Gen 5 BW OU Viability Ranking Thread - RoA edition

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HeIIraiser

tough like igglybuff
Latias: A -> A-
Latias is a terrible pokémon, no way it is better than Alakazam in the tier.
It fails to counter Keldeo and Breloom, is hard walled by jirachi, ferro in rain and heatran in sun. It is pursuited by tyranitar and cb scizor and at least one of jirachi/ferro/ttar is in 90% of the teams. The CM set also sucks, losing 1x1 against reuniclus (who actually survive and walls stuff and can actually sweep). Latias is a setup bait to both offensive and stall pokémon.
 

Tokyo Tom

Somewhere between psychotic and iconic
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Jorgen and Jirachee kinda said it all regarding Donphan, just want to mention it also is a great check to Ttar which is of course one of the biggest threats to Sun teams. It's a great supporter to Sun Offense and Balance, and its ability to check Dragons like Salamence and Dragonite (a lot of Weatherless teams use them to check Sun sweepers) can help Pokemon like Venusaur or Volcarona break through. An example of Donphan being used well for Alfalfa would be this sun offense team (I THINK it was made by BKC but so many people have used their own edits of the team to græt success like Sogeking for example)


Anyway that's my spin on it...

Also just wanted to point out a set (that I believe was made by user Toxzn) to showcase it's versatility - this set can outspeed and 2HKO stuff like Jellicent, Def/SpDef Rotom-W (Jellicent and Def Rotom-W need Rocks for the 2HKO) and also can OHKO Gengar on the switch. Also, Ice Shard is boosted to more useable levels. Looks gimmicky, but it makes for a surprisingly strong offensive spinner on Sun Offense.
Donphan (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 32 HP / 224 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Rapid Spin
- Head Smash

So yeah, pretty much Donphan deserves to be somewhere in the Bs imo, I think its niche is a little bigger than the 'Mons in B-, so maybe B?
Donphan C → B

Also I think Sharpedo should move down to B-
 
wait, should Riolu be ranked, it's a gimmick for sure, but forcing your volcarona to shred itself on SR can be really valuable, and since you cant switch into it without being thrown again, your pokemon can easily end up being hurt before it rolls over to your priority user.

Consider this more of a question than a nomination, since Im pretty terrible at BW (or at least just inexperienced).
 
I'd like to nominate quagsire to move up to B. Unaware and a good move pool, including recover, toxic and scald let it fill a niche for stall, walling most physical set up sweepers and having good synergy with things like Skarm, making a very hard to break physically defensive core for a stall team. It has it's problems, given it's natural bulk isn't outstanding, and it's almost useless outside of stall, but I think it's stall niche is enough for a solid b rank
 

HeIIraiser

tough like igglybuff
S rank should be for "pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame with little support", which is not the case for volcarona. Sure volcarona is threatening (i won many wc battles and superstars games with it), but it needs pretty the much the whole team giving it support (a spinner, an answer to keldeo and water moves spam, an answer to terrakion and garchomp, a revenge killer, something to put rocks in the field, usually something to lure heatran if ur not carrying hp ground, usually ways to beat common sands or rain teams, etc).

Its not as easy as it seems to build a consistent team in BW with Volcarona in it. Ive only seen three good Volcarona teams for the current BW metagame:
1. My Sun Team (Ninetales, Volcarona, Heatran, Donphan, Dugtrio, Venusaur)
2. Smurfs HO Team (Breloom, Chomper, Volcarona, Starmie, Scizor, Starmie)
3. Aqualouis rain team (Politoed, Azumarill, Volcarona, Ferrothorn, Latios, Starmie)


This "you cant know for sure the moveset so its broken" talk is bullshit, since the same applies for threats like Jirachi, Chomper, Keldeo, Dragonite (I assure you that for any BW team there is a Dragonite moveset that 6-0 it if you dont have a Mamoswine), etc. Having metagame knowledge helps a lot when trying to guess what set Volca is running.

That said, I believe Volcarona is just fine in A+.
 
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Finchinator

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Mew for A rank (from A-).

"Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time." is the definition of A rank and I believe Mew fits into the middle of the pack among this rank quite well.

