Pokemon X and Y: Competitive Gen VI Discussion

[Wave⁂]

Teryjew was pretty good at writing OPs so I'll just steal from him

This thread is for the discussion, evaluation, and theorycrafting of the competitive aspects of Pokemon X and Y and only the competitive aspects of Pokemon X and Y. This covers anything from new Pokemon, their abilities, typing, and stats to new moves to Mega Evolutions and their new stats and abilities.

Smogon's XY Data Collection

Previously on Theorymon VI: Live Free or Die Theorymon

• Fairy-type is strong, but Fairies suck
• No one likes Dragons
• Goodra is our god
• Mewtwo Y, Mega Charizard X and Y, Mega Ampharos, and Mega Blastoise stats found
• Overreacting to Mewtwo Y's SpAtk stat
• Not having to learn Japanese names
• Togekiss immune to both of Garchomp's STABs, still bad
• Weather wars y/n

For a more general discussion about Pokemon X and Y, try this thread.

 

[mood4food77]

i think azumarill becomes OU, it becomes an awesome revenge killer against dragons

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

I've heard rumors that weathers, even abilities like Drizzle and Drought, are getting a limit put on them. I hope this isn't the case as I think it'd be better to take some of the power away than turn the entire playstyle into a gimmick (a really strong gimmick but still a gimmick nonetheless). I can't see Game Freak giving the players something so gamechanging and then a generation later saying "oh whoops we don't like that never mind". They've never really retconned a decision like that in their history, to my knowledge, but I do fear that is their solution rather than removing the excess power from Rain, Sand, and Sun.

I was just talking about **** with Ryker and Moth in the Dgames chat for about an hour about Gen 6 though, but I think most of the OU play is only really going to be determined by any Fairy retcons and whatever MEvos are left. If there are specialized evolutions hiding somewhere in the national dex, then those'll probably play a part but thus far, most of the Gen 6 pokemon honestly suck at a competitive level. Game Freak really cut back on the power creep and either shoved it all into Mega Evos, placed it in some part yet discovered, or simply just forgot it this gen because most of these Pokemon got like one really good stat and then not a lot else. I think the only 'mons this gen that really are going to matter are like Aegislash, Goodra, and Sylveon outside of the M Evos.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Anyone think Trick or Treat will be any good?

Makes the opponent ghost type. And since it's used by ghost types, the ghost type with be weak against the users STAB

Unlike Soak, etc. which all resit the STAB of the user

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Of these moves, Trick-or-treat looks like the best of them but I doubt it. Soak didn't catch on for a reason, even though it had some uses (Soak a steel type so you can toxic it)

 

[Firus]

Stickying this thread in place of the Gen V one, since I imagine this one will become predominant now.

 

[mood4food77]

trick-or-treat seems to make for a good phazing move, you change the opponent (who wasn't weak to ghost before) to a ghost type, now they're like "oh ****, gotta get out of there" and switch into something that isn't as good against gengar cause gengar is going to wreck **** this gen anyways

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Ehh I don't think Gengar's gonna have the space for Trick-or-Treat. It's not a bad idea but unless you catch something on the switch, you're gonna get a lot of punishment. Gengar's still made of paper.

 

[kikaru]

It'll be interesting to see how it works out, you're essentially giving them two immunities, two weaknesses, and two resistances at the cost of a turn, I feel like in competitive singles there would be better ways to force a switch on your opponent instead of Trick-Or-Treat (I suppose that also depends on who learns it as well) but in terms of multi battles it could serve an incredibly useful role for allies.

 

[mood4food77]

he could do it behind a sub, only super bulky SpD pokes would switch in, but do remember that he's ****ing scary as all hell behind a sub and actually makes disable a viable move, i don't see why he couldn't use trick-or-treat behind a sub

 

[Kazyx]

If I'm not mistaken, my understanding was that Trick-Or-Treat was supposed to add the Ghost type to their current typing, rather than act completely like Soak. If this were the case, then could it be hypothetically possible to give Pokemon such as Alakazam or Reuniclus a x4 weakness. Though, this also brings to question what about Pokemon who already have two types? Does it replace one of them, and if so, which one?

 

[Wave⁂]

There seems to be very little benefit to throwing away a moveslot for Trick-or-Treat when you could just use Shadow Ball twice and pretty much always do the same amount of damage.

