[OVERVIEW]
Boasting the incredibly strong Technician Population Bomb along with the ability to set up and remove hazards in a single turn, Maushold stands out as one of the most threatening setup sweepers in the metagame. Due to its ability to outspeed and OHKO the majority of the tier after a single turn of boosting, it is imperative for every non-hyper offense team to have an answer to Maushold. Unfortunately for Maushold, this can be done incredibly easily by having any decently defensive Pokemon hold Rocky Helmet, as the multihit nature of Population Bomb simultaneously serves as its greatest strength and its Achilles' heel. Maushold's relative frailty also means that it can be easily dealt with by strong priority users and bulkier Pokemon that are able to survive a hit and KO it back.
[SET]
Tidy Up (Maushold) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Ghost / Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Tidy Up
- Population Bomb
- Bite / Bullet Seed
- Encore / Low Kick
[SET COMMENTS]
Set Details
====
Tidy Up offers incredible utility, as it allows Maushold to set up and unpreventably remove hazards in a single slot. Bite is a go-to coverage option, as it allows Maushold to hit Ghost-types like Basculegion-F and Hisuian Zoroark. Bullet Seed is an alternative that can similarly hit the aforementioned Ghost-types as well as Rocky Helmet Hippowdon, which is one of Maushold's most common checks, at the cost of fizzling against Gengar. Encore can provide Maushold with free turns by locking an opponent into a useless move, which can often be game-winning due to Maushold's unrivaled power. Low Kick is another coverage option that enables Maushold to deal with bulky Steel-types such as Hisuian Goodra, Registeel, and Eviolite Bisharp. Wide Lens is crucial for Maushold to improve Population Bomb's consistency, as otherwise it only has an approximate 35% chance to hit 10 times. Technician boosts all of Population Bomb, Bite, and Bullet Seed, enabling Maushold to be incredibly threatening despite its low Attack stat. Tera Ghost provides Maushold with valuable immunities to Fighting and Normal and a resistance to Bug, which can prevent it from getting revenge killed by Fighting-type attacks, including Body Press from Chesnaught and Close Combat from Choice Scarf Galarian Zapdos, as well as priority attacks such as Conkeldurr's Mach Punch, Entei's Extreme Speed, and Slither Wing's First Impression. This can be capitalized on with Encore to give Maushold incredibly valuable free turns to set up. Tera Normal can be used instead to boost Population Bomb's power, which allows Maushold to OHKO bulky Pokemon like Fezandipiti and specially defensive Umbreon without needing to set up.
Maushold fits best on offense, particularly hyper offense, structures, primarily due its ability to remove hazards despite already being an incredibly powerful setup sweeper. Becase of this, it synergizes with other setup sweepers like Throat Spray Yanmega and Lum Berry Salamence that are weak to Stealth Rock. While Maushold can be easily punished with physical walls holding Rocky Helmet such as Hippowdon, Galarian Weezing, and Chesnaught, it can often deal massive amounts of damage to them before fainting, which can give other physically offensive setup sweepers such as Revavroom and Mimikyu the wiggle room to pull off a sweep later in the game. Maushold particularly benefits from specially offensive teammates like Armarouge and Thundurus that can exploit any of the aforementioned physical walls hoping to get rid of Maushold. On generally offensive structures, Maushold can act as the primary setup sweeper and therefore greatly appreciates Knock Off support from Pokemon like Krookodile and Galarian Zapdos to remove Rocky Helmet from opposing physical walls.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
====
Maushold's greatest weakness, contact effects, can be neutralized with Protective Pads, albeit at the cost of drastically decreasing Population Bomb's reliability. Loaded Dice is an alternative to Wide Lens that improves Bullet Seed's reliability while still guaranteeing at least 4 hits with Population Bomb. Tera Fire can be used to prevent Maushold from getting burned by Will-O-Wisp Galarian Weezing and Talonflame and grant it free turns to set up against them.
Checks and Counters
====
**Contact Effects**: Any of the physical walls in the tier, including Hippowdon, Chesnaught, Galarian Weezing, and Slowbro, can eliminate Maushold with the help of Rocky Helmet, with the interaction causing Maushold to faint after hitting just 6 times from full health. Pokemon such as Static Bellibolt and Flame Body Talonflame can also be used to cripple, instead of outright KO, Maushold at a very high probability as punishment for clicking Population Bomb; although they are less reliable, they have an edge over the other physical walls, as their anti-Maushold weapon cannot be neutralized with Knock Off.
**Faster Wallbreakers**: Faster offensive Pokemon such as Barraskewda and Choice Scarf users such as Galarian Zapdos and Mienshao can revenge kill an unboosted Maushold, though the latter two have to be wary of a possible Tera Ghost from Maushold that could flip the game in its favor in a single turn.
**Steel-type Wallbreakers**: Powerful Steel-types such as Hisuian Goodra and Choice Specs Magnezone can survive a hit from Maushold and KO it back. Hisuian Goodra in particular can temporarily cripple Maushold with Gooey and therefore allow its teammates to deal with it even if Maushold has accrued several Tidy Up boosts.
