To give more details on Pachirisu and this Pachirisu in particular:
Pachirisuās stats arenāt great. They arenāt terrible, but they arenāt great. Of the four Pokemon involved in this particular exchange, Salamence and Garchomp have a base stat total of 600, Mega Tyranitar has 700, and Pachirisu has 405. Yeah.
To make things worse, Pachirisu is a gimmick Pokemon of a class known as aĀ āPikachu cloneā. Its entire purpose is to be a generic Electric-type with middling stats and chubby cheeks. It was never built for high-level play, and a lot of people will even say that itās not worth it for casual because there are so many better Electric-types.
Pachirisu does have a couple of things going for it, though. Firstly, its Special Defence and Speed stats arenāt totally garbage, and its Defence isnāt bad either. This means that it can take a hit if you train it right (which Se Jun did).
Secondly, the moveset that this particular Pachirisu had was a brilliant one for what Se Jun wanted it to do. Nuzzle deals a tiny amount of damage but is guaranteed to paralyse anything that isnāt an Electric- or Ground-type. Paralysis halves speed and gives you a 50/50 chance of not being able to do anything that turn. Thatās HUGE. This is a game in which most major attackers are fast as hell, and outspeeding is vital to pretty much all strategies.
Super Fang, as mentioned, is guaranteed to do 50% damage to anything thatās not a Ghost-type. Pachirisu cannot explicitly KO with this, but what it can do is break down its opponentsā defences. You canāt use inventory items in competitive play, so itās unlikely that this damage will be healed, and 50% damage can make the difference between Pachirisuās partner taking two moves to defeat its opponent vs taking one move.
Follow Me redirects opponentsā moves onto Pachirisu if they would have otherwise hit Pachirisuās partner. This lead to the instance above, in which Pachirisu survived a hit from a Draco Meteor (a 130 power attack in a game where 90 power is considered excellent and 100 power or above generally requires major drawbacks). You might thinkĀ ābut if it couldnāt take out Pachirisu, then it couldnāt take out the Salamence it was meant for, right?ā NOPE: Salamence is weak to Dragon-type attacks like Draco Meteor and so would have taken double damage. Thatās probably a KO.
But the real purpose of Follow Me was for Pachirisuās intended partner: Gyarados. Depending on the situation, Gyarados takes either double or quadruple damage from Electric-type attacks, which is a shame because Gyarados is otherwise terrifying. Pachirisu has the passive ability Volt Absorb, which means that itās healed by Electric-type attacks rather than taking damage from them. So if you try to use an Electric-type attack on that Gyarados thereās a very good chance that you will end up healing Pachirisu instead. Not what you want, especially when this particular Pachirisu is so unbelievably bulky.
Oh, and its last move is Protect, which totally nullifies damage on Pachirisu for that turn. Useful if Pachirisu canāt do anything useful this turn but you donāt want to swap it out.
And that Sitrus Berry? Yeah, that thing recovers 25% of Pachirisuās total HP the moment it goes below 30% total. So if you just barely fail to kill Pachirisu, itās going to heal itself. Have fun.
The last thing Pachirisu has going for it, at least in this case, is intimidation. The universal response to this team wasĀ āWho the fuck brings a fucking Pachirisu to the World Championship?!ā But then you realise that Se Jun is totally serious about this ridiculous plan. And then you realise that itās working. And then you realise: oh shit, this guy is really good. He knows what heās doing with this.
TL;DR: By all accounts Pachirisu should have been an utterly stupid thing to bring to this level of play, but in practise it was a very clever set-up that took advantage of its decent defensive stats and useful support/survival movepool.
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
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