How to unlock Marshadow
There is no direct purchase for Marshadow. It appears on the Alola banner inside the 5★ pool. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Marshadow works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Marshadow specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Marshadow refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Marshadow stats and rank
The sheet lists Marshadow at 110 HP, 130 speed, ×1.39 attack, ×1.39 physical and ×1.2 special, with 80 defense and 90 special defense — 600 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 87.1 out of 100, which puts Marshadow at rank 27 of 966 and in tier S. Relative standing explains more than the total here: its strongest slot is speed (97th percentile) and its weakest is defense (64th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Marshadow's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Karate Chop at 46.2 damage per 0.38s (171.2 effective DPS, ×1.39 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (147.5 effective DPS, ×1.39 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (124.5 effective DPS, ×1.39 multiplier). 10 of its 17 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 7 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its physical multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.39 against ×1.2), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 23.8 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Marshadow
Its starting move, Karate Chop, evolves into Close Combat once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. If Power never appears in that run's level-up offers, the move stays at level 5 and unevolved. 17 of its 21 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Magnet). The strongest of them is Karate Chop at 171.2 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Marshadow compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Terrakion (+1 HP, -7 speed, +0.02 attack, -20 total) and Dragapult (+0 HP, +8 speed, -0.03 attack, +0 total). Against Terrakion, Marshadow is 7 speed faster and Terrakion hits harder by ×0.02, and the rank gap is 7 places. Those differences are what you actually trade when swapping partners, not a straight upgrade path, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.