i wanted to post the analyses as a bunch but i've only really had time to work on the araq one so here it is
Araquanid @ Choice Band
Ability: Water Bubble
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Leech Life / Lunge / Skitter Smack
- Trailblaze / Poison Jab / Body Slam
- Sticky Web / Reflect / Endeavor
With a sky high Attack stat, high-Base Power moves, and a fantastic ability in Water Bubble, Araquanid functions as an excellent wallbreaker with the capability to heavily damage its foes while forcing switches. Water Bubble-boosted Liquidation hits most of the metagame hard, scoring OHKOs on the likes of Vibrava as well as 2HKOs on Pokemon like Skarmory and Koraidon outside of sun. Tera Water further compounds its damage output, allowing it to 2HKO even bulky Water-resistant Pokemon such as Toxapex and Alomomola. Bug-type STAB moves allow Araquanid to handle the Grass-types that hope to switch into Liquidation. Leech Life provides Araquanid with recovery, something it crucially requires as it is vulnerable to chip damage from entry hazards and poison. Lunge and Skitter Smack are alternative options that reduce the offensive capability of opposing physical and special attackers respectively. The final two moveslots can be customized to fit Araquanid’s needs. Trailblaze allows Araquanid to catch Water-immune Pokemon like Gastrodon or Quagsire on the switch and boost its own Speed, while Poison Jab allows Araquanid to further nail Fairy-types and spread poison. Body Slam is a decent option for coverage, and it also allows Araquanid to further cripple its foes by paralyzing them. Araquanid can take advantage of the switches it forces to run Sticky Web to slow its foes down or Reflect to further weaken any incoming physical Attacks. Finally, Endeavor is an option that Araquanid can utilise when it is low on health to further weaken its foes, allowing its teammates to finish them off.
Physical attackers such as Vibrava and Zacian synergize well with Araquanid, as they can work together to overwhelm shared checks in physically defensive Pokemon, such as the aforementioned Toxapex and Alomomola. Araquanid also heavily appreciates rain setters such as Pelipper, which can clear Koraidon’s sun and replace it with rain to further boost Araquanid’s Liquidation. Choice Band Araquanid is especially vulnerable to entry hazards due to it having to forgo Heavy-Duty Boots; for this reason, hazard removal options such as Great Tusk and Galarian Weezing are excellent teammates for it. Finally, Alomomola can keep Araquanid healthy by Wish passing to it.
Ability: Water Bubble
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Leech Life / Lunge / Skitter Smack
- Trailblaze / Poison Jab / Body Slam
- Sticky Web / Reflect / Endeavor
With a sky high Attack stat, high-Base Power moves, and a fantastic ability in Water Bubble, Araquanid functions as an excellent wallbreaker with the capability to heavily damage its foes while forcing switches. Water Bubble-boosted Liquidation hits most of the metagame hard, scoring OHKOs on the likes of Vibrava as well as 2HKOs on Pokemon like Skarmory and Koraidon outside of sun. Tera Water further compounds its damage output, allowing it to 2HKO even bulky Water-resistant Pokemon such as Toxapex and Alomomola. Bug-type STAB moves allow Araquanid to handle the Grass-types that hope to switch into Liquidation. Leech Life provides Araquanid with recovery, something it crucially requires as it is vulnerable to chip damage from entry hazards and poison. Lunge and Skitter Smack are alternative options that reduce the offensive capability of opposing physical and special attackers respectively. The final two moveslots can be customized to fit Araquanid’s needs. Trailblaze allows Araquanid to catch Water-immune Pokemon like Gastrodon or Quagsire on the switch and boost its own Speed, while Poison Jab allows Araquanid to further nail Fairy-types and spread poison. Body Slam is a decent option for coverage, and it also allows Araquanid to further cripple its foes by paralyzing them. Araquanid can take advantage of the switches it forces to run Sticky Web to slow its foes down or Reflect to further weaken any incoming physical Attacks. Finally, Endeavor is an option that Araquanid can utilise when it is low on health to further weaken its foes, allowing its teammates to finish them off.
Physical attackers such as Vibrava and Zacian synergize well with Araquanid, as they can work together to overwhelm shared checks in physically defensive Pokemon, such as the aforementioned Toxapex and Alomomola. Araquanid also heavily appreciates rain setters such as Pelipper, which can clear Koraidon’s sun and replace it with rain to further boost Araquanid’s Liquidation. Choice Band Araquanid is especially vulnerable to entry hazards due to it having to forgo Heavy-Duty Boots; for this reason, hazard removal options such as Great Tusk and Galarian Weezing are excellent teammates for it. Finally, Alomomola can keep Araquanid healthy by Wish passing to it.
Araquanid is bulky and really powerful, especially when supported by Pelipper. It pretty much demands a solid water resist for the team. Its main flaw is a really low Speed stat that means that a lot of mons outspeed it even with no investment at all, including some walls that are not 2HKOd by it. Also, a lot of the best spinners have a good matchup against it anyways, meaning it can be hard to keep webs up. I'd say it's a big threat you need to prep for but not broken.
Koraidon is the single best mon in the meta overall, but it has some counterplay. Bulky physical walls like Toxapex, Dondozo, Deoxys-D, Weezing-G can stomach its moves and threaten it back. A number of threats at the 140 speed tier outspeed it before a Scale Shot boost. You can also change its weather with Pelipper who generally has a good matchup into it anyways.
Breloom can be quite threatening with its great stats and spore, but it has some pretty notable checks, even ones that are immune to spore. I feel like I don't see it enough to make a strong judgment on it. Sleep as a mechanic is fine, don't feel like there are too many potent abusers of it.
Toxapex is overrated and shouldn't even be on the watchlist imo. While less passive and bulkier than in standard play, it's still pretty easy to switch in onto for most of the defensive metagame. It struggles to make any progress at all against bulky mons immune to poison status and offers less role compression than some other bulky waters. For what it's worth, it's very stable against Koraidon though.
Skarmory is really bulky, and actually really fast for how bulky it is too. It's one of the best leads and defensive mons. Its passive and predictable, but that doesn't really matter if all you have are setup sweepers slower than it. The Taunt set is best, shuts down all setup mons while Whirlwinding the team around. Skarmory sometimes feels insurmountable for HO to deal with. Against teams that don't care about Spikes much, or that can remove hazards easily without being blocked, or that can burn Skarmory easily, it feels like it accomplishes almost nothing.
Dondozo is just super bulky on both sides and sets up so easily. Like Skarmory, it can sometimes feel like an impassable wall for HO to deal with, especially when backed with another Unaware mon, but already we are seeing ways to adapt to it. Unaware can be bypassed by common and good setup sweepers like Necrozma-DM, Lunala, and Zekrom, or it can be beaten down by Stored Power sweepers like Espeon or any number of the other good ones. Even in situations where it does manage to set up fully with Curse, it can struggle to break through some of the common walls teams will be running anyways to deal with Araquanid, like Eternatus, Toxapex, Brambleghast, and others.
