Suspect Reasoning
Weavile has been a prominent threat in the tier for a long time now, often sitting near or on the border of being problematic throughout its history here, but has recently begun to be overwhelming in the eyes of many. Weavile's high speed, solid attack and excellent dual STAB makes it an fantastic offensive threat in the National Dex UU tier, outpacing many of the tier's offensive threats and threatening them with high power STABs, especially when backed by Choice Band, its most common item. Additionally, Knock Off allows it to cripple many switchins, Ice Shard lets it revenge kill a number of sweepers and Pursuit lets it trap a significant number of Pokemon, providing invaluable support to a number of Pokemon. It also received Triple Axel in one of the DLCs, a semi reliable effective base 120 Ice STAB move that can break sashes and bypass subs to an extent thanks to its multi hit nature. This overall puts Weavile as an offensive Pokemon significantly ahead of most other offensive Pokemon, who are either slow and strong or fast and weak, as Weavile is not only both fast and powerful but has a much more spammable set of STABs.
While Weavile theoretically has a number of viable switchins that can take its STABs, in practice the majority are too reliant on their item to function to risk losing their item from checking Weavile - notably, choiced Pokemon like Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Keldeo, and Primarina absolutely cannot lose their choice item in order to function properly, and Z variants usually don't do the same job. Primarina additionally takes too much from a max power Triple Axel to be a reliable check without a defensive set anyways, not to mention all three have no reliable recovery and thus get worn down over repeated Knocks/Axels.
Melmetal similarly needs its item a little too much, needing Protective Pads to more freely attack and not be worn down, Choice Band for similar reasons to the above listed Pokemon, and Leftovers to make use of Protect+Toxic and not be worn down as quickly. Z Move sets don't care as much but (like most Melmetal sets) are not hard to wear down with repeated Knock Offs or, more importantly, Rocky Helmet users, making it similarly unreliable in the long term. Rocky Helmet defensive Pokemon such as Skarmory to severely punish Triple Axel may seem like a decent long term answer until you remember Weavile can Knock the helmet off and Triple Axel freely next switchin (notably always 2HKOing Skarmory after rocks), turning it into a series of mindgames if you have a dark resist (which will more than likely miss their item) and just not that feasible in the long term without one.
For this reason, many teams are forced to fall back on otherwise suboptimal item choices on defensive Pokemon in order to have switchins, such as seemingly random Z moves on defensive Ice resists such as Rotom-Wash or on bulky Scizor sets (though in the latter's case it turns out the Z move can actually be useful in a few cases) on account of Z moves being just marginally more useful than being itemless in the highly rare case the main Z move user isn't in a position to use it or fainted from some other cause, often resulting in teams with multiple Z move users. There aren't even many lesser viable Pokemon to choose from - in the B ranks the only other alternatives are Rocky Helmet Buzzwole (who, like Skarmory, gets the helmet knocked and potentially 2HKOd by Triple Axel the next time around after rocks), the very mediocre Cobalion, or Alomomola, who has a hard time fitting on anything other than fat balance or stall.
There are also very few viable Pokemon who naturally outspeed it, limited to Choice Scarfers, Mega Manectric and Zeraora, and often the speed control for many teams is Weavile itself. This limits you to those Pokemon or priority to deal with it offensively (usually super effective priority, as our strongest priority user who hits it neutrally, CB Urshifu-Rapid-Strike with Aqua Jet, only does around half), or losing a ton of health with one Pokemon and often an item to kill it in return.
Additionally, at the cost of Pursuit and the Choice Band, it can also run a Swords Dance set which gets past a number of these makeshift checks, thanks to a Z move (often Darkinium, but Icium with Icicle Crash can work too), setting up rather easily due to how many switches the threat of Choice Band forces. The boosted Ice Shard makes the jobs of revenge killers harder too. These sets can also run Heavy-Duty Boots to negate the hazard chip it might otherwise accumulate but lose the ability to bypass certain checks as easily.
In total, this means Weavile has a rather limited pool of reliable checks and switchins, and forces items (or worse, forces a lack of items) certain Pokemon would never normally run, making it rather constricting on the teambuilder. More offensive teams don't have many viable options other than bulky Scizor or Waterium Rotom-Wash, or checks without recovery like Icium Urshifu-RS, Z move Keldeo, Z move Infernape or Melmetal, and defensive teams don't have much other than Skarmory, defensive Primarina, and Alomomola.
However, Weavile is of course not without flaws - Its typing offers almost no useful resistances, with what few resistances it has being made useless by its poor bulk, meaning it will struggle to get in without a sack, double or a pivoting move. Bulky Scizor and Skarmory, two of its best checks, are also very good in their own right. Weavile's rocks weakness also definitely works against it, limiting the number of times it can come in to 4, dying on the 5th. This can somewhat limit the damage it can do if you pack a decent check to force it to Knock first and then come in again to Axel. Additionally, bulky Scizor can switch into all Weavile sets and threaten it with a Bullet Punch, while still fitting on most teams that need a dedicated Weavile switchin and being a very viable Pokemon regardless.
That being said, we have a number of reliable defoggers that can keep hazards off to mitigate this, notably Rotom-Wash and Moltres (both of which being excellent partners for Weavile regardless, Rotom-Wash notably being able to pivot in Weavile with Volt Switch), as well as some slightly less reliable defoggers such as Mega Altaria, Skarmory and Mew, which makes this ultimately an unreliable strategy against any reasonably well put together team. Additionally, 4 times may be all the switchins Weavile needs to wreak havoc, especially with Swords Dance sets. The need to keep hazards off may limit Weavile's opportunities to come in enough to make it manageable, however.
Suspect Test Information
- **This is new to National Dex UU suspect tests** Reading this is mandatory to participate in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 40 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 79 GXE, down to a minimum of 20 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 40 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice.
GXE minimum games 79 40 79.2 39 79.4 38 79.6 37 79.8 36 80 35 80.2 34 80.4 33 80.6 32 80.8 31 81 30 81.2 29 81.4 28 81.6 27 81.8 26 82 25 82.2 24 82.4 23 82.6 22 82.8 21 83 20
- You must use a fresh account that begins with the given prefix for this suspect test. That prefix is NDUUVILE. For example, I could signup and qualify with the name NDUUVILE Niadev.
- You may not impersonate or mock another user with your account name. If there is any slight hesitation, you're probably better off picking a different name. We reserve the right to null your voting requisites if you are found impersonating or mocking another user with your account name. Moderator discretion will be applied.
- If you are found trying to manipulate voting requisites in any way, you will be met with a harsh infraction. Manipulating voting requisites ranges from faking your screenshot to asking another user to forfeit.
- The Pokemon that's being suspect tested, Weavile, will be allowed on the National Dex UU ladder for the next two weeks so that we can properly assess its position in the metagame.
- This suspect test will go on for two weeks. It will last until July the 1st at 11:59 PM GMT+1.
