What is a good moveset for Meowscarada?

Question

If you have a good competitive moveset for Meowscarada, post an answer below and upvote the best ones. Movesets for any of its pre-evolutions can also be shared on this thread.

Be sure to include full set details in your post, e.g. items, abilities, natures and EVs. Some explanation, including the intended game mode for your set, is also appreciated. Access the full list of guidelines here.

Meowscarada Pokedex & learnset for reference.

Answer 1

Gen 9 OU / Monotype

Meowscarada @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Thunder Punch / Sucker Punch

Scarfed Meowscarada outspeeds pretty much every unboosted Pokemon, so that's nice. Flower Trick is STAB that can break through setup Pokemon like Curse Garganacl and Dondozo thanks to crits. Knock Off is STAB and the most easily spammable move in the game, so it's simple to mindlessly mash buttons until you remove items. U-turn gives you a fast pivot and is almost as spammable as Knock Off. Thunder Punch is just general coverage for Flying types like Corviknight. If you go for Choice Band, you get more power, but less Speed -- I'd recommend Sucker Punch to give you a better chance of hitting Dragapult this way. Tera Dark is better defensively than Tera Grass, though it doesn't matter too much with Meowscarada's relative frailty. It matters even less in Monotype where Terastallizing is banned.

Comments

this is actually exactly what i run and it seems to work well

Answer 2

Meowscarada @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Hp / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Play Rough
- U turn
- Foul Play/Sucker Punch

Probably not a popular option to give it an expert belt but protean changes the type of meowscarada based on the moves used. Protean got a nerf but that's why U turn comes into action. Expert belt boosts super effective moves damage plus changing the type and U turn for a quick retreat.

Flower Trick is so broken with STAB + always landing a Critical Hit + Never missing

Play rough is for coverage against fighting types. And if you choose to terastillize to Fairy type, this will boost its attack even more

U turn can be stab but also good for a quick retreat

Foul play/ Sucker punch (the choice is yours but I personally would choose sucker punch)

Comments

Flower Trick is not necessarily broken due to it being a grass type move, a type tied with bug to being the most resisted type, Steel types are very common in competitive so Meowscarada will be screwed if it battles one

Answer 3

Gen 9 OU - A lead set for Hyper Offense teams

Meowscarada @ Focus Sash
Ability: Overgrow
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Knock Off
- Flower Trick

Meowscarada's excellent speed tier and immunity to prankster allows it to be one of the most reliable spikes setter for Hyper Offense teams while also being able to dish out significant damage. Spikes is the main move here, and with a Focus Sash Meowscarada can usually get up 2 layers. Taunt shuts down opposing entry hazard setters and defensive walls. Knock Off and Flower Trick are your STAB moves. Protean is actually detrimental here, as you lose one of your STABs when you attack. Overgrow allows you to hit very hard if you get down to focus sash. Tera Ghost is used to block rapid spin, though typically you may want to use it elsewhere.

Answer 4

Gen 9 Monotype Offensive Pivot (Dark)

Meowscarada @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Flower Trick
- Knock Off
- U-turn / Low Kick / Play Rough

A Meowscarada set with Heavy-Duty Boots. Meowscarada can forgo using Choice Scarf if you use Lokix, Chien-Pao, and Kingambit on the same team, all three of them being able to use priority moves. This allows Meowscarada to use Heavy-Duty-Boots to avoid being harmed by hazards since Dark teams have no form of hazard removal. Toxic Spikes allows Meowscarada to spread poison around grounded Pokemon and makes Toxapex not able to do much vs it. Flower Trick is a nice Grass STAB that scores a critical hit every time, which is useful for Pokemon who boost their defense stat. Knock Off is used for a spammable Dark STAB that removes items from opposing Pokemon, which can cripple Pokemon who rely on their item. U-turn allows Meowscarada to bring in a teammate and switch out against Pokemon it cannot beat. Low Kick can be used for coverage against Pokemon such as Kingambit, Chien-Pao, Magnezone, Ting-Lu, Abomasnow, and Iron Treads. Play Rough is an option if you really want coverage against Fighting-, Fairy, and opposing Dark-types.

Answer 5

Gen 9 OU
Meowscarada @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brick Break
- Toxic Spikes
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
This set focuses around counterplay to dual screens. Nowadays, dual screens are dominating the meta.
- Ability is Protean for the additional STAB for Brick Break
- Brick Break works in tandem with Protean
- Toxic Spikes is utility and a placeholder for Toxic.
- Play Rough is paired with Tera Fairy to get powerful STAB and make up for the double weakness to Bug.
- Sucker Punch is just a priority move, which is welcome in any team. With the high speed that Meowscarada has this is an answer to Trick Room.
- Heavy-Duty Boots are paired with Toxic Spikes since Court Change Cinderace is a thing in OU.

Answer 6

Mewoscarada @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Steel or Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Night Slash / Knock Off
- U-turn / Leech Seed
- Double Team

Explanation: Flower Trick is a very good STAB that always lands in a critical hit. Night Slash is also a very good STAB that has a high critical hit ratio, and is better than Knock Off due to being much more spammable, while as Knock Off is only boosted for 6 turns ( since 6 Pokemon are in a team and one Pokemon can hold 1 item ). Knock Off is still pretty spammable, just as long as you remember to use Flower Trick instead of Knock Off if you used it already on an opponenet. U-Turn is a pivot move, while Leech Seed is a draining move. The choice depends whether you want more pivot ( even though regular switching is still an option ) or more survivability. Double Team is self explanatory, and very, very useful. Also, Tera Dark is more defensive than Tera Grass, but with Steel being one of the most defensive typings, I suggest Tera Steel rather than Dark. But Tera Dark is still an option if you can’t seem to find a Steel Tera Meowscarada in particular. Expert Belt is because Choice items limit your moves.

NOTE: Only use Double Team in formats where it’s allowed. If not, just keep U-Turn AND Leech Seed.

Answer 7

Meowscarada @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Hone Claws
- Thunder Punch
- Knock Off
- Flower Trick

This is a setup sweeper Meowscarada that is more for sweeping when enemies are weakened. Thunder Punch is coverage for Corviknight, Knock Off is for item removing which is nice utility, Flower Trick always crits, making it a must have on almost every set for this thing, and Hone Claws is for setting up. Tera Dark makes Knock Off more powerful, which is nice once the enemies items have been removed. Thunder Punch can be replaced by Sucker Punch or some other coverage like Play Rough which really fits well with Hone Claws boosting accuracy or Brick Break.

I'm not good with Tera types and this moveset probably isn't the way to go for this mon, so feel free to criticize.

Comments

You can replace Thunder Punch with Triple Axel also. Sucker Punch can replace Knock Off as dark STAB. Try Tera Fire for defense Tera because of Protean. Sash or Band is a better item for Meow because it is so frail. Just some idea for your set.

---

This was before DLC2, so Meowscarada didn’t have Triple Axel. Sash is usually unreliable in this Meta.

Answer 8

Meowscarada @ Choice Band
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Sucker Punch / Knock Off
- U-Turn
- Thunder Punch / Shadow Claw / Brick Break

Meowscarada is a great Choice Bander with a diverse move pool and access to the amazing ability Protean. Flower Trick is a great STAB move that always scores a critical hit. Sucker Punch is a STAB move with priority, while Knock Off is a different STAB move that can disrupt enemies. U-Turn is for if you get a bad match up. Choose a third move based on how you want the moveset to work together, some of my recommendations are Thunder Punch, Shadow Claw, and Brick Break, although other good options are Aerial Ace and Quick Attack. The Tera Type could be Bug-type as well as Dark, but I wouldn't recommend Grass because it has so many weaknesses.

Answer 9

Meowscarada @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Flower Trick
- Night Slash
- U-turn
- Aerial Ace

Flower Trick: Probably self-explanatory, but it's a STAB move that always critical hits, and never misses

Night Slash: I chose Night Slash over Knock Off because as another answer mentioned, Knock Off is only effective 6 times at best (And Night Slash also has a high critical hit ratio and STAB)

U-turn: To escape unfavorable matchups, while dealing damage. This is also super effective on Psychic types

Aerial Ace: To deal with bug and fighting types, which deal 4x and 2x damage respectively. I gave Meowscarada the Tera flying type for this reason, but this may be risky as it introduces a 4x weakness to the ice type

The Protean ability for STAB on each move, Expert Belt to increase effectiveness of super effective hits, and Jolly nature to increase its already comical speed

