Project National Dex OU: Research Week (HIATUS)

[Ineros]

Approved by National Dex forum mods
OP partially stolen from here

Art by me!

Welcome to National Dex Research Week!
​

Welcome to National Dex OU’s Research Week! We'll be doing weekly investigations into certain Pokemon in the National Dex. This is a chance for people of all skill levels to dive deeper into the metagame and discover new things or even start new metagame trends through their research! Here's a breakdown of how this will work.

In this project, participants research at most 2 suggested Pokemon and then share their experience. Please keep the following in mind:

• Be open-minded! Some options will naturally be better than others, but don't immediately dismiss something as terrible!
• Feel free to theorymon early on in the research period, but make it clear you're doing so. Later on in the week you will be expected to back up your findings with evidence.
• Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore. Think outside the box!
• Please refrain from complaining about the chosen Pokemon or sets.
  
  Each week, there will be a new tag given for participants to use on the NDOU ladder. The player with the highest ladder ranking on their research alt at the end of each week will be added to this thread's Hall of Fame! Just a note: if you sign up for the ladder tag but don’t give your research for the week, you will NOT qualify for the hall of fame. Insightful comments on another user's post are also highly encouraged. Discuss your findings with others! This discussion also does not have to be limited to this thread; you are encouraged to discuss the Pokemon being researched in the NDOU room on Pokemon Showdown, the NDOU Discord, and the Viability Rankings Thread. Saving and posting of replays is heavily encouraged, as they are the hard evidence you’ll need and often the best way to provide substantial backing to your claims. Also, at my discretion, I will give research points for those who give concise, accurate research and show that they put effort into what they were researching. These research points will be collected for the entire month, and whoever has the most will have the chance to have any of their teams showcased here, even ones that weren’t used in research! This is so I can reward those who have taken a general interest in continuing to grow in metagame knowledge and put true effort into what they research. Do your best, and you can be rewarded in TWO ways!
  
  To sign up, make a post with the Pokemon or set(s) you will be researching and the ladder alt you will be using. For example, my signup post could look like this:
  
  

  NDRW01 Ineros
  Mega Latias

Signups can be as late as you'd like, but in most cases the cycle for each week will still end on Friday.

When documenting your experiences, questions to ask yourself to help add to your post include: How useful are these Pokemon in NDOU? What niche(s) do they fill? What gives them trouble? What advantages or disadvantages do they have compared to other Pokemon? How do they fit into the metagame? Are there any replays to prove what you say? What teams were used in testing?​

HALL OF FAME:

Hide

Suuicunee

RESEARCH REWARDS: TEAMS SHOWCASE

Hide

to be determined; there will not be any teams showcased for the month of March!

For the current time, I am the host of this project, but a co-host may assist as well to make sure the project is running smoothly.

Week 1 starts TOMORROW as of this post! If you have ideas for Pokémon to be included, feel free to DM me some!

 

[Ineros]

to start this project off, we have 2 relatively underexplored Fire-type Pokémon that are now our research subjects to learn more about their viable sets, team structures they could fit on, and how their niches fit into the tier! Remember to do in-depth research and to put effort towards it if you decide to participate!



Research Week Cycle 1: I Burn (Victini and Iron Moth)

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRW. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is March 29th, 11:59 PM GMT-5.

Good luck everyone, and happy researching! I hope you all will learn even more about this ever changing metagame through this project. DM me with any potential questions you may have and have a good day!

 

[Ineros]

Oh yeah, we also have art now (by me)! Take a look!

 

[pheonix_gaming67]

NDRWPheonix
Iron Moth & Victini

 

[zqtp]

ndrw z
iron moth

 

[zqtp]

I might not have the most detailed analyses because I'm away Tu-F this week, so it's whatever I get done on Monday that I post

 

[zqtp]

Iron Moth is a unique and oft-underprepared for threat in the meta. With its solid speed tier and amazing special attack, it can easily break past walls and fatter options by using Fiery Dance to deal good damage and boost special attack. The Booster Energy speed set takes advantage of the aforementioned qualities to what I think is the fullest degree.

