6th Gen Pokemon of the Week

[the bread dragon]

great ZardY counter with getting to get rid of its solarbeam spam

great article as always !

[Richard and Blaziken]

Suprised by the lack of Assault Vest Tyranitar. With the sand boosting his special defence as well, Assault Vest makes him ridiculously tanky on the special side. Fill out your EVs in HP as well, and Tyranitar even takes physical moves OK. But it's probably one of the more prominent move sets to have developed in the last generation at least.

But... I did write a set for AV TTar. It's set 3! D:

[Hahex and Oshawott]

But... I did write a set for AV TTar. It's set 3! D:

well, i guess you can tell how closely i read that article o.o
is max spdef really that important though?

[Richard and Blaziken]

Maxing Sp.Def isn't necessary, no, but for the purpose of the set, which is mainly to take as little damage from Latios as possible on the switch and kill it, I've decided this is the best spread for me to recommend. Even without investment, though, Latios isn't going to do /too/ much, only really fearing Specs HP Fighting.

If you're going to swap the EVs at all, you might as well drop some HP for Attack, 4 HP and 252 Sp. Defense grants you more Sp. Defense with Assault Vest than 252 HP / 4 Sp. Defense grants, though you'll lose out on overall physical bulk as a result. The EV spread I've given is just the most easy to play, punishing special attackers by freely coming into most of them and wearing them down with Pursuit or punishing the switch with Crunch/Stone Edge.

[Richard and Blaziken]

This week, during an ongoing suspect test of Gengarite, I thought it would be important to discuss Gengar!

How do you feel about Gengar this generation? What about Mega Gengar? Should it be banned from Ubers? Does it make Uber uncompetitive, or should Uber be a sanctuary for every Pokemon? Can a Pokemon form ban be justified by comparing it to something like a Moody ability ban in Uber, or is it a different thing entirely? I really want to hear your opinions on this one, so let me know!

[Del]

i'm not a big competitive Pokémon fan (way too much RNG for me to enjoy it honestly) but the ongoing Mega Gengar thing is really intriguing to me.

i've always known Ubers as the banlist, essentially, and to hear of something being targeted for a ban from the banlist is pretty funny. i completely understand why though, based on what little i know about it. i'm curious as to why they're just outright banning the pokémon itself though, couldn't they do one of those complex bans they did for stuff like Baton Pass and just make it so Pokémon holding Gengarite can't then have Perish Song or something? I think that would be more preferable to banning the Pokémon itself outright, no? Or is it so uncompetitive that even removing a particular moveset would still ruin the Ubers metagame?

Great article as always though Rich, I read them from time to time despite not being too into the scene and I always enjoy them. Gengar has always been a staple of any competitive teams I've made purely because he's hella cool and can learn so many cool offensive moves. Plus, that Sub/Disable/S. Ball/Focus Blast Gengar in the team you helped me do is pretty sick, always does work.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Good questions, Del! That's actually the main argument from both sides, more or less. Smogon tries to avoid complex bans unless there's no way around it (like Baton Pass), and crippling a Pokemon enough to make it usable isn't something they ever do. It's kind of comparable to saying that Kyogre without Water Spout isn't broken in OU (for the sake of argument anyway, not saying it is or isn't); they never take things from one Pokemon just to nerf it enough to be usable, and I can't see them doing that now, even for the Uber tier. It'll likely either be banned entirely, or not banned entirely, and either way it has serious consequences for the Uber tier, and for a future precedent to be set.

But hey, thanks bud, always nice to get comments like that! I encourage everyone else that's interested to join in on the discussion and throw in their two cents. This is one where I don't think the answer is clearly defined, so I'm very curious to see what people think about Gengarite's Suspect Test.

[Lord Raven]

The way it works, Del, is that a tier and all of the tiers above it are a banlist for the tier directly below it.  OU is known as the standard metagame so Uber is portrayed as a banlist, but seeing what Mega Gengar is capable of is pretty crazy.  Does any other Pokemon have Perish Song AND Shadow Tag?  The only Shadow Tag/Destiny Bond I can even think of is Wobbuffet.

Though banning something from Uber is quite frankly the most odd thing I've heard.

[Kerou 犠牲]

As someone who hasn't played Gen 6 ingame or Uber at this level I find this discussion always intriguing. I mean, I haven't actually seen first hand the damage that Mega Gengar can do but from what I've heard if you're a good player you can guarantee 2+ kills with it which to me seems extremely broken so I completely understand why. However, because of not seeing it I can't really go in depth as to why, sorry =[

oh and banning in Uber should happen if something (not just Gengar if something else arises) that can be too dominant in the same way as OU. I don't think there should be anything to stop them from banning any Pokémon because the scene needs to remain competitive and to have something unparalleled and overly dominant is too uncompetitive and even drains the fun out of it

sorry if this is drivel but bleh

[Dragonpika]

Wow, that Destiny Bond Mega Gengar set is horrifying. I'm thankful that it doesn't have the same sort of power in Doubles due to its frailty - Gothitelle is a more common Shadow Tag user - but Perish Trap remains such an unnerving strategy to notice in team preview, just in case the opponent can outpredict you.

It is very interesting that they're even considering banning Gengarite from Ubers but I can see it - I have to wonder, though, if it's that insanely broken, why has it taken this long to address it? Has that set only been discovered recently?

Either way, great article as always, Rich! ^_^ I liked the discussion of family favourite mons at the end haha.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Haha, I can't image Gengar would be too great in doubles with that set, but I did see a few Mega Gengar at worlds! Doubles is a scary place where Gengar can't match up to Pachirisu, apparently.

Yeah, most people were too busy using Mega Mewtwo Y and Mega Kangaskhan to notice how broken Mega Gengar was, and while those are still used quite a lot, neither of them are comparable to Mega Gengar in terms of utility. Being able to ensure you remove things is a pretty special talent!

And thanks guys, the best thing that can come from me writing these articles is discussion. The nice comments are much appreciated too!

[Dragonpika]

Yeah, it does seem to have switched back to the Mega being the more common form again now - standard Gengar saw a huge popularity boost after German Nationals, but the Mega has risen again now.

Is Mega Kang on a level with Mewtwo Y?! Geeeez.. I know they were hyping Kanga as competitive when they revealed it at Worlds 2013, but I wonder if they knew quite what they'd created. Makes me wonder, given that Masuda revealed Mega Slowbro at Worlds 2014 and claimed that he thought we'd see a lot of it in the new metagame =P

[Richard and Blaziken]

Yeah, Mega Kang was one of the first things banned in Smogon OU, and it even holds up well in Ubers, thanks to Double Fake Out and Sucker Punch. In fact, in a 1v1 match between these two, Mega Kang is more likely to come out on top using those two moves! xD

Mega Slowbro is so interesting to me. It'll miss Regenerator, but any Pokemon that removes Critical Hits as a possibility is okay in my book!

[SirBlaziken]

Rich, is that because of the many people that hax you to death?

[Richard and Blaziken]

I wouldn't know anything about that.

In any case! It's a good thing I got PotW done early this week, Smash demo is addicting. This week, we discuss Heracross!

What do you think about Heracross, and Mega Heracross? Is having Deoxys-A level Attack enough to bypass the lower Speed and Brave Bird spam, or is Heracross all hype with no delivery? Do you have trouble against Mega Heracross? Let me know!