The mouthy girl; Mawile

[Celever]

(If I need permission everyone in #neverused said it was a good idea)

50/85/85/55/55/50
Hyper Cutter/Intimidate/Sheer force​

Now where to begin... Mawile has always been forgotten, competitively and in-game, given her stats. However, Mawile can be used effectively in today's NU meta-game, thanks to her amazing move-pool, abilities in intimidate and sheer force (hyper cutter not so much) and even typing alone is a great asset right now, despite her weakness to fighting.

Notable moves:

• 
  Iron head
  Sucker punch
  Crunch
  Seismic toss
  Pain split
  Fire fang
  Ice punch
  Ice fang
  Thunder fang
  Thunder punch
  Baton pass
  Substitute
  Swords dance
  Body slam
  Focus punch
  Knock off
  Rock slide
  Stone edge
  Sunny day
  Rain dance
  Stealth rocks
  Super fang
  Taunt
  Iron defense
  Foul play

She has an incredibly good movepool, as you can see, letting her run all kinds of sets incredibly well! From physically defensive to swords dance sweeping mawile is really quite versatile.

I hope that this can be a thread to discuss Mawile without trying to place her in the viability rankings, for a much calmer place to discuss this cute girl!

Please do not hate, and enjoy!

 

[Punchshroom]

Well you've really gone and done it, huh? At least now I'm not restricted to the viability rankings in the professional sense and be as biased for Mawile as much as I want. Mawile's nice :)

You might want to mention Iron Defense for Baton Passing as well. I'll post more about Mawile's attributes when I return.

Edit: Foul Play looks interesting too. It's such a pity Mawile has such an immense special movepool but sucks at using any of them. Garbodor / Golurk anyone?

 

[Dzi]

Mawile is the cutest pure Steel type ever! My favorite set is probably Baton Pass set since its Steel typing gives a lot of key resistances. Something like:

Mawile @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Swords Dance / Iron Defense / Stockpile
- Baton Pass
- Taunt

^_^

 

[watashi]

yeah mawile's biggest niche is on baton pass teams since it can pivot in and out with intimidate, which allows it to set up iron defense even against golem or piloswine. its typing is always useful and taunt can help in some situations such as against whirlwind or haze users. this makes it a must have for every bp team

 

[Punchshroom]

I'm not sure if it is a must-have due to Mr. Mime, another must-have, packing Taunt as well. The Steel typing and Intimidate are nifty things for Baton Pass to have though, and he is not outclassed in this role. What boosts you have him pass/receive determines his effectiveness though, as his stats place greater emphasis on the kind of boosts you pass to/with him.

 

[Dell]

It IS a must-have because it's the only Baton Pass user in the tier that resists Normal or Flying and has Intimidate and Iron Defense to stop several physical attackers in attempts to ravaging your team, as you would otherwise have no reliable defensive mechanism among dealing with them. It also has access to Swords Dance which is kind of cool if one of your Baton Pass offensive Pokemon happens to be Sawsbuck or something. Just because a Pokemon with a completely different role that also happens to be an essential role on your Baton Pass team sports a similar support move, doesn't mean it's going to show any signs of being inferior (especially considering that it can generally utilize this better once you've racked up sufficient Speed Boosts with Ninjask).

 

[Punchshroom]

For the record, there's Solrock for your Normal+Flying resist, who has reliable recovery in addition to a Speed boosting move (Solrock has a myriad of boosts to pass for that matter). The one boost Solrock can't pass that Mawile can is Swords Dance, so I'll give mini-Jaws that much.

Edit: My bad, turns out Solrock can't have Morning Sun and Baton Pass on the same set. It passes more boosts than Mawile though, other than attack, and has better speed.

 

[Ashley11]

How good do you think mawile would be at using swords dance itself? It has good abilities and a fantastic movepool for it, its just the stats kind of hinder it.

 

[ryan]

I've seen an offensive SD set before in NU, and it wasn't awful. The cool things about Mawile is its myriad of offensive options as well as access to the coveted Sheer Force. It can run something along the lines of the following.

Mawile@Life Orb | Trait: Sheer Force
Adamant Nature | EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spe/4 HP
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
- Choice of coverage move

I don't know if the Speed EVs are optimal (because I've never used Mawile and I am not too familiar with the speed tiers for something that slow), but I imagine it should look something like that. Sucker Punch allows it to hit faster, frailer threats, which is pretty cool.

 

[mkizzy]

@Treecko37: You'll probably want something like Brick Break or Fire Fang in the last slot, despite that their weak moves. That's the best coverage I can think of, anyways.

On my first NU team when I was really bad (I'm not much better now 9.9) I used Mawile, and honestly looking back it didn't do much for me (maybe that's because I played bad?) It just seems like there are much better set up sweepers in NU that just overshadow the usefulness of Mawile, and I just find it hard to set up a Swords Dance without dying/being injured heavily. However the Baton Pass set is definitely something that looks more interesting, I'll have to test that.

 

[ryan]

Yeah, you can use a pretty good variety of moves, from Fire Fang to Brick Break or Ice Punch. Its movepool is interesting and allows for a decent amount of options.

 

[MarshallLeRoy]

Glad to see a Mawile thread pop up!

I used Mawile to terrific use back when Cincinno reigned supreme over the NU tier. Her Swords Dance set combined with intimidate caused all kinds of problems and switches. Had she not been complete setup bait for the also common Emboar at the time, she may have gained more popularity then. She was a hard counter to Cincinno unless it ran something strange like Wakeupslap, and was the best Golurk lure in the tier, Swords Dancing on the switch and OHKOing with Sucker Punch.

But now, I'm not really sure Mawile can keep up in NU with the new titans on the block. Obviously she has her niche as a Baton Passer, but on regular teams she simply gets outmuscled by a lot of top threats. With Sawk and Primeape keeping Fighting types common, Scolipede having Earthquake, and the prevalence of Psychic types in the tier who simply smash through Mawile's weak Special Defence, I have a hard time imagining a place for her on a serious team.

Maybe if Normal types rise to the top of the tier like they were last year, then Mawile can see use.

 

[dwib]

I run a defensive set on my PU team and it is actually pretty decent...

Mawile@Leftovers | Trait: Intimidate
Impish Nature | EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SpD
- Toxic
- Pain Split
- Seismic Toss/Iron Head
- Filler (Protect/Stealth Rock/Sucker Punch/Taunt/Knock Off/Foul Play could all work)

It actually does its job very well against non-SE hits. It obviously can't check something like Sawk but it can take a myriad of physical hits from all around the tier.

 

[Governess]

I haven't used Mawile in awhile (get it), but the few times I have used it, the Intimidate + Swords Dance combo has been quite successful. And like Roy said, all these additions to NU just make Mawile less used. I doubt there would be a day where Mawile gets used on more competitive teams (unless the rise of threats in NU go to RU; doubt that'll happen) but it's a good Pokemon nonetheless.