Show Set

Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Ground/Grass
EVs: 124 HP / 132 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Tera Blast/Dazzling Gleam

Interestingly, Iron Moth outspeeds Mega Swampert by one point, allowing for Energy Ball to pick up an important KO. Fiery Dance is the preferred Fire STAB move here because of its ability to easily snowball into a devastating sweeper and get easier ohkos on soft checks such as defensive Landorus-Therian, Mega Venusaur without chip, and surprisingly, Great Tusk. Dazzling Gleam is an alternative to run over Tera Blast which helps hit and OHKO Zamazenta at +1.

that's all I could do today, as I am out for the rest of the week.

 

[Ineros]

Alright, here is our next cycle!

Research Week Cycle #2: Guide my Way (Mega Mawile and Meowscarada)

Haha Knock Off go brrrr

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRWGW. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is April 12th, 11:59 PM GMT-5.

Happy researching!

 

[Water656]

NDRWGW Water656
Meowscarada
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094601956
I got a pretty good game with the team I made ^^
Peak ELO: 1382
Wins: 22
Losses: 10
Peak GXE: 61.8%
Team: NDRWGW Meowscarada Team

Meowscarada is probably the best of the Paldea starters competitively. That much is pretty obvious when you look at it's decent 110 attack, great 123 speed, and amazing ability in Protean. The most common set is Choice Scarf, which I have decided to use. For the attacks, I chose: Thunder Punch (Corviknight, Toxapex, Charizard-Y, and Pelipper), Flower Trick (Urshifu-R, Alomomola, Tera Water Garganacl, M-Diancie, and Great Tusk), Triple Axel (Dragonite, Lando-T, Garchomp, and Gliscor), and finally Knock Off (Ceruledge, M-Banette, and G-Slowking). These are all OU Pokémon so in lower ladder you will have other common Pokémon for Moewscarada to beat up, such as Aegislash, Gyarados and M-Gyarados, and M-Latios and Latios.

Some notable moves I did not chose are Play Rough which is useful for Fighting, Dark, and Dragons but most Dragon types in OU right now are 4x weak to Ice as well as Ground Pokemon and U-Turn which is a move most people would put on a Choiced Meowscarada, but I don't see much reason to use it because of Meowscarada's speed stat meaning you're not going to get a free switch in anyway because Meowscarada will move first.

I chose the defensive Poison Tera (despite tera not doing much for Meowscarada), which turns it's Ice, Fire, and Flying weaknesses into neutral, and it's Fighting, Fairy, Bug, Poison into Resistences. It also gains weaknesses to Ground and Psychic, which no one will be using on Meowscarada in their right minds.

I found value in having a Sticky Web Pokémon (Ribombee) because without the speed Meowscarada is pretty much useless because of how frail it is and fast Pokémon like Darkrai with Sludge Bomb and Koko on Electric Terrain with Valiant and Dazzling Gleam. I added Fire Pokémon for the inevitable Ferrothorn which Meowscarada really struggles with. Gliscor for Heatran because Fire and Meowscarada fail to do much of anything to it (besides Gouging Fire's Earthquake). My team does struggle a little with Flying type Pokémon because the best moves I have against it are Triple Axel, Thunder Punch, and Ancient Power, all of the being pretty weak, except for Triple Axel which is dependent on accuracy.

The rest of the team is Pokémon which I think work well with Meowscarada's weaknesses and Charizard-Y with two Protosynthesis Pokémon. Gliscor might be replacable with Venusaur but I don't want that many Pokémon weak to fire on one team.

I think I'm finally done with this very long-winded explanation, thanks for reading the whole thing.

 

[Suuicunee]

NDRWGW Suuicunee
Mega-Mawile

 

[CappyThePulpy]

NDRWGW CappyPulpy
Both

 

[CappyThePulpy]

I was planning to mainly focus on mawile, but I took both due to how much I have used them in the past. So enjoy a shorter meowscarada analysis now, while I am still laddering with mawile.

