Perma-taunt Lopunny

[Pecilia]

Lopunny, a pokemon super uncommon in the competitive field, may now have the power to rise against some high threats known to Smogon's OU tier. Baton Passing like Ninjask, Set ups like Smeargle, and Clerics like Blissey all fall prey to taunt, but can just switch out and everything can be alright. Some people think choice scarf trick can counter this easily, sure it can but they still have the ability to use one of their moves and can still potentially still be somewhat of a threat. This is where Lopunny fits in, with the ability Klutz it does activate items. Doing so gives it the awesome ability to Switcheroo an Assault Vest onto a pokemon that relies solely on status moves to do anything useful. This renders them completely useless. Lopunny also also other great moves to aid in it's battles. This trick is nice for both Doubles and Singles.

Build:
Lopunny + Assault Vest
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252/4/0/0/0/252
Movesets:

Singles:
-Switcheroo
-Fake out/Fire Punch
-Magic Coat
-Thunderwave/Toxic or Fire Punch

This set utilizes Switcheroo to sabotage status using pokemon. Fake out can break any sashes along with deal some decent starting damage. If you'd rather have a bit more reliable move you can use fire punch to deal do damage to Ferrothorn or Forretress after assualt vesting them. Magic Coat can be used to apply an obvious hazard or status effect before you decide to vest them, this works true wonders on Smeargle who goes for a spore 90% of the time giving you the chance to vest and perma cripple. Lastly Thunder Wave or Toxic can be used to inflict status upon them to help you out when you decide to switch out. If you plan on using other statuses like WoW from other pokemon you can go for Fire Punch for a slight burn chance and an attack you can use.

Doubles:
-Switcheroo
-Fake Out
-Thunder Wave/Toxic
-Entrainment

Swap items to ruin any sort of support in doubles is pretty primary. Fake Out to get a chance to attack with your partner, since Lopunny isn't too much of a threat alone, without it getting Double attacked. Thunder Wave to slow, Toxic to damage, whichever you prefer. Last, but certainly not least, Entrainment. If your damaging pokemon gets choiced and you'd rather sacrifice it's ability than stick with a single move, you can give it Klutz to keep it dealing damage. You could also use it to sabotage the enemy making it lose it's item and ability all in one move.


This pokemon works well as an counter to quite a few leads. Most Smeargles are easily rendered useless with this. Batonpass teams are crippled if the passer gets vested. Sigilyph suffers probably one of the worst however, getting vested and losing the flame orb that can be used later to cripple physical attackers. Lopunny has pretty high speed which really helps. However this strategy is somewhat of a gimmick and xan brutally backfire if you Switcheroo the wrong pokemon, but due to Lopunny being labeled Never-Used, it can be qiute the suprise. Priority (or just plain faster) taunts cripple this as well.

What do you think of this? Do you like it? Do you think certain moves can be replaced? Would you consider using it?

 

[Onicon]

Lopunny arguably got worse in the 6th gen, not better. It always has been a subpar Pokemon because it lacks in almost anything else that is not Klutz-Tricking and Thunder Waving and even that tends to backfire against mildly competent opponents, for exaple they keep sending in offensive Pokemon. We also must not forget that Tricking in general is an one-trick pony (no pun intended). Building a whole Pokemon around that gimmick is, honestly, a waste of a valuable teamslot, not to say very predictable. Nowadays there are Mega-Pokemon who are completely immune to Trick and Switcheroo. It still can spread paralysis, but then almost anything else can do it better.

In Doubles, the Entrainment set is outclssed by Pyroar who is one of the premier Kangaskhan partners thanks to its higher speed than Garchomp and its Fire STAB in order to get rid of steel types. It is insofar more effective because berries are quite a common sight in Doubles and instead of Klutz you spread Unnerve, which affects the whole field. If you need Fake Out + Thunder Wave + Trick then it is outclassed by male Meowstic, who doesn't even have to invest into speed thanks to Prankster. Sableye has both Trick and Fake Out, and while it lacks Thunder Wave, it has the arguably more powerful WoW and the Ghost type. Raichu is even faster and can both Fake Out and Thunder Wave while actually having something like mildy offensive presence.

 

[Nah]

I don't think that this is as good as you think, at least in singles. You just send in an attacker; they aren't shut down by Tricks/Switcheroos, and Lopunny isn't terribly bulky and lacks offensive prescene the way you have it set up. Maybe it'd be useful against stall teams, but even then a decent stall team has at least one attacker or their pokes have an attack move in order to deal with that.

In doubles, idfk.