Project National Dex OU: Research Week (Cycle 4: Raging Bolt and Ogerpon-C)

[Ineros]

Approved by National Dex forum mods
OP partially stolen from here

Art by me!

Welcome to National Dex Research Week!
​

Welcome to National Dex OU’s Research Week! We'll be doing weekly investigations into certain Pokemon in the National Dex. This is a chance for people of all skill levels to dive deeper into the metagame and discover new things or even start new metagame trends through their research! Here's a breakdown of how this will work.

In this project, participants research at most 2 suggested Pokemon and then share their experience. Please keep the following in mind:

• Be open-minded! Some options will naturally be better than others, but don't immediately dismiss something as terrible!
• Feel free to theorymon early on in the research period, but make it clear you're doing so. Later on in the week you will be expected to back up your findings with evidence.
• Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore. Think outside the box!
• Please refrain from complaining about the chosen Pokemon or sets.
  
  Each week, as mentioned before, there will be a new set of Pokemon for the researchers to explore. Players who have done quality research will be rewarded by being placed in the Hall of Fame! Now, how is this done? After about half into a cycle, there will be a voting period so then the people can decide which researcher deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Insightful comments on another user's post are also highly encouraged. Discuss your findings with others! This discussion also does not have to be limited to this thread; you are encouraged to discuss the Pokemon being researched in the NDOU room on Pokemon Showdown, the NDOU Discord, and the Viability Rankings Thread. Saving and posting of replays is heavily encouraged, as they are the hard evidence you’ll need and often the best way to provide substantial backing to your claims.
  I highly recommend making a reminder of what Pokemon you want to do, since you can forget!

Research can be as late before the voting phase as you'd like, but in most cases the cycle for each week will still end on every other Friday.

When documenting your experiences, questions to ask yourself to help add to your post include: How useful are these Pokemon in NDOU? What niche(s) do they fill? What gives them trouble? What advantages or disadvantages do they have compared to other Pokemon? How do they fit into the metagame? Are there any replays to prove what you say? What teams were used in testing?

For the voters, consider these criteria and if they have been met when casting your votes. Replays should and will be the most important criteria to fill!
​

HALL OF FAME:

Hide

Suuicunee

For the current time, I am the host of this project, but a co-host may assist as well to make sure the project is running smoothly.

If you have ideas for Pokémon to be included, feel free to DM me some!

 

[Ineros]

to start this project off, we have 2 relatively underexplored Fire-type Pokémon that are now our research subjects to learn more about their viable sets, team structures they could fit on, and how their niches fit into the tier! Remember to do in-depth research and to put effort towards it if you decide to participate!



Research Week Cycle 1: I Burn (Victini and Iron Moth)

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRW. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is March 29th, 11:59 PM GMT-5.

Good luck everyone, and happy researching! I hope you all will learn even more about this ever changing metagame through this project. DM me with any potential questions you may have and have a good day!

 

[Ineros]

Oh yeah, we also have art now (by me)! Take a look!

 

[pheonix_gaming67]

NDRWPheonix
Iron Moth & Victini

 

[zqtp]

ndrw z
iron moth

 

[zqtp]

I might not have the most detailed analyses because I'm away Tu-F this week, so it's whatever I get done on Monday that I post

 

[zqtp]

Iron Moth is a unique and oft-underprepared for threat in the meta. With its solid speed tier and amazing special attack, it can easily break past walls and fatter options by using Fiery Dance to deal good damage and boost special attack. The Booster Energy speed set takes advantage of the aforementioned qualities to what I think is the fullest degree.

Show Set

Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ground/Grass
EVs: 124 HP / 132 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Tera Blast/Dazzling Gleam

Interestingly, Iron Moth outspeeds Mega Swampert by one point, allowing for Energy Ball to pick up an important KO. Fiery Dance is the preferred Fire STAB move here because of its ability to easily snowball into a devastating sweeper and get easier ohkos on soft checks such as defensive Landorus-Therian, Mega Venusaur without chip, and surprisingly, Great Tusk. Dazzling Gleam is an alternative to run over Tera Blast which helps hit and OHKO Zamazenta at +1.

that's all I could do today, as I am out for the rest of the week.

 

[Ineros]

Alright, here is our next cycle!

Research Week Cycle #2: Guide my Way (Mega Mawile and Meowscarada)

Haha Knock Off go brrrr

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRWGW. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is April 12th, 11:59 PM GMT-5.

Happy researching!

