Pokemon of the Week #1 9/19/11 Banette

Starting this Week and ending on March of 2012, you'll be able to download through Wi-Fi Mystery Gift a special Banette. What makes this free event special, is the Dream World ability "Cursed Body." Being a Dream World download means unfortunately this is exclusively for Black & White, excluding the other Ds generation Pokemon Games (D,P,Dpt,Hg,Ss). Inspired by those factors I devised an Ev Set specifically towards this Hidden Ability.

Ability: Cursed Body
Nature: Adamant
Base Stats:
Hp-64
Atk-115
Def-65
Sp.Atk-83
Sp.Def-63
Spd-65

Ev Spread: (510)
Hp-14
Atk-248
Def-0
Sp.Atk-0
Sp.Def-0
Spd-248

Moveset Suggestion:
-Shadow Sneak
-Destiny Bond
-Gunk Shot (Egg Move)
-Wilo-Wisp
Additional Valuable Moves: Sucker Punch/ Giga Impact/ Toxic/ Thunder Wave

Moveset Sidenotes:
Banette seems to me to be in a "Never Use" or NU category when it comes to Meta Game. When looking at its base stats, we see the most favorable trait is once again physical attack. However the move pool suggests it to be better suited for Special Attack. It makes for a rather frustrating set no matter how you train. While yes you could attempt a Calm Mind strategy to boost the low Sp.Atk stat, I wouldn't recommend it based on Banette's low Speed, Defense, Sp.Defense, and Hp... Still, if you're looking to use that freshly downloaded Banette from the Wi-Fi Mystery Gift, then this set should be ship in firm (Gorillaz Reference). To gain Banette's strongest Attack, power wise, you'll need to breed this Banette in order to obtain the Egg Move "Gunk Shot" (Base 120) and transfer your downloaded Poke's ability. In this case you'll be breeding to keep the "Dream World" ability Cursed Body, which gives you a 30% chance of disabling your opponent's move when Banette is struck. If you don't feel it's worth your time, and I understand why, then perhaps try some of the additional suggested moves for greater power.
Shadow Sneak always hits first, but only does a base 40 damage. Sucker Punch could be more beneficial in pure power (Base 80), but Shadow Sneak gives you security of assuredly hitting first despite the opponent's choice of move. Sucker Punch is only effective in striking first when the opponent attempts to launch an offensive move at Banette. If you want to re-allocate the Speed Evs placed on this particular set to make Banette more balanced, try giving it Thunder Wave to gain the first strike advantage, plus para-hax. From this and a couple of other annoyance options such as Wilo-Wisp we conclude Banette's sad shallow physical move pool. Again it baffles my mind that a ghost would have strong physical Attacking stats with little to no effective physical moves. Best of luck in raising this one, I'd love to see it in action if anyone happens to post a video.

Conclusion:
I've overlooked this Pokemon before and now returning to the numbers, I see why. It's a curious NU level Pokemon in my book that fails to use it's natural ability properly. What I'd love to see in future iterations of the Meta Game, is having this little puppet ghost be re-worked for better Special Attack rather than physical. Very unlikely, but a man can dream. Banette acts as good status scramblers and revenge killers with Shadow Sneak. The bait and switch tactic would work nicely here, and below I'll textual illustrate a probable battle scene.
Starting the battle it's your Infernape Vs. an opponent's Crawdaunt. In the first move Infernape has greater speed to pull of a Super Effective Grass Knot, however it fails to kill this rather bulky crab. Your opponent successfully One Hit Kos your poke with a Hydro Pump, now what to do? Banette comes in to the field. With one Shadow Sneak, you'll most likely succeed in taking it out. The next Poke your opponent chooses will most likely try for a Ghost or Dark type move seeing that's what works best against your Banette. I recommend at that point go for the switch to throw your opponent off guard. If you're lucky, you may be almost struck with a ghost type move in which you could fully resist with a flying type on your team.
Banette is not a sweeper by any stand point. But with a little help from its friends and the rest of your team, victory will be assured! All great trainers have masterfully made teams, so consider the balances and weaknesses of any group you're training before sending them all to the fray. Stay tuned today for an addditional Ev Trained Pokemon of the Week, once more inspired by a Wi-Fi download available today!