Answer 10

Gen 9 OU

Meowscarada @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Play Rough / Knock Off
- U-turn
- Trick

Choice Scarf is good on Meowscarada to outspeed many Pokemons. This is important to counter ghost Pokemons like Scarfed Gholdengo and Life Orb/Choice Specs Dragapult. Choice Band is also good for extra damage. These two items also work well with Trick to shut down the defensive Pokemons like Corviknight and Garganacl which are very annoying. Flower Trick is very powerful, never miss and always crits. It is also very helpful to deal with Dondozo and Ting-Lu. Play Rough is great since OU has a lot of Dragon, Dark and Fighting Pokemons. Knock Off is also good because it can remove opponent's item. U-turn is a good utility to bring teammate or run away from the bad match-up. Protein is a must ability on this moveset because it is very good to change type during the battle. It also synergy well with Play Rough and Trick because Fairy and Psychic is resisted to Fighting. Tera Grass is used for dealing extra damage with Flower Trick for important KO.

Answer 11

I'm not good at this, but here we go. A playthrough type set for my favourite Paldean starter.

Meowscarada @ Miracle Seed / Muscle Band / Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
-Flower Trick
-Play Rough
-Thunder Punch / U-Turn
-Tera Blast

Flower Trick is easily one of Meowscarada's best STAB moves, with quite the few beneficial factors such as STAB, Sure Hit, and Sure Crit.
Play Rough is an easy check for Fighting types such as Annihilape, Lucario and Flamigo that it would otherwise be screwed against.
Thunder Punch is to check Flying types such as Staraptor, Flamigo and Corviknight that would likewise murder it.
U-Turn is for resetting Protean if necessary, while also super-effectively hitting the Psychic types it's weak to.
Tera Blast is specifically why this set has Tera Fire, it's able to check the Steel types that would normally be a dead end (literally) for Meowscarada.

Answer 12

Gen 9 AO / Monotype

Meowscarada @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protean
Terra Type: Fairy
Evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flower Trick
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch / Thunder Punch
- U-Turn

This set gives meowscarada priority speed and power. The boots let it pivot without the risk of hazards . The protean lets it have stab off of any move combined with its fairy terra leads to a crazy fast and powerful play rough. U-Turn combined with its speed allows it to deal a quit bit of damage before pivoting in case of threats and resets it's protean. Sucker punch gives it priority and STAB on opponents that might be faster than meowscarada however if they set up its useless, so instead thunder punch is a viable option to go against steel and flying types which the rest of the moves ignore for the most part. Flower Trick is STAB and can break through almost any set up Pokemon (e.g garganacle). The fairy terra also gives it a full resistance to a common competitive type being dragon however the terra isn't fully needed.

Answer 13

Ok, I confess that I spent a LONG TIME burning my neurons to make this moveset, I think that Game Freak really didn't want this thing to be used for Special Attack, I myself wouldn't use it, just for fun or for experiments, anyway, I decided to use my advanced knowledge of Pokémon to try to make it work, I hope to at least receive an upvote for the effort.

Meowscarada (M) Choice Specs or Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
Nature: Timid or Modest
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 Def or 4 HP

• Power Gem
• Tera Blast (Psychic)
• Giga Drain or Energy Ball or Dark Pulse or Pollen Puff or Aura Sphere
• U-turn

Well, unfortunately Meowscarada has a terrible Defensive typing, so I had some difficulties. Basically the idea is:

Power Gem: EXCELLENT coverage against Ice, Flying, Fire and Bug

Tera Blast (Psychic): Should be used to offer coverage against Fighting and Poison, offering protection against both as well

Giga Drain: STAB and healing

Energy Ball: If you want a stronger Grass STAB

Dark Pulse: STAB and also coverage against Ghost when Terastalized

Pollen Puff: Coverage against Dark when Terastalized

Aura Sphere: Damage Okay, Infinity Accuracy And Good Ofensive Type

U-turn: In case a Fairy appears, when Meowscarada is in Life Risk, or makes room for a Strong Pokémon

I hope you like the set :3

OBS: Opinions about what I can change in my moveset are always welcome, it is worth remembering that I am not the best Pokémon player in the world, so do not judge me if there is something in this moveset that you do not like, instead, help by telling me what I can change

Sincerely Daniel :3