**Draft Order**: Round 3 onwards
**Price Range**: 14-15 points
**Overview**: Although its stats may be lacking, Clefable makes up for them with its great typing, amazing movepool, and fantastic abilities in Magic Guard and Unaware. Access to great utility moves allows it to be a fantastic defensive piece to a draft, while offensive sets can be threatening with Calm Mind and great coverage moves. Even with these great features, Clefable is still held back by its low stats, allowing certain strong foes such as some Z-Move users to break through it, and its reliance on status moves allows foes with Taunt or Encore to shut it down.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Bulky Utility**: Clefable's deep utility movepool, including Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, and Encore, lets it disrupt foes or help its partners. Magic Guard ignoring damage from entry hazards and poison along with Soft-Boiled allows it to stick around long-term. It can also forgo Magic Guard to use Unaware, letting it deal with otherwise threatening setup sweepers.
**Setup Sweeper**: With Magic Guard preventing damage from Toxic along with access to Calm Mind and a deep pool of coverage options, Clefable is a solid bulky setup sweeper. Cosmic Power can also be used along with Stored Power to wall certain teams, but it is risky against Encore users.
**Bulky Attacker**: If given a Life Orb, Clefable gains the ability to do respectable damage while avoiding its recoil with Magic Guard. This allows it to be a threatening attacker with its great coverage options while maintaining its bulk.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Moonblast
**Setup Moves**: Calm Mind, Cosmic Power
**Utility Moves**: Softboiled, Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, Encore, Toxic, Heal Bell, Healing Wish, Wish, Trick, Seismic Toss
**Coverage**: Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, Psychic, Psyshock, Thunderbolt, Stored Power, Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power
Niche Moves
========
**Light Screen / Reflect**: Dual screens can provide one of Clefable's partners with an oppertunity to set up, which can pair well with Healing Wish, although it often prefers to use its other utility moves.
**Counter**: Sets with Counter can achieve surprise OHKOs on physical attackers, pairing well with Babiri or Kasib Berry.
Common Items
========
**Leftovers**: The constant healing from Leftovers is greatly appreciated on all Clefable sets, making it even more difficult to take down long term.
**Life Orb**: Offensive sets gain a nice boost of damage from Life Orb while avoiding recoil with Magic Guard.
Niche Items
========
**Resistance Berries**: The Babiri and Kebia Berries can allow Clefable to survive a super effective attack, allowing it to deal with certain threats.
**Rocky Helmet**: Chip damage from Rocky Helmet on foes with contact moves can be useful, especially since Clefable resists notable physical moves such as U-turn and Knock Off.
**Light Clay**: Sets utilizing dual screens are more effective with Light Clay increasing their duration.
**Mental Herb**: Mental Herb can prevent Taunt and Encore from disrupting Clefable, allowing more opportunities to safely heal or set up.
Draft Strategy
========
The plethora of utility moves at its disposal along with its two great defensive abilities lets Clefable effectively support its offensive and defensive partners. This great role compression lets Clefable fit on most teams fairly well.
**Other Bulky Pokemon**: Clefable's main drawback as a defensive pokemon is its relatively low defensive stats, which make it susceptible to many strong wallbreakers when it cannot be fully invested to deal with them. Bulky partners like Mega Scizor, Rotom-W, and Uxie relieve this pressure on Clefable, letting it deal with specific threats.
**Wallbreakers**. Disrupting foes with Knock Off, Stealth Rock, and Thunder Wave allows Clefable's partners to more effectively wallbreak. Fast wallbreakers like Latios and Mega Gallade appreciate items being removed and entry hazards being up, while slower ones like Tyranitar and Nidoking are greatly enhanced by foes being paralyzed.
**Alternate Entry Hazard Setters**. Clefable is a solid Stealth Rock setter, but it would often prefer to use one of its many other great moves. Alternate hazard setters like Heatran, Necrozma, and Krookodile let it run a greater variety of sets.
Checks and Counters
========
**Wallbreakers**: Although Clefable can avoid most chip damage with Magic Guard and can wall setup sweepers with Unaware, its only moderate defensive stats prevent it from dealing with strong wallbreakers like Blacephalon. Foes that can utilize strong Z-Moves like Landorus-T and Kyurem-B are able to blow through Clefable, even with full investment.
**Fairy-resistant Pokemon**: Even with reasonably powerful coverage moves like Flamethrower and Psychic, Clefable's low Special Attack means Fairy-resistant foes like Celesteela and Nidoking can switch into and threaten it fairly easily. It also lacks super effective coverage to hit Fire-type Pokemon outside of Hidden Power, making foes like Heatran difficult to deal with.
**Taunt / Encore**: Most Clefable sets rely on multiple status moves to be successful. This, along with its low Speed, makes it fairly susceptible to Taunt and Encore disrupting it.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/e-man.617175/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/odinrm.613514/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/a-blue-banana.649096/
**Price Range**: 14-15 points
**Overview**: Although its stats may be lacking, Clefable makes up for them with its great typing, amazing movepool, and fantastic abilities in Magic Guard and Unaware. Access to great utility moves allows it to be a fantastic defensive piece to a draft, while offensive sets can be threatening with Calm Mind and great coverage moves. Even with these great features, Clefable is still held back by its low stats, allowing certain strong foes such as some Z-Move users to break through it, and its reliance on status moves allows foes with Taunt or Encore to shut it down.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Bulky Utility**: Clefable's deep utility movepool, including Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, and Encore, lets it disrupt foes or help its partners. Magic Guard ignoring damage from entry hazards and poison along with Soft-Boiled allows it to stick around long-term. It can also forgo Magic Guard to use Unaware, letting it deal with otherwise threatening setup sweepers.
**Setup Sweeper**: With Magic Guard preventing damage from Toxic along with access to Calm Mind and a deep pool of coverage options, Clefable is a solid bulky setup sweeper. Cosmic Power can also be used along with Stored Power to wall certain teams, but it is risky against Encore users.
**Bulky Attacker**: If given a Life Orb, Clefable gains the ability to do respectable damage while avoiding its recoil with Magic Guard. This allows it to be a threatening attacker with its great coverage options while maintaining its bulk.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Moonblast
**Setup Moves**: Calm Mind, Cosmic Power
**Utility Moves**: Softboiled, Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Thunder Wave, Encore, Toxic, Heal Bell, Healing Wish, Wish, Trick, Seismic Toss
**Coverage**: Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, Psychic, Psyshock, Thunderbolt, Stored Power, Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power
Niche Moves
========
**Light Screen / Reflect**: Dual screens can provide one of Clefable's partners with an oppertunity to set up, which can pair well with Healing Wish, although it often prefers to use its other utility moves.
**Counter**: Sets with Counter can achieve surprise OHKOs on physical attackers, pairing well with Babiri or Kasib Berry.
Common Items
========
**Leftovers**: The constant healing from Leftovers is greatly appreciated on all Clefable sets, making it even more difficult to take down long term.
**Life Orb**: Offensive sets gain a nice boost of damage from Life Orb while avoiding recoil with Magic Guard.
Niche Items
========
**Resistance Berries**: The Babiri and Kebia Berries can allow Clefable to survive a super effective attack, allowing it to deal with certain threats.
**Rocky Helmet**: Chip damage from Rocky Helmet on foes with contact moves can be useful, especially since Clefable resists notable physical moves such as U-turn and Knock Off.
**Light Clay**: Sets utilizing dual screens are more effective with Light Clay increasing their duration.
**Mental Herb**: Mental Herb can prevent Taunt and Encore from disrupting Clefable, allowing more opportunities to safely heal or set up.
Draft Strategy
========
The plethora of utility moves at its disposal along with its two great defensive abilities lets Clefable effectively support its offensive and defensive partners. This great role compression lets Clefable fit on most teams fairly well.
**Other Bulky Pokemon**: Clefable's main drawback as a defensive pokemon is its relatively low defensive stats, which make it susceptible to many strong wallbreakers when it cannot be fully invested to deal with them. Bulky partners like Mega Scizor, Rotom-W, and Uxie relieve this pressure on Clefable, letting it deal with specific threats.
**Wallbreakers**. Disrupting foes with Knock Off, Stealth Rock, and Thunder Wave allows Clefable's partners to more effectively wallbreak. Fast wallbreakers like Latios and Mega Gallade appreciate items being removed and entry hazards being up, while slower ones like Tyranitar and Nidoking are greatly enhanced by foes being paralyzed.
**Alternate Entry Hazard Setters**. Clefable is a solid Stealth Rock setter, but it would often prefer to use one of its many other great moves. Alternate hazard setters like Heatran, Necrozma, and Krookodile let it run a greater variety of sets.
Checks and Counters
========
**Wallbreakers**: Although Clefable can avoid most chip damage with Magic Guard and can wall setup sweepers with Unaware, its only moderate defensive stats prevent it from dealing with strong wallbreakers like Blacephalon. Foes that can utilize strong Z-Moves like Landorus-T and Kyurem-B are able to blow through Clefable, even with full investment.
**Fairy-resistant Pokemon**: Even with reasonably powerful coverage moves like Flamethrower and Psychic, Clefable's low Special Attack means Fairy-resistant foes like Celesteela and Nidoking can switch into and threaten it fairly easily. It also lacks super effective coverage to hit Fire-type Pokemon outside of Hidden Power, making foes like Heatran difficult to deal with.
**Taunt / Encore**: Most Clefable sets rely on multiple status moves to be successful. This, along with its low Speed, makes it fairly susceptible to Taunt and Encore disrupting it.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/e-man.617175/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/odinrm.613514/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno.527276/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/a-blue-banana.649096/
Last edited:
