Pokémon Munkidori

[Loginator]

Type: Poison / Psychic

Stats: 88 / 75 / 66 / 130 / 90 / 106 | 555

Ability: Toxic Chain: This Pokemon's moves have a 30% chance of badly poisoning the target / Frisk (HA)

Notable Moves:
Sludge Wave
Sludge Bomb
Venoshock
Psychic
Psyshock
Focus Blast
Shadow Ball
Trick
Nasty Plot
Parting Shot
Taunt
U-Turn

Pros:
- Its stats are quite fantastic, with a very high 130 SpA stat and decently fast 106 Speed.
- Having access to Nasty Plot on top of its stats can make it a threatening sweeper.
- Toxic Chain is an insane ability. Allowing any of its special moves to have a 30% chance to inflict Toxic is terrifying.
- Can work as an offensive pivot with access to U-Turn which works well with Toxic Chain.
Cons:
- Its offensive movepool is very disappointing, with its only viable coverage option being the unreliable Focus Blast.
- Its typing is pretty detrimental, providing little offensive value on top of common weaknesses to Ground, Dark, and Ghost. Not the best when Pokemon like Kingambit and Dragapult are seen on nearly every team.
- Its physical bulk is utterly laughable, making it very vulnerable to physical attackers that can outspeed or deal with its attacks like Cinderace and Landorus-T.
- 106 Speed is above-average, but still not impressive. With lots of faster attackers like Enamorus, Dragapult, and Meowscarda, revenge killing it is not a particularly difficult feat.
- Both of its STABs have immunities, making choice sets unappealing despite having access to pivoting and Trick.
- Munkidori faces a lot of competition for these said attributes, with other special attackers like Iron Moth and Gholdengo having much better typings and movepools. Even its unique niche in Toxic Chain isn't especially helpful in a frail offensive Pokemon in Munkidori. Fezandipiti takes advantage of the ability much better.

Terastal Potential:
- Tera Poison is an obvious choice to boost its Poison-type STAB moves further while also getting rid of its annoying weaknesses to Dark and Ground.
- Tera Fighting is another option to resist Darks that can otherwise threaten it, and boost the power of Focus Blast.

Potential Sets:

Nasty Plot Sweeper
Munkidori @ Life Orb
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Poison / Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Psychic / Psyshock
- Focus Blast / Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot

Munkidori's most basic set. You click Nasty Plot and attempt to sweep. Sludge Bomb is chosen over Sludge Wave to take advantage of its ability and have a high chance of poisoning the target. For its Psychic STAB option, Psychic is an easy choice if you want the extra power, but Psyshock deals better with special walls like Clodsire. Focus Blast is extremely necessary coverage to deal with the Steels and Darks that give Munkidori trouble. However, Shadow Ball can be run to hit Gholdengo instead. Timid Nature is chosen to maximize its non-optimal speed, as it’s already very strong and takes advantage of Nasty Plot.

Offensive Pivot
Munkidori @ Black Sludge / Life Orb
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Poison / Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic / Psyshock / Sludge Bomb
- Focus Blast / Shadow Ball
- Taunt
- U-Turn

This more unique sets takes advantage of Munkidori's access to Parting Shot. It only runs one STAB option, so you can be fairly flexible. Psychic and Psyshock have much better synergy with Focus Blast, while Sludge Bomb takes the most advantage of its ability. Shadow Ball can be run instead of Focus Blast to have better neutral coverage, especially with Sludge Bomb. As this set doesn't run Nasty Plot, Taunt is used instead to cripple any walls that it can't outdamage. Lastly, U-Turn is used instead of Parting Shot to potentially poison the target when switching out. For the item, Black Sludge can be used to give it more longetitivity so it has more opprotunities to cripple the opponent and pivot out, but Life Orb can be chosen instead if the extra damage is needed.

