Suicune

Suicune has established itself as a DPP staple due to its prowess as a bulky sweeper. Its Water typing, awesome defensive stats, decent Speed tier, and access to Calm Mind allow it to be an enormous offensive threat while checking Heatran, Infernape, Swampert, Gyarados, Kingdra, Bronzong, and Metagross—threats that Suicune teams typically struggle to handle. It can also take advantage of defensive teams’ lack of strong counterplay to Water-types; +1 offensive Suicune almost 2HKOes Clefable and Jirachi with Hydro Pump and 2HKOes everything else commonly used on these teams, opening up the way for other Water-types and attackers such as Infernape. In addition, it also is one of the more difficult threats for hyper and bulky offenses to beat, as it has enough bulk to be an emergency answer to Gyarados and Dragonite.

Suicune is also a good sweeper on defensive teams, with its Pressure ability and high defenses allowing it to use Calm Mind multiple times and eventually sweep through defensive teams that can’t punish it while asleep or behind a 101 HP Substitute. Suicune is one of the better Substitute users in the game; it loves blocking status, Knock Off, Trick, and Explosion and can also drain PP effectively with Pressure, especially against Seismic Toss. In a last Pokemon situation, Suicune has strong comeback potential, as it can no longer be phazed. Additionally, while Suicune has a limited movepool, it can effectively use options such as Protect to further drain PP with Pressure, Toxic to punish walls such as Milotic, and even Roar to win Calm Mind wars against Latias, Jirachi, and other Suicune.

However, Suicune is vulnerable to all entry hazards—sets without Rest struggle mightily against Toxic Spikes, and even with Rest, Suicune can get chipped easily if it is forced in by phazing repeatedly with Stealth Rock and Spikes set. Suicune also has little protection against Trick, struggles against status, and is threatened by powerful Electric- and Grass-type attacks from the likes of Zapdos, Rotom-A, Celebi, and Roserade. Suicune’s offensive Calm Mind sets often get chipped quite easily, whereas the defensive sets can struggle with coverage issues against Pokemon like Breloom, Latias, Dragonite, and Milotic. Suicune’s Substitute sets also are crippled by sand, as they can no longer repeatedly use Substitute against the likes of Clefable, Blissey, and defensive Jirachi without Leftovers recovery. Finally, Suicune can be easily crippled by special walls such as Clefable using Knock Off or Encore and Blissey using Thunder Wave.