 

[Water656]

NDRWGW Water656
Meowscarada
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094601956
I got a pretty good game with the team I made ^^
Peak ELO: 1382
Wins: 22
Losses: 10
Peak GXE: 61.8%
Team: NDRWGW Meowscarada Team

Meowscarada is probably the best of the Paldea starters competitively. That much is pretty obvious when you look at it's decent 110 attack, great 123 speed, and amazing ability in Protean. The most common set is Choice Scarf, which I have decided to use. For the attacks, I chose: Thunder Punch (Corviknight, Toxapex, Charizard-Y, and Pelipper), Flower Trick (Urshifu-R, Alomomola, Tera Water Garganacl, M-Diancie, and Great Tusk), Triple Axel (Dragonite, Lando-T, Garchomp, and Gliscor), and finally Knock Off (Ceruledge, M-Banette, and G-Slowking). These are all OU Pokémon so in lower ladder you will have other common Pokémon for Moewscarada to beat up, such as Aegislash, Gyarados and M-Gyarados, and M-Latios and Latios.

Some notable moves I did not chose are Play Rough which is useful for Fighting, Dark, and Dragons but most Dragon types in OU right now are 4x weak to Ice as well as Ground Pokemon and U-Turn which is a move most people would put on a Choiced Meowscarada, but I don't see much reason to use it because of Meowscarada's speed stat meaning you're not going to get a free switch in anyway because Meowscarada will move first.

I chose the defensive Poison Tera (despite tera not doing much for Meowscarada), which turns it's Ice, Fire, and Flying weaknesses into neutral, and it's Fighting, Fairy, Bug, Poison into Resistences. It also gains weaknesses to Ground and Psychic, which no one will be using on Meowscarada in their right minds.

I found value in having a Sticky Web Pokémon (Ribombee) because without the speed Meowscarada is pretty much useless because of how frail it is and fast Pokémon like Darkrai with Sludge Bomb and Koko on Electric Terrain with Valiant and Dazzling Gleam. I added Fire Pokémon for the inevitable Ferrothorn which Meowscarada really struggles with. Gliscor for Heatran because Fire and Meowscarada fail to do much of anything to it (besides Gouging Fire's Earthquake). My team does struggle a little with Flying type Pokémon because the best moves I have against it are Triple Axel, Thunder Punch, and Ancient Power, all of the being pretty weak, except for Triple Axel which is dependent on accuracy.

The rest of the team is Pokémon which I think work well with Meowscarada's weaknesses and Charizard-Y with two Protosynthesis Pokémon. Gliscor might be replacable with Venusaur but I don't want that many Pokémon weak to fire on one team.

I think I'm finally done with this very long-winded explanation, thanks for reading the whole thing.

 

[Suuicunee]

NDRWGW Suuicunee
Mega-Mawile

 

[CappyThePulpy]

NDRWGW CappyPulpy
Both

 

[CappyThePulpy]

I was planning to mainly focus on mawile, but I took both due to how much I have used them in the past. So enjoy a shorter meowscarada analysis now, while I am still laddering with mawile.

Meowscarada is a grass/dark type fast physical attacker leveraging its good move pool and ability protean in order to deliver fast, stab attacks.

Its useful moves are: flower trick (signature move, always crits, no acc check), knock off (the easiest move to click, it almost always does something), uturn (pivot), triple axel (your strongest and riskiest move), brick break and low kick (fighting type coverage), trick, spikes, tspikes, and some other niche options like sucker punch, play rough and taunt.

The main sets I will be considering are scarf (main set), boots/protective pads (very similar, matter of preference and teammates) and band. I will dismiss the sash set (spikes suicide lead) as there are mons who do the suicide lead job better (lando, mega diancie, glimmora) and they come with the benefits of explosion or hazard control.

The main sets almost always run flower trick/knock off/uturn and triple axel, with the possibility of slotting low kick for heatran and ferro or sucker punch (band) for some priority or maybe spikes.

Now lets go over some of meowscarada’s pros and cons in order to better understand its playstyle and set choices.

Pros:
High speed
Good signature move, base 105 crit and no acc check
Access to knock off and uturn
Protean for stab on every hit

Cons:
Frail
Mediocre attack (base 110 is tied with swampert and arcanine)
Over reliance on protean to do significant damage
Contact weak

I would like to analyse protean and the attack stat in particular, as you pretty much need the stab boost to do real damage with your moves. This means that meowscarada isnt too good at move switching (choice sets encouraged) and cannot really terastallize, as tera negates protean. Otherwise, tera would’ve been an amazing tool for boosting flower trick, using tera blast rock for volcarona, zapdos and moltres (some of your biggest counters), tera electric for para immunity, or tera fire for burn immunity and killing ferro. These are still options, but you give up quite a lot of power.

