Pokémon Alolan Exeggutor

[Eve]

Type: Grass / Dragon
Stats: 95/105/85/125/75/45 (530 BST)
Abilities: Frisk / Harvest

Noteworthy Moves:
Status:

• Calm Mind
• Leech Seed
• Moonlight
• Sleep Powder
• Swords Dance
• Synthesis
• Trick
• Trick Room

Special:

• Draco Meteor
• Dragon Pulse
• Energy Ball
• Flamethrower
• Giga Drain
• Leaf Storm
• Psychic Noise
• Sludge Bomb
• Stored Power

Physical:

• Dragon Hammer
• Earthquake
• Knock Off
• Low Kick
• Wood Hammer

Pros:

• Alolan Exeggutor has great offensive coverage between its STAB types and Flamethrower, hitting everything in the game for at least neutral damage and hitting over half of all available Pokemon for super-effective damage.
• It also packs solid bulk and multiple sources of longevity, including instant recovery moves, Leech Seed, Giga Drain, and even Harvest + Sitrus Berry.
• Unlike Hydrapple, who is very similar, Alolan Exeggutor has a wide array of useful status and utility moves. Its newfound access to Calm Mind is a major standout, letting Alolan Exeggutor pull off a true bulky setup role, but other notable tools include Trick Room to fix its Speed issues, Leech Seed to spread damage, Sleep Powder to shut down a Pokemon, Trick for Choiced sets, and Knock Off for being Knock Off, and even the newly accessed Psychic Noise and Stored Power to break through otherwise impenetrable walls.
• Thanks to its surprisingly good Attack stat, Alolan Exeggutor can dip into its physical movepool to lure and destroy would-be answers like Heatran or special walls if the user desires.

Cons:

• While Alolan Exeggutor has unique qualities, the aforementioned Hydrapple largely outperforms Alolan Exeggutor thanks to its noticeably improved bulk and Regenerator, traits which are much more important than what Alolan Exeggutor can offer. As a result, most possible Alolan Exeggutor sets are outclassed by a Hydrapple set, which is why the ones provided here may seem odd.
• To keep it brief, Alolan Exeggutor shares almost every flaw that Hydrapple has- a double-edged sword of a typing and poor Speed, namely- but these are substantially worse for it due to its lack of Regenerator and worse bulk making it less capable of tanking hits over the course of a battle.
• While Trick Room sets may look appealing, Alolan Exeggutor's reliance on Leaf Storm and Draco Meteor for immediate massive damage means it can run out of steam quickly.

Tera Potential: Selecting the Tera type for Eggy feels very difficult, as everything has substantial drawbacks. I think Fire and Grass are the best options for sets that just want to nuke stuff, but otherwise it's a tough choice.

• Poison resists several of Eggy-A's initial weaknesses without becoming as vulnerable to Fire or Fighting moves.
• Fairy is a generally strong defensive typing that notably shuts down opposing Dragon attacks and resists U-turn.
• Steel resists every single one of Alolan Exeggutor's weaknesses and gives a Toxic immunity, letting it flip many matchups on the spot, but it's weak to a lot of common attacks in the current metagame.
• Fire resists several of Eggy-A's initial weaknesses, but compensates for a worse defensive profile by boosting Flamethrower.
• Water is a general defensive type that removes or resists all of Alolan Exeggutor's weaknesses, and provides a valuable Fire resistance.
• Grass lets you drop your Dragon and Fairy weaknesses and supercharge your Grass STAB- maybe worth it on sets that want to spam Giga Drain.

Calm Mind + 3 Attacks

Exeggutor-Alola @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
Tera Type: See above
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Giga Drain
- Dragon Pulse
- Flamethrower

This set has a simple premise- set up Calm Mind, then try and muscle through stuff with your fantastic coverage while staying alive with your boosted bulk, Harvest Sitrus Berry, and Giga Drain healing. There's probably some secret to the perfect EV spread but I'll leave that for someone else to figure out.

Stored Power

Exeggutor-Alola @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Def / 12 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
- Flamethrower / Giga Drain
- Synthesis / Giga Drain

A Pokemon with Calm Mind, Stored Power, and a healing move? In SV??? Surely not. I hope I don't have to explain this one.

Offensive Trick Room

Exeggutor-Alola @ Life Orb
Ability: Frisk
Tera Type: Grass / Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse
- Giga Drain / Leaf Storm
- Flamethrower

Set up Trick Room, try to destroy things in the turns provided. Be careful when using Draco Meteor as it'll end your rampage with the Sp.Atk drop.

Choice Specs

Exeggutor-Alola @ Choice Specs
Ability: Frisk
Tera Type: Grass / Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Trick / Earthquake

Mostly just worse than Specs Hydrapple, sadly, but Trick provides a means to mess with special walls.

Closing Thoughts
While it definitely isn't useless, Alolan Exeggutor is largely outperformed by Hydrapple in OU. Still, I think the addition of Calm Mind to its movepool will give it so much more potential in the lower tiers this generation, especially with Tera to flip a matchup on its head and KO something with a boosted nuke. Cool mon.

 

[Eeveeto]

Trick Room should have option to use Sitrus Berry + Harvest too. With the right Tera, this guy can put Trick Room several times, so that it and teammates last longer while ditching strong hits.