When it comes to this gen's phazing, Topsy-Turvy is much better

 

[Kazyx]

There seems to be very little benefit to throwing away a moveslot for Trick-or-Treat when you could just use Shadow Ball twice and pretty much always do the same amount of damage.

When it comes to this gen's phazing, Topsy-Turvy is much better

Agreed. It makes more sense to just Shadow Ball twice than Trick-Or-Treat. I also couldn't agree more with Topsy-Turvy. That would mess up a lot of opponents, ranging from Pokemon such as any Speed Boost Pokemon, Contrary Pokemon such as Serperior, and Pokemon utilizing moves like Swords Dance and Quiver Dance, as well as Shell Smash.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

he could do it behind a sub, only super bulky SpD pokes would switch in, but do remember that he's ****ing scary as all hell behind a sub and actually makes disable a viable move, i don't see why he couldn't use trick-or-treat behind a sub

Yeh but why run that over Disable, Pain Split, Taunt, etc. Gengar's utility moves are much better than Trick-or-Treat.

 

[mood4food77]

probably true, his coverage is so much better now that steel doesn't resist ghost attacks anymore

 

[The Real Gamer]

It really is a shame that the new Fairies we have received so far all have sub-par stat lines.

Florges could have had definite OU potential if it didn't have such paper thin physical defense, and Sylveon is just too damn slow (being slower than Scizor aka one of the Fairy slayers isn't a good look at all) while also having sub-bar physical defense, which kind of defeats the purpose of having high sp def considering a lot of the stuff they're trying to counter (Dragons, Fighters, and Darks) usually are very strong physical attackers or have access to Psyshock. We really need an offensive Fairy with good mixed attacking potential along with good speed... Think Infernape but pure Fairy typing.

Aegislash is gonna wreck. 150 base attack + Swords Dance + STAB Shadow Sneak + Steel typing to allow for multiple setup opportunities = one hell of a late game cleaner. The fact that Steel no longer resists Ghost makes Aegislash that much more threatening.

Goodra isn't gonna wreck... It's gonna OBLITERATE. Amazing special defense + great special attack + Hydration + Dragon typing = THE bane of bulky waters. Goodra literally hard counters every single bulky water in the OU tier (as long as you have rain support) which is a feat every other Dragon in existence could only dream of performing. Pretty much every major rain counter/inducer (Politoed, Jellicent, Rotom-W, Gastrodon, Tentacruel, bulky Starmie, Vaporeon, and Celebi), aka dominant Pokemon that are seen on pretty much every non Hyper Offense team, turns into nothing but set up bait for Goodra... There's literally nothing any of the above can do to Goodra in the rain. This is huge and makes Goodra THE very best partner Keldeo could ever ask for. And I haven't even included the plethora of other special attackers Goodra will be able to reliably check such as Jolteon, Ninetales, Venusaur, Heatran, Alakazam, Gengar, and Espeon. Politoed/Goodra/Keldeo would become a borderline broken offensive core.

BUT this is all only assuming that weather mechanics remain the same as they did in Gen 5... If they remain the same Goodra is gonna turn the metagame on its head. I could even see Goodra getting banned to Ubers depending on what kind of boosting moves it receives. It's looking that good right now.

 

[EpixAura]

I haven't really looked into much of Gen VI since I don't want to spoil too much of it, but there's 2 things I've noticed:

First is that Fairy typing is a pretty neat idea, but I feel like some of their typing matchups were just included because they felt the need to include something. Things like immunity to Dragon are justified, given how ridiculous dragons are, and having a relation to Dark typing is sort of obligatory for fairies, but things like fire and bug don't make an awful lot of aesthetic or competitive sense.
It's a great counter to Dragons (at least, the typing is. I don't know about the Pokemon themselves), which I think was fairly overdue given how far you can go with just DragMag or Dragon spam. Hopefully, Fairy's will get popular to enough that Poison types can actually be useable for the first time in recorded history, although that's pretty unlikely. Since they're resisted by fire, I'd like to say we could see some defensive Fire types, but I don't actually know what kinds of Pokemon are in Gen VI, and I'm pretty sure all it REALLY means is specially defensive Heatran is here to stay. On the other hand, their resistance to Bug and being so strong against Dark types seems kind of a bad idea to me. These types already have very little representation in competitive play in OU tier, consisting almost entirely of Scizor and Ttar, and being weak to Steel means that if anything, they'll just make Scizor more popular. I guess Volcorona can set up on them, but given how much support Volc needs, it probably won't be getting too much of a popularity boost. I'm kind of on the fence regarding their advantage to Fighting, as it also has some representation problems, although Terrakion and Kedeo do their fair share of dominating.

