Desmotel
¶ Overview
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Type: Ice/Fighting |
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| Tier: | Abilities: Sharpness Inner Focus |
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Pros |
Cons |
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ND/NDUU
¶ Wallbreaker
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Move 1: Sacred Sword |
Item: Choice Band |
Utilizing its superior speed, Desmotel can naturally out speed most walls in the National Dex format. Stacking Choice Band, Sharpness, and an Adamant anture allows Desmotel to fire off its strongest Sacred Swords possible. Sacred Sword + Shadow Claw allows for near perfect neutral coverage while the addition of Night Slash offers an answer for Zoroark-Hisui and a more potent attack against Sableye-Mega. U-Turn allows you to capitalize on baiting a switch-out while Leech Life is a niche tool for long-term survivability or late game brute forcing. Longer analysis soon.
¶ Set-Up Sweeper
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Move 1: Sacred Sword |
Item: Life Orb / Focus Sash / Leftovers |
Item is mostly preferential. Life Orb helps dish out incredible damage even without set-up in case you need to deal damage in a pinch. Focus Sash can help secure Swords Dance or begin a revenge sweep against an opponent who's set-up. Leftovers offers more long-term survivability but is a competitive item amongst the team. Longer analysis soon.
¶ Choice Sweeper
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Move 1: Sacred Sword |
Item: Choice Band / Choice Scarf |
Run Adamant with Choice Scarf, run Jolly with Choice Band. The latter prefers sticky web support to prevent revenge sweeps from naturally faster sweepers, such as Dragapult. Longer analysis soon.
¶ NDDOU
¶ Set-Up Attacker
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Move 1: Sacred Sword / Close Combat |
Item: Focus Sash |
Desmotel is a powerful Set-Up Attacker in the doubles format, capable of dealing exceptional damage. By running Sacred Sword and Shadow Claw, it hits nearly the entire roster neutrally, with the exception of Zoroark-Hisui. Night Slash, boosted by Sharpness, helps eliminate bulky Ghost-types like Gholdengo. Inner Focus is a viable option to guarantee a first-turn Swords Dance with Focus Sash (unless double-targeted) and to avoid disruption from Fake Out during mid-to-late game sweeps.
Agility is another solid option for set-up, allowing Desmotel to take advantage of slower teams or attempts at speed control through Icy Wind or Electro Web, though this can reduce its damage output. As a result, it may need some Helping Hand support to make up for the decrease in power. Depending on the situation, it can also run Quick Guard to protect against Fake Out to ensure its support gets crucial moves off like Tailwind, Acrobatics to capitalize on a broken Focus Sash, or Ice Shard to finish off weakened targets.
Desmotel benefits greatly from the bulk provided by Snow and Aurora Veil, especially when supported by Snow-based allies like Alolan Ninetales, as it is relatively frail. It also appreciates the protection offered by Pokémon with Wide Guard, which can shield it from Icy Winds or powerful spread moves. Redirection moves from Pokémon like Indeedee-F, which can absorb hits (and also block priority moves like Mach Punch and Raging Bolt's Thunderclap with Psychic Surge), or screens from fast or Prankster setters like Grimmsnarl, are also highly beneficial. Tailwind support from Pokémon like Whimsicott, Talonflame, or Tornadus is also valuable for ensuring Desmotel strikes first. A Trick Room Pokemon can help reverse a the opponent's Trick Room through Imprison or also using the move.
Although it shares several weaknesses and has overlapping roles with Chien-Pao, stacking Desmotel with Chien-Pao creates a deadly damage-dealing combination due to Sword of Ruin.