn Future Sight anymore.

Yeah, they completely massacred Slowbro-G in the transition to Paldea, which is a shame. He was pretty solid in UU last generation and the Quick Draw cheese set was fun in OU during the IoA meta (though I think its worse now with the massive influx of powercreep, 4MSS, and stronger walls like Ting-Lu). Its shame they massacred him so bad in the transition to SV, I was really hoping he'd come back with some new cool moves like Slowking-G.