ADV Draft Baseball League Other

Minun is among the best low-point support options available in ADV Draft, especially for teams needing to quickly patch up a weakness to powerful electric-type threats or annoying bulky waters. It functions best as a specially defensive support/utility mon, taking advantage of its pure Electric type's lack of special weaknesses, Electric and Flying resistances, and useful STAB as well as its surprisingly deep support movepool - including the extremely rare Encore - to disrupt the opponent and create advantageous openings for your other Pokemon. Minun's ability to hit many key physical and special bulk benchmarks is what makes it generally superior to Plusle, whose 10 extra special attack does not help it in the supporting role and generally does not help achieve notable damage benchmarks. However, Minun is severely limited by its minimal physical bulk, its extremely limited offensive presence, and severe 4MSS.

Primarily, Minun is useful for its ability to disrupt and harass opposing special attackers; especially Electric-type and Water-type ones. Most Electric-type Pokemon struggle to hurt specially-defensive Minun without considerable amounts of boosting; for example an unboosted Raikou is unable to do even a quarter of 252 HP 252+ SPD Minun's health with either Thunderbolt or Hidden Power. Zapdos' Drill Peck also fails to threaten to 4HKO Minun after leftovers without considerable investment. Minun's special bulk is quite surprising even in the face of neutral hits; all but the strongest special attacks will fail to 2HKO its bulkiest sets, up to and including Modest Starmie Hydro Pumps (something Plusle can only dream of). However, it does not take boosted hits well: it is a special check, not a special wall.

Even with only 75 base special attack, Minun's typically uninvested STAB Thunderbolt allows it to dissuade Water and Flying-types from staying in. Thunderbolt tends 2HKOs all but the bulkiest among them. However, it will be doing minimal damage to neutral targets, and thus it should not be relied on as an offensive tool. The damage and paralysis increase of Thunder is almost never worth it on Minun as it does not secure many notable OHKO benchmarks - the loss of accuracy is simply not worth it here. Minun is completely stopped in its tracks by Ground-types as its uninvested Hidden Power generally requires multiple hits to kill them. Often, it is not even worth bringing Hidden Power due to its lackluster damage - usually, a third support move will prove more valuable. Generally, Hidden Power is only really useful if the opponent's Ground-type has a quad-weakness to Ice or Grass, such as Swampert or Flygon. In these cases, it can usually secure a 2HKO. Minun's final direct damaging move of note (if barely) is Quick Attack - though Minun will almost never have room for it, this move will allow it to remove annoying 1HP Reversal sweepers should the need arise (given how many better options this Pokemon has, you really should not be using Minun for this role).

The star of Minun's support movepool is of course Encore, which should be heavily considered every time one chooses to use Minun. This incredibly scarce move allows Minun to punish any attempts at healing, setup, or Substitute, as well as locking opponents into any other unfavourable moves. With its base 95 speed, Minun can outrun most bulky walls or setup mons with little to no investment. In some matchups where Minun's electric-checking abilities are not needed, Minun can be run much faster if there are faster setup threats it needs to disrupt; but unfortunately being just shy of the base 100 benchmark limits its ability to do this. A curious target for Minun's Encore is Curse Snorlax; if you can get Minun in on a predicted Curse, you can force Snorlax to switch out - though this poses immense risk as Minun can easily die to Lax's powerful physical attacks (if Minun is your Curselax check, you need to re-evaluate your teambuilding.)

Another commonly seen move on Minun is Thunderwave. This move choice makes sense at first as it can slow down opposing Pokemon for the slower, bulker teammates Minun is generally paired with, however as Minun invites in opposing Ground-types, especially on sets without Hidden Power, Thunderwave can often find itself running into immunities. In matchups where the only Ground-type is one of the aforementioned ones with a quad weakness, a Minun set with Thunderbolt, Hidden Power, Encore and Thunderwave may prove useful. Toxic is an alternative status move useable on Minun, and it will often be more punishing to Ground-types than Hidden Power. Ideally, Toxic+Thunderbolt Minun is best used against teams where Skarmory is the only Steel type and their Ground-type is not 4x weak to Hidden Power.

