Alolan Muk

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STATUS: Over

Thank you so much to everyone who rehomed all these wonderful pokemon! Enjoy the Muk and all the best for the Delphox raids. See you around sometime, peace!

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Hello hello! I'm back with a giveaway for those who don't have HOME/haven't been able to get their hands on this pokemon. It's been going around that these mons could be useful in the upcoming raids and I'm here to help! >:)

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I got up and bred a box full of these guys. They're all 5IV with the ability Poison Touch. Their non-perfect IV stat is random and their natures are Jolly.

One lucky person will get a 6IV Muk!

Basic Rules:

♡ Please do not send me Eggs or the Pokemon I'm giving away.

♡ Do not ask me for anything via DMs. They will be ignored.

♡ Last few mons remaining! Giving away now to whoever connects first.

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Giveaway Info!

✦ Link Code: -

✦ IGN: dann

✦ Time: -

✦ Quantity: 0 Remaining

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Looking forward to giving these guys new homes! Have a great day. :)

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So I've found that playing Battle Royal is the easiest way of racking up Battle Points to purchase items at Royal Avenue and the Battle Tree. When I first began Battle Royal, it really frustrated me a lot but I leaned a few things since then; namely how NPCs seem to choose their targets. And I've figured out a pretty excellent way to leverage that knowledge against them.

At the onset of a battle, NPCs are looking for easy kills. Generally this means they are looking for either a Super Effective attack, or for targets that are close to fainting. If there are no super vulnerable targets, they will choose a target that doesn't resist their move. Now, there is a third calculation they'll make later during the match, but I'll get to that in a little bit.

We can use this knowledge to avoid becoming a target in the early stages of the match. Generally, we want our lead to be a Pokemon who has as few weaknesses as possible. This is where Alolan Muk comes into play. As many of you know, Muk has only 1 weakness - Ground - and this greatly helps his odds in avoiding the wrath of his opponents. The fact that the weakness is specifically Ground is also advantageous to us, since common Ground-type moves, namely Earthquake and Bulldoze, are spread moves. Damaging spread moves are generally worthless in most instances of Battle Royal (status spread moves are not - more on this very shortly).

Okay, so we have Alolan Muk. He's well poised to avoid the crosshairs of our opponents. What else does he have to offer? Well, let's get into the build, shall we?

Alolan Muk @ Black Sludge

Ability: Poison Touch

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD

Impish Nature (+Def, -SpA)

• Substitute

• Poison Gas

• Curse

• Shadow Sneak

Substitute is your designated turn 1. I am not entirely sure an active Substitute reduces the likelihood that a Pokemon be attacked by your opponents, but a foe with a Sub certainly makes me seek out greener pastures elsewhere. In any case, the Sub protects you from status and unexpected attacks - especially Z-Moves. You'd be surprised how often someone throws out a attack at you one turn and then switches their target the next, allowing you to throw down another Sub and keep on trucking.

Poison Gas is your second slot. Far from its abysmal status back in Red and Blue with its 55% accuracy, Poison Gas now has 90% accuracy and hits all opponents. Yep, you heard that right. All opponents. In any case, this is terribly efficient for Battle Royal, since it allows Muk to whittle down your opponents on the field and wait for an opportune time to strike. As an added bonus, whenever a Pokemon dies of poison that you inflicted, you gain a kill. I've gotten lots of clutch poison kills when the enemy's focus sash proc'd, when a weak enemy avoided the ire of the entire field with Protect, and have hence sometimes achieved multiple kills on the same turn.

When to use Poison Gas is really situational, however. While I put a high priority on using it turn 2, it really depends what the current battlefield looks like. Generally, if it looks like you have a good chance of poisoning at least 2 mons, its a great idea to throw it out. Are there any Poison or Steel types on the field? Who used Protect last turn, who didn't? Does the new Pokemon who entered the field have a Mega, who will likely use Protect on their first turn?

Curse is your third slot and really important for both survive-ability and getting the kills you need to win the Game. Your sole attack is terribly weak, especially without STAB, and you need a few stages to boost its damage. Curse's defensive boosts also let your Substitute take physical attacks like Earthquake easily, and give Muk added staying power. As an added benefit, if anyone sets up Trick Room you'll find yourself the primary beneficiary, being able to throw up Subs and Curses before your opponents have a chance at hitting you. Curse should be your go-to move as you wait for opportunities to Gas or Sneak up on your opponents.

Shadow Sneak access really gives Alolan Muk an edge over a competitor for its role like Eelektross. Despite your cursed into oblivion Speed, you'll always hit first (barring no one else used a priority move), allowing you to claim the title of Kill Stealing King of Battle Royal. The most important guiding principle of using this move is patience. Wait, Curse up, and wait for a target to appear. Do not use it to whittle down an opponent. This is only asking for other opponents to steal your kill and claim the title. Optimally, every Shadow Sneak should be your killing blow.

That's essentially it. Pretty simple, and I've been able to farm Battle Points extremely efficiently without having to up put up with Battle Tree bullshit. At the Master level of Battle Royal, victories grant you 5 Battle Points, 2nd place grants you 3, 3rd place grants 2, and last place grants 1. With Muk as my lead, if I don't win I almost always achieve 2nd place because all my Pokemon are still healthy.

