Kangaskhan
Parent Pokémon
Kangaskhan’s maternal love is so deep that it will brave death to protect its offspring.
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Competitive
Strategy Overview
As the lone legal user of Parental Bond, Mega Kangaskhan finds itself in a potent position as unique wallbreaker that breaks down and 2HKOes almost the entire metagame, making it a huge threat to stall and balance teams. Also, its decent bulk, respectable Speed tier, and ability to wallbreak without fear of common status and Knock Off let it switch in easily on many common walls and pose an immediate threat. However, Mega Kangaskhan still struggles from being one-dimensional, as the two-turn combination of Nature's Madness + Night Shade or Seismic Toss is slow and relatively easy to play around with the right preparation, less efficient than the quick KOs of dedicated wallbreakers, ineffective against the multitude of slow, bulky pivots in the metagame (especially those with Regenerator), and reliant on correct prediction against Normal- and Ghost-types. On top of that, because Parental Bond is restricted to Mega Kangaskhan, Kangaskhan must start out in its normal forme and cannot run any item besides Kangaskhanite if it wants to take advantage of the ability. Additionally, Mega Kangaskhan's poor defensive typing, only decent bulk, and lack of any immediately threatening offensive presence leave it vulnerable to being picked off by faster, stronger enemies such as Mega Mewtwo Y and Mega Mewtwo X, all of which outspeed and threaten to OHKO, making Mega Kangaskhan relatively useless against offensive teams. In addition, Mega Kangaskhan suffers a bit from four-moveslot syndrome, as it is usually restricted to only one coverage move after Nature's Madness, Night Shade, and recovery, limiting its ability to confront more niche walls like Shedinja. Finally, its reliance on its ability makes it vulnerable to the plethora of ability-suppressing moves in the metagame, and it is a sitting duck should its ability be neutralized by any of them.
Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc