Okay, somehow I've managed to find a few hours to sit down and play with Malamar myself. And overall, I'm left just as confused as when I started this. So many other players I encountered were using Malamar on the ladder too, but I'm not certain of the success of the Pokemon. It either flops or it drops (as in drops the opponent/sweeps), and I personally find very little in between. Topsy-Turvy as a move is something I've had difficulty using, since it requires a finesse with prediction. On top of that, I've found that many opponents were just flat out unwilling to set up simply because I had a Malamar on my team (except for Syclants and Aurumoths of course, who didn't care because of their Bug typing). To keep it short, I won some matches either because of rage quits that made replays void, I lost a fair bit, and I only got "good" matches for a fraction of the time. Posted below are some of those "good" matches.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/cap-161621294
This was my very first ladder match with Malamar, and ultimately it features the squid being a late game cleaner against some very prominent physical threats, which itself was a glimmer or hope that Malamar could do work. And indeed, it did do work, as I was down 1-4 and managed to win thanks to my surviving Malamar. Surprisely, it shows a Malamar without psychic STAB actually able to defeat an already weakened Tomohawk. I think Haze would have had a good chance of saving the Tomo, but this one appeared to be lacking it and was forced to roost repeatedly... which didn't go too well since the roost made Super Power hit neutrally. Perhaps the most all-around impressive feat was being able to tank a brave bird at only +1 defense and not a whole lot of HP. Really, this match showed the potency of contrary, and by some stroke of luck it managed me to win the match. Notice, however, that the rest of the team pulled an enormous amount of weakening and gradual damage before Malamar was able to pull this off.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/cap-161651286Now, I'm forced to use this replay simply because of the lack of quality battles available. Essentially, here you have a Malamar getting Baton Passed to and put into a situation where it will sweep... so the opponent just rage quits. It's not a turn one rage quit, so it isn't explicitly against the rules. I would have liked it to be longer, I really would have... but I think you guys can see the almost inevitable outcome that would have happened. In the previous match, it was the rest of the team that received baton pass boosts, but in this match it was Malamar himself. And that extra speed and power really did help. Of notable value to take away from this match, you see that Cawmodore is afraid to set up in the wake of Malamar, and that Malamar really put so much pressure on him that he really had no chance of winning. Without Belly Drum, he did pitiful damage. But if he had drummed, he would have faced either being switcharooed into the move or being Topsy-Turvied to x .25 Atk.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/cap-161655925
This match was actually a lot of fun, despite having a lot of frustrating matches in between. In this match, however, I think it actually goes to show a failure for Malamar. For one, my opponent used a Malamar too. Throughout the early match, baton passed helped me sprinkle around boosts to my team, and thanks to Speed Boost, not even the choice scarfed Malamar could do anything to stop them. Really, my team was able to handle the threats without my own Malamar, and I ended up using my own mostly just to get the replay to count. However, at the end mine was able to still do some work and actually pulled off a successful Topsy Turvy for once. Overall, fun match, but it didn't highlight the strengths of the mon and showed some problems with how much he could support the team.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/cap-161660326 (versus a Jas alt)
This match played similarly in to the one above in that I really didn't need my own Malamar in order to win. Really... umm... what does this match teach us? I guess that Malamar hates U-turn... I suppose at a more practical level we could analyze Jas's Malamar's performace. The poor squid was burned before it could do anything useful. This in turn means that despite having a typing advantage over Necturna, Malamar really has no business trying to counter it.
So umm... yeah. Malamar did either brilliantly with super nice sweeps, or it flopped and was a hindrance on my team. Some might think such a performance is similar to Cawmodore, but I really do not think this merits a good comparison. Cawmodore has a build completely designed around abusing his move of choice, whereas Malamar does not. Stuck with a low speed and only passable offenses/defenses, Malamar is unique to his typing, his signature move, and his access to the rare ability contrary. But together this parts fit together in a somewhat disjointed manner, and nothing wants to meld together quite right.
And after thinking about, I think I might see at least part of the reason why. In NU, Malamar relies of his Dark STAB and a Fighting coverage move, often ignoring his Psychic STAB. This is because the traditional coverage of Dark/Fighting is usually more valuable in the official Smogon Tiers. However, I think that CAP functions differently because of two main factors: the main thing he wants to his his dark STAB on (Necturna) wants to burn his arms off, and the God of CAP Tomahawk laughs at Dark/Fighting moves when healthy In the CAP metagame, it might actually be fairly hardpressed to see what Dark STAB allows him to defeat. Tomohawk and Revenankh and Arghonaut and Mollux fear Psychic moves a lot more.
Overall, I think Malamar in the CAP meta should using Fighting/Psychic moves instead of Fighting/Dark moves. While this makes Malamar helpless against things like Gardevoir, he really has no business trying to defeat her anyway. And while I can't say for certain how viable this would make Malamar in the tier, from the matches I watched and participated in today, it seems like a fair amount of the the trouble Malamar encountered could have been partially remedied with Psychic STAB. At the very least, it doesn't seem like Dark STAB did much. Malamar's a peculiar example really, and I think I might try to test some Psychic STAB sets outside of the DHC and see what happens.
Comments and the such regarding this subject would be greatly appreciated, and I'm excited to see some of the Malamar replays Jas and the others have managed to get.
Tagging
Kingriolu22 and
Tadasuke to review the replays to see if they qualify for points, since it's unfair for me to review my own matches.