Now lets see its place in the meta:
-most sets give ferro and heatran free switch ins, as knock off may claim an item but these very common meta mons can still cause massive issues if they get in for free
- similar mons in terms of playstyle include cinderace (libero and similar attack&speed, court change niche), urshifuR (crit signature move, cc and surging strikes are better than what meow has) and weavile (frail but faster and hits harder)

Flower trick sounds good on paper however non boosted flower trick isnt even powerful enough to guarantee an ohko on uninvested shifu (37.5% chance to ohko), or boosting garg sets (you would think a guaranteed super effective crit is the best counter to defense boosting sets but you barely 2hko; garg can also tera ghost to stop even that possibility). Simply put, it doesn’t pack enough punch to make up for the bad offensive type.

Uturn and knock are amazing on any mon, meow makes them hit harder, no complaints there. Triple axel is an amazing move when it hits and the opponent has no contact punish.

From these issues, you would think a band meow makes a lot of sense, as it gives that extra punch while you are bad at switching moves anyways. The issue with band comes from a team building perspective, as, unlike scarf, meow doesnt get to actually play the speed control role for your team, meaning you may have to slot another frail actual speed controller. And at that point, why use banded meow over mlopunny as your speedy hard hitter?

Thus, I think a scarf set is the best for your average team, performing amazing speed control, even outspeeding rain mega swampert by quite a margin. Considering the now INSANE speed, its lack of power is not much of an issue anymore. So scarf meow has the niche of an offense stomper, while struggling against bulkier squads that the rest of your team hopefully handles. And honestly there are very few mons which can replicate what it does at that speed tier.

To show how one builds meow, I have this team:
https://pokepast.es/b8d4e70b26ef1589

Scarf meow is an offense stopper, abusing its speed to check fast offensive mons while being a good pivot against bulkier builds. Mega diancie enjoys the pivoting and can shred these bulkier builds with its massive special attacks. Meow can also serve as a late game cleaner after the onslaught brought by diancie and raging bolt has been stopped. Pro tip, run some ferro abusing options, heatran and mystical fire diancie in this case; meow really enjoys their help.

God this was anything but short. I hope its useful. Mawile analysis coming asap

 

[Water656]

I was planning to mainly focus on mawile, but I took both due to how much I have used them in the past. So enjoy a shorter meowscarada analysis now, while I am still laddering with mawile.

Meowscarada is a grass/dark type fast physical attacker leveraging its good move pool and ability protean in order to deliver fast, stab attacks.

Its useful moves are: flower trick (signature move, always crits, no acc check), knock off (the easiest move to click, it almost always does something), uturn (pivot), triple axel (your strongest and riskiest move), brick break and low kick (fighting type coverage), trick, spikes, tspikes, and some other niche options like sucker punch, play rough and taunt.

The main sets I will be considering are scarf (main set), boots/protective pads (very similar, matter of preference and teammates) and band. I will dismiss the sash set (spikes suicide lead) as there are mons who do the suicide lead job better (lando, mega diancie, glimmora) and they come with the benefits of explosion or hazard control.

The main sets almost always run flower trick/knock off/uturn and triple axel, with the possibility of slotting low kick for heatran and ferro or sucker punch (band) for some priority or maybe spikes.

Now lets go over some of meowscarada’s pros and cons in order to better understand its playstyle and set choices.

Pros:
High speed
Good signature move, base 105 crit and no acc check
Access to knock off and uturn
Protean for stab on every hit

Cons:
Frail
Mediocre attack (base 110 is tied with swampert and arcanine)
Over reliance on protean to do significant damage
Contact weak

I would like to analyse protean and the attack stat in particular, as you pretty much need the stab boost to do real damage with your moves. This means that meowscarada isnt too good at move switching (choice sets encouraged) and cannot really terastallize, as tera negates protean. Otherwise, tera would’ve been an amazing tool for boosting flower trick, using tera blast rock for volcarona, zapdos and moltres (some of your biggest counters), tera electric for para immunity, or tera fire for burn immunity and killing ferro. These are still options, but you give up quite a lot of power.

Now lets see its place in the meta:
-most sets give ferro and heatran free switch ins, as knock off may claim an item but these very common meta mons can still cause massive issues if they get in for free
- similar mons in terms of playstyle include cinderace (libero and similar attack&speed, court change niche), urshifuR (crit signature move, cc and surging strikes are better than what meow has) and weavile (frail but faster and hits harder)

Flower trick sounds good on paper however non boosted flower trick isnt even powerful enough to guarantee an ohko on uninvested shifu (37.5% chance to ohko), or boosting garg sets (you would think a guaranteed super effective crit is the best counter to defense boosting sets but you barely 2hko; garg can also tera ghost to stop even that possibility). Simply put, it doesn’t pack enough punch to make up for the bad offensive type.

Uturn and knock are amazing on any mon, meow makes them hit harder, no complaints there. Triple axel is an amazing move when it hits and the opponent has no contact punish.

From these issues, you would think a band meow makes a lot of sense, as it gives that extra punch while you are bad at switching moves anyways. The issue with band comes from a team building perspective, as, unlike scarf, meow doesnt get to actually play the speed control role for your team, meaning you may have to slot another frail actual speed controller. And at that point, why use banded meow over mlopunny as your speedy hard hitter?

Thus, I think a scarf set is the best for your average team, performing amazing speed control, even outspeeding rain mega swampert by quite a margin. Considering the now INSANE speed, its lack of power is not much of an issue anymore. So scarf meow has the niche of an offense stomper, while struggling against bulkier squads that the rest of your team hopefully handles. And honestly there are very few mons which can replicate what it does at that speed tier.

To show how one builds meow, I have this team:
https://pokepast.es/b8d4e70b26ef1589

Scarf meow is an offense stopper, abusing its speed to check fast offensive mons while being a good pivot against bulkier builds. Mega diancie enjoys the pivoting and can shred these bulkier builds with its massive special attacks. Meow can also serve as a late game cleaner after the onslaught brought by diancie and raging bolt has been stopped. Pro tip, run some ferro abusing options, heatran and mystical fire diancie in this case; meow really enjoys their help.

God this was anything but short. I hope its useful. Mawile analysis coming asap

Just wanted to say I loved your team and your explanation. Great job!

 

[CappyThePulpy]

Ok so time for mega mawile. Mega mawile is a slow, somewhat bulky physical attacker with two main selling points: the highest attack stat in the game thanks to its huge power ability and steel/fairy, probably the best defensive type combo in the game. 50/125/95 defenses allow it to live through some attacks while its massive attack stat helped by a plethora of coverage options allow it to hit HARD. 50 base speed is quite a big downside, but does not hinder mawile’s bulk shredding capabilities, with some of the fattest (and kinda slow) mons in OU being completely murdered by mawile’s attacks.

In gen 9, mega mawile runs max attack adamant to maximise the huge power bonus (apparently gen 6 ubers had mawile running full bulk sets).The rest of your evs are split between speed and hp, to make mawile fatter and hopefully speed creep some important threats (204 is an interesting one for outspeeding uninvested msciz, which there are a lot of).

Mawile has 2 distinct playstyles which I will go ahead and analyse: swords dance (sd) and no swords dance (we will call this one 4attacks or 4a).

The sd set almost always runs play rough, knock off and sucker punch, allowing mawile to hit many targets for neutral damage while giving it a priority option against faster, frailer mons. My issue with this set is that you really struggle to put in the work with your sd due to how many mons outspeed mmaw, can status or ohko it and live +2 sucker punch. Heatran, lando and rotomW are perfect examples of mons which ruin this mawile’s day. Also there are some mons which can take the fairy+ knock coverage quite well, like mega scizor. So just run this in trick room, with the speed flip you become a MASSIVE threat to pretty much anything (and you can drop sucker for coverage).Without TR, you have too many checks to make the sd turn worth it (remember mmaw hits like a truck, so every turn not used for hitting matters a lot).

And here comes the 4a set, the unstoppable monster, the uncheckable beast and a great example of 4MSS. This set relies on the fact that it can hit pretty much everything for normal or super effective damage and is pretty much unwallable without defensive boosts. Running this set turns mawile into “bring it in, explode something, switch out, repeat”. The issue is that you cannot cover quite the entire meta with 4 moves. I have compiled a list of the common moves and what they are hitting:

-play rough: pretty much mandatory, your main attack
-thunder punch: pex, pelipper, corvik, skarm. Neutral play rough does almost as much as 2x tpunch so I won’t count mola and other pure waters. Glowking takes half from this so you can beat it. koko synergy
-fire fang: ferro, mscizor (only option), corvik, iron treads, rilabloom
-ice punch: lando, gliscor, clodsire, rillabloom, dragonite multiscale ohko, zappy. This is almost mandatory due to the popularity of the first two
-brick break: heatran, ferro(kinda), screens
-knock off: heatran(about half), iron crown, volcarona, moltres, other item dependent mons, glowking
-focus punch: needs sub, you evaporate heatran. Strong attack but needs sub or its a dead slot 90% of the time
-psychic fangs: dont
-rock slide: volc, moltres, zappy
-iron head: stab option, kinda bad offensive type, hits clef, garg and anything trying to be smart with tera fairy.

