MOTW: Magical Leaf
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Introduced in Gen III, Magical Leaf shares similar characteristics to a couple of other moves that we’ve talked about before. It’s close relative is Aerial Ace, where it will hit your opponent no matter what sort of evasion they have built up, and no matter what your accuracy is sitting at as well. It also shares the same power rating of 60, but Magical Leaf is interesting as it is a very grass specific move. The few Pokemon that can learn it are almost strictly grass or psychic type.
I’m going to touch on accuracy as a main point of your team building strategy again. I cannot stress how important it is to actually be able to hit your opponent. Sure it’s great if you can pull off an all together 180 power STAB’ed out move, but what’s the point if you’re only hitting the guy every 3 out of 4 or 5 turns? You need to have those couple of moves that you can fall back on, no matter what. Magical Leaf is one of those moves.
There aren’t a whole ton of Pokemon that can learn it to be honest, but there are some great pairs in the list for it that you should really consider. If you have either a Bellossom, Celebi, or Shaymin, you should definitely consider having Magical Leaf as a fall back move to be a good base for you. One added to that list too is Roserade, as it has one of the highest special attack bases (125) out of any Pokemon that can learn it. It’s going to be STAB powered with grass backing as a type, so you’ll instantly have a 90 power move on you, and all of those Pokemon are particularly strong towards special attack as well, so you’ll get that extra little boost out of them. Also if you’re looking to specifically boost grass powered moves you could give one of them a Grass Seed and then you’d get another 20% boost in power, making Magical Leaf not only extremely accurate, but also super powerful as well, and more than just a move to fall back on.
Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. I can’t harp on it enough. It is one of the most vital parts to your team. My dad always used to say when teaching me how to play tennis, “You can’t win the point if you can’t hit the ball over the net.” The same applies for Pokemon. You can’t win a match if you can’t hit your opponent. (Plus, the Bulbapedia picture was a Bidoof getting pwnd. How could I not do this as a MOTW?!?)
- aaronspriggs
P.S. - MOTW this week is taking a little less hardcore seat in what is normally heavily based in training and breeding. If you’d like to see something mentioned in the MOTW articles, move history, focusing more on battle strategies, humor, videos, pics, let us know! Strike up a conversation in the PokeTalk forums and let your voice be heard!