Pokémon Iron-Jugulis

[Greentea570]

Base Stats: |HP - 94| |Attack - 80| |Defense -86| |Special Attack - 122| |Special Defense - 80| |Speed - 108|
Abilities: Quark drive

Notable Moves

Air Slash
Dark Pulse
Dragon Pulse
Earth Power
Fire Blast
Focus Blast
Flamethrower
Flash Cannon
Hurricane
Hydro Pump
Protect
Substitute
Taunt
Tera Blast
U-turn

Pros
+ Iron Jugulis is an incredible Special Attacker with a Special attack stat of base 122, which is 343 after 252 evs and could become monstrous thanks to the support it gets from Modest or Quark drive with the help of booster energy
+ It resists two of the most dominant type as of now; The ghost type and dark type. It also takes neutral damage from bug type and fighting type attacks, but always has a way to answer them offensively
+ Having the access to substitute opens it ways to set up a substitute vs some of the decently common mons like Gholdengo, skeleridge, toedscruel, houndstone, choice locked meowscarada and clodsire etc. And start spreading it's offensive propaganda. The list extends to more pokemon as it undergoes terastalization
+ With Quark Drive being one of the best gifts it has, it could have a Special attack boost or Speed boost every time it comes to the scene with a little adjustments in evs, while being in electric terrain or while holding the Booster Energy
+ A good presence for a rain team or an electric terrain based team, with the nature of hitting hard with a wide-ranged move pool and having the ability to go for a speed boosting quark drive with modest

Cons
- The main con of Iron-jugulis is the speed which hits 346 at 252+ evs and 315 at 252 evs, which are relatably very slow in the current meta. Often when it clears the speed part with the Quark Drive, it lacks the offensive potential vs teams with pokemon always living hits or just recovering them off
- Lack of having a set up move is another con of Iron jugulis but the Quark Drive, as always,is it's best friend. But in that case, it will lack speed. Work up is not very reliable and it is among the reasons as to why it sucks vs some of the defensive pokemon like Clodsire.
- The next con is being prone to be revenge killed easily or being prone to priority moves like Mach Punch/Jet Punch/Ice Shard/First Impression
- Iron Jugulis is also quite match-up fishy at times, but is often saved by the terastalizing

Terastilizing Potential
Iron jugulis often seems to like terastalizing into a steel type, being able to get the flash cannon stab and attack some of it's weaknesses like fairy and ice typed pokemon while resisting their attacks that turn. It also helps it vs some priority moves like Ice Shard and First impression.
Another option is dragon type, which i am personally not a big fan of, but sometimes it seems to help with pokemon like palafin.
Water type is also a quite good option

Potential sets

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon
- Substitute

This set is among my personal favourites. The help substitute does in balancing the speed stats is not small at all. It could sub vs Meowscarada/Houndstone/Toadscruel and quite a lot of pokemon, which grows up as it terastalizes. I chose Dark Pulse and Hurricane as the main stab, in which Dark pulse hits ghosts and steels that resist the other two moves and quite a lot of mons. Hurricane is the one which is the most fun to click, often killing stuff like Meowscarada, Great Tusk and Iron valiant (often while under sub) and hurting any pokemon that switches into it harder than the other two. Flash cannon is a supportive 4th move slot which often helps in killing fairy types like Iron Valiant and Flutter Mane in surprise, while terastalizing into a steel type to gain stab.

Overall
Iron-jugulis is definitely among the pokemon that are very fun to use in general. The Special Attack stat is what that keeps it different than a wide fraction of pokemon. From my personal experience, it is very much easy to set up a substitute for it and once it does, it often does quite a lot of destruction vs offensive teams. Though,i find it very tough to maintain it during rain matchups. It may sometimes perform bad vs some offenses and bulky sets. The terastalization helps it very much in solving most of the issues it has, but it is often being outclassed by more pokemon, which in my opinion wouldn't matter as we will have more bans.

 

[escarlata]

Iron Jugulis is… weird to me
Every single aspect of it seems just ever so slightly off and yet so close to greatness.

Its stat distribution is pretty decent, but every time I try to EV it to meet certain breakpoints it feels like it’s missing 5 points in every stat (which is funny because it has exactly 30 BST lower than Hydreigon)

It seems like it should be a great Specs Dark Pulse spammer like its present day cousin, but it’s SR weakness makes it more easy to wear down. Having access to one of the strongest Hurricane feels good when it hits, but missing on him feels so much worse than missing on Zapdos or Torn-T due to their better sustain. Speaking of which, Iron Jugulis feels like he got robbed of Roost, which it has a very decent typing and ok bulk to make use of, but without Roost, his defensive stats just feel very slightly too low to efficiently pad up with defensive EV investment.