Overall, after experimentation, my set of choice is play rough/knock/ice punch/fire punch. knock>tpunch means you are walled by (now unpopular) pex, but can hit a lot more things for neutral dmg and claim items. Overall easy move to click

Now I have to discuss steel/fairy. 2 weaknesses (yes, ground and fire are common) in exchange for 2 immunities and 9 other resists. Brilliant type. Its resistances and immunities allow mawile to get in position and start hitting.

But how do we make it better? Lets build mawile:
A slow and very strong attacker best works with some pivots to bring it in for free as often as possible. With that in mind, I present this:

https://pokepast.es/8445607eee4cb2a1

I think this team best illustrates mawile’s pros and cons, with a team designed to support it:
-glowking and lando as pivots to bring it in safely
-scarf samurott spikes and speed control. Mmaw enjoys hazard support since it forces so many switches and most mons will find themselves into range after some spikes
-cm rbolt is great on its own but it also helps close out games vs things mawile struggles against, like pex and fast offensive threats (thunderclap). At the same time, mmaw helps it by luring in ground types and beating them (more on that later), or luring ferro and killing it with fire fang. Most ferro structures struggle to handle both mmaw and rb, due to general over reliance on ferro as a wall
-GRASSY TERRAIN. It is AMAZING with mawile. Your two weaknesses pretty much turn into one, since ground attacks are 90% earthquakes. This lets you eat unboosted earthquakes from pretty much anything, notably lando and gliscor. Anything wanting to eq you is met with an ohko back. Also grassy terrain regens the chip damage you are likely to take from uturns and rocky helmets. I chose bulu since i needed defense. terrain extender makes it easier to execute. Rilla is an option since it has uturn and an ok priority move.

what does mmaw hate? Ground type moves (which we already discussed), fire type moves (if special, go glowking, if physical, go lando;those should take a while to die and rbolt can also resist fire), fast attackers and HO (hazards and rocky can chip them, rbolt cleans them up), damn moltres and its burn, poison types in general (sync your maw attacks with a future sight). Dropping tpunch also doesnt feel bad with rbolt around.

I kinda skipped over the part comparing maw with other options so lets go:
-mmedi: faster, frailer, worse coverage, has close combat which is a good attacking move with high base power. Between mmaw and mmedi, I would choose either one which better fits my team without feeling bad.
-banded strong physical attackers? Mmaw is probably stronger and slower, id take it over a cb weavile most times.
Thats about it, mmaw plays a pretty unique role in ndou, only mmedi truly doing similar stuff

I hope this analysis is useful. I managed to reach 1700 with the team above on my main acc, the one with the research tag is at around 1500, didnt find the time to ladder it more

 

[Suuicunee]

In this research cycle I investigated Mawile.

Mawile is an interesting pokemon as it is a strong wallbreaker but it struggles with it's slow speed stat. The majority of the sets therefore run sucker punch which enables it to become a late game sweeper with the boost of huge power and if required a swords dance, it also can run the 4A set which is also stated by the person above me. Due to the versatility that mawile can provide in terms of move options such as thunder punch, ice punch, fire fang. brick break, stone edge there are not many mons which can easily get in mawile's way, even dondozo can struggle when chipped, getting 2hkoed by a thunder punch and potentially even play rough, while there are certain mons which are able to hinder mawile's ability to sweep like Rotom-W and Heatran they do not appreciate switching in while mawile is at +2.

Let's talk about trick room, mawile can be extremely threatening on trick room especially when boosted to +2 however the problem that mawile faces while being ran on trick room is the lack of turns that are available while active, it needs the +2 to kill bulkier mons which it cannot hit super effectively meaning that mawile only has two turns where it is very threatening this makes mawile more of a niche option when it comes to trick room ursaluna does a better job as being a physical attacker. I ran mawile on trick room for a bit on the lower ladder and it is an enjoyable mon to use.

