Game:

Pokémon Sword and Shield (2019)

Duration: 21:36

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For this week's Surprise Trade, I will be trading a Pokémon that has to be a specific gender in order to evolve, it is the Poison/Fire-type Salandit, and because it has a 1/8 chance of being female, it would take forever to breed an entire box of female Salandit, so only few of them are female.
Like with most of my previous Surprise Trades, I breed for 31 IVs in at least 4 or 5 stats, but in rare cases, all 6 stats. These Salandit have a Timid Nature, well it matters for the female, as its evolved form Salazzle is a female only species, so male Salandit are kind of useless. For its Egg Moves, it has Belch, Fake Out, Mud-Slap, and Sand Attack, I will list which parents from the Monster and Dragon Egg Groups that can learn those moves.
Belch: Snorlax
Fake Out: Squirtle, Wartortle, Blastoise, Scraggy, Scrafty (Requires Chain Breeding)
Mud-Slap: Cubone, Marowak, A-Marowak, Trapinch, Vibrava, Flygon, Helioptile, Heliolisk
Sand Attack: Trapinch, Vibrava, Flygon, Scraggy, Scrafty, Silicobra, Sandaconda

A decent selection of Egg Moves, Fake Out does require Chain Breeding, Squirtle learns it from Lombre or Ludicolo, and Scraggy learns it from a wide variety of Pokémon, like Meowth, Espurr, Purrloin, Mienfoo, and many others.
For stats, Salandit and its evolved form Salazzle have good Speed and Special Attack, but frail on the defensive side, most Salazzle sets have 252 EVs in HP and Speed, but with a 4x weakness to Ground, it can be tough to use. Salazzle is even one of few Gen 7 Pokémon to have a high Speed stat, and Gen 7 introduced a lot of very slow Pokémon.
Then for level up moves, Salandit can get Poison Gas, Ember, Poison Fang, Nasty Plot, Incinerate, Venoshock, Dragon Pulse, Venom Drench, Flamethrower, Toxic, and Endeavor, and when evolved into Salazzle, it will learn Fire Lash upon evolution, and it can get Knock Off, Encore, Torment, Swagger, and Disable. I have seen rumors that Fire Lash was supposed to be Salazzle's signature move in Gen 7, but in the end, Heatmor got it, and I have heard there were people that were unaware of Fire Lash being a move in Gen 7, but then again Heatmor is a Pokémon that not many people seem to remember.
Then for TM and TR moves, it can get Thunder Wave, Fake Tears, Attract, Will-O-Wisp, Helping Hand, Breaking Swipe, and a few others, so I find Salazzle's TM movepool to be a bit underwhelming other than the status moves. For its TR moves, it can get Fire Blast, Sludge Wave, Sludge Bomb, Leech Life, Heat Wave, Taunt, Overheat, Foul Play, and a few other moves.
The next thing to go over is Salazzle in the competitive scene, or online battles, and the nice thing about Corrosion is Salazzle being able to inflict the poison status condition on even Steel and Poison-type Pokémon, so Aegislash and Toxapex can even be poisoned by Salazzle's Toxic. For moves, its most popular set is Toxic and Substitute, while Flamethrower and Sludge Wave are good for attacking. Salazzle can even use Venoshock to get in some heavy damage on poisoned foes, as Venoshock's power doubles if the target is poisoned, I don't see too many players use Venoshock in online battles. It can make use of moves like Disable and Encore as nice status options, and Dragon Pulse for a coverage move, Focus Sash and Black Sludge are popular held items, although Black Sludge is preferred for Substitute sets.
In Double Battles, Salazzle is one of few Pokémon to learn Beat Up and have a high Speed stat, and it is a good partner for Pokémon with the Justified Ability, like Lucario or Arcanine, and it can boost their Attack by using Beat Up. Salazzle has Heat Wave for a move that hits both targets, and Sludge Bomb is preferred over Sludge Wave for a single target move, Salazzle can use Taunt and Endeavor for other options, and even if Focus Sash and Endeavor is a good combo, Salazzle cannot learn any priority moves, so it cannot perform the same way as the infamous FEAR Rattata. While Salazzle is a decent option, it is outclassed as both a Poison and a Fire-type, for Poison-type Pokémon, Galarian Weezing, Gengar, and Toxtricity outclass it, and for Fire-types, Charizard outclasses it, Salazzle isn't that bad of a Pokémon, it can be put to good use if you know how to use it.
This was the first time I trade a Pokémon that required a certain gender in order to evolve, and unlike Combee where only females evolved and males were useless, but then again Vespiquen isn't that viable competitvely. What you could do with male Salandit, as they have some Egg Moves, is to use them for breeding till you get a female one, because they do have fairly good IVs, and they can be used to breed for a better Salandit, as long as you end up getting a female one.

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