FA-BU-LOUS

Hey there Hat Lovers!

Today, I’m going to paint you a picture of one of the less-appreciated Pokemon in the metagame.

Smeargle is a Pokemon that a lot of players hate to face in VGC 2014. This has very little to do with Smeargle’s paltry BST (250), and more with the allowance of Dark Void in the metagame, and Smeargle as the only Pokemon who can learn it. As such, teams must be prepared to face a turn 1 Fake Out + Dark Void, or suffer the consequences.

Base Stats:
 55 / 20 / 35 / 20 / 45 / 75

Smeargle (or SmearTANK as I like to call it) is an incredibly bulky Pokemon capable of withstanding anything in VGC 2014 barring perhaps Kangaskhan’s Return Frustration and Skill Link… anything. This is all thanks to Smeargle’s wonderful ability… to hold a Focus Sash. Man… this thing is terrible. The only stat Smeargle has worth mentioning is its base 75 speed, which puts +252 Speed Smeargle at 139. Because of Smeargle, 140 speed is a benchmark in the VGC metagame, which should emphasize just how much Pokemon don’t want to be put to sleep.

Ability:

Smeargle has 3 Abilities to choose from: Own Tempo, Technician and Moody. First, unless you’re trying some ridiculous strategy involving Skill Swap and Technician, then Technician is out of the picture. This leaves Own Tempo and Moody. Own Tempo is tempting only as an alternative to using the unpredictable Moody, however I think most Smeargle players will tell you that Moody is the way to go. There are ways to build Smeargle that allow it to deal with a bad set of Moody boosts, and take advantage of a good set of Moody boosts, which I’ll go into later.

Moves:

It seems silly to write a “Moves” section for a Pokemon with access to everything in the game, but here I’ll highlight Smeargle’s usual bag of tricks and also prompt some creativity with alternative support moves that Smeargle can drop on an opponent.

I run “Sketch” Smeargle, so I can be adaptable in battle

Your standard Smeargle is going to use: Dark Void, King’s Shield, Spiky Shield, Fake Out, Transform, Tailwind and/or Follow Me. What many players may not know is that Spiky Shield functions exactly like Protect, but has the bonus of damaging physical contact moves. This is vastly superior to King’s Shield, which fails to block status moves and most importantly, Taunt. It’s taken the whole year for players to finally transition over to Spiky Shield, but if you haven’t yet, you really ought to.

To encourage independent thought, I’m going to throw out some ideas for Smeargle’s 4th moveslot here. When Smeargle is so versatile, I’d be doing it a disservice to only mention what moves Smeargle commonly use. Outside of these core moves, depending on the team, you may see Smeargle running surprise support moves such as: Encore, Feint, Quick Guard, Wide Guard or Perish Song. If you don’t value your 4th moveslot much you could even run something as ridiculous as Baton Pass to make the most out of good Moody boosts when they happen. There’s no limit to what Smeargle can do (Soak anyone? Trick-or-Treat?), so though I recommend the sets below, if you’re exploring Smeargle, be inventive!

This Smeargle transformed into Furret… for some reason

Sets:

Smeargle (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Moody
Level: 50
EVs: 68 HP / 100 Def / 84 SpD / 252 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Jolly Nature
– Dark Void
– Follow Me
– Encore
– Spiky Shield

This Smeargle is my personal favourite. Due to Smeargle’s abhorrent defensive stats, it becomes more effective to invest in its defences than its HP. The EVs are from Randy’s Smeargle, which make it a bit bulkier than just a 252/252 spread. With this spread, you have an awkward 4 EV’s left over that can’t add anything except 1 Atk, which only increases confusion damage so it’s better to just not include them. This Smeargle is up to its usual tricks with Dark Void, but has the option of using Follow Me to protect its partner. Follow Me functions quite well as a move to use when you get poor Moody boosts, as its efficacy is just as potent with Smeargle at -6 in all its stats, as it is with Smeargle at +6 in all its stats. Encore is primarily to trap Aegislash into King’s Shield or Substitute, but can be quite useful against slower Pokemon that Protect against potential Dark Voids. Not to mention how awesome it is when Smeargle receives a +2 Speed boost.

Yeah… that… .gif provided by Scott of NB!

Smeargle (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Moody
Level: 50
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Spe
IV’s: 0 Atk / 30 Def
Jolly Nature
– Dark Void
– Transform
– Tailwind
– Spiky Shield

This Smeargle has a completely different game-plan behind it. Rather than stick to simply supporting the team, You can become one of them! This Smeargle is often paired alongside Kangaskhan for Fake Out support with two first turn options. One, Dark Void, Tailwind, Transform into Mega-Kangaskhan and win. Two, Tailwind while they double protect, then Dark Void, then Transform into Mega-Kangaskhan and win. Generally, if you have no good plan to stop this, it’s going to destroy you. Alternatively, you can always Transform into an opposing Pokemon if the situations calls for it.