Minun is also blessed with Baton Pass as well as a stat-boosting move - Agility. It is one of the best and most consistent Agility passers available in its price range, able to set up on most special threats. This, combined with its access to Thunderwave, makes it an incredible partner for bulky offense teams. Minun can also pass berry boosts, but as it is not good at making use of them itself and is quite reliant on leftovers to do its job, this is not recommended. Naturally, Minun can also pass Substitutes, but its Substitutes are not remarkable, and its Baton Pass sets do not have enough space for this move in most cases and thus this should be avoided.

It also has access to Wish as well; with its typically middle-of-the-road speed stat, it can Wish in the face of many offensive threats and slow-pass to an ideal recipient (or simply stay in and attack or paralyze or Encore whatever it's in against). Minun's speed is pretty much perfect for this role; it is naturally faster than the vast majority of non-Flygon ground types and bulky physical attackers that want to switch in on it while being slower than the offensive threats it wants to pass out of. In theory, Wish+Protect Minun is able to wall many special attackers that are not able to boost (Encore them if they try), however such sets are often one critical hit away from death (and Minun can seldom afford a moveslot for Protect). If Minun needs to improve its special-checking abilities, it also has access to Light Screen to make life even more miserable for opposing Electric-types. The same idea of "slow-passing" into a setup sweeper after setting Light Screen applies as well; you can do the same with Rain Dance to get a rain abuser in safely if needed too. Finally, if you are worried about screens expiring, Minun has access to Mud Sport (Plusle has Water Sport instead), which it can pass to allies and which is permanent so long as the mon with the boost stays in, though there is almost no reason to use this over Light Screen.

However, this Pokemon has severe downsides, as expected of one so cheap. It is deleted from existence by Dugtrio, and Flygon can easily outrun and kill it (though Minun can fight back with Toxic or Hidden Power Ice on the switch). Most fast physical attackers can remove most or all of Minun's low HP in a single hit, often before it can get anything done. Its terrible defense stat means that it requires substantial investment to take even resisted hits, which compromises its much more important special bulk. A 252 HP/0 Def Minun, for example, can only barely survive one resisted Metagross banded Meteor Mash after 1 spike. It matches up poorly into many opposing special walls unless it has Toxic, and it cannot dent Snorlax unless the Lax user makes the mistake of Cursing. Minun is horribly vulnerable to status, especially from fast special threats it could otherwise check. It struggles to do its job in sand, and thus should not be used if the opponent has Tyranitar. Finally, better support electric types like Raichu and Jolteon can run circles around Minun.

Minun enjoys being paired with slower Pokemon that can benefit from its supporting options, as well as bulky waters due to its ability to pressure opposing waters and electrics. It also requires physically-bulky and airborne partners to patch up its major flaws, as well as actual progress makers to support. Spikes are helpful for Minun, as Encore forces switches, and most of its answers are grounded. Finally, Minun likes Heal Bell users so it can stay free of Toxic.

Minun's greatest strength is psychological. Minun is, after all, a 405 BST, ability-less Pikaclone whose only reason to exist is to show off a double-battles gimmick - and generally considered to be the weaker than Plusle. Many opponents who are either inexperienced, overconfident, or both will fail to account for Minun when teambuilding. It is, after all, a last-pick mon usually worth around 2 points that is barely offensively threatening, so many will simply ignore it. This is what makes Minun so dangerous: a wise opponent must prepare for the trouble that it can cause with Encore, Wish, Agilitypassing and status spreading if left unchecked, which will likely reduce their team's effectiveness against your actually good Pokemon. An unwise opponent, on the other hand, who fails to adequately prepare for this pesky rodent will feel surprise and uncertainty when Minun shows up and uses bizarre supporting moves that were not expected or planned for. Minun is a master of fear. It is one of the strongest Pokemon to have as your final pick - an exemplary bench warmer. In the vast majority of games, it is not worth bringing Minun. But you COULD bring this little demon, and your opponent must acknowledge that. And when the time is right and the stars align, Minun is capable of at the very least pulling its own weight in advantageous matchups, as described above. And these brief flashes of strong performance are enough to keep future opponents uncertain and guessing. Overall, while other low cost Pokemon such as Mightyena may be more directly useful and consistent in more matchups, Minun is still one of the most taxing cheap Pokemon in the teambuildng phase, as well as being a great check to various common, menacing Pokemon for a low price.