What it does
Night Slash hits for 70 base power with a +1 crit stage on every use. That base power looks modest — Crunch beats it by 10 — but the crit mechanic is the whole point.
At +1 crit stage, the hit rate climbs from 1/24 to 1/8. Stack Scope Lens for another +1 and you're at 1/2. Add Super Luck on top of that and you're functionally guaranteed a crit every time. Crits deal 1.5× damage and bypass any defensive stat boosts the target has accumulated — Reflect, Trick Room position-stacking, none of it matters once the crit lands.
Dark typing gives you solid offensive coverage: super-effective against Ghost and Psychic, both common in Champions doubles. Single-target, contact move, no drawback on use.
Who runs it
Absol (75%) is the canonical carrier. Super Luck adds another +1 crit stage, Scope Lens adds another, and Night Slash itself adds a third — you hit the cap of +3, meaning crits land 50% of the time. With 130 base Attack, a crit from Absol hits brutally hard. Its frailty means it can't afford extended trades; it needs to land and land fast.
Kleavor (31%) takes Night Slash for coverage rather than STAB. Its Bug/Rock attacks bounce off Ghost-types entirely, so Night Slash patches that hole. The +1 crit bonus is a side benefit.
Gallade (9%) carries it to hit opposing Psychic-types — using a Psychic move into another Psychic is pointless, so Night Slash fills the gap.
How to use it
Two modes of use. Pure STAB on Dark-types: build around the crit stack with Scope Lens or Razor Claw plus a crit-rate ability, then click Night Slash until the opponent stops moving. Coverage patch on non-Dark attackers: you're just buying the ability to hit Ghost and Psychic without dedicating a full item slot to a coverage-boosting hold item.
In doubles, single-target means you pick your hit carefully. If you can't KO this turn, you've spent an action on 70 base power with no secondary effect — that's a tempo loss. Either confirm the KO math, or have a partner chipping first.
Tips & strategy
Crit stacking has a hard cap at +3 (50%). Night Slash contributes +1 per use — but that's per use, not cumulative across turns for this move. The crit stage resets when the user switches out. Keep it on the field long enough to matter.
Crits ignore stat-stage changes on both sides but respect type matchups completely. Dark into a Fairy is still 0.5×, crit or not. Don't let the crit rate trick you into clicking into unfavorable matchups.
Absol wants speed control support to function in doubles. Its base 75 Speed is fine, not great. A Trick Room setter or Tailwind user lets Absol operate at full capacity rather than racing against faster threats.