Meowscarada is a grass/dark type fast physical attacker leveraging its good move pool and ability protean in order to deliver fast, stab attacks.

Its useful moves are: flower trick (signature move, always crits, no acc check), knock off (the easiest move to click, it almost always does something), uturn (pivot), triple axel (your strongest and riskiest move), brick break and low kick (fighting type coverage), trick, spikes, tspikes, and some other niche options like sucker punch, play rough and taunt.

The main sets I will be considering are scarf (main set), boots/protective pads (very similar, matter of preference and teammates) and band. I will dismiss the sash set (spikes suicide lead) as there are mons who do the suicide lead job better (lando, mega diancie, glimmora) and they come with the benefits of explosion or hazard control.

The main sets almost always run flower trick/knock off/uturn and triple axel, with the possibility of slotting low kick for heatran and ferro or sucker punch (band) for some priority or maybe spikes.

Now lets go over some of meowscarada’s pros and cons in order to better understand its playstyle and set choices.

Pros:
High speed
Good signature move, base 105 crit and no acc check
Access to knock off and uturn
Protean for stab on every hit

Cons:
Frail
Mediocre attack (base 110 is tied with swampert and arcanine)
Over reliance on protean to do significant damage
Contact weak

I would like to analyse protean and the attack stat in particular, as you pretty much need the stab boost to do real damage with your moves. This means that meowscarada isnt too good at move switching (choice sets encouraged) and cannot really terastallize, as tera negates protean. Otherwise, tera would’ve been an amazing tool for boosting flower trick, using tera blast rock for volcarona, zapdos and moltres (some of your biggest counters), tera electric for para immunity, or tera fire for burn immunity and killing ferro. These are still options, but you give up quite a lot of power.

Now lets see its place in the meta:
-most sets give ferro and heatran free switch ins, as knock off may claim an item but these very common meta mons can still cause massive issues if they get in for free
- similar mons in terms of playstyle include cinderace (libero and similar attack&speed, court change niche), urshifuR (crit signature move, cc and surging strikes are better than what meow has) and weavile (frail but faster and hits harder)

Flower trick sounds good on paper however non boosted flower trick isnt even powerful enough to guarantee an ohko on uninvested shifu (37.5% chance to ohko), or boosting garg sets (you would think a guaranteed super effective crit is the best counter to defense boosting sets but you barely 2hko; garg can also tera ghost to stop even that possibility). Simply put, it doesn’t pack enough punch to make up for the bad offensive type.

Uturn and knock are amazing on any mon, meow makes them hit harder, no complaints there. Triple axel is an amazing move when it hits and the opponent has no contact punish.

From these issues, you would think a band meow makes a lot of sense, as it gives that extra punch while you are bad at switching moves anyways. The issue with band comes from a team building perspective, as, unlike scarf, meow doesnt get to actually play the speed control role for your team, meaning you may have to slot another frail actual speed controller. And at that point, why use banded meow over mlopunny as your speedy hard hitter?

Thus, I think a scarf set is the best for your average team, performing amazing speed control, even outspeeding rain mega swampert by quite a margin. Considering the now INSANE speed, its lack of power is not much of an issue anymore. So scarf meow has the niche of an offense stomper, while struggling against bulkier squads that the rest of your team hopefully handles. And honestly there are very few mons which can replicate what it does at that speed tier.

To show how one builds meow, I have this team:
https://pokepast.es/b8d4e70b26ef1589

Scarf meow is an offense stopper, abusing its speed to check fast offensive mons while being a good pivot against bulkier builds. Mega diancie enjoys the pivoting and can shred these bulkier builds with its massive special attacks. Meow can also serve as a late game cleaner after the onslaught brought by diancie and raging bolt has been stopped. Pro tip, run some ferro abusing options, heatran and mystical fire diancie in this case; meow really enjoys their help.