The second thing I noticed is that Mega Charizard is really freaking cool. Let's be honest, when we played first gen, 90% of us chose Charmander and have been disappointed for years because of how Stealth Rock has completely destroyed Charizard's viability. But now that he's shaking off that Flying typing for Dragon typing (I hope to God I have my facts straight on this, otherwise I might cry), he can almost kick some ass. He still won't be that useful, I think, but both Mega forms look cool as hell, and that's what counts.

 

[Circa]

Depending on how it's worded, the only real use for Trick-or-Treat would be in some sort of 2v2 or 3v3 situation where the recipient (on your team) would greatly benefit from suddenly adding Ghost to its list of types. Mega Lucario is about the most decent example I think of off the top of my head.

...if it's a Ghost-type Soak though, then it'll have other (albeit gimmicky) uses. Being able to Pursuit-trap Tyranitar would certainly be fun.

 

[Wave⁂]

I think it's already been confirmed that Trick-or-Treat adds, not replaces, typing.

Also you can't Pursuit trap Tyranitar because you died when he used Crunch

 

[The Real Gamer]

This thread needs less Trick or Treat discussion, and more GODra.

I'll throw this out there again since nobody seemed to give af: Politoed/Keldeo/Goodra = most broken offensive core in OU.

 

[Wave⁂]

That core sounds alright, but I feel like it'll be overshadowed by a ton of powerful Mega Evolutions ******* around in OU, and the possibility of stuff like Water Shuriken Cloyster happening.

 

[The Real Gamer]

it'll be overshadowed by a ton of powerful Mega Evolutions

This quote pretty much sums up Gen 6... All about the Megas... **** me

 

[Circa]

And I guess that is a good place to ask my next question.

Now that someone has basically confirmed the changes to weather abilities (for those who don't know, the effect now lasts for 5 turns instead of the entire battle), how prominent will weather teams be in this generation?

In particular, what does this do to the potential value of Charizard Y, who was already going to have issues due to heavy SR weakness?

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Weather as we know it is practically dead. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I'm sad because both my teams from last gen were weather teams I was rather fond of, but I guess there isn't a lot I can do about it.

I was hyped for Charizard Y too. Ninetales got taken to OU despite it being an incredibly ****ty Pokemon simply for the team utility of Drought and Charizard Y, outside of a crippling stealth rock weakness, had a hell of a lot more going for it than Ninetales, including recovery, an immunity, an actual special attacking stat, and a better movepool (I think). oh well

You might see some weather teams still, just like you saw trick room teams last gen. It existed as a gimmick in gen 4 and I see no reason for it to completely die. It's just gonna be back to how it was--occasionally showing up with absolutely little prevalence otherwise. I'm curious what it'll do to TTar the most--Toed and Tales will go back to their respective tiers and Obamasnow'll drop completely out of relevancy but TTar was always an outstanding Pokemon.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Gengar's also going to rule this gen. People are already saying not to get overexcited about it but let's be real, having the same power as LO Gengar (which most Gengars didn't run this gen) and getting shadow tag makes you ridiculous.

 

[Circa]

If by 'rule' you mean 'first Mega on the chopping block', then yes I agree.

I guess losing Levitate is kind of a big deal, but then again probably not.

 

[The Real Gamer]

At least it's pretty much guaranteed I won't have to deal with Mega Gengar in OU thanks to Shadow Tag.

1 Mega down...

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

If by 'rule' you mean 'first Mega on the chopping block', then yes I agree.

I guess losing Levitate is kind of a big deal, but then again probably not.

Not when it gains shadow tag.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

It's okay, when Chanderp magically gets it a month later, that can go keep Gengar company in hell ubers too after a month of havoc on ou

 

[Circa]

Not when it gains shadow tag.

