MOTW: Yaaaaaaaaaaawn

Okay, I have to say this: My internet sucks.

Remember when the Internet was in its 56K era? That's how slow the connection at my home is. But maybe none of you had even heard of 56K for you're all young like that. And I'm ancient.

Everytime I want to load up the PKMNCAST page, it stops at the banner and takes FOREVER to continue to load. So I would sit in front of the screen, open my mouth, and attack. Nope, not with Hyper Beam, because I don't wanna recharge.

I would attack with Yawn.

YAWN (10 PP)

Puts the target to sleep at the end of the next turn.

Basically the difference between Yawn and other sleep-inducing moves (Sing, Hypnosis, Sleep Powder, Spore, Lovely Kiss, Grasswhistle, one of the Secret Powers) is that your opponent will go to sleep the next turn, not right after you've used the move.

Don't you start jumpin' on me and call me dumb. You must be like "Why would you want to induce sleep the next turn when you can do it now?" Let me tell you something important: The major role of Yawn as a move is not to induce sleep.

#1
Force a Switch!

You have this tanking Slowbro and you meet this Scizor on the battlefield, which you know undoubtly has X-Scissor. You know Slowbro is a beast and can survive at least one X-Scissor from a Scizor, but non of your moves can be super-effective against it (unless you have a Flamethrowing Slowbro, which in my opinion is absolutely AWESOME. Please, if you have a Slowbro, teach it Flamethrower. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing a Water Pokémon breath EPIC FIRE). You really wanted it to go away for now so your Slowbro can keep setting up stuff or cruch your foe's other Pokémon.

Slowbro used Yawn! Scizor is getting drowsy!

Now, let's put ourselves into the foe's shoes (clichéd idioms FTW). Your sweeping Scizor had just been Yawned. given that you have the power to put this Slowbro down, you might just stay in battle and finish it. However, you already know that Scizor will fall asleep next turn, disabling it from sweeping right away (unless Scizor has a Chesto Berry, but no one puts Chestos on a Scizor). Is it worth it to sacrifice Scizor's sweeping count to put down Slowbro? Probably not. Maybe I should switch out, because switching out cancels the Yawn.

(Now back to our side) Mission accomplished! The foe switches, and I have one free turn to set up or attack, if you can predict what the foe switches into.

#2
Bypass abilities!

I don't know if this is 100% true, so don't heckle me if I'm wrong. Yawn actually ignores abilities that prevents the Pokémon from sleeping, such as Insomnia and Vital Spirit. I knew this because I was playing my Soul Silver again this week and I had my Slowpoke with Yawn. I was EV training it on special defence so I kept fighting Drowzees. Drowzees have either Insomnia and Forewarn as their ability. And 100% of the time my Yawn works. That makes me ponder if my speculation is true: perhaps Yawn does really ignore sleep-preventing abilities!

This means that you can put your foe to sleep with 100% accuracy and 100% certainty! Better than Spore on some occasions!

Battle Animation

I'm kind of grossed up whenever I see the move Yawn being used. Bascially the attacker yawns, then the cloud of yawn travels through the battlefield to the foe, and that causes the foe to yawn as well. It might seem cute and all, but when you really think about it...the foe is inhaling the other's exhalation. Their moist and probably odorous puff of air. And maybe with a bit of leftovers from their mouth (get it? Leftovers?)...

I'll just leave it right there. Don't wanna gross anyone up here. Consider this my belated Thanksgiving present to you all.

Until next time, I'm politeodable and this is the Move of the Week!

(Courtesy to GoggleMaster01 @ DeviantART and Bulbapedia for the pics!)

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