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Project NU Next Best Thing [Week 35: Gastrodon]

Congratulations to Elias PSY for winning the Uxie cycle with Magic Room setter :Mental Herb: by Elias PSY

Cycle 23 - Toxicroak
:ss/Toxicroak:
s/o to Pokeslice
A long forgotten threat that benefits greatly from the increase of Vaporeon's usage. With Dry Skin, Toxicroak is able to come in for free versus the most common Vaporeon sets and doesn't has to fear anything. Its amazing offensive typing allows it to threaten both common Fighting switchins like Sylveon and Talonflamen but also common Poison switchins like Copperajah and Gigalith.
Submissions for Toxicroak will end on Friday. Have fun!
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Gunk Shot
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch
 
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Toxicroak @ Air Balloon
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Super Fang
- Gunk Shot
- Knock Off

get in on vaporeon. Super Fang the switch-in. Taunt so they can't recover. GG?

Air Balloon is so that Ground-types that often check croak can't stay in without tanking a Super Fang at least once.Gunk Shot is for nailing Fairy-types as I feel like croak often performs more of an offensive Poison than Fighting, at least compared to its wallbreaker peers Machamp and Sirfetch'd. Then there's Knock Off so it's kinda like Drapion but a different typing and Super Fang instead of SD boosting, so it probably breaks bulkier cores better...? Have a physical cleaner like DD Flygon or Trum in the back to take advantage of walls that can't recover being at half or lower health.
 
Nasty Plot
:ss/toxicroak:
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Vacuum Wave
- Sludge Wave
- Dark Pulse​

Pretty Simple. Nasty Plot boosts your special attack. Vacuum Wave is priority STAB that can revenge kill weakened Pokemon. Sludge Wave is STAB. Dark Pulse deals with psychic and ghost type Pokemon in the tier.
 
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reserving itemless thief
:bw/toxicroak:
Toxicroak
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Thief
- Gunk Shot
- Drain Punch

Itemless helps Toxicroak switch into Poltergeist spammers like Dhelmise and Decidueye while also having Thief steal opposing items. Swords Dance boosts the damage of its STAB attacks and Thief!.
 
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SD Low Kick
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Low Kick
- Gunk Shot
- Knock Off/Sucker Punch/Stone Edge/Earthquake

The idea of this set is to switch into Vaporeaon and then acquire an SD boost. Low Kick was chosen because it has the ability to almost OHKO Mudsdale, one of Croak’s best checks, at +2. The other two moves are pretty standard, with the last slot really being up to whatever your team is particularly weak to. Knock can be used to remove Talonflame’s item, Sucker is nice to revenge kill weakened threats like Salazzle or a weakened Scarf Flygon, Edge can just nuke Talon, and EQcan ruin a Dragalge’s day. Really cool mon, deserves a lot more usage in my opinion.


252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mudsdale: 175-208 (43.3 - 51.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mudsdale: 351-413 (86.8 - 102.2%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mudsdale: 136-161 (33.6 - 39.8%) -- 89.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Talonflame: 573-675 (159.1 - 187.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Talonflame: 640-754 (177.7 - 209.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salazzle: 286-337 (103.2 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flygon: 227-269 (75.4 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Copperajah: 663-780 (151.3 - 178%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dragalge: 296-351 (88.6 - 105%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
Croak is a really powerful mon at the moment, and it has very few switch ins if using this set.
 
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mixed croak

:bw/Toxicroak:
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Wave
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge​

This set aims to put pressure on a plethora of Pokemon in the metagame. While its dual STAB is pretty self explanatory with hitting Sylveon, Comfey, and Steel-types such as Copperajah, its coverage options are also great with hitting Bronzong with Knock Off. Furthermore it can lure in Talonflame with Stone Edge. Knock Off can also hit Galarian Articuno, and cripple a plethora of Pokemon upon the switch and same goes to Golurk, as Golurk dislikes its Choice Band being gone. The EV spread is 4 in Attack and 252 in SpA, as the SpA is the lower stats, so it hits eually as hard as it does with its physical side. The remaining EVs are put into the Speed with a Hasty nature.
 
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Crit Toxicroak

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Toxicroak @ Scope Lens
Ability: Dry Skin / Poison Touch
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Cross Chop
- Stone Edge
- Cross Poison
- Swords Dance

Here is another version of the SD set, but this time the aim is to land crits more often than not. This set lacks the outright power of a Life Orb and instead holds the Scope Lens to boost the crit chance of 3 high-crit moves without the recoil. Dry Skin is normally the ability, and makes Vaporeon set-up fodder, but I think Poison Touch should at least be considered - 30% poison chance is not small - as even if you don't manage a KO you force the target to suffer some residual damage which will help this or something else KO it later on; note Stone Edge doesn't make contact for this to happen, but Cross Chop and Cross Poison do, on top of the latter's small chance to poison.

Here are 2 calcs against a couple hopeful switch-ins:
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Cross Chop vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon on a critical hit: 390-459 (91.5 - 107.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Cross Poison vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume on a critical hit: 237-280 (66.9 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
 
Bulk Up Toxicroak

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Drain Punch
- Gunk Shot
- Bulk Up
- Knock Off/Sucker Punch


This set aims to fix the middling bulk of Toxicroak (83/65/65) that forces our frog out of the board even at +2 Atk From SD due to the strange Spe tier and/or the impossibility to OHKO things with Sucker Punch (IF you run this move).
Thanks for Toxicroak, this frog has six resistances to work with.

At a first glance, Bulk Up seems totally outclassed by SD, but we are forgetting that nice +1 Def boost that is important to have some more staying power on the physical side of the spectrum alongside a +1 Atk-boosted Drain Punch:
Look at these calcs:
4 Atk Flygon Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 204-242 (66.4 - 78.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Flygon Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 254-302 (82.7 - 98.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Sylveon Psyshock vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 236-280 (76.8 - 91.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Decidueye Spirit Shackle vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 118-139 (38.4 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Drapion Earthquake vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 160-190 (52.1 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Escavalier Iron Head vs. +1 0 HP / 8 Def Toxicroak: 105-124 (34.2 - 40.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
 
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Defensive Toxicroak

:ss/toxicroak:
Toxicroak @ Black Sludge
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Taunt

I was inspired to make this by the people that tried defensive Toxicroak to counter Urshifu in OU. It takes advantage of Toxicroak's unique and useful defensive typing to check Pokemon like Golisopod, Drapion and Inteleon and give it more setup opportunities. While Toxicroak is statistically frail, investment goes a long way.

For the moves, Swords Dance makes Toxicroak into a win condition. The original creator used Bulk Up, which is what I was planning when I first chose this, but I didn't want to make it too similar to nameless90, as I didn't know if their set was going to be offensive or defensive. Knock Off is chosen for the utility, Drain Punch provides much-needed recovery, and Taunt is used for its ability to deny status moves like Golisopod's Spikes and Drapion's Swords Dance.
 
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