Other Options:
- As mentioned before, Choice sets may seem appealing due to its access to Trick, with Choice Scarf especially patching its only decent speed, but its poor offensive typing that can easily be switched into through Steels and Darks makes it non-optimal.
- Venoshock may seem appealing due to it working very well with Toxic Chain, having a 30% chance to turn into an insane 130 BP move, but it’s too inconsistent to work, especially with Munkidori’s fragility.

Overall Thoughts:
Despite having arguably the best optimized stats out of the Loyal Three, it is unlikely to be viable in OU. Its movepool is extremely unimpressive and it just doesn't do a lot that other Pokemon don't do better. It has unique attributes, like Toxic Chain and Parting Shot, but they're not enough to make it stand out. However, it will definitely be viable in the lower tiers, for whatever it ends up. RU is my best guess, but it could also serve a niche in UU assuming the powercreep hasn't caught on too much.

 

[Swagodile]

You forgot its HA Frisk, which in conjunction with its access to Parting Shot and U-turn, makes it good for scouting.

Frisk might actually be more useful overall than praying for Toxic Chain to work

 

[Cuddly]

Think that at least Shadow Ball should be added to notable moves section since it can 2HKO Gholdengo that isn’t Tera’d or fully invested into SpD.
252 SpA Munkidori Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 190-224 (50.2 - 59.2%) -- 77.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Additionally thanks to its ability Toxic Chain it can actually use Venoshock and Hex as Toxic Infernal Parades.

 

[Loginator]

Think that at least Shadow Ball should be added to notable moves section since it can 2HKO Gholdengo that isn’t Tera’d or fully invested into SpD.
252 SpA Munkidori Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 190-224 (50.2 - 59.2%) -- 77.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Additionally thanks to its ability Toxic Chain it can actually use Venoshock and Hex as Toxic Infernal Parades.

Added Shadow Ball, but Venoshock is listed under other options due to being way too inconsistent. It doesn’t work well on a Pokémon that has the physical bulk of a wet paper towel.

 

[Cuddly]

Added Shadow Ball, but Venoshock is listed under other options due to being way too inconsistent. It doesn’t work well on a Pokémon that has the physical bulk of a wet paper towel.

I did some math and yeah it takes about 5 turns for Venoshock to start dealing more damage than Sludge Bomb as an expect value. The expected BP of Venoshock is 469.748 after 5 turns. However Hex has higher expected value than Shadow Ball after 3 turns at least (though I also expect it's not worth it either.
For reference the ExpVal of Venoshock/Hex are
65 -> 149.5 -> 247.65 -> 355.355 -> 469.748
vs
sludge Bomb
90 -> 180 -> 270 -> 360 -> 450
Shadow Ball
80 -> 160 -> 240 -> 320 -> 400
There are also tons of nuances. Steels, Poisons, healing, you using things like U-turn or coverage, you having teammates with toxic or t-spikes, Hex not needing just Poison/Toxic to double in power, etc. which can favor Sludge Bomb/Shadow Ball or favor Venoshock/Hex

 

[Loginator]

I did some math and yeah it takes about 5 turns for Venoshock to start dealing more damage than Sludge Bomb as an expect value. The expected BP of Venoshock is 469.748 after 5 turns. However Hex has higher expected value than Shadow Ball after 3 turns at least (though I also expect it's not worth it either.
For reference the ExpVal of Venoshock/Hex are
65 -> 149.5 -> 247.65 -> 355.355 -> 469.748
vs
sludge Bomb
90 -> 180 -> 270 -> 360 -> 450
Shadow Ball
80 -> 160 -> 240 -> 320 -> 400
There are also tons of nuances. Steels, Poisons, healing, you using things like U-turn or coverage, you having teammates with toxic or t-spikes, Hex not needing just Poison/Toxic to double in power, etc. which can favor Sludge Bomb/Shadow Ball or favor Venoshock/Hex

Sorry I don’t understand these calcs exactly. What’s an expect value and why would shadow ball and sludge bomb increase in damage?

 

[Tankey6ia]

Sorry I don’t understand these calcs exactly. What’s an expect value and why would shadow ball and sludge bomb increase in damage?

