OU Spotlight: Pyukumuku

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Introduction

Pyukumuku, a Pokémon famous for lacking attacks (Counter and Bide aside)—it's no surprise that this Pokémon would end up finding its place on defensive teams. Pyukumuku started the generation as a real team player, using Baton Pass to spread Curse boosts to special walls like Chansey and rarely even Blissey, sometimes also opting to pass the physical boosts to physical walls like Skarmory to allow them to perform some incredible feats. However, with the introduction of Necrozma and Magearna, Baton Pass teams became too consistent and threatening and started to damage the health of the metagame, even under the heavy restrictions of the time, leading to the move being banned as a whole. Pyukumuku fell out of relevance in OU for a while, only showing up rarely on niche stall builds. After USM dropped, stall players began to reevaluate the sea cucumber, focusing builds on Pyukumuku's ability to permanently trap opposing Pokémon with Block, enabling Toxic and Spite strategies to handle some of stall's would-be biggest threats. This new style of Pyukumuku made a great showing in the World Cup of Pokémon, and Pyukumuku became known as the best Unaware user available in OU, even beating out a metagame staple in Clefable. Pyukumuku has found a home in OU as a common face on stall builds and has seemingly opened up a resurgence in creativity and experimentation in the archetype, evidenced by the rise of Moltres and Avalugg as stall staples.

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Hot sets

• Pyukumuku @ Leftovers
• Ability: Unaware
• EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
• Bold Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Spite
• - Rest / Taunt
• - Recover
• - Block

This is the quintessential Pyukumuku set. Unaware with maximum physical bulk lets Pyukumuku come in on threatening breakers like Mega Pinsir and Mega Swampert, and the threat of Block can force out typical annoyances to stall like Clefable, Manaphy, Swords Dance Landorus-T, and non-Taunt variants of Gliscor. Spite accelerates PP drain if Pyukumuku manages to land a good Block and is necessary with this strategy to make up for the relatively low PP counts of Block and Recover. Rest prevents Pyukumuku from succumbing to status, can stall out a good chunk of PP, and can also let Pyukumuku outlast a Mega Sableye if it bounces back a Block on a switch in with Magic Bounce. Taunt is another option to increase the pace of the PP stall further, helping drain out foes with high-PP status moves that could get around Spite's 16 PP, but is ineffective against preventing status conditions because of Pyukumuku's abysmal base 5 Speed.

• Pyukumuku @ Leftovers
• Ability: Unaware
• EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
• Bold Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk
• - Soak
• - Toxic
• - Recover
• - Block

The alternative to PP stall commonly seen on Pyukumuku is a combination of Soak and Toxic. Soak can strip away a foe's STABs, letting Pyukumuku wall them more easily, while also opening up Poison- and Steel-types to Toxic. While this set has trouble handling Pokémon like Clefable and Gliscor and also succumbs to status, making it the less popular of the two, it's able to punish offensive switch-ins like Tapu Koko and Tapu Bulu with chip damage, helping out the stall team even if it's unable to land a solid Block.

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Other Options

• Pyukumuku @ Aguav Berry
• Ability: Innards Out
• Level: 96
• EVs: 252 HP
• Hasty Nature
• IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpD
• - Soak
• - Toxic
• - Rest
• - Block

This set is very rarely seen and can honestly look a bit wild from a first glance. It aims to take advantage of Innards Out to trade Pyukumuku for insane wallbreakers like Hoopa-U, removing one unwallable Pokémon from each game. To achieve this, HP is maximized while defenses are minimized, increasing Pyukumuku's chance to be OHKOed—even Pyukumuku's level is reduced to 96 to maximize the damage it will take while keeping its HP at a value of 301, enough to OHKO an uninvested Hoopa-U with a full HP Innards Out. This can be a giveaway at Team Preview, however, so it can be left at 100 to bluff Unaware sets if desired at the cost of optimization. An Aguav Berry allows Pyukumuku to regain a big chunk of HP if an attack fails to KO it, increasing the effectiveness of Innards Out, while the moveset takes advantage of Soak + Toxic to punish switch-ins, since the set lacks the bulk necessary for the PP stall route.

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Team Spotlight

Trosko Stall was one of the first popular variants of Pyukumuku stall and even held a place in the USM OU Sample Teams. With Celesteela to help against opposing Clefable, the team was free to run the Soak + Toxic variant of Pyukumuku, helping the team to pressure Pokémon that could otherwise be troubling, such as Tapu Koko. This team was used in the Smogon Premier League by Trosko himself, whose team went on to win the tournament. Here's a replay from Week 6 of SPL highlighting the effectiveness of the team.

This team is generally credited as giving Pyukumuku wide community recognition as a solid stall option for OU. It was used by bro fist in the finals tiebreak of the World Cup of Pokémon and snagged the final win for US Northeast. Pyukumuku played a key role in this battle, trapping the opposing Clefable and wearing it down through a combination of Rest and Spite. Here's a replay of the battle.

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For an archetype that's often considered formulaic, Pyukumuku is just one example of a burst of creativity in teambuilding. Keep your eye out for an upcoming article all about these new faces of USM OU stall!

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