Weavile ex – Space-Time Smackdown
Date Reviewed: February 10, 2025
Ratings Summary:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is horrible. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Otaku
The seventh1 best Pokémon of Space-Time Smackdown is Weavile ex (A2 099, 186, 201)! It’s a Darkness Type Stage 1 Pokémon ex that evolves from Sneasel. Weavile ex has 140 HP, (G) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and one attack, “Scratching Nails”. The attack costs (D) and does 30 damage, plus another 40 if the opposing Active was already damaged before you attacked it. Three versions of Weavile ex are available: one at the ♦♦♦♦ rarity and two at the ★★ rarity.
The usual reminder; Weavile ex is worth an extra point when KO’d, and has to worry about anti-ex effects2. Weavile ex’s stats and/or effects should be better accordingly. Being a (D) Type isn’t all that great. While there are no effects that punish a player for running (D) Pokémon or Energy, neither are there any effects that reward them. Unless we count improved synergy with some of the other (D) Pokémon. I generally prefer not to but as of right now, a lot of the best (D) Pokémon seem designed to work together.
Being a Stage 1 is “okay”. This isn’t as space efficient or as fast as being a Basic, but it’s better than being a Stage 2. Mind Aerodactyl ex (A1a 046, 078, 084), our one anti-Evolution effect. 140 HP is decent; not especially durable, but it’s enough. 140 HP is typical of a Stage 1 Pokémon ex. (G) Weakness means Yanmega ex (A2 007, 080, 096) score a OHKO, but the other competitive (G) attackers like Exeggutor ex (A1 023, 252) just have an easier 2HKO. The Retreat Cost of (C) is unambiguously good. Even retreating at full price will often be an option.
Scratching Nails is a decent attack. If you can’t damage your opponent’s Active beforehand, 30 for (D) isn’t bad, just not particularly good. Unless your opponent heals or swaps out their Active, you’ll then enjoy 70 damage with no further Energy commitment on your next turn, averaging 50 damage for a single Energy. Assuming the same Weavile ex is hacking away at the same, larger Pokémon, who isn’t healing, your average damage is just going to keep rising. This is Scratching Nails on its own.
Sneasel (A2 098) is the only Sneasel we’ve got right now. It’s a Basic (D) Pokémon with 60 HP, (G) Weakness, (C) Retreat Cost, and the attack “Double Scratch”. Priced at (D), Double Scratch has you flip two coins, then the attack does 20 damage per “heads” to the opponent’s Active. While hardly durable, Sneasel isn’t particularly fragile like some evolving Basics. The big concern is one out of four equally possible outcomes for Double Scratch does zero damage. If Sneasel is stuck as your Active, you really want it to setup for Scratching Nails next turn.
Fortunately, Weavile ex released at a great time for this strategy. Our existing (D) decks, as well as those born of the other new (D) Pokémon, excel at comboing with Scratching Nails. Anything that gets at least 10 damage onto your opponent’s Active can setup for Weavile ex, but some are clearly better than others. The winning decklists for Weavile ex on Darkrai ex (A2 110, 187, 202). Spiritomb (A2 104, 172) also shows up fairly often. Weezing (A1 177, 243) hasn’t proven itself yet, but seems plausible. As for Trainers, Cyrus, Dawn, Giant Cape, and Rocky Helmet pop up multiple times.
Darkrai ex’s Ability – “Nightmare Aura” – triggers when you attach a (D) Energy from your Energy Zone to itself. When you do, Nightmare Aura does 20 damage to your opponent’s Active. If you already have an Energy on Weavile ex or have Dawn handy, an Active Weavile ex can attack the same turn for 70 damage, totaling 90 against their current Active (before other effects). Unless your opponent is OHKOing your copies of Weavile ex, or you win before it’s necessary, Darkrai ex will accumulate enough Energy to act as the closer. It’s not the greatest attacker, but it’s pretty good, doing 80 for (D)(D)(C).
Spiritomb’s “Swirling Disaster” only needs one Energy to do 10 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokémon, setting up nicely for not only Scratching Nails, but Cyrus as well. The catch is there are already hard counters, besides just playing conservatively4. An aggressive offense can deal with Spiritomb quickly. Something attacking to setup will usually survive long enough to retreat against Spiritomb. There are even two hard counters: Blue and Shaymin (A2 022, 159).
Weezing just does its normal thing. Poison the opponent’s Active with its “Gas Leak” Ability. If you can’t get Weezing out of the way, maybe attach an Energy to so it can “Tackle” for 30 damage. Either way, you’ll let it soak a hit and – if it survives – bounce it with Koga, retreat it with Leaf (and discarding an Energy), or have it Poison (if needed) and attack again and it’ll be KO’d the next turn. If the opponent’s Active is already damaged, you can also just use Gas Leak for an effective +10 damage, though you’ll still need Koga or Leaf-plus-an-Energy-to-discard in order to retreat Weezing out of the way.
Rating: 3.5/5
If Weavile ex is so great, why isn’t it higher on the list? Weavile ex/Weezing, and most other variants, have not been proving themselves in competitive play. Darkrai ex/Weavile ex has been doing well, and is why Weavile ex is on this list. The catch is that Darkrai ex has multiple variants without Weavile ex, and one of them has performed significantly better than Darkrai ex/Weavile ex.
If you’re wondering why Weavile ex placed better than Pachirisu ex, especially when I scored Pachirisu ex 0.25 higher, that has a simple answer as well. I expected less of Pachirisu ex, and it exceeded those expectations. I expected more of Weavile ex, but it didn’t quite deliver. Yes, that’s on me.
1I originally stated that yesterday’s Infernape Pachirisu ex was seventh place. I don’t know why I forgot how to count.
2We only have one right now – see Tauros (A1a 060) – but I expect we’ll see more sooner or later.
3When your opponent wins by KOing your only Pokémon in play Turn 1 or Turn 2.
4If a deck doesn’t need to fill its Bench ASAP, you just don’t put stuff into play until Spiritomb has been eliminated.
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