Battle Spot: Cacturne Trick Room and Doubles strategy

Build set as of Gen 6

Ability – Sand Veil

Stats – Attack (252), Special Attack/HP (252), Defence/Special Defence (4)

Nature – Brave/Quiet
Item – Focus Sash

Moveset – Seed Bomb/Energy Ball (stab), Sucker Punch (stab), Destiny Bond, Spiky Shield

Much like Maractus, Cacturne is also quite unpopular due to its poor stats spread, but this is also why it's perfect for Trick Room since it's slow. What's more, with high Attack and SpA stats in its hands and two useful abilities, Cacturne has the potential of going two different builds and fit in four different kinds of playstyle, giving it much flexibility. With the correct build, you can give a scare to your opponent with fear. 

Strength

First, it has Sand Veil as its first ability and Water Absorb as the hidden ability. These two builds can be used in either a Sand or Rainy Team and both abilities are useful, but in my experience, I prefer using Sand Veil. 

Sand Veil works marvellously with Focus Sash item, so if you happen to face a Sand Team (or if you're one), Cacturne would be in paradise, being in the Sandstorm will give him a 20% chance of evasion and also granting it immunity to the Sandstorm pelts every round so your Focus Sash won't be wasted, not to mention, it adds on to the opponent's accuracy rate as well, like Fire Blast (85% accuracy) for example, awesome. 

Or, if you prefer Water Absorb then it's fine too. Having Water Absorb ability obviously works best in a Rainy Team or if your partner has Surf, this is because Water Absorb will absorb any incoming water type attack and heal its HP by 25% (too bad it’s not Storm Drain though). This also shuts opponents with Water-type Pokemon who uses Surf too, but most of the time they would just use Ice Beam to take it down. Also, your HP recovery is just 25% only, ain't helping much because it's incredibly fragile.  

Weakness

Talking about being fragile, Cacturne is one of the Pokemon that has the most weaknesses in the game. Being Grass/Dark-type makes it vulnerable to Fighting, Flying, Poison, Fairy, Fire, Ice and Bug (x4!), but on the bright side, at least it's resistant against many other types as well (Water, Grass, Ground, Electric, Dark and Ghost) 

Another minor issue is that for having high SpA, it lacks a lot of SpA moves to take advantage of it except for Energy Ball and Dark Pulse, Sucker Punch is most preferred, though, for speed compensation.

Moveset

Your moveset will determine your EV spread, so if you're going for a mix build, it's best to have Energy Ball and Sucker Punch as your main STAB with Quiet nature in order; if not, then you should go for a Physical set with Brave nature, switching SpA stat for HP and Energy Ball for Seed Bomb. Seed Bomb is a viable choice as most Water-type Pokemon tend to have lower Defence stat, as for those Rock and Ground-type, most of them have both of those types so it's a x4 weakness there. 

As for the third move slot, my persona favourite is Destiny Bond because of Focus Sash item. Once it's ready to faint, it can activate Destiny Bond and take down the opponent down with it. This of course, works splendidly well under Trick Room. 

For a non-Trick Room environment, it could learn Low Kick or Drain Punch which works well with your partner spamming Surf. Poison Jab is a nice move to have too for countering Fairies, and lastly, Spiky Shield is a great addition to harm opponents who uses physical contact moves.

Closing thoughts

(image credit to Heather R)

With my Sand Veil Cacturne build, it's a darling under the Sandstorm which occurs occasionally in the current metagame. Like its cousin, it's not seen around much so opponents are very likely to look down that will give you an advantage for a surprise attack. I actually did consider it to be one of my main Trick Room member but it loses out to Maractus in the end because of Storm Drain, well, really good Pokemon to have under Trick Room and Sand Team.

So Cacturne, I choose you! Glhf!