MOTW: Sketch
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Now here’s an interesting concept for you. What if you could have a Pokemon that could learn every move in 
the game? “Amazing!”, you say, “Not such a thing could ever exist!?” Well it could, and there’s one move that makes that possible. Say hello to your little friend, Sketch.
Sketch is the most versatile and interesting move in the entire game. When you use it you gain the ability to learn whatever move was just played last in the field of battle by your opponent, so, theoretically, you can learn every single move in the game.
The only Pokemon that can actually learn this move is an interesting one in and of itself, Smeargle. Smeargle can only learn sketch, in the same fashion that Ditto can only use transform. Whereas transform gives you the exact moveset of the opposing player’s Pokemon for the battle, Sketch permanently gives you the move that was just played in replacement of Sketch.
“Sweet! I’m gonna put a Smeargle on my team and have it learn Wood Hammer, Hydro Pump, Superpower, and Roar of Time and it’s going to be the coolest MOST AWESOME POKEMANS EVEEEERRRRR$*^$&!@$^#!!!!!”
Whoa, now before you go superpowered move crazy, you might want to take a look at what Smeargle’s stats are...
HP: 55
Attack: 20
Defense: 35
Sp. Atk: 20
Sp. Def: 45
Speed: 75
Yea... Might want to be rethinking that Hydro Pump right about now with only 20 in Special Attack.
“So what the F man?! The only Pokemon that can learn all of the sweetest moves in the game is totally gimped?”
Yea, pretty much. In my opinion, this makes working with Smeargle on a team a ton of fun. You have so many options, but you really have to play out what moves you learn defensively and with a TON of strategy involved. I’ll try and give you the briefest synopsis that I can.
So there are a couple main moves that I would say you should definitely learn, especially with a Pokemon like Smeargle where it’s base over all stat is 250. Spore. Freaking learn Spore. It will be your best friend and lover all at the same time with whatever move set you go with. Smeargle is such a lightweight that almost anything can take it down in one hit. Heck, even a light breeze could OHKO the guy, BUT, the ability to learn Spore will significantly help you in whatever you’re looking to do. Spore will give you the ability to put whatever/whoever you come up against asleep, giving you all the time in the world to set up whatever you need to do.
Ok, now you’ve got 3 moves left that you can learn. What should you do? Well I came up with a couple you might want to look at. I put these in here just based on a either coolness factor, or that they’re downright just smart to learn.
Aerial Ace is super smart to learn. One, it always hits because it’s unmodified by accuracy and evasion stats. Two, it does 60 damage. Why is it important that it does 60 you ask? One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that one of Smeargle’s two abilities he can start off with is Technician. If you don’t remember from the Brick Break article that I did a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned technician and it’s uses on my Scizor, but what Technician does is it boosts any move that has 60 power or less by 50%. So if you have a move like Aerial Ace, instead of doing 60 it automatically increases to 90 power, and you could pile on an item that helps out in the physical attack area if you wanted to as well. So I would say Aerial Ace is one of the best moves under 60 power out there, but you can look around move lists and see what moves you like and could utilize.
Now, if you are going to Sketch a move onto your Smeargle that totally kicks some major booty, I would go with a really rare move, or something that a uber would normally use. In my case, I never use ubers so I don’t ever recommend moves that they can learn, but this seems to be a bit of a loophole in that theory of mine :). There are better moves than others however. Some that I would recommend would be either Shadow Force, which is 120 power 100% and only Arceus can learn it normally, or either Water Spout or Eruption. Both of those two have a power rating of 150 and have 100% accuracy, AND you don’t need to recharge after using them. Just throwin’ some ideas out there...
Anyways I hope this gave you a little better insight into what some of the possibilities of Sketch are. It can be used really effectively with Smeargle as long as you know what you’re doing, or have a helping hand in making your move set. Like always if you have any questions/comments you can put them in the comments field below or send us an email at pokemonpodcast@me.com.
Remember that we still have the contest going on for the Pikachu charger, and we are now selling the Poly-Shirt! I have one myself and it’s pretty baller, not gonna lie. (It would make a great [late] Christmas gift!) Hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and remember...
- aaronspriggs