God this was anything but short. I hope its useful. Mawile analysis coming asap

 

[Water656]

I was planning to mainly focus on mawile, but I took both due to how much I have used them in the past. So enjoy a shorter meowscarada analysis now, while I am still laddering with mawile.

Meowscarada is a grass/dark type fast physical attacker leveraging its good move pool and ability protean in order to deliver fast, stab attacks.

Its useful moves are: flower trick (signature move, always crits, no acc check), knock off (the easiest move to click, it almost always does something), uturn (pivot), triple axel (your strongest and riskiest move), brick break and low kick (fighting type coverage), trick, spikes, tspikes, and some other niche options like sucker punch, play rough and taunt.

The main sets I will be considering are scarf (main set), boots/protective pads (very similar, matter of preference and teammates) and band. I will dismiss the sash set (spikes suicide lead) as there are mons who do the suicide lead job better (lando, mega diancie, glimmora) and they come with the benefits of explosion or hazard control.

The main sets almost always run flower trick/knock off/uturn and triple axel, with the possibility of slotting low kick for heatran and ferro or sucker punch (band) for some priority or maybe spikes.

Now lets go over some of meowscarada’s pros and cons in order to better understand its playstyle and set choices.

Pros:
High speed
Good signature move, base 105 crit and no acc check
Access to knock off and uturn
Protean for stab on every hit

Cons:
Frail
Mediocre attack (base 110 is tied with swampert and arcanine)
Over reliance on protean to do significant damage
Contact weak

I would like to analyse protean and the attack stat in particular, as you pretty much need the stab boost to do real damage with your moves. This means that meowscarada isnt too good at move switching (choice sets encouraged) and cannot really terastallize, as tera negates protean. Otherwise, tera would’ve been an amazing tool for boosting flower trick, using tera blast rock for volcarona, zapdos and moltres (some of your biggest counters), tera electric for para immunity, or tera fire for burn immunity and killing ferro. These are still options, but you give up quite a lot of power.

Now lets see its place in the meta:
-most sets give ferro and heatran free switch ins, as knock off may claim an item but these very common meta mons can still cause massive issues if they get in for free
- similar mons in terms of playstyle include cinderace (libero and similar attack&speed, court change niche), urshifuR (crit signature move, cc and surging strikes are better than what meow has) and weavile (frail but faster and hits harder)

Flower trick sounds good on paper however non boosted flower trick isnt even powerful enough to guarantee an ohko on uninvested shifu (37.5% chance to ohko), or boosting garg sets (you would think a guaranteed super effective crit is the best counter to defense boosting sets but you barely 2hko; garg can also tera ghost to stop even that possibility). Simply put, it doesn’t pack enough punch to make up for the bad offensive type.

Uturn and knock are amazing on any mon, meow makes them hit harder, no complaints there. Triple axel is an amazing move when it hits and the opponent has no contact punish.

From these issues, you would think a band meow makes a lot of sense, as it gives that extra punch while you are bad at switching moves anyways. The issue with band comes from a team building perspective, as, unlike scarf, meow doesnt get to actually play the speed control role for your team, meaning you may have to slot another frail actual speed controller. And at that point, why use banded meow over mlopunny as your speedy hard hitter?

Thus, I think a scarf set is the best for your average team, performing amazing speed control, even outspeeding rain mega swampert by quite a margin. Considering the now INSANE speed, its lack of power is not much of an issue anymore. So scarf meow has the niche of an offense stomper, while struggling against bulkier squads that the rest of your team hopefully handles. And honestly there are very few mons which can replicate what it does at that speed tier.

To show how one builds meow, I have this team:
https://pokepast.es/b8d4e70b26ef1589

Scarf meow is an offense stopper, abusing its speed to check fast offensive mons while being a good pivot against bulkier builds. Mega diancie enjoys the pivoting and can shred these bulkier builds with its massive special attacks. Meow can also serve as a late game cleaner after the onslaught brought by diancie and raging bolt has been stopped. Pro tip, run some ferro abusing options, heatran and mystical fire diancie in this case; meow really enjoys their help.

