Zarude

Dark

Zarude's Grass typing, good natural bulk, and favorable Speed tier make it a great check to Water- and Ground-types that would otherwise give Dark teams trouble such as Urshifu-R, Tapu Fini, and Nidoking. Thanks to this, it can be useful in matchups such as Water, Ground, and Rock. Jungle Healing and Taunt make Zarude a formidable stallbreaker as well, allowing it to use foes that rely on status ailments to wear it down such as Toxapex, Slowking, Slowbro, and Gastrodon as setup fodder while preventing them from using status moves like Recover and Haze. However, Zarude's Grass typing brings it many weaknesses, leaving it particularly weak to Pokemon like Blacephalon, Victini, and Choice Scarf Galarian Darmanitan. It also heavily struggles in matchups like Steel and Fire, as it mainly relies on Power Whip to deal damage. Its Speed tier is good, but not fast enough to outspeed many prominent fast attackers such as Tapu Koko, Dragapult, Weavile, and Cinderace, making it vulnerable to being revenge killed by them.