Mew can wall entire teams if they lack a special attacker that can break through it (like Specs Politoed, Volcarona, or Hydreigon), a (faster) physical attacker that can hit it super effectively or deal with it somehow while not getting crippled, or a fire type with survivability (and even then, things like Heatran are only a temporary solution to a permanent problem, in Mew).

Taunt / Will-O-Wisp / Softboiled / Ice Beam or Psychic is the norm with some speed investment, max HP investment, and the rest dumped into either defense stat depending on the team and purpose of the Mew. It can efficiently "stallbreak" with Taunt+Softboiled in conjunction with 100 base speed and the ability to weaken things with burns, weak special attacks, and hazard support (the latter not even being entirely necessary) while not all offensive teams are capable of shutting down Mew, either. With this being said, common variants of Sun don't care much about Mew and some of the hydro / hurricane spam variants of rain are able to get what they need in on Mew and proceed to 2hko it, but Sand offense can struggle to break it if they lack certain threats (Hydreigon, Heatran, Gengar, etc.) and the same applies for balanced, bulky-offensive, and other teams throughout the tier.

Mew fits onto a lot of bulky-offensive (Sand) teams (i.e: Mew / Tyranitar / Lando-T / Heatran / Breloom / Starmie team that's seen a ton of usage over the last year or so and another team I've encountered a couple times (I think Bloo beat me w/ this in reg season tour finals at some point) is Mew / Chomp / Latias / Skarm / Rotom-W / Tyranitar) which is a genuinely safe and common playstyle, so I'd say that it's a significant pokemon and based on what I stated above, it walls a significant portion of the metagame while having some flaws, making it worthy of being A rank alongside pokemon like Jellicent and Heatran, instead of A- rank alongside pokemon with more gaping flaws like Stoutland.

PS: Mew has a lot of other potential sets, too, but none are as noteworthy or common (some are obsoleted by other pokemon in OU) as far as I am concerned, so I'll leave it at this.
 

Tokyo Tom

Somewhere between psychotic and iconic
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Nominating
for A rank (probably A-) from B+

With the meta shifting to favour Sand Balance builds which carry fat Psychic 'Mons like Mew, Reuniclus, and Bulky Starmie, Hydreigon becomes a big threat in the meta. Although it may not have the speed that Gengar or the Latis have, Hydreigon has better coverage and can also afford to run a SpAtk boosting nature. Fire coverage on a specially offensive Dragon type is amazing, combined with its access to Superpower, which allows it to break special walls like SpDef Heatran, Blobs, and Tyranitar. Also, its seemingly sub-par speed tier (for an offensive 'Mon, that is) is still enough to put it above other dragons like Kyurem and Kyurem-B, and its suprisingly decent bulk combined with its typing and ability allow it to switch into and immediately threaten a wide variety of things in the meta (FatMie, some Ttar, Ninetales, Heatran, Washtom, Jellicent, etc.). Kind of off-topic (wasn't sure where to put it), but also like most Dragon types, it's able to soft-check Chlorophyll sweepers with its Sun-boosted Fire coverage, but has the added bonus of being able to cleanly OHKO offensive Heatran with Focus Blast.

Hydreigon can be run on many different builds, from Rain Offense to Sand Balance to Sun to Weatherless. It can serve as a cohesive 'Mon to check various things (for example, checking Mew on weatherless is very key), or it can serve as a breaker (like helping to overload Ferrothorn on Rain).

As for tournament play, in this Smogon Tour for example, Hydreigon wasn't used /that/ much (it was in the top 50 in the usage rankings) but had a fairly high win rate (58%) when it was used. At the same time, Hydreigon's usage on ladder has increased a significant amount, and I'm finding even pretty solid BW builds are struggling with it.

3 examples of popular builds that have lots of trouble handling 3 Attacks Roost Hydreigon:

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I believe this is BKC's SandStall, a very popular and effective team that struggles with Hydreigon
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(fat) The build Finchinator mentioned above
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While it has Focus Blast Gar and Superpower ScarfTar to revenge Hydreigon, nothing switches in safely

It's also worth mentioning the Taunt + Roost set, which does a great job shutting down stall, and Choice sets, where Hydreigon not only has a niche over the Latis in its coverage and Pursuit resistance but also its access to the momentum-grabbing U-Turn. Of course these sets aren't nearly as prominent (although I believe Taunt + Roost is starting to rise in usage), but I guess they add to Hydreigon's versatility.

