Pawniard
Sharp Blade Pokémon
Blades comprise this Pokémon’s entire body. If battling dulls the blades, it sharpens them on stones by the river.
Base Stats
Type Effectiveness
Abilities
Evolution Chain
Moves
Locations
Details
Sprites
Competitive
Strategy Overview
Thanks to its great offensive typing that grants it opportunities to use Swords Dance as well as its strong STAB attacks in Knock Off, Sucker Punch, and Iron Head, Pawniard is able to carve out a niche as a decent physical sweeper in the NU metagame. Furthermore, it has a good ability in Defiant that can discourage the use of Defog from the opposing team, although it's very situational and Pawniard loses to most Defoggers. On the downside, Pawniard has very low Speed and Special Defense, and its typing leaves it vulnerable to a multitude of special attackers such as Pyroar and Samurott and common types in general such as Fighting, Fire, and Ground. In an offensive metagame full of Pokemon such as Combusken, Magmortar, and Rhydon, Pawniard struggles to find setup opportunities, as it's often 2HKOed by even resisted attacks such as Swellow's Boomburst. Pawniard is also very weak before it gains the boost from Swords Dance, so it struggles to get past physically defensive Pokemon such as Steelix and Torterra.
Most Used Moves
Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc