ORAS PU Suspect Coverage: Quagsire

Art by Jackii.

Introduction

Once upon a time an OU Pokémon by usage, Quagsire has experienced an extreme drop in usage throughout the last year. During the final usage-based tier update of Generation VI, Quagsire dropped to PU.

Quagsire was quick to establish itself as a top tier defensive threat thanks to its good physical bulk, access to reliable recovery, and fantastic defensive ability in Unaware. Stall experienced an almost immediate spike in popularity from the moment that Quagsire was introduced. Quagsire's effect on the tier was noticeable from early on, evidenced by the fact that less than a month had elapsed before the suspect test was announced.

• Quagsire @ Leftovers
• Ability: Unaware
• EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
• Relaxed Nature
• - Scald
• - Earthquake
• - Curse
• - Recover

Quagsire is remarkably consistent despite boasting only one set with little variation. Quagsire boasts a fantastic Water and Ground typing, granting it only a single weakness, as well as a valuable immunity to Electric-type attacks. Scald is Quagsire's main STAB move, used mostly to fish for burns on anything trying to switch in on Quagsire, from Leafeon to Rotom-F. Earthquake is usually used after a Curse boost to threaten Calm Mind users such as Duosion and Clefairy. Curse can also be used to avoid the 2HKO from Choice Band Stoutland or Dodrio at +1.

Quagsire is mainly found on stall teams, where it carves out a valuable niche as the only viable Unaware Pokémon that the tier has to offer. Usually Quagsire is utilized to wall threatening setup sweepers such as Pawniard, Monferno, and Bouffalant. Despite being primarily found on stall, Quagsire can also fit on some balanced teams, where it opts to run Toxic in place of Curse in order to punish switch-ins such as Leafeon, Cacturne, and Gourgeist-XL.

Sample team

Dundies' recent RMT showcases what is likely the most popular Quagsire stall team. The team utilizes a recently discovered defensive threat in Bronzor, alongside the defensive core of Quagsire, Muk, and Altaria. Muk and Altaria cover all the relevant Grass-types that may threaten Quagsire, with Altaria also providing cleric support. The team is rounded out with Wish support from Audino, and hazard removal from Avalugg.

Pro-ban arguments

A large number of the common stallbreakers that the PU tier has to offer happen to be Pokémon that require boosting moves in order to perform their role. Quagsire is the only PU viable Pokémon with access to Unaware, an ability that allows it to reliably handle a number of common boosting Pokémon such as Swords Dance Pawniard, Calm Mind Duosion, and Substitute + Swords Dance Bouffalant. Quagsire's introduction to the tier has severely constricted the pool of viable stallbreaking options, making stall much more difficult to beat because it limits the number of Pokémon that are able to do so. Quagsire's ability to blanket check such a wide range of stallbreakers works fantastically with other, more passive Pokémon such as Muk or Bronzor, which can be fantastic supportive Pokémon on defensive builds, but can otherwise suffer due to their innate passivity. This further accentuates the matchup problems, as it means that there is a seemingly larger number of games coming down to whether the stall team can handle whichever stallbreakers are present in any given match rather than how well they play.

Anti-ban arguments

Innate passivity and lack of special bulk leave Quagsire exploited by almost all special attackers. Even Quagsire's physical bulk, while above average, isn't spectacular, so it is still 2HKOed by common Choice Band users such as Stoutland and Dodrio. Quagsire's 4x Grass weakness makes it somewhat easy to deal with using more uncommon attacks, especially when compared to other defensive Pokémon such as Audino or Muk. The likes of Monferno, Rampardos, and Zebstrika can run moves like Grass Knot and Hidden Power Grass to do this, while Ursaring and Arbok may opt to run Seed Bomb. Finally, some believe that the month that Quagsire was in the tier was not enough time for the metagame to fully adapt, and that if more time was given Quagsire would be a less prominent issue due to the fact that teams would naturally be more prepared for it.

Conclusion

With over 30 of the 49 eligible voters voting ban, Quagsire's stay in PU proved to be short lived, as it was swiftly banned.