God this was anything but short. I hope its useful. Mawile analysis coming asap

Just wanted to say I loved your team and your explanation. Great job!

 

[CappyThePulpy]

Ok so time for mega mawile. Mega mawile is a slow, somewhat bulky physical attacker with two main selling points: the highest attack stat in the game thanks to its huge power ability and steel/fairy, probably the best defensive type combo in the game. 50/125/95 defenses allow it to live through some attacks while its massive attack stat helped by a plethora of coverage options allow it to hit HARD. 50 base speed is quite a big downside, but does not hinder mawile’s bulk shredding capabilities, with some of the fattest (and kinda slow) mons in OU being completely murdered by mawile’s attacks.

In gen 9, mega mawile runs max attack adamant to maximise the huge power bonus (apparently gen 6 ubers had mawile running full bulk sets).The rest of your evs are split between speed and hp, to make mawile fatter and hopefully speed creep some important threats (204 is an interesting one for outspeeding uninvested msciz, which there are a lot of).

Mawile has 2 distinct playstyles which I will go ahead and analyse: swords dance (sd) and no swords dance (we will call this one 4attacks or 4a).

The sd set almost always runs play rough, knock off and sucker punch, allowing mawile to hit many targets for neutral damage while giving it a priority option against faster, frailer mons. My issue with this set is that you really struggle to put in the work with your sd due to how many mons outspeed mmaw, can status or ohko it and live +2 sucker punch. Heatran, lando and rotomW are perfect examples of mons which ruin this mawile’s day. Also there are some mons which can take the fairy+ knock coverage quite well, like mega scizor. So just run this in trick room, with the speed flip you become a MASSIVE threat to pretty much anything (and you can drop sucker for coverage).Without TR, you have too many checks to make the sd turn worth it (remember mmaw hits like a truck, so every turn not used for hitting matters a lot).

And here comes the 4a set, the unstoppable monster, the uncheckable beast and a great example of 4MSS. This set relies on the fact that it can hit pretty much everything for normal or super effective damage and is pretty much unwallable without defensive boosts. Running this set turns mawile into “bring it in, explode something, switch out, repeat”. The issue is that you cannot cover quite the entire meta with 4 moves. I have compiled a list of the common moves and what they are hitting:

-play rough: pretty much mandatory, your main attack
-thunder punch: pex, pelipper, corvik, skarm. Neutral play rough does almost as much as 2x tpunch so I won’t count mola and other pure waters. Glowking takes half from this so you can beat it. koko synergy
-fire fang: ferro, mscizor (only option), corvik, iron treads, rilabloom
-ice punch: lando, gliscor, clodsire, rillabloom, dragonite multiscale ohko, zappy. This is almost mandatory due to the popularity of the first two
-brick break: heatran, ferro(kinda), screens
-knock off: heatran(about half), iron crown, volcarona, moltres, other item dependent mons, glowking
-focus punch: needs sub, you evaporate heatran. Strong attack but needs sub or its a dead slot 90% of the time
-psychic fangs: dont
-rock slide: volc, moltres, zappy
-iron head: stab option, kinda bad offensive type, hits clef, garg and anything trying to be smart with tera fairy.

Overall, after experimentation, my set of choice is play rough/knock/ice punch/fire punch. knock>tpunch means you are walled by (now unpopular) pex, but can hit a lot more things for neutral dmg and claim items. Overall easy move to click

Now I have to discuss steel/fairy. 2 weaknesses (yes, ground and fire are common) in exchange for 2 immunities and 9 other resists. Brilliant type. Its resistances and immunities allow mawile to get in position and start hitting.