**Mimikyu**: In the hyper offense mirror matchup, Mimikyu is one of the only Pokemon that can consistently deal with Maushold thanks to its immunity to Population Bomb. Mimikyu does, however, need to be wary of Bite that can take it out with enough flinches and Bullet Seed that can potentially KO Mimikyu past Disguise after Maushold gets one or two Attack boosts.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sir-tetris.655207/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/machjacob.555741/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/fluff.614438/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/tbolt.555379/
Boasting the incredibly strong Technician Population Bomb along with the ability to set up and remove hazards in a single turn, Maushold stands out as one of the most threatening setup sweepers in the metagame. Due to its ability to outspeed and OHKO the majority of the tier after a single turn of boosting, it is imperative for every non-hyper offense team to have an answer to Maushold. Unfortunately for Maushold, this can be done incredibly easily by having any decently defensive Pokemon hold Rocky Helmet, as the multihit nature of Population Bomb simultaneously serves as its greatest strength and its Achilles' heel. Maushold's relative frailty also means that it can be easily dealt with by strong priority users and bulkier Pokemon that are able to survive a hit and KO it back.
[SET]
Tidy Up (Maushold) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Ghost / Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Tidy Up
- Population Bomb
- Bite / Bullet Seed
- Encore / Low Kick
[SET COMMENTS]
Set Details
====
Tidy Up offers incredible utility, as it allows Maushold to set up and unpreventably remove hazards in a single slot. Bite is a go-to coverage option, as it allows Maushold to hit Ghost-types like Basculegion-F and Hisuian Zoroark. Bullet Seed is an alternative that can similarly hit the aforementioned Ghost-types as well as Rocky Helmet Hippowdon, which is one of Maushold's most common checks, at the cost of fizzling against Gengar. Encore can provide Maushold with free turns by locking an opponent into a useless move, which can often be game-winning due to Maushold's unrivaled power. Low Kick is another coverage option that enables Maushold to deal with bulky Steel-types such as Hisuian Goodra, Registeel, and Eviolite Bisharp. Wide Lens is crucial for Maushold to improve Population Bomb's consistency, as otherwise it only has an approximate 35% chance to hit 10 times. Technician boosts all of Population Bomb, Bite, and Bullet Seed, enabling Maushold to be incredibly threatening despite its low Attack stat. Tera Ghost provides Maushold with valuable immunities to Fighting and Normal and a resistance to Bug, which can prevent it from getting revenge killed by Fighting-type attacks, including Body Press from Chesnaught and Close Combat from Choice Scarf Galarian Zapdos, as well as priority attacks such as Conkeldurr's Mach Punch, Entei's Extreme Speed, and Slither Wing's First Impression. This can be capitalized on with Encore to give Maushold incredibly valuable free turns to set up. Tera Normal can be used instead to boost Population Bomb's power, which allows Maushold to OHKO bulky Pokemon like Fezandipiti and specially defensive Umbreon without needing to set up.
Maushold fits best on offense, particularly hyper offense, structures, primarily due its ability to remove hazards despite already being an incredibly powerful setup sweeper. Becase of this, it synergizes with other setup sweepers like Throat Spray Yanmega and Lum Berry Salamence that are weak to Stealth Rock. While Maushold can be easily punished with physical walls holding Rocky Helmet such as Hippowdon, Galarian Weezing, and Chesnaught, it can often deal massive amounts of damage to them before fainting, which can give other physically offensive setup sweepers such as Revavroom and Mimikyu the wiggle room to pull off a sweep later in the game. Maushold particularly benefits from specially offensive teammates like Armarouge and Thundurus that can exploit any of the aforementioned physical walls hoping to get rid of Maushold. On generally offensive structures, Maushold can act as the primary setup sweeper and therefore greatly appreciates Knock Off support from Pokemon like Krookodile and Galarian Zapdos to remove Rocky Helmet from opposing physical walls.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
====
Maushold's greatest weakness, contact effects, can be neutralized with Protective Pads, albeit at the cost of drastically decreasing Population Bomb's reliability. Loaded Dice is an alternative to Wide Lens that improves Bullet Seed's reliability while still guaranteeing at least 4 hits with Population Bomb. Tera Fire can be used to prevent Maushold from getting burned by Will-O-Wisp Galarian Weezing and Talonflame and grant it free turns to set up against them.
Checks and Counters
====
**Contact Effects**: Any of the physical walls in the tier, including Hippowdon, Chesnaught, Galarian Weezing, and Slowbro, can eliminate Maushold with the help of Rocky Helmet, with the interaction causing Maushold to faint after hitting just 6 times from full health. Pokemon such as Static Bellibolt and Flame Body Talonflame can also be used to cripple, instead of outright KO, Maushold at a very high probability as punishment for clicking Population Bomb; although they are less reliable, they have an edge over the other physical walls, as their anti-Maushold weapon cannot be neutralized with Knock Off.
**Faster Wallbreakers**: Faster offensive Pokemon such as Barraskewda and Choice Scarf users such as Galarian Zapdos and Mienshao can revenge kill an unboosted Maushold, though the latter two have to be wary of a possible Tera Ghost from Maushold that could flip the game in its favor in a single turn.
**Steel-type Wallbreakers**: Powerful Steel-types such as Hisuian Goodra and Choice Specs Magnezone can survive a hit from Maushold and KO it back. Hisuian Goodra in particular can temporarily cripple Maushold with Gooey and therefore allow its teammates to deal with it even if Maushold has accrued several Tidy Up boosts.
**Mimikyu**: In the hyper offense mirror matchup, Mimikyu is one of the only Pokemon that can consistently deal with Maushold thanks to its immunity to Population Bomb. Mimikyu does, however, need to be wary of Bite that can take it out with enough flinches and Bullet Seed that can potentially KO Mimikyu past Disguise after Maushold gets one or two Attack boosts.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sir-tetris.655207/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/machjacob.555741/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/fluff.614438/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/tbolt.555379/
Last edited:
