NationalDex
poliwag
#060

Poliwag

Tadpole Pokémon

Water

The swirl on its belly is its internal organs showing through. If the swirl is tinged white, that means it’s affected by some disease.

Base Stats

HP 40
Attack 50
Defense 40
Sp. Atk 40
Sp. Def 40
Speed 90
Total 300

Type Effectiveness

Abilities

Evolution Chain

Moves

Locations

Details

Category Tadpole Pokémon
Height 0.6 m
Weight 12.4 kg
Base Exp 60
Growth Rate Medium Slow
Capture Rate 255
Base Happiness 70
Gender 50% ♂ / 50% ♀
Habitat Waters Edge
Egg Groups Water1

Sprites

poliwag Front Front
poliwag Back Back
poliwag Front Shiny Front Shiny
poliwag Back Shiny Back Shiny
poliwag Official Art Official Art
poliwag Official Art (Shiny) Official Art (Shiny)

Competitive

lc Usage: 0.2%
Belly Drum
Moves
Hypnosis / Thief
Return / Thief
Item
Berry Juice
Nature
Jolly
EVs
HP 116
Atk 196
Spe 196

Strategy Overview

With its excellent Speed stat and access to Belly Drum, Poliwag can make a decent sweeper for offensive teams. Its access to Hypnosis can also help it set up and gives it a small niche over other Belly Drum users. However, better Belly Drum users such as Zigzagoon and, to an extent, Magby do a much better job at sweeping due to their access to good priority options. Poliwag is also held back by its relatively small movepool and paper-thin defenses, which keep it from finding reliable setup opportunities. It is incredibly vulnerable to being revenge killed by Choice Scarf and priority users as well. Finally, Poliwag needs a lot of support to even be worth using over other offensive Water-types and Belly Drum users.

Most Used Moves

Waterfall
92.2%
Thief
89.2%
Hypnosis
77.1%
Return
16.1%

Most Used Items

Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc