Competitive Pokemon History - Toxicroak Quiz

Answer: Its stats were too poor

Toxicroak's overall stat build was poor. It had merely slightly above average Attack, and its other stats were all well below average. Unfortunately, this took away any real chance it had of performing in the high power levels of standard play.

Answer: Swords Dance and Nasty Plot

Swords Dance and a decent Attack, or Nasty Plot and an at least workable Special Attack ensured that Toxicroak could theoretically pose a serious offensive threat to anything in the metagame. Its poor bulk and low Speed were somewhat made up for by plenty of priority options, such as Vacuum Wave, Mach Punch, Sucker Punch and Bullet Punch.

It is worth noting that the only other Pokemon in the entire game that had access to both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot were Darkrai, Lucario and Mew, and all three of them were banned from UU play. Thus, Toxicroak held an exclusive UU niche that was quite appreciable.

Answer: Its ability

Dry Skin, Toxicroak's best ability, enables it to heal itself when targeted by a Water type attack. Additionally, it would passively heal for 6% of its HP if the weather was raining at the end of each round. The mere existence of Toxicroak prompted Pokemon like the well renowned Suicune to consider running Extrasensory for the one and only purpose of OHKOing Toxicroak with it.

Unfortunately, Pokemon like Ludicolo, Milotic, Politoed, Tentacruel and Kabutops don't have that option. Leaving a bulky Water type on the field when your opponent has a Toxicroak in waiting is very risky, as it can often take a free turn to switch in, then receive a second free turn to boost with Swords Dance or Nasty Plot for free as the Water type switches out and threaten major damage to the opponent's team. Toxicroak could not counter every Water type, as Slowbro, Slowking and Starmie, all boasting Toxicroak's mortal nemesis of Psychic for a secondary typing, could very easily destroy it with Psychic, but the majority of Water types did not have this option, making Toxicroak an excellent answer to many of them.

Answer: Seven

Bug, Fighting, Grass, Poison, Dark and Rock were resisted by Toxicroak, with it also being immune to Water courtesy of Dry Skin. This gave Toxicroak leeway to switch in, though it did have to be careful, as 4x super effective Psychic type moves would rip it apart and super effective Ground would typically OHKO it as well.

Answer: Rain

Rain passively heals Toxicroak, while the other three listed options would hurt it at the end of every round. However, arguably the most important utility Toxicroak brought to the table for rain teams was its ability to defeat Tyranitar and Ferrothorn quite easily, which could be challenging for its team to overcome. Beyond that, Toxicroak could also defeat other menaces rain could struggle with, like Chansey, Terrakion, Kyurem-Black and (potentially) Scizor. Toxicroak benefitted from monstrous rain threats helping to cover up its lackluster stats, so it was a very mutually beneficial arrangement to include Toxicroak onto one's rain team.

Answer: Hippowdon

The other three listed are capable of countering some, but not all, Toxicroak sets. Swords Dance sets are hard for Psychic types to counter, or check after Toxicroak has set up, as a boosted super effective Sucker Punch could prove lethal.

However, Hippowdon was immovable for Toxicroak. Even boosted super effective Ice Punches failed to adequately deter the bulky hippo, as it could take hits almost endlessly from Toxicroak and then destroy it with a super effective Earthquake. Substitute based stalling sets could also just be removed by Hippowdon using Whirlwind to get it off the field. Hippowdon unfortunately removed Toxicroak's precious rain and replaced it with debilitating sand whenever it entered play too, so it was truly a thorn in Toxicroak's side.

Answer: Resistance to Pursuit

Many checks to Fairies, such as Jirachi, Metagross and Gengar, had one thing in common; they'd get the daylights beaten out of them by Pursuit or other Dark type moves. Toxicroak actively punished usage of Choiced Pursuits, had a good matchup against Tyranitar, and dealt with Fairies just as efficiently as other options. With Fairies taking the forefront of the meta, Toxicroak's ability to be a sturdy check to the best of them kept it around in standard play.

Answer: Poison Touch

Poison Touch gives all of the user's contact moves a 30% chance to apply Poison upon hitting the target. Its utility paled in comparison to Dry Skin, which enabled Toxicroak to hard counter a lot of prominent Water types, so it generally did not see use in a competitive context.

Answer: RarelyUsed

Toxicroak was kicked out of both standard play and UU, unable to adequately deal with Fairy types anymore and overall lacking a niche in either tier. However, Z Moves did allow it to be quite menacing in RU, able to use Darkinium-Z to threaten Psychic types and Poisonium-Z to be very offensively threatening in general.

Answer: Limited ability to acquire it

Toxicroak was only available via Dynamax Raids, where, went it was caught after the fight, it would be forced to have its Hidden ability, which was Poison Touch and not the vastly superior Dry Skin. This hindered it greatly until Pokemon Bank was released, enabling trainers to catch Dry Skin variants in another game and send them to the Galar region.