Ekans is a wonderful mon with many options for use. It can run a support set with intimidate and glare, a cool attacking set with coil/gunk shot/earthquake/sucker punch, and an amazing bulky boosting set with shed skin rest. So many options leave Ekans with hella 4mss. I ran Crokans, and there were many times when sucker punch would have saved me a match. Despite it being hurt by 4mss, it can still be a scary sweeper given the right support. Pokemon like Abra and Drilbur give Ekans nightmares. (Though the berry juice set with sucker punch doesn't fear abra switch ins, but it is always forced out.) Drilbur and Abra checks (i think pump checks both now lol) are greatly appreciated, because Ekans can only pull of a sweep if they're gone. Archen also completely walls Crokans and hits it with earthquake, stopping me cold. A scarfed electric type/pawniard can be great checks to Archen,i can't even think of any counters. Chinchou and Magnemite also proved to be problematic, as they wore it down quickly with special attacks. So Ekans definitely needs hazard support to stop those two from living Earthquakes (if not boosted enough or sturdy, respectively) and hitting hard or pivoting away. Ekans has other issues like its low speed, and the fact that Shed Skin is somewhat unreliable. That being said, Ekans is a monster with coil up, and its Poison typing, on top of 23/14/14 bulk, let it set up easily. Pseudo-reliable recovery in Rest takes some luck to work, but oftentimes will stop Ekans from being worn down and will let it continue its sweep. Shed Skin also lets it switch in on Foongus and start setting up. Ekans may take some support, but its formidable sweeping capabilities redeem it, making it the only mon so far that I would use outside of Research Week.