Yeah, I was honestly just trying to think of a rreason why people would say not to get overexcited about it. It was mostly a joke though. :3

Actually, Gengar losing Levitate for just about anything is a strange positive in my book. I've always wanted a fast sweeper that also soaked up Poison Spikes.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

So apparently Horde battles are how we're getting DW abilities in Gen 6. This is interesting as it confirms that all of these Pokemon we thought we had figured out apparently have secret abilities of their own right.

If Goodra gets something better than Sap Sipper and Hydration, my faith in Game Freak is restored.

FWIW, I see weather starters falling as such:

Ninetales, Obamasnow, and Hippowdon all fall out of OU. Ninetales is a really bad Pokemon take solely for its ability in Drought that I was sure that something with a worse stealth rock weakness would've replaced it immediately simply because it could overcome that. Obamasnow leaves because Hail was already the worst weather and its niche as the weather-starter slayer isn't necessary and we have mamoswine and fairies for dragons now. Hippowdon might end up BL for being an unkillable monster but honestly Hippo was really only good for sand stall and with weather stall looking incredibly obsolete right now, it doesn't seem like it'll stay there. I'm least sure on this one, though, as he's still a massive 'mon and I have to assume he'll maintain a niche that other walls don't reach (he can handle regular Lucario much better than Skarm can, let alone TKon).

Politoed I think'll stay BL. It's not solely good enough to stay in OU, not with other threats and Rain having its duration nerfed to the point that it's awkward to get a sweep going without putting a time limit on it and you can't switch the starter back in until the weather duration runs out. That said, Toed was solidly UU in Gen 4 and while metagames have changed, Drizzle is a powerful tool that other bulky waters in that tier, like Swampert or Suicune, can't really claim and that'll push him a bit over the edge for UU.

TTar's still gonna be OU. Why wouldn't he be? He was OU before abilities were even a thing, he's a base stat monster, and has one of the best movepools in the game. TTar always finds a way to be a strong 'mon and I expect next generation to be no different. The nicest thing about Sand Stream losing its permanence is that you're less restricted in teambuilding and can use things like even Chansey with it.

Charizard'll be restricted to Zard X lopl.

 

[The Real Gamer]

Hydration would have been an amazing ability on Goodra if rain wasn't nerfed.

 

[CRASHiC]

Mega-Gengar is going to suck.

If a pokemon ability said "Get a free Mean Look when you attack" it would be a bad ability.

Losing levitate is a huge deal, though having it on switching in is nice.

If you switch it in, sub, then switch out just to gain Shadow-tag, either you're opponent is really bad to allow you to waste that much time and not gain some sort of advantage, or you are losing tempo.

Its exciting when you first hear it, but when you look what it means in game and when you compare it to the likes of Mega-Garchomp you can certainly see the huge drawback. I'd rather just use Normal Gengar.

 

[Wave⁂]

I don't really understand. Don't you just switch in, Mega up and prevent switching, then just kill them?

 

[mood4food77]

shadow tag pretty much allows it to pick off the opponents team at will, the speed is going to be the reason it gets banned, not the SpA

although, having really high SpA helps, being that fast brings it over the top

 

[JOE!]

Doesnt mega evolution happen like, as you attack?

So you could switch in with Gengar on like, an EQ or something, then mega evolve as you put up a sub at the same time, preventing the other guy's escape?

 

[CRASHiC]

You mega-evolve as you attack.
Switchout still has the highest priority.
They switch to a counter.You now have your counter shadowtagged. Congrats.

 

[Wave⁂]

So in other words, you have a regular Gengar for literally only one turn in the entire match, and that turn is your opponent switching out.

 

[CRASHiC]

After which, against a competent team, you're going to be switching out.
Also keep in mind that with the new ability changing item its been confirmed we are getting unreleased dreamworld abilities, so Chandalure will also have Shadowtag and be able to run numerous items to help it do the job that shadowtag was made to do: revenge kill.

Compare Mega-Gengar, who takes time to setup to Mega-Blaziken or Garchomp who comes in and wins the game.

Shadowtag isn't an ability that wins one on one fights, it wins fights by attrition and picking off single target. Mega-Gengar can't even do that effectively.

 

[Wave⁂]

Weather stone hold items now double the duration of their weather.

Chandalure will also have Shadowtag and be able to run numerous items to help it do the job that shadowtag was made to do: revenge kill.

Unfortunately, those "numerous items" are all named "Choice Scarf," because Chandelure is so damn slow.