As a final note, beyond looking for Super Effective hits or easy kills, NPCs will begin targeting you with a vengeance once its become clear that you are winning. This generally occurs later in the battle, however, since the passive play style of your Alolan Muk isn't likely to get you many kills early on. This is a massive benefit to you because by that time you'll be a physically defensive monster and will likely be able to tank for a round or two as you as you spam Shadow Sneak to try and get a final kill in before being overwhelmed. While you might be tempted to switch out, its generally better to let Muk faint here to preserve your switch in from the wrath of three attacks at once. Once Muk is dead, send in a Starmie or Shiinotic and use Spotlight to direct their ire away. You can use this to great effect to end the Battle with you in the lead by having Spotlight target an NPC with only 1 remaining Pokemon. If there is someone who is challenging you for victory, however, its better to target them instead so that you don't reward them with the final kill they need to beat you.

Hope this helps. There are a few other Pokemon I am interested in trying, namely Burn Up Aranine and of course Eelectross. Water/Ground types might also be worth a try, although the 4x weakness to Grass means you've got especially red target on your back. Good luck!

EDIT: It just occurred to me that some people might be interested in running Minimize over Substitute. I haven't tested it, but its worth a try, since it would give Muk added staying power once the entire field is out for your blood. Keep in mind that it does delay your Cursing by as many as three turns, which might mean you lose a few killing opportunities that you might have made otherwise.

Alolan Muk is the shit and everyone knows it. It’s a major upgrade from its Kantonian brethren, boasting the incredible Poison/Dark typing, which pairs well with its high Special bulk. It’s a strange Pokemon as well; it was primarily used for its offense in Gen 7, and was also unusual in that it didn’t invest much into HP or Speed, opting instead to max out its Attack and Special Defense instead.

It was B- in UU in Gen 7, but also had niches in OU and Ubers. How will it fare this time around?

I see that on pvpoke, Muk performs better than Alolan Muk in every category other than lead (though everything is close). In general though, it seems like people value Alolan Muk far more than the regular version--gamepress rates Muk a 1 while Alolan Muk is a 4.5.

After reading the explanations a bit, I see that Alolan covers psychic/ghost and even steel matchups much better than Muk does. But then why does Muk rank higher in categories such as Safe Switch on pvpoke?

I guess what I'm getting at is: I want to be able to use pvpoke better, but if I was only looking at pvpoke I would not be able to tell Alolan Muk was so much better. Is there another tool on pvpoke that would help me with this analysis, or would I have to look elsewhere?

This is my first try with teambuilding, and this is a team based around using a recycle iapapa Alolan Muk to break holes for Mlop and Scarf Mence. I'm really really low on ladder, low 1300s.

Team:

Mixed scarf Mence is my stall breaker, that's why it has so much coverage and intimate instead of moxie. Facade is to switch into burns, would you substitute something else here? I have never used it, so it's clearly not working.

Muk is to kill tapus that threaten my team. Knock Off and poison jab for stab, and ice punch to catch Lando on the switch, the most common counter. Recycle is so that my gluttony iapapa come back and I get reliable recovery, kinda? I don't have a good dark stab after items are gone, and I would love the poison touch, but what options do I have? I also can't touch mag, and it gets free setup. I'd also like pursuit, because it forces a lot of switches, bur 4 moveslot syndrome.

Specs Ash Gren is the standard set. I know Hydro Pump is better and all, but I hate the miss chance and low pp. I'm considering putting spikes over ice beam, but tangrowth is a thing. U turn is really nice for momentum so I'd prefer to keep that.

AV tang is my rain check. It's the standard smogon set, nothing fancy. Eq for heatran on the switch, knock off to spam (but that makes it worse for Muk), poison jab for other tangrowth and serps.

Rotom W is my other rain check and my only defogger, which means it has a lot of pressure. Again, standard set, nothing to speak of here.

M Lopunny is definitely a pokemon I can see myself switching. It's good late game with fake out and it's speed tier, but it's never been my favorite and it doesn't seem to fit in.

Problems:

No ground type. I'm really iffy about adding Lando to the party cause that's a lot of ice weakness. This means that I have trouble with steels in general, and mag in particular is scary.

I'm also super weak to hazards, and I don't have any of my own. I don't think u need another defogger too badly, since my team doesn't care too much, but I don't like how much pressure Rotom is under.

Fire types, particularly zard y, destroy me too.

No Z user. Not a problem per se, but a wasted opportunity.

I'd like to keep Muk, and I don't think lopunny is working for me, alternatives would be appreciated.

Thanks for the help!

Replay 1:

Replay 2:

This dude is in every online battle ever. His typing and moveset seems to be pretty oppressive, and depending on the player, can forever stall the game with him.

Some annoying things I've seen over and over: *Some pieces of toxic, minimize, acid armor, substitute, and rest. *Mega drain which will kill most STAB EQ users which can oneshot Muk - also Muk will outspeed almost all of these guys (Rhydon, Golem) *Crunch 99% of the time which owns the best spA users, which could be used to bypass acid armor muk

With a pure offensive moveset, he doesn't pose that much of a challenge. Mostly just get a faster 'mon and you'll trade off 1 for 1. My problem is when Muk finds a way to get a couple acid armors off into rest. Combine this with Substitute, and it seems to be impossible to beat. Muk can just time-out a win and sit at full life with 6 acid armors. Of course, burns (wisp) also don't work as rest will negate that.

Any ideas?