I ran two teams on trick room, the first one is more gimmicky and uses hatterene's healing wish in conjunction with rabsca's revival blessing in order to give mawile multiple sweeping opportunities.

https://pokepast.es/071b1204f4dfbba2

Some replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095452333?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094702215
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094804305
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094795115

A more traditional trick room: https://pokepast.es/42a001b6fb81c1b0

replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095324735 - Mawile breaking stall.

As for balance, I ran mawile with tapu bulu which provides great support in removing one of mawile's main weaknesses, ground types I added alo which can let mawile deal with threats during the game and then come back later in order to cleanup, this is useful as it allows mawile to take an earthquake from strong ground types like garchomp and landorus and ohko some back

https://pokepast.es/e7da490d23e0d4fc

252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 134-162 (49.6 - 60%) -- 81.3% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
48 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 128-152 (47.4 - 56.2%) -- 25% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery (Choice Scarf)
252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 150-176 (55.5 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery (Offensive)

Roles - Mmaw - wallbreaker,sweeper
Tapu bulu - Negates one of mawile's major weaknesses being ground types and also gives an answer to ogerpon and deals with raging bolt. Provides passive recovery to the team
Alo - Provides wish support to the majority of the team which lacks recovery
Heatran - Sets rocks and protects bulu and mawile from both of their fire weakness, air balloon could be swapped for a more useful item but is nice to deal with zard y
Gliscor - clears hazards, weakens mons such as latios for sucker
urshifu - further supports the fire weakness of mawile and hits grounds, speed control.

Replays - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2101087325 - VS Stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2101081288?p2 - VS rain
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095825351?p2 - Mawile sweep

Now that teams that I ran are out of the way, let's answer the questions.

How useful are these Pokemon in NDOU? I think the information that's provided in replays and analysis done by others and myself help to answer this. It's a solid wallbreaker that can break certain stall builds and many of the meta's large threats.

What niche(s) do they fill? What gives them trouble? Mawile fills a couple niches, one of those being on trick room, as aforementioned it is a threat while on trick room, giving it the ability to end the game very quickly or putting holes in the opponent's team.
It's also a great wallbreaker that's even able to break through the likes of dondozo when chipped
The 4A set is also able to hit the majority of the metagame super effectively and also has more of a surprise factor being able to break a mon like scizor which it would usually struggle a bit with.

What advantages or disadvantages do they have compared to other Pokemon? The advantage mawile definitely benefits from is the ability, huge power it is able to deal with many threats and cannot always be easy to predict with a solid movepool another niche one is intimidate which can help switch into physical attackers while not mega'd . Mawile also has some disadvantages namely the speed tier, 50 base speed is quite awful which makes it less fitting on teams compared to something like mmedi which has a decent speed. while sucker punch does somewhat cover this Tapu lele is a highly used mon in the metagame which completely shuts off sucker punch forcing mawile to switch in situations. another negative is the awful HP stat on a slow mon especially before mega evolving, while mega'd it isn't as bad but it still cannot switch in very well.

How do they fit into the metagame? Mawile is interesting as mentioned it can hit much of the metagame well but it's also not as spammable as other mons, unless you are running trick room. But mawile needs a good team structure in order to thrive which makes it less favourable to run compared to another physical breaker. However when built around it serves as a great mon.

Thank you for reading, the analysis might not flow very well as it's my first.
Peaked:

 

[Ineros]

Alright, next cycle! Congrats to Suuicunee for getting the highest ladder ranking and getting on the hall of fame (didn’t do this with the first cycle because… well only one person did it LOL)

We got a pair of Mythical Pokemon for this cycle:

Research Week #3: Inside (Volcanion and Mega Diancie)

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRWI. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is April 26th, 11:59 PM GMT-5

Happy Researching! Also, CappyThePulpy and Suuicunee have both gained a research point; Cappy for analyzing creative but still good sets for Meowscarada and pretty much covering all the bases in terms of what moves Mmaw and Meowscarada could use and what they do, and Suuicunee for showing off a whole ton of replays to back up what he said in addition to experimenting and playing with a good variety of team structures.

 

[Ineros]

Hey all, due to the current suspect test and not wanting to interrupt suspect runs, this project will be on hiatus until the Friday before the suspect ends (so next week). There could also be a change in how the project is operated the time it is reopened so potentially stay tuned for that. See you all later!

 

[Ineros]

This project is now BACK! There are a few changes, but to put it shortly there is now no need to have a ladder tag, and there is a voting phase to decide who gets in the hall of fame! The OP has changed a bit too to reflect this so if I probably missed something then you can refer to that.