But how do we make it better? Lets build mawile:
A slow and very strong attacker best works with some pivots to bring it in for free as often as possible. With that in mind, I present this:

https://pokepast.es/8445607eee4cb2a1

I think this team best illustrates mawile’s pros and cons, with a team designed to support it:
-glowking and lando as pivots to bring it in safely
-scarf samurott spikes and speed control. Mmaw enjoys hazard support since it forces so many switches and most mons will find themselves into range after some spikes
-cm rbolt is great on its own but it also helps close out games vs things mawile struggles against, like pex and fast offensive threats (thunderclap). At the same time, mmaw helps it by luring in ground types and beating them (more on that later), or luring ferro and killing it with fire fang. Most ferro structures struggle to handle both mmaw and rb, due to general over reliance on ferro as a wall
-GRASSY TERRAIN. It is AMAZING with mawile. Your two weaknesses pretty much turn into one, since ground attacks are 90% earthquakes. This lets you eat unboosted earthquakes from pretty much anything, notably lando and gliscor. Anything wanting to eq you is met with an ohko back. Also grassy terrain regens the chip damage you are likely to take from uturns and rocky helmets. I chose bulu since i needed defense. terrain extender makes it easier to execute. Rilla is an option since it has uturn and an ok priority move.

what does mmaw hate? Ground type moves (which we already discussed), fire type moves (if special, go glowking, if physical, go lando;those should take a while to die and rbolt can also resist fire), fast attackers and HO (hazards and rocky can chip them, rbolt cleans them up), damn moltres and its burn, poison types in general (sync your maw attacks with a future sight). Dropping tpunch also doesnt feel bad with rbolt around.

I kinda skipped over the part comparing maw with other options so lets go:
-mmedi: faster, frailer, worse coverage, has close combat which is a good attacking move with high base power. Between mmaw and mmedi, I would choose either one which better fits my team without feeling bad.
-banded strong physical attackers? Mmaw is probably stronger and slower, id take it over a cb weavile most times.
Thats about it, mmaw plays a pretty unique role in ndou, only mmedi truly doing similar stuff

I hope this analysis is useful. I managed to reach 1700 with the team above on my main acc, the one with the research tag is at around 1500, didnt find the time to ladder it more

 

[Suuicunee]

In this research cycle I investigated Mawile.

Mawile is an interesting pokemon as it is a strong wallbreaker but it struggles with it's slow speed stat. The majority of the sets therefore run sucker punch which enables it to become a late game sweeper with the boost of huge power and if required a swords dance, it also can run the 4A set which is also stated by the person above me. Due to the versatility that mawile can provide in terms of move options such as thunder punch, ice punch, fire fang. brick break, stone edge there are not many mons which can easily get in mawile's way, even dondozo can struggle when chipped, getting 2hkoed by a thunder punch and potentially even play rough, while there are certain mons which are able to hinder mawile's ability to sweep like Rotom-W and Heatran they do not appreciate switching in while mawile is at +2.

Let's talk about trick room, mawile can be extremely threatening on trick room especially when boosted to +2 however the problem that mawile faces while being ran on trick room is the lack of turns that are available while active, it needs the +2 to kill bulkier mons which it cannot hit super effectively meaning that mawile only has two turns where it is very threatening this makes mawile more of a niche option when it comes to trick room ursaluna does a better job as being a physical attacker. I ran mawile on trick room for a bit on the lower ladder and it is an enjoyable mon to use.

I ran two teams on trick room, the first one is more gimmicky and uses hatterene's healing wish in conjunction with rabsca's revival blessing in order to give mawile multiple sweeping opportunities.

https://pokepast.es/071b1204f4dfbba2

Some replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095452333?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094702215
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094804305
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2094795115

A more traditional trick room: https://pokepast.es/42a001b6fb81c1b0

replays: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095324735 - Mawile breaking stall.

As for balance, I ran mawile with tapu bulu which provides great support in removing one of mawile's main weaknesses, ground types I added alo which can let mawile deal with threats during the game and then come back later in order to cleanup, this is useful as it allows mawile to take an earthquake from strong ground types like garchomp and landorus and ohko some back

https://pokepast.es/e7da490d23e0d4fc

252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 134-162 (49.6 - 60%) -- 81.3% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
48 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 128-152 (47.4 - 56.2%) -- 25% chance to 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery (Choice Scarf)
252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 150-176 (55.5 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery (Offensive)

Roles - Mmaw - wallbreaker,sweeper
Tapu bulu - Negates one of mawile's major weaknesses being ground types and also gives an answer to ogerpon and deals with raging bolt. Provides passive recovery to the team
Alo - Provides wish support to the majority of the team which lacks recovery
Heatran - Sets rocks and protects bulu and mawile from both of their fire weakness, air balloon could be swapped for a more useful item but is nice to deal with zard y
Gliscor - clears hazards, weakens mons such as latios for sucker
urshifu - further supports the fire weakness of mawile and hits grounds, speed control.

Replays - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2101087325 - VS Stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2101081288?p2 - VS rain
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2095825351?p2 - Mawile sweep

Now that teams that I ran are out of the way, let's answer the questions.

How useful are these Pokemon in NDOU? I think the information that's provided in replays and analysis done by others and myself help to answer this. It's a solid wallbreaker that can break certain stall builds and many of the meta's large threats.

What niche(s) do they fill? What gives them trouble? Mawile fills a couple niches, one of those being on trick room, as aforementioned it is a threat while on trick room, giving it the ability to end the game very quickly or putting holes in the opponent's team.
It's also a great wallbreaker that's even able to break through the likes of dondozo when chipped
The 4A set is also able to hit the majority of the metagame super effectively and also has more of a surprise factor being able to break a mon like scizor which it would usually struggle a bit with.

What advantages or disadvantages do they have compared to other Pokemon? The advantage mawile definitely benefits from is the ability, huge power it is able to deal with many threats and cannot always be easy to predict with a solid movepool another niche one is intimidate which can help switch into physical attackers while not mega'd . Mawile also has some disadvantages namely the speed tier, 50 base speed is quite awful which makes it less fitting on teams compared to something like mmedi which has a decent speed. while sucker punch does somewhat cover this Tapu lele is a highly used mon in the metagame which completely shuts off sucker punch forcing mawile to switch in situations. another negative is the awful HP stat on a slow mon especially before mega evolving, while mega'd it isn't as bad but it still cannot switch in very well.

How do they fit into the metagame? Mawile is interesting as mentioned it can hit much of the metagame well but it's also not as spammable as other mons, unless you are running trick room. But mawile needs a good team structure in order to thrive which makes it less favourable to run compared to another physical breaker. However when built around it serves as a great mon.

Thank you for reading, the analysis might not flow very well as it's my first.
Peaked:

 

[Ineros]

Alright, next cycle! Congrats to Suuicunee for getting the highest ladder ranking and getting on the hall of fame (didn’t do this with the first cycle because… well only one person did it LOL)

We got a pair of Mythical Pokemon for this cycle:

Research Week #3: Inside (Volcanion and Mega Diancie)

The ladder tag for this cycle will be NDRWI. Sign up for this cycle using the format in the intro post. Remember, you don’t have to research both Pokémon at once; you can just choose 1! The deadline for you to sign up and post your research is April 26th, 11:59 PM GMT-5

Happy Researching! Also, CappyThePulpy and Suuicunee have both gained a research point; Cappy for analyzing creative but still good sets for Meowscarada and pretty much covering all the bases in terms of what moves Mmaw and Meowscarada could use and what they do, and Suuicunee for showing off a whole ton of replays to back up what he said in addition to experimenting and playing with a good variety of team structures.

 

[Ineros]

Hey all, due to the current suspect test and not wanting to interrupt suspect runs, this project will be on hiatus until the Friday before the suspect ends (so next week). There could also be a change in how the project is operated the time it is reopened so potentially stay tuned for that. See you all later!