Mawile

Twelve and a half kilos at sixty centimetres tall, and a good part of that weight hangs from the back of its neck. The black jaws that grow from behind its head aren't just a second mouth: they're a pair of horns transformed into steel, and Pokédex entries keep repeating that it can split iron with them.

The rest of its body points in exactly the opposite direction. Small face, mild expression, humanoid posture and a size you can hold in your arms. The whole design is built to make its opponent come closer. The official descriptions tell it one after another without embellishment — it lets the enemy lower its guard and then unfolds its jaws. The category it was given, Deceiver Pokémon, leaves little room for charitable readings.

The strangest entry is the one about the two mouths. The one at the back has no sense of taste, so it uses it to swallow whatever it doesn't feel like eating. It's an almost domestic idea placed inside a predator.

It doesn't evolve from anything and it doesn't evolve into anything: the chain starts and ends here. The only recorded variant is Mega, which isn't a step in the line but a temporary change, and the habitat assigned to it is the cave.

380 points spread out without a single standout: 85 Attack, 85 Defense, 55 Special Attack, 55 Special Defense, 50 HP and 50 Speed. With those 50 HP, the only two weaknesses of the Steel and Fairy typing —Fire and Ground— take half its bar in one hit, and the rest of the table hardly matters. It's a shame, because defensively the combination is one of the best: Poison doesn't affect it, Dragon doesn't either, and it shrugs off almost everything else to some degree.

Of its three abilities, the one that defines the set is its hidden ability, Sheer Force: it boosts the power of moves with secondary effects and removes those effects. Iron Head (Lv.36), Play Rough (Lv.48) and the elemental fangs it inherits through breeding hit harder in exchange for no longer flinching, lowering Attack or causing burns. Intimidate serves a different purpose: it lowers the opponent's Attack whenever it switches in, and with 85 Defense that turns a switch into a free turn. Hyper Cutter, the third, only prevents its Attack from being lowered.

Sucker Punch (Lv.20) is what makes up for those 50 Speed, and Swords Dance by TM is the obvious starting point. What holds everything back is the stat spread: 85 Attack doesn't KO anything without support.

The Mega changes the whole approach, because its ability is Huge Power, which doubles its Attack just as it does in Azumarill. In Smogon's National Dex, the base form is listed in RU and the Mega in UUBL.

It belongs to the Field and Fairy Egg Groups, with a 50% gender ratio — it can be bred without hunting for rare females or resorting to Ditto. Its 20 incubation cycles work out at around 5355 steps, an average figure.

Its Egg Move list is long and useful: Metal Burst, Guard Swap, Sucker Punch before level 20, Misty Terrain and the three elemental fangs —Fire Fang, Thunder Fang and Ice Fang— which are exactly the ones that work well with Sheer Force. There are also some expendable options, such as Tickle and Poison Fang.

There's no evolution condition to explain, because it doesn't evolve by any method: not by level, stone, friendship or trading. Its second form activates during battle and wears off when the battle ends.

It yields 1 Attack EV and 1 Defense EV, and has the Fast growth rate, so in a normal playthrough it is always slightly ahead of the team in levels. Its habitat is the cave and its catch rate is 45, the same range as the starters: it isn't one of those Pokémon you catch with the first ball. In the wild, it may be holding an Occa Berry or an Iron Ball.