Anyway, here is our next cycle:

Research Week cycle 4: Raging Bolt and Ogerpon-C

Reasonings for the Pokémon chosen:

- Due to the Ogerpon-W suspect and the general talks around it, Ogerpon-W has been stealing all the spotlight, and Ogerpon-C has been third rate in terms of Ogerpon forms. It does have great amounts of potential however, so will this be the time where Rockpon finally shines, and what can it do?

- Being one of the best wincons in the tier is no surprise to many players, with teams that are prepared for it needing to play well around it. However, there is surprisingly a good amount of ways to use raging bolt that can be looked into further, both in the the teambuilder and its sets. The question is: is the potential variety just a myth or can it actually work?

Happy Researching! This cycle ends on May 24th.

 

[boppydop!]

uh i dunno how to do this and u can flip a coin if im actually gonna fininsh doing this but id like to take bogerpon
u didnt even put an alt name in this one so ill just make one mysefl
NDRKBT boply

edit: i cant read
shut up
im still gonna alt

 

[IRONM0NK3Y808]

So sad that I missed volcanion. You should do more heat in this Ineros - things that actually have a potential to be very good in the right circumstances such as manaphy, comfey, dragalge, corsola-galar, empoleon, jellicent, tapu bulu, feraligator, munkidori, okidogi, normal diancie, mega glalie, mega absol, lokix, muk-alola, necrozma, zygarde-10%, overqwil, qwilfish-hisui, pecharunt, jirachi, primarina, regidrago, reuniclus, zeraora, rhyperior, starmie, tentacruel, vikavolt, weezing-galar, volcanion (which you've done) or even things that are super heat like alolan exeggutor, golisopod, or even golem-alola.

I think I mentioned this before but it's hard to break new ground on ou mons. It's fun finding niches and building around underused mons, and sometimes they can actually be quite strong on a specific team. Mons like tentacruel or starmie provide some of the only hazard control that has a water resist, specs vikavolt hits extremely hard with a 145 spatk stat and can get some surprising kills against ground types with bug buzz, qwilfish-hisui provides a unique form of hazard support for rain teams, weezing-galar's neutralising gas allows it to even beat mons like gliscor under the right circumstances, volcanion and jellicent using whirlpool and taunt trap mons that reply on flip turn such as alomomola and even beat all forms of stall stall in a single slot.

There are some seriously cool niches for some underused pokemon, and I feel like it would be a waste to spend 2 weeks talking about raging bolt when we all already know every set it runs and it's exact place in the meta. Not gonna tell you how to do your job but I think this could be a really good place to develop heat that actually performs well since we have so many skilled players here (mostly me).

Anyway, that got out of hand. I'm gonna do cornerpon

 

[Flames Of Elixir]

Love
so will be taking that!

Question: any specific prefix for the ladder alt?
Edit: Read the instructions

 

[IRONM0NK3Y808]

National Dex Research Week: Ogerpon-Cornerstone

The team I used: https://pokepast.es/e65fa85f0f6057ba

Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2124644892
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2124659812
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2124666500

Cornerpon is an interesting pokemon, having an interesting type combination of rock and grass, giving it a relatively decent defensive profile however a rather lackluster offensive one. Contrast to most other physical rock types that are held back by the inaccuracy of Stone Edge, Cornerpon has access to Ivy Cudgel giving it a reliable form of strong rock coverage. This can be very powerful as you can safely throw off powerful rock moves without having to worry about missing, making it a much more reliable sweeper.

Surprisingly, Cornerpon is held back by both it's speed tier and offensive typing. 110 base speed would appear to be quite high, however currently there are multiple things that outspeed it that are able to deal with it quite well and usually OHKO it or use it to set up, for example Choice Scarf Urshifu, Zamazenta, Darkrai, or Booster Energy Iron Crown. The speed tier of 110 is also quite crowded and there are a lot of other strong options that are competing with Cornerpon such as Mega Diancie or Waterpon. On top of this, it's offensive typing resulting in it struggling to break steels creates multiple issues. Some of the most common physically defensive pokemon in the tier all easily wall Cornerpon, even if it has Swords Dance. Due to it's unfortunate defensive typing, both Gyro Ball and Body Press are super effective against it meaning that Ferrothorn and Physically defensive Corviknight not only wall it, but can also pressure it offensively and force it to switch resulting in it being unable to set up multiple Swords Dances.