252 HP is better for a Transform set as this is the only stat that isn’t copied. The 30 Defence is for Transforming into Pokemon that run Hidden Power, be they yours or your opponent’s. If running Frustration Kangaskhan, you will want to have 0 happiness, as the damage from Frustration/Return is based off Smeargle’s happiness and not copied by transforming (thank Andy aka Amarillo @Nuggetbridge.com for this useful tidbit of info)!

Teammates:

Smeargle’s most common teammate is Kangaskhan. As mentioned earlier, Kangaskhan provides Fake Out support and an ideal transform target (complete with a +2 boost from a turn 2 Power up Punch). After the success that Randy’s team has seen you may see Smeargle + Blastoise leads, which threaten to Follow Me + Water Spout, or just Dark Void and hit hard with Mega Launcher.

Staple alternate Smeargle partners are few and far between, but do you really need more to be afraid of? This thing threatens to have two +2 Mega Kangaskhans staring you down at the end of turn 3.

Counters and Checks:

Phew, that Emolga was about to… Tailwind?

Lum Berry Garchomp with a Taunt Gyarados do a great job of countering both Smeargle and its favourite partner Kangaskhan. Gyarados with 140 speed can outspeed and Taunt, while Garchomp deals good damage to the -1 Kangaskhan. This is true of any Taunt user, but Gyarados gets special mention for bringing Intimidate while doing so. But as far as counters go, this is a bit weaker as it can be played around to some extent with good prediction.

Hello Hat Lovers!

With US Nats coming up this weekend this one will be short. I’ll be looking at Weavile, which I used in the June International Challenge. I faced two Weavile on Showdown in a row one night, and one caught me off guard with Feint. This got got me interested in Weavile. Back in 2013 I used an Infernape that had both Fake Out and Feint and it could result in a great first turn either by using Fake Out on the important target or using Feint to attack through a Protect.

Weavile can also do this so I paired it with Kangaskhan and aimed to get a Power-Up-Punch on the first turn against predicted double Protects or be able to Fake Out a target and still attack with Kangaskhan on that turn. Weavile could take care of Gengar and Garchomp with Night Slash and Ice Punch. This is the set I used:

Weavile @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pickpocket
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
– Night Slash
– Ice Punch
– Feint
– Fake Out

Pickpocket acts like a Thief whenever Weavile makes contact with a foe. This means if an opponent knocks Weavile down to its Focus Sash with a physical attack I immediately take its item from it. This never produced interesting results during the tournament and the only Pokemon I ever ended up stealing from was Talonflame. This Ability proved to be near useless but I’d still use it for the once in a lifetime chance to have it do something. Weavile’s other Ability is Pressure which isn’t going to help much either.

Weavile didn’t perform especially well in the tournament, against the low level players I could never tell if they even carried Protect and when I faced high level players it seemed like a coin-toss whether or not they would try to Protect or just try to attack on the first turn. Situations where Weavile became useless where also frequent, neither of its attacks deal much damage when they aren’t super effective. When I did get a Feint + PoP off on a double Protect it pretty much won me the game right then and there, but the strategy often fell flat and left me with little momentum.

So while Weavile has potential, I don’t think its good enough to work at high levels. Its too easy to wall and it relies too heavily on predicting your opponent to generate momentum.

~Max

Hello Hat Lovers!

This week we’ll be looking at Hydreigon. Introduced in generation five, Hydreigon has been an interesting Dragon type the sets itself apart from the previous Dragon types. It was the first of the pseudo legendary Dragons to favour special attack over physical attack and also has a unique type combination.

Hydreigon has never been the most popular Dragon in VGC due to competition from the stronger and faster Latios in 2012 and 2013 and Scarf Salamence in 2014. Despite this Hydreigon has seen it’s fair share of success over the years.

I’ve changed up the formatting a bit this week, instead of listing all the moves for a Pokemon I’ll first list the sets and then have a section for the other options.

Base Stats:

 92 / 105 / 90 / 125 / 90 / 98

Hydreigon has fantastic base stats, yet I can’t help feeling like Game Freak went out of their way to troll Hydreigon. Giving it a base speed just below all the base 100s in the game is a major pain for Hydreigon. This low speed stat really holds Hydreigon back against Garchomp, