Hello there readers. Unfortunately, the randomizer picked a move of which is pretty boring to strategize and apply to strategies, but I do have a special treat in this article so if you’ll look through it. So to get to the special treat, let us get through the specifics for the Move of the Week: Blast Burn.
Blast Burn is a Fire type base 150 special move. It is a fiery Hyper Beam that requires 1 turn to recharge after its use, which is not the only drawback of this move. Another drawback of the move is that it cannot be given to just anyone: it, like Frenzy Plant and Hydro Cannon, can only be taught to starter Pokemon. So, only Charizard, Typhlosion, Blaziken, Infernape, and Emboar. Of the five, only Charizard, Typhlosion, and a Special-based Infernape could feasibly have the high Sp. Attack to put this move to use, but you don’t want either of those Pokemon to be waiting for an opponent to smack them afterwards. Smeargle can also learn Blast Burn through Sketch, and when it comes to that, he is the only one who can solely do the trick below by himself. To that end, allow me to share this little technique:
In Double Battles (or Single if you have Smeagle), you can use a partner Pokemon with Trick (it’ll probably be a Rotom since it is a popular Pokemon to use with the move) to give the target of Blast Burn the partner’s Red Card. You can also use the move Switcheroo to switch the Pokemon’s Red Card with the target’s item. Not only do you steal their important item, you also allow this to happen: the target hit by Blast Burn gets hit by the move, then holds up the Red Card. The Pokemon who used Blast Burn can then completely skip the turn they’d spend charging. You can tag out to another Pokemon in wait that’ll gladly pull up the slack for the tagged Pokemon, and you can bet that the Pokemon hit with Blast Burn is either KO’d or close enough to it that if you tag out to, say, Mienshao, you only need to Fake Out to knock that Pokemon out. The partner Pokemon would be quite beneficial if it was holding a negative effect item, like Iron Ball or Toxic Orb, and had the ability Prankster, which makes non-hitting moves priority 1 in the movelist. Whimiscott is the one you could use this with, since it has Prankster and Switcheroo. Here is an example of how it would go
Ex: Your team is Whimiscott and Charizard. Charizard is holding a Choice Specs, and Whimiscott is holding Red Card. Your opponent is Ferrothorn holding a Rocky Helmet and some other Pokemon. You have your Charizard perform Blast Burn on Ferrothorn, and have Whimiscott use Switcheroo. Whimiscott goes first, switches its Red Card with Ferrothorn’s Rocky Helmet, and Charizard, barring anything else, hits that Ferrothorn for massive damage with Blast Burn. Ferrothorn will hold up its Red Card, tagging out Charizard for hitting it. You then tag out to another Pokemon, keeping the advantage in the battle.
Smeargle can do this trick by himself because he can learn both Trick/Switcheroo and Blast Burn/Frenzy Plant/Hydro Cannon. Just remember that there is nothing you can do to avoid the recharge turn if you make contact with the opponent or its Substitute. So just keep that in mind. This has been another Move of the Week, and keep your eyes peeled on my Examiner page for more content. Thank you readers!
