Competitive Pokémon History - Magmortar Quiz

Answer: Charizard

Magmar unfortunately was the single worst fully evolved Fire type in the entire game, even being outperformed in every way by the thoroughly mediocre Rapidash of all things. Lack of access to Fire Spin and having a fairly bland movepool with awful all around stats meant Magmar only stood a chance at fending off threats weak to Fire. Even then, it wasn't a sure thing it would prevail even in a matchup which was good for it on paper.

It was frail, not terribly fast and its offensive potential was below average.

It simply got overwhelmed to the max in its debut generation.

Answer: Thunderpunch

With its special attack being buffed to a nifty 100, newfound access to Thunderpunch to fend off enemy Water types let Magmar make use of this. The nerfing of Fire Spin to uselessness meant Magmar's lack of access to that move was no longer anywhere near as big a deal as it once was. Combine those elements with the Charcoal item to boost the power of Fire type moves along with usage of the powerful Fire Blast, and Magmar was quite the deadly threat in second generation NU.

Answer: Flame Body

Flame Body makes it so that an opposing Pokémon which uses a damaging move that makes physical contact with Magmar will have a 30% chance to be afflicted by the Burned status effect after doing so. With Magmar's frailty, using this ability was difficult without also having Magmar get KOed. Because of that, it was not the most impactful of abilities.

Answer: 125

To offer some perspective, Magmortar's special attack stat was just higher than that of Arceus, the formal God of Pokémon. As Fire was quite a decent offensive typing and Magmortar had a very colorful movepool, this was good news.

Answer: No

Magmortar boasted powerful offenses and had a movepool offering it wide coverage. It would typically start with Fire Blast, then use Thunderbolt to fend off Water types who resisted Fire, Focus Blast to take out Rock types with a similar rationale, then something auxiliary to cover anything else left unchecked; Hidden Power Ice could handle certain Dragon types, Cross Chop was used in UU to deal with Chansey, and one could even opt for Mach Punch to give Magmortar a bit more of an edge against offensive teams.

Because of this, nothing could safely, reliably switch into Magmortar and win. You could try and fool the Magmortar user into using one move, then switch in something appropriate on that particular move and potentially win. However, doing so always ran the risk of getting out-predicted and losing. Thus, Magmortar had no counters.

Answer: Vital Spirit

Vital Spirit renders the user immune to being put to sleep. Using this ability, Magmortar could switch into defensive Grass types, or it could cut off a Liligant sweep because it could not be put of commission with Spore, allowing it to take a hit from Liligant and blast it to pieces with a super effective Fire Blast in return.

While niche, Magmortar could be given Mach Punch and then used to anti-lead Smeargle, as Smeargle could not use Spore on Magmortar, and Magmortar could use Mach Punch's priority to limit Smeargle to only a single turn of setup.

Answer: Assault Vest

Assault Vest boosts the user's special defense by one stage, in exchange for preventing them from using any move which does not deal direct damage. Lacking access to a boosting move or any sort of utility move, this drawback was negligible as most Magmortar sets would only use attacking moves anyway.

While such a dynamic seems to make Magmortar a questionable pick for a Tank due to it lacking utility on paper, its ability to switch into most special attackers and outgun them was very helpful in a metagame dominated by powerful special attackers. Vital Spirit also enabled Magmortar to be a consistent switch in to sleep inducing moves, letting it hard counter Liligant and thoroughly check Jynx, who were very dangerous threats to contend with. As such, Assault Vest gave Magmortar an appreciated extra dimension to its usage.

Answer: Delphox

Incineroar would get blasted to smithereens by Focus Blast, which was basically a given for Magmortar to have, so it couldn't achieve this.

Delphox's unique Fire/Psychic typing and decent special defense let it withstand Magmortar's movepool quite effectively. Once it switched in, it could either whittle down Magmortar's offenses with Mystical Fire or hit it with Toxic, all while keeping itself healthy with Wish and Protect. Delphox itself was fortunately not terribly hard to account for when team building, so this wasn't the end of the world. Still, anyone looking to include Magmortar on their team would do well to consider the existence of Delphox and factor in a way around it.

Answer: Untiered

Simply put, Magmar was just worthless even down in the depths of PU. It was harshly outgunned by a myriad of Fire types, and it did not possess the stats to perform in a non-offensive capacity at all. It is entirely possible that not a single Pokémon trainer ever, at any point bothered to consider the existence of Magmar throughout the entirety of the seventh generation, whether considering it as a part of their team or considering that it could show up on an opponent's team.

Answer: PartiallyUsed

Oddly enough, Magmortar was one of few Pokémon who avoided the nasty DexIt that actually received a tier demotion regardless. It had been inhabiting the NeverUsed tier since its inception in the fourth generation, but it finally fell out of favor in NU in the Eighth generation.

The reason for that is that it simply fell too far behind most other Fire types, due to the fact that they could much more comfortably take advantage of the jaw dropping new Heavy Duty Boots to reduce their susceptibility to entry hazards, while Magmortar had more trouble doing so viably.

In PU, it settled in as a decent, albeit unspectacular option to do what it had always done; wall breaking and occasionally taking hits from a specially offensive threat and dealing with them.