Overall, I think Hydreigon is a very solid anti-meta 'Mon in the current meta because of its typing, bulk, coverage, and versatility, and fits the description for A rank.
 

Tokyo Tom

Somewhere between psychotic and iconic
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Double posting - this is kind of a "re-affirmation" of
, as I know there have been posts to remove it completely from the viability rankings. I believe it should at least remain C-rank:

Jolteon's always been kind of a forgotten 'Mon in OU; it's always had very low usage in OU but (iirc) never low enough usage to drop to UU. In this meta, which has also seen the rise in usage of several threats in a similar boat (Hydreigon, Mew, Kyurem, and more) I believe it has carved a slightly bigger niche for itself as a very solid supporter for Rain Offense or Balance (which may initially seem very specific, but I mean, if we have stuff like Gatr, Moltres or Sawsbuck in B- which typically only fit into offense of their respective weathers then I think Jolteon definitely deserves to be there as well - not knocking any of those three 'Mons tho, I know their niches are bigger than Jolteon's).

Before I get into it, I just want to establish Jolteon's main set that (imo) is the most useful in the meta:
Jolteon @ Life Orb
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe Timid
Thunder | Signal Beam | Volt Switch | (Hidden Power [Ice] / Hidden Power [Grass]) - HP Grass deserved a mention because it attains a clean OHKO on 252/4 Gastrodon I believe 88% of the time, and since Gastrodon has risen in usage I think that's significant enough

Jolteon has other niche sets in Specs and Baton Pass which somewhat improve its versatility, but honestly the LO set is probably the one you're gonna be using the most.

Obviously, Jolteon's main selling point is its blazing speed tier. At base 130 Speed, Jolteon is faster than Scarf Toed, Alakazam, Scarf Ttar, and Dugtrio. This speed is helped by the fact that some notable extremely Fast/Priority-wielding offensive 'Mons have dropped in usage, ex. Scarf Keldeo, TechniLoom, ScarfMence (I mean this one only fit on specific builds anyway), ScarfRachi (debatable), BandZor, Stoutland's application being /somewhat/ decreased due to the somewhat fatter turn the meta has taken, etc. On a similar note, bulky sets of boosters like Dragonite and Gyarados have become more prevalent, and Jolteon outspeeds both of them at +1 assuming a neutral speed nature. The ability to outspeed Dugtrio is really nice, since the opponent can't mindlessly switch it in, and usually would have to sack something to get it in safely. Finally, Jolteon outspeeds ScarfTar and can 2HKO it with Thunder after Rocks, or 2HKO with Signal Beam after Rocks + 1 Spikes (or two Rocks switchin), which separates it from the common Rain attacker in that it can't be responded to reliably by ScarfTar.

BW2 is all about weather wars, and although this doesn't apply as much to Sand, typically match ups where both teams revolve around the same weather can be difficult as well, since your opponent's team is also built around the weather that will be up for the entire match (that was fluff, mb lol). However Jolteon is a great anti-rain 'Mon for rain teams. The ability to outspeed many common rain threats (offensive: Scarf Toed, Keldeo, Starmie, Gyarados, Tornadus, defensive: Jellicent, Tentacruel, Celebi, etc.) and threaten them all while maintaining momentum (well, not Celebi) is huge. Volt Absorb is also pretty key on Rain. Of course, Jolteon isn't going to be tanking hits, but having Volt Absorb in the back will make your opponent less inclined to mindlessly click Thunder on his Thundurus-T, for example. Additionally, Jolteon can act as a pivot to disrupt Volt-Turn cores.

Finally, a lot of answers to Jolteon are either rare (ex. blobs), are overloaded /relatively/ easily by rain offence/balance partners (ex. Ferrothorn, Bulky Ttar), or are set-up fodder for common rain partners (Gastrodon, Hippowdon)

Here are some examples of tried and true teams that can be beaten by the LO Jolteon set. Since Jolteon is no Hydreigon, it requires a bit more team support to wear down its checks/counters (ex. getting status on Gastrodon), but it still performs very well anyway.

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- Team Finchinator used vs. McMeghan in ST

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- A somewhat common take on the Gastro | Ttar | Skarm | Gar sand core

This next part is probably borderline fluff/common sense
You don't necessarily have to go out of your way to support Jolteon. Jolteon is easily supported by most rain staples, some premier ones being Ferrothorn (it takes lots of punishment from both sides, is a solid switchin to Jolteon stops like Hippo or Gastrodon, and a momentum-based 'Mon with a somewhat average (at times) damage output like Jolteon really appreciates Spikes stack) and Offensive Starmie (since it can help Jolteon overload Ferrothorn and Ttar as mentioned above, and of course hazard control is nice for a Volt Switch-based 'Mon). But honestly any bulky water in Rain can also support Jolteon simply through Scald's burn rate, since a large amount of teams rely on Ferrothorn as the bulky water switch-in, which is chipped easily by burn. In return, Jolteon can help said bulky waters by removing immunities (Jellicent) and the most common Nat Cure 'Mon in Celebi.

TL;DR - If you like Rain, try Jolteon! It's obviously not the best 'Mon ever but definitely should not be overlooked, just like Gatr or Moltres. It has a niche in being a fast, non-choice-locked Electric that can function well on rain, work to beat opposing rain, and help overload common rain checks. It also typically requires less dedicated support than most weather threats in B rank. I think it fits the description of a C-ranked 'Mon quite well and should not be moved down or removed.
 
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What do you all think of gyarados to A+? It has it's flaws, which we all are aware of so I don't think I need to go into them, but its positives outweigh them enough for A+ I think. Gyara is a solid Volcarona check for offense, which is nice because of how common cold is right now, and it also doubles as arguably the least prepared for win condition in the meta. As more and more offense teams focus on Lando-t as a catch all check to physical sweepers gyara has a lot of room to manouver, and it finds set up opportunities all over standard sand balance. Gyarados also matches up fairly well against sand stall, and with proper support should sweep. Obviously it slaughters sun as long as the weather war is won, and although rain can be a pain, it still pulls its weight, putting pressure on in spades with boosted waterfalls and forcing in ferrothorn and electrics. Again it does have flaws, and had matchups where it can't do very much, but I think it's ability to consistently give sand problems is worth A+.
 

FNH

F is for Finchi, N is for Nator, H is for Hater
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I would like to see haxorus moved up to at least to the B+ group. The Lum berry Dragon Dance set pack one heck of punch, 2 hit ko'ing everything in the meta, save ferrothorn and skarmory. not mention he has access to swords dance, making his extremely high attack stat ridiculous. He carries a small amount of counters, being only ferrothorn, forrtress, skarmory, and maybe jirachi, who fears earthquake, but after a Dragon dance he has the ability to outrun any unboosted or unscarfed mon in the tier. And levitate has no use against him. Yet his main down fall is his mediocre speed combined with the lack of coverage on steel types, which make him unable to enter the A group. So Haxorus should probably enter the B+ group, due his access to dragon dance and his ridiculous attack stat.
 
I would like to see haxorus moved up to at least to the B+ group. The Lum berry Dragon Dance set pack one heck of punch, 2 hit ko'ing everything in the meta, save ferrothorn and skarmory. not mention he has access to swords dance, making his extremely high attack stat ridiculous. He carries a small amount of counters, being only ferrothorn, forrtress, skarmory, and maybe jirachi, who fears earthquake, but after a Dragon dance he has the ability to outrun any unboosted or unscarfed mon in the tier. And levitate has no use against him. Yet his main down fall is his mediocre speed combined with the lack of coverage on steel types, which make him unable to enter the A group. So Haxorus should probably enter the B+ group, due his access to dragon dance and his ridiculous attack stat.
You are forgetting that Haxorus is really frail, and has difficulties setting up. I have little experience with Haxorus, but you make no mention of this in your nomination.
 