It does not increase damage, it is just the total base power of all of the sludge bombs combined.

 

[Loginator]

It does not increase damage, it is just the total base power of all of the sludge bombs combined.

Oh okay

 

[Grim Thoughts]

In my experience, U-Turn is actually better than Parting Shot for the extra poison chance. A Parting Shot usually just forces a switch and keeps momentum, but a badly poison off U-Turn can potentially cripple a switch-in for the entire rest of the game. It’s a scald chance, so you can usually get one off of U-Turn at least once a game. It’s actually a very threatening scarfer with this move and I think that’s its best set. You just spam U-Turn early and hit really hard late against a weakened team potentially worn down even harder by Toxic Chain procs. This is a very fun mon. My prediction is that it will be UUBL

 

[Talpr0ne]

In my experience, U-Turn is actually better than Parting Shot for the extra poison chance. A Parting Shot usually just forces a switch and keeps momentum, but a badly poison off U-Turn can potentially cripple a switch-in for the entire rest of the game. It’s a scald chance, so you can usually get one off of U-Turn at least once a game. It’s actually a very threatening scarfer with this move and I think that’s its best set. You just spam U-Turn early and hit really hard late against a weakened team potentially worn down even harder by Toxic Chain procs. This is a very fun mon. My prediction is that it will be UUBL

A big plus for U-turn is also that it won't be blocked off by Good as Gold, which is really important considering Munkidori's poor matchup with Gholdengo (extremely poor without Shadow Ball), at least it will be able to GTFO quickly and safely on a predicted switch if running U-turn.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

Terastal Potential:
- Tera Poison is an obvious choice to boost its Poison-type STAB moves further while also getting rid of its annoying weaknesses to Dark and Ground.

get rid of ground weakness? did you mean ghost?

Also, i've been finding use out of Pivot Munki with this nice pivot set:
return to monke (Munkidori) @ Life Orb
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- U-turn
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast

This aims to spread as much poison as possible, by being able to beat all our common steels/poisons. Shadow Ball for Ghold and Pivot Glowking, FB with Tera Fighting for Gambit and Tran, Psyshock for Clodsire, Vest Glowking, and all variants of Pex, and SpDef Fezandipiti if that ever gets popular. The strat is to U-turn a lot early game while the opponent attempts to scout for FB/Shadow Ball and spread poison, and then later game, when they're confident you don't have coverage, you smack them. Tera Fairy and Fairies can be a problem with this set, but most of them do not appreciate your coverage anyway and HATE toxic from U-turn. Its needs a solid defensive backbone on it to benefit from its pivoting and to afford its main early damage being toxic, which can be slow. Also, some games it just u-turns 4 times and gets the toxic none, by which point your team is too worn down to do anything once it gets it.

 

[Loginator]

get rid of ground weakness? did you mean ghost?

Also, i've been finding use out of Pivot Munki with this nice pivot set:
return to monke (Munkidori) @ Life Orb
Ability: Toxic Chain
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- U-turn
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast

This aims to spread as much poison as possible, by being able to beat all our common steels/poisons. Shadow Ball for Ghold and Pivot Glowking, FB with Tera Fighting for Gambit and Tran, Psyshock for Clodsire, Vest Glowking, and all variants of Pex, and SpDef Fezandipiti if that ever gets popular. The strat is to U-turn a lot early game while the opponent attempts to scout for FB/Shadow Ball and spread poison, and then later game, when they're confident you don't have coverage, you smack them. Tera Fairy and Fairies can be a problem with this set, but most of them do not appreciate your coverage anyway and HATE toxic from U-turn. Its needs a solid defensive backbone on it to benefit from its pivoting and to afford its main early damage being toxic, which can be slow. Also, some games it just u-turns 4 times and gets the toxic none, by which point your team is too worn down to do anything once it gets it.

Yes sorry I meant Ghost. I’ll replace Parting Shot with U-Turn on my pivot set.