The Sixth Generation Mawile, a Competitive Move Guide
Mawile
Mawile is a Generation III Pokémon that had little to no potential because of its low stats. The stats are:
HP 50/ Attack 85/ Defense 85/ Special Attack 55/ Special Defense 55/ Speed 50
These stats are pretty abysmal. I must say, that this Pokémon is, at best, Average. How do the typings look?
Steel/Fairy
Damaged normally by Fighting, Ghost, Steel, Water, Electric
Weak to Ground and Fire
Immune to Poison and Dragon
Resistant to: Normal, Flying, Rock, Bug, Grass, Psychic, Ice, Dark, Fairy
Pretty good, if it does say so itself. With a massive amount of resistances, this Pokémon can take a hit. We'll look at Mega Mawile here in a minute, which is the main pull of this article.
Possible Abilities: Intimidate (cuts attack), Hyper Cutter (prevents attack from being cut), Sheer Force (removes added effects of attacks to boost damage)
Mega Mawile
Mega Mawile is the only reason to use Mawile at all in competitive play. The typing remains the same, but the stats don't.
HP 50/ Attack 105/ Defense 125/ Special Attack 55/ Special Defense 95/ Speed 50
This is much much better, you can see that the stats mostly increased are Attack and both Defenses. Mega Mawile's ability, Huge Power, also double its Attack stat, making many of its moves a force to be reckoned with.
EVs, Movesets and more
So some movesets for this Pokémon are cobbled together by me, trying to find the perfect Mawile.
First, an attack set.
Mawile
Mawilite
Adamant Nature
252 HP, 252 Attack, 4 Special Defense
Moves
Taunt
Iron Head
Play Rough
Sucker Punch
With STAB, Iron Head and Play Rough can deal a hefty amount of damage. Taunt can stop walls from setting up, as most are slower than Mawile is, and Sucker Punch can nerf the fastest opponents. The EV spread for HP instead of Speed or Defense is there as most of the time, more HP means you might survive longer and with the bulky defenses, this Pokémon doesn't need much help surviving.
Now a Defensive Build
Mawile
Mawilite
Sassy Nature
252HP, 252 Sp Defense, 4 Defense
Swords Dance
Baton Pass
Substitute
Taunt
Use this when you know your opponent will likely send out a wall. Hit them with a Taunt, then Substitute and set up a few Swords Dance before Baton Passing to a Physical Sweeper. Your opponent won't know what hit him/her. This build is bulkier, but can't be counted on to take a Taunt, nor have reliable recovery thanks to the held item being its mega evolution.
More:
Found in: Glittering Cave
Unique typing gives it a massive amount of resistances
Con would be that most Ground and Fire users are faster and therefore would knock Mega Mawile out flat.
Pros and Cons
This Pokémon has a few pros and cons. Here's a small sampling of them:
Pros
1. Massive HP, Attack and in Mega form, both defenses.
2. Very diverse movepool to deal with many opponents.
3. Can be used as a Baton Passer for Physical Sweepers.
Cons
1. No speed. If you're looking for a speed demon, this one will not shine brighter. In fact, I think it's one of the slowest in the game, base speed wise, hence my use of Sucker Punch to smash opponents.
2. Weaknesses are common. In fact, I haven't encountered any team that hasn't used Earthquake, Fire Blast or Flamethrower. Unless in Mega form, this Pokémon suffers some massive damage from those attacks. I wouldn't recommend this Pokémon be used without its mega stone.
3. Fairy type nerfed a weakness to a same damage and, while immunity to Dragon is nice, this trade-off didn't make itself too useful.
Final Judgment
This Pokemon's mega form has incredible potential. I have heard talk that Mega Pokémon, all of them mind you, will be banned to the Uber tier which is shorthand for, "Can't use in any fair play except Uber tournaments." This makes me a bit sad, as quite a few underused Pokémon like Mawile here, have a chance to make themselves great.
In the meantime, I will train up and use the first set I posted myself. This will be a trip to remember, as I quite enjoy training all sorts of Pokémon and giving them movesets to match.
If you like, vote in the poll, comment below and give me a Pokémon (Gen VI obtainable only, I can't access the previous generations yet without PokeBank) to train up and make a competitive moveset to.
Poll Time!
Would you use this set?
Comments
Ability: Intimidate
Item: Mawilite
-Play Rough
-Crunch
-Iron Head
-Stone Edge/Rock Slide
Now I know people these days are about Beat Down teams with about 2% strategy. But just a heads up I creamed and destroyed a team with Mega Mawile thanks to Trick Room 0 speed IV brave natured Mawile making him ridiculously slow and out speeding most of ou tier and he had. Play Rough , Sucker Punch, Iron Head, Stone Edge. I ended up trading Stone Edge for Swords Dance for stone edges miss chance was frustrating.
For the offensive set, play rough is a must as a powerful stab, and sucker punch makes up for mawile's speed, but fire fang gets better coverage and more use than iron head, allowing mawile to hit steel types. Generally, substitute or swords dance is better as a last move, as mawile isn't fast enough to be an effective taunter (compared to zoroark or aerodactyl for example) and substitute helps with sucker punch predictions. For the defensive set, wait until pokebank when mawile can get foul play, to allow it to hit some targets hard, and not be complete taunt bait.
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