FNH

F is for Finchi, N is for Nator, H is for Hater
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true he is frail and has two solid walls that are in higher usage, but he can sweep a significant portion of the meta after one dragon dance, and he also doenst carry the 4x weakness to ice like other dragons do. not to mention his base 147 attack, and access to two of the best boosting moves: swords dance and dragon dance.
 
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true he is frail and has two solid walls that are in higher usage, but he can sweep a significant portion of the meta after one dragon dance, and he also doenst carry the 4x weakness to ice like other dragons do. not to mention his base 147 attack, and access to two of the best boosting moves: swords dance and dragon dance.
Haxorus is terrible. You're ignoring its weaknesses, and only talking about its few strengths. Haxorus looks good on paper I guess, but there's a reason it doesn't see usage except on niche drag mag teams that don't want a kyube. It's entirely outclassed by other dragons, who either have speed (mence for dragon dance- who isn't that good either, and Garchomp for swords dance) or bulk (dragonite). It isn't even the premier dragon nuke anymore due to kyurem-b. That base 97 speed is awful, meaning it's outsped by a lot of scarfers after a dragon dance, and although it doesn't have an awful ice weakness it doesn't matter given it's not taking hits anyway. Every single build has an answer for haxorus; it doesn't break through stall as well as kyurem (or usually garchomp) or offense the way garchomp and dragonite do. Haxorus may not be bad, but it is entirely outclassed and shouldn't mode up.
 
That reminds me (somehow); Nominating Garbodor for D-Rank.

Despite all the terrible jokes about it's design, Garbodor isnt that bad of a spiker in OU. It's bulk, typing, and speed are fairly solid, and unlike other leads like froslass and smeargle, garbodor has a decent mid-game, and can support it's team with a decently powered explosion, and haze if things go wrong, and you need to stop a set-up sweeper. It can also run rock-blast with att investment to prevent frail pokes subbing on it. In general it's a pain for certain builds, like the omnipresent Sand-balance, and deserves to be ranked IMO.
 
i'd like to second the above nomination, probably couldn't have said it better myself. or, rather, i could have only said it with the exact same level of precision, without any degree of adjustment o_o
 
I think Garbodor is just too bad and outclassed to be even D rank. I mean, it's outclassed at whatever he does, if you run Toxic Spikes you better run Tentacruel that is much better than it (it's faster, has better bulk, a reliable recovery in rain thanks to Rain Dish and Rapid Spin), and if you want to run Spikes, Skarmory and Ferrothorn are much better than it too. Tbh it seems too outclassed and has literally 0 niches to be even D rank, also if you could post some replays where Garbodor does something useful would be interesting, otherwise I don't believe it deserves D rank.
 

Tokyo Tom

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I wrote a Garbo analysis a while back so I felt like I should help defend Stef0w's post here. Basically Garbodor has a niche as a lead spikes stacker, so unless you innovated Sash Tentacruel or someth then Tentacruel doesn't "outclass it" because they have different roles. Garbo's access to both Spikes and Toxic Spikes isn't shared with too many OU viable Pokemon, and there are reasons to use it over each of those. For example, the utility boom to pseudo-spin block (as opposed to, say, Roserade or Scolipede), or the access to Weak Armour which allows it to grab more layers vs common leads like Garchomp or boom vs stuff like Starmie (as opposed to Qwilfish or like, Forretress). Also, the better-than-expected bulk of Garbo as a hazard lead means players can't dispatch of it like normal hazard leads, for example, Scizor, or Volt Switching into a Scarf Mon, etc. This bulk also allows Garbodor to stick around longer vs Balance builds, where it can absorb TSpikes mid game if necessary or grab more layers against passive things like Amoonguss or Ferrothorn. Significant calcs include Hippo not being able to KO with EQ + Sand damage, and standard Tales only managing a 3HKO with Flamethrower.

On the topic of TSpikes, they are very relevant in the current meta, where fat sand balance builds are prevalent. Typically the only TSpikes absorbers on Sand Balance are Amoonguss, which Garbo actually grabs more layers on as mentioned above. Vs Offensive builds even 1 layer of TSpikes is great, putting a timer on them (for example, stuff like KeldTar and Rain HO is raped by TSpikes). Additionally, since a hazard lead such as Garbodor would be used on said HO builds, it's ability to absorb TSpikes if necessary is a great boon.