One of Cornerpon's greatest assets is it's pre-terrastalisation ability: Sturdy. Sturdy allows it to always live a single hit, making Cornerpon a very powerful lead due to being able to set up a free Swords Dance while also being immune to forms of chip damage such as sandstorm from Mega Tyranitar or Leech Seed from Ferrothorn. Against teams that don't have either a Grass or Rock resist, Cornerpon can often claim multiple kills and at times can be very difficult to play around. Despite this, it's role as a lead is significantly hindered by it's weakness to common speed control such as Scarf Urshifu and multihitting moves such as Tachyon Cutter from Iron Crown.

In theory, Cornerpon could work around these issues of it's lackluster speed by using Trailblaze, however Cornerpon also suffers from minor 4MSS. Running Play Rough would allow Cornerpon to beat checks such as Zamazenta and Darkrai, however not running Superpower results in it losing to Ferrothorn and potentially even Heatran. On the other hand, not using Knock Off allows it to be Thunder Waved by Slowking-Galar, and likewise, using Trailblaze comes with it's own set of problems. At first, I was using U-turn, as it would allow me to pivot out of unfavourable matchups such as against Ferrothorn or Corviknight, however due to Rocky Helmet, it would quickly get chipped down over the course of a game - resulting in me later switching to Superpower.

TEAMMATES:

Mega Tyranitar: I've found that Cornerpon works very well with Mega Tyranitar. Mega Tyranitar sets up the sand which gives Cornerpon the 1.5x rock special defense boost, as well as providing Stealth Rocks and Knock Off support as well as chipping down the opposing pokemon due to sandstorm. Not only this, but it can also trap and beat Slowking-Galar which is something that Cornerpon struggles against, while also being a good defensive check to Darkrai.

Heatran: While I have not used it in my team, I would expect that Cornerpon would work well with anything that can beat Ferrothorn, namely Heatran. Heatran would provide a lot of value for the team, allowing them to break non Mega Sableye stalls, check Ferrothorn, be a soft check to Darkrai, check Corviknight and provide a good answer to a lot of mons that Cornerpon doesn't like to deal with.

Corviknight: Corviknight gives Cornerpon a flying type, a pivot, a switch-in to many common fighting types such as Great Tusk or Zamazenta as well as being an alternate wincon using Bulk Up, as Cornerpon beats some of the pokemon such as Charizard-Y that beat Bulk Up Corviknight.

Serperior: Serperior provides a lot of offensive breaking power for the team, allowing it to break through ferrothorn using Hidden Power Fire after a Leaf Storm, as well as supplementing Cornerpon's issue with speed by spamming Glare. It also gives a more reliable check to things such as Mega Diancie or Waterpon that Cornerpon would otherwise have to risk a speed tie against, as well as things that it may not be able to reliably kill such as Kartana.

Iron Crown: Booster Energy Iron Crown is another pokemon that synergises quite well with Cornerpon, providing it the ability to break Ferrothorn with Focus Blast after a Calm Mind, outspeed and KO Scarf Urshifu, break non Thunder Wave Slowking-Galar using Stored Power, as well as providing a soft switch-in to Kyurem or Raging Bolt, and dealing with Tapu Lele very reliably.

Honourable Mentions: Some honourable mentions are Slowbro which creates a very strong core with Mega Tyranitar. Excadrill, which provides some essential speed control and late game breaking power using Corkscrew Crash and Swords Dance paired with the sandstorm from Mega Tyranitar. Tapu Bulu is something that I was considering using, as it's Grassy Terrain provides Cornerpon with even more damage than it already has thanks to it's Cornerstone Mask, however I decided that it was overkill as even with the damage boost it still can't do much more than usual. Anything with Spikes as Cornerpon benefits a lot from wearing down it's checks over time for a late-midgame sweep.

Overall, would I recommend using Cornerpon?

No, not at all.

It's pretty awful, doesn't provide much of a defensive profile to the team due to having very few resists, however also doesn't provide much of an offensive one either due to being walled very easily by common defensive pokemon as well as being easily outsped and revenge killed. I would say the best set is likely the lead Ivy Cudgel/Power Whip/Superpower/Swords Dance set, as it can be quite powerful in the right hands. I'm not the best at building offense and I can already see how I could make the team better, but I still feel like the team would work much better if I replaced Cornerpon for something else.

5/10, mostly outclassed by Waterpon, struggles in the current metagame landscape. Doesn't really have much of a niche in the NDOU tier.

 

[Ineros]

I’ll extend the due date to 11:59 PM Monday GMT-5 due to the PS outage, boppydop! and Flames Of Elixir make sure to get your research done by then

 

[pheonix_gaming67]

I'm researching Ogerpon-Cornerstone as a way to counter teams that struggle with water types and flying types and my username is Pheonixfeather67