It being faster than base 100 is a good thing, but the 101-107 speed tier is more barren this gen than any previous gen, while the 110+ speed tier is more crowded than ever. And yet it can't really afford to easily run Modest because the likes of Chi-Yu, Paladin and Garchomp are not what you cant afford to get outrun by.
/rant over

In all fairness, I don’t think Iron-Jugulis is bad, but it was so close to being great with literally 5 more point in any stat and maybe Roost, but now it’s just stuck in a position where it’s just the 7th or 8th best user of Booster Energy.

I really like to use him in Ghost Spam and make him Tera Ground actually, it takes away the SR weakness and gives him a Specs STAB Earth Power which is really hard to switch into and it’s very good at blasting through Clodsire who is one of the premier SpD walls we have currently.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Been using a Choice Scarf set and it is way better than I initially though it was going to be. Outspeeds all unboosted pokemon and does pretty good damage to many of the most common pokemon in OU with Hurricane/Dark Pulse/Fire Blast or Focus Blast/U-Turn. It also has a pretty wide mocepool with Hydro Pump, Earth Power, Taunt and Tail Wind.

The one negative thing is how inaccurate Hurricane is outside of rain so that cuts down it reliability a bit

 

[Crocognawledge]

Been running Iron Jugulis with this set:

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Dark Pulse
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump

It's been a very effective mid-late game Pokemon. 108 at +1 Speed from Energy Booster makes it incredibly fast. Manual Rain Dance is surprisingly useful because it cancels Drought/Protosynthesis, makes Hurricane perfectly accurate, and boosts Hydro Pump. I do wish Jugulis got Surf because it would be more consistent, but Tera Water Hydro Pump in Rain is no joke. While Rain is up it's also very easy to draw out Tera from Iron Valiant and the like because Hurricane under Rain isn't a gamble. Jugulis under Rain also effectively resists both of Chi-Yu's STABs.

I can't state enough how much Jugulis likes being able to SPAM Hurricane with perfect accuracy. Dark Pulse is excellent for the targets it does hit and is almost always a good mid-ground play, but Hurricane with it's SpA stat is simply excellent, and Rain boosted Hydro Pump is roughly equivalent to super-effective coverage. Jugulis has the tools to lean into the set, and while Tera Water doesn't address any weaknesses (except Ice, and Rock to an extent) and shares the electric vulnerability, Jugulis really, really likes being to amp up its damage output.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Been running Iron Jugulis with this set:

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Dark Pulse
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump

It's been a very effective mid-late game Pokemon. 108 at +1 Speed from Energy Booster makes it incredibly fast. Manual Rain Dance is surprisingly useful because it cancels Drought/Protosynthesis, makes Hurricane perfectly accurate, and boosts Hydro Pump. I do wish Jugulis got Surf because it would be more consistent, but Tera Water Hydro Pump in Rain is no joke. While Rain is up it's also very easy to draw out Tera from Iron Valiant and the like because Hurricane under Rain isn't a gamble. Jugulis under Rain also effectively resists both of Chi-Yu's STABs.

I can't state enough how much Jugulis likes being able to SPAM Hurricane with perfect accuracy. Dark Pulse is excellent for the targets it does hit and is almost always a good mid-ground play, but Hurricane with it's SpA stat is simply excellent, and Rain boosted Hydro Pump is roughly equivalent to super-effective coverage. Jugulis has the tools to lean into the set, and while Tera Water doesn't address any weaknesses (except Ice, and Rock to an extent) and shares the electric vulnerability, Jugulis really, really likes being to amp up its damage output.

I have also tried a similar set with Earth Power over Rain Dance to deal with Clodsire/Toxapex better but isn't justified a lot of the time. The best results was with Work Up as it is pretty hard to deal with at +1 to both Special Attack and Speed. There's only a few pokemon out there that can actually take multiple hits from Iron Juglis and most of them aren't too common.

 

[Magcargo]

NGL, I expected this mon to be trash due to some strong negative opinions on it + lacking some key moves like Roost and Nasty Plot, but after actually using it, it hasn't been too bad. Specs is really strong and this mon has the nice trait of hitting the two most used Pokemon, Gholdengo and Great Tusk, for super effective damage with its STABs and it has a lot of good coverage moves to make mons like Garganacl and Kingambit quiver in their boots. Either Tera Dark or Tera Flying is great on this Pokemon to jack up its power even more. Personally don't find this Pokemon too comparable to Hydreigon since the typing change does have its own pros and cons in several MUs, though the Stealth Rock Weakness is admiringly annoying.

 

[SetsuSetsuna]

For the sake of being a completionist I figured we could add the most popular set here, Taunt + 3 Atks Booster Energy

Iron Jugulis @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Dark / Flying
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast / Flamethrower / Earth Power
- Taunt
​

Taunt lets it weaken defensive Pokemon such as Clodsire and Toxapex. Fire Blast, Flamethower and Earth Power all hits Kingambit, with the Fire-type attacks also targetting Corviknight, while Earth Power hits Toxapex, Garganacl, Glimmora, and Iron Moth. Stabs are good options for its Tera type, and Tera Fire can also be good if it chooses to run a Fire-type attack for coverage. In this case Booster Energy boosts its Speed.