All in all, I guess the main thing you could compare Garbo to that you mentioned would be Custap Skarm, and this would be an example of "this is why Garbo is only D-rank". However Garbo's bulk and access to TSpikes (it's much easier to fit a dedicated Rocker, like Garchomp, with Garbo), combined with its utility boom (skarm needs to rely on being brought to its Sturdy for BB to pseudo-spin block) and weak armour definitely give it a defined niche over other offensively-oriented hazard setters in OU.

As I kinda just quickly wrote down whatever came to my mind first (so 49 wouldn't snipe me, heh), I could definitely go a little more in-depth into the matter, but I mean Garbo is only being nominated for D-rank, so yeah...

Bonus replay!

Doesn't really show Garbo putting in too much work but I didn't bother saving all my Garbo replays, y'know, sigh. Kyurem was feeling in the cut at that moment in time
 
Tbh as you said that replay doesn't really show Garbodor's positive trait (it instead shows that almost any another hazard setter would have been better than it in that situation), so yeh what you said it's true but don't think Garbodor has enough niches to deserve even D rank, but as it doesn't matter much (almost any D rank mon is irrelevant anyway), just put it in D rank if you feel like it deserves it

Also, I would like to be switched Latias and Alakazam's rankings: Latias to A- and Alakazam. Guess already sogeking explained why Latias isn't worth A rank (she is setup bait for both common offensive and defensive mon, Reuniclus is better than her as a bulky setup sweeper and Latios is generally better in most cases anyway), Alakazam, is, otherwise very underrated in BW imo and it needs to rise to A rank, it's an extremely good revenge-kill to a ton of threats, can beat stallish mons too with Encore and is able to pressure the opponent a lot if SR + Spikes are up (Scizor and Jirachi, two of the most common Alakazam checks rly don't like Spikes).
 
Initially, I was afraid of Latias dropping due to what it could check, but now that I think about it, it really is not unprecedented. Latias was a bit hyped as being able to provide a general check to a number of Pokemon in the metagame, but in reality, it fails to consistently beat some of the most critical Pokemon, such as Breloom, who can beat it with Spore / LO Low Sweep + Bullet Seed, Keldeo, whose team usually puts an immense amount of pressure on Latias with ScarfTar or rain wearing Latias down with Keldeo's Water STABs.... Latias is also lacking the amount of power and lethality that Latios has, who puts more pressure on the opponent's team, and is usually a lot more threatening to most of its checks, except for Jirachi and Tyranitar (if Specially Defensive Tyranitar still exists). There is no way that Latias is on par with Venusaur, which, although dependent on sun support, threatens almost all teams and mandates Heatran on sand and balanced builds that do not want to get swept by it 6-0 (Volc does that too, but that is beside the point. Also, Chansey and Blissey are overhyped), or Hippowdon, which is a good sand setter + physical wall that beats some important threats. In my opinion, Latias should drop to A- rank.
 
cool, dropped Latias to A- and added Garbodor to D.

sketchy on moving Alakazam up to A, any other thoughts on it?

also thoughts on moving reuniclus up to A? otr and bulky cm are both amazing sets, A- undersells it imo
 
I think alakazam should be A+ because it is unbelievably easy to get hazards down, keep them up, and smash everything in sight with it since it's so fast (beating scarftar is valuable beyond words) and powerful. The only safe counters are specially defensive jirachi and scizor, who are both huge spikes bait, everything else takes a huge hit (and defensive things, who are ravaged by spikes, can also be messed up by encore [or taunt?]). Thanks to magic guard sash it can come in and out as it pleases, anyone who uses life orb is doing it wrong since 99% of the time the power difference will not make a difference and being able to live any one hit is part of what makes zam so dangerous
 
Seconding, Alakazam is one of the best things in the current meta. Abuses Sand balance and can handle opposing sand balance on the same slot while revenging Venusaur (and even volcarona with psych up) to help against sun, and even doing a number to rain. It doesn't really have bad matchups save stall, which is entirely manageable with good teamates.
 
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