Pokémon
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has a new top meta: Murkrow
Murkrow, the crow Pokémon, has slipped into the competitive metagame of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. We’ll tell you why and how to deal with him.
With over a month since its release, it’s starting to look like the metagame of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are getting settled for the games’ competitive scene. This is why one of the newest popular choices for players is surprising the community: it’s none other than Murkrow. We’ll tell you why he’s so powerful right now, since looks can be deceiving.
Murkrow is the new meta and this is why
Several Pokémon online boards and communities have reached the same conclusion during this month and a half since the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet: Murkrow is a decisive piece for any winning team.
The reasons are quite easy to understand: Murkrow is able to learn Tailwind, a move that doubles the Speed of every other Pokémon in your team for four turns. Not only that, its Hidden Ability, Prankster, raises the priority of every move that modifies a Pokémon’s stats, like Tailwind. What this means is that a Prankster Murkrow can use Tailwind first in a battle consistently, and its effects are present during four turns. Doing this as your first action in the first turn of a battle could completely change the direction of a battle.
Murkrow is also able to learn Haze, a move that resets any buffs and debuffs a creature received during combat. This is specially useful against Dondozo, another of the most popular choices due to one of his builds being based around raising its attributes.
You might be wondering why Murkrow is being used instead of Honchkrow, its evolution, for this strategy. As it turns out, the evolved form doesn’t have the Prankster Hidden Ability, completely nullifying this plan and making no sense to have. You can always make your Murkrow hold an Eviolite, which makes it so their Defense and Special Defense is higher than usual, but only for Pokémon that can evolve.
Murkrow is not an exclusive to any of the versions, so you can catch one easily in these places of the island:
As you can see, it’s a pretty common Pokémon, although you can only find them during the night.