Pokemon of the Week 1/30/10

Jakolation, the Jack-o-Lantern Pokemon and the evolved form of Punkin. Its head is made from a carved pumpkin which it uses to frighten unsuspecting children when it leaves its head in a pumpkin patch. It has a lasting friendship with Cacturn as the two often frighten people alongside one another.

Woooow...I just...wow. This Pokemon is...it's great. I didn't waste any time when I saw the chance to make a good Jack-o-Lantern pokemon. It's my favorite Halloween Story. Now then. The first thing that screams sweet mercy is the type. Grass/Fire is probably the most threatening type you can get (aside from the ever annoying Ghost/Dark and Water/Dragon combos) Grass and Fire together, like the Water/Fire Octimagnum, cancel out ALOT of weaknesses and still cover for others. Grass loses its weaknesses to Fire, Ice, and Bug type moves, only keeping poison and flying, which while not covered by type, are covered by movepool. Fire loses Water and Ground only leaving it with a rock weakness which does have type coverage. This gives it the advantage against Steel, Water, Ice, Electric, Grass, Ground, Rock, and Bug types (Electric simply because of its resistance to it). But there's more. Jakolation's movepool is PACKED with dark and ghost type moves plus a couple fighting moves so Dark, Ghost, and Psychic types are easily dealth with. Now, again, this leaves Flying and Poison weaknesses...the only noteworth flying move is Ariel Ace and the new addition of Wing Slice and the only Poison noteworthy moves are Sludge Bomb and Acid Rain. Now onto stats. Whoa boy. 103 base health is sizeable enough to work. Attack? 90 so not bad. Defense? 60...abysmal but the only time you'll see Wing Slice used WELL is on Falcombat and MAYBE Staraptor. Sp. Atk...Wowy...Base 130?! That's just scary! Sp Def? 100...impressive compared to its Defense. Speed? Well, it's base 67 but it has Trick Room on it. All in all, it can be one of the most threatening special sweepers you'll ever see.

Traits

TroubleMaker: Said it before and will say it again. This ability is SCARY. Corrupunk is fast enough to pull it off just not good enough to make it last. Jakolation isn't all that fast without Trick Room BUT it has to bulk to last long enough and thanks to the danger zone moves it can pile on, namely Will-o-wisp + Toxic, it can be a true tormentor.
Bad Dreams: Darkrai's signature ability just got passed down to this guy and this is a good ability but you want to go with TroubleMaker. Jakolation has access to the HypNightmare and HypEater combos but TroubleMaker is just better. However, any moveset that you aren't running any status moves, use this.

Movesets

Special Sweeper
Trick Room/Morning Dew
Plant Whisper
Flamethrower
Draco Inferno
Item Attached: Choice Scarf/Leftovers
Trait: Doesn't Matter but go with TroubleMaker because DracoInferno has a 50% chance to cause Burn.

This set doesn't call for either ability so that doesn't really matter. The item depends on if you want to use Trick Room or Morning Dew. If Morning Dew go with Choice Scarf. If Trick Room, go with Leftovers. Both are there to help out your speed. Flamethrower takes care of pesky Grass Types, Steel Types, Bug Types, and Ice Types, or nuisance combos Grablade and Scizor since Armofrost is basically protected. Plant Whisper has a wide coverage, able to obliterate Rock, Ground, and Water Types...including Swampert, Vaporeon, and Milotic. This does leave you wide open to Gyrados among others, however. Draco Inferno is probably one of the best moves in the arsenal, clearing it to battle the likes of Kingdra, Altaria, and Dragonite. Sadly, Flygon, Salamence, and Garchomp have too high an attack stat for it to slow them down or take the speed boost from Trick Room and it wouldn't last one turn against them unless the Choice Scarf actually got it a hit ahead of them (VERY unlikely against Salamence).

Night Night
Hypnosis
Dream Eater
Nightmare
Toxic/Will-o-wisp

Oh god...this is just scary and no pun intended. Hypnosis to put enemies to sleep. The very next turn, use Nightmare and then the combined damage will leech their Health quick. Then pump them with Toxic or Will-o-wisp if a steel type is what you're looking to go after. Finally, if they still haven't awakened yet, Dream Eater. That's sure to have the opponent on their knees by the time they could even dream of Knocking Out Jakolation.

TroubleMaker
Rekindle
Hypnosis/Morning Dew
Toxic/Acid Rain
Will-o-wisp

Every bit as threatening as Night Night set for different reasons. Hypnosis or Morning Dew to disable opponents. Then hit 'em with Will-o-wisp and knock off their attack by 50% Next you'll want to pump Toxic which will also ruin walls. Acid Rain is in case you'd rather combat Steel Types.

Countering Jakolation

Already said it. Falcombat and Staraptor. Pokemon like them with Wing Slice and Ariel ace ruin this guy. Also, Dodrio with Early Bird and Ariel Ace or Drill Peck can work. Skarmory and Skiron. Blissey and Snorlax. Replinurse...basically any special wall or overall wall. Metagross won't work because Acid Rain and Will-o-wisp would ruin it sadly. Salamence, Flygon, and Garchomp tear it apart. I'd say if you were to match any of those dragons with Wing Slice equipped Falcombat, Jako won't stand a chance.

Double Battle Use

Well Jakolation isn't all kinds of versitile here. Its single battle and double battle use is generally the same. If you aren't running the Special Sweeper set, pair it with Frosslass to ruin Falcombat and the Dragons.

Tiers
Single Battles: OU/Standard
Double Battle: OU/Standard