MOTW: Leech Seed

Hi everyone, Kenny here! Looks like I'm the new MOTW editor, so let's see if I can do this. I figured I'd start out by talking about my favorite move: Leech Seed. Why do I love Leech Seed? Well, as a little kid I thought it was awesome that you could basically hurt your opponent and get free HP. Plus, it was a Grass-Type move, and I absolutely love Grass-Types.

Years later, my reasons for loving the move haven't changed. I'm aware however, that this probably won't convince anyone that this is truly a move worth looking into (at least in my opinion). Let's look at the facts:

Leech Seed is a Status-Category Grass-Type move with 90% accuracy. Being a status move, it doesn't directly injure your opponent. Rather, it drains 1/8th of your opponent's maximum health at the end of every turn, with the same amount of health being restored number-wise (If I took away 25 HP, I recover 25 HP. I don't recover 1/8th of my maximum HP). Like being confused, an opponent who has been seeded can get rid of the effects by withdrawing. Unlike confusion, however, it does not eventually go away. In Gen IV, the item Big Root was added, making Leech Seed recover 30% more HP to the user. It does not, however, damage the opponent more.

Because the effects of Leech Seed only depend upon the opponent, you could easily use a seeded foe to heal one of your own Pokemon (of course, you'd have to make sure they don't knock out your Pokemon in the process!) while still damaging your opponent! Pokemon with high defensive stats could easily use Leech Seed to completely restore their health.

Well, that's Leech Seed for ya. Hope you enjoyed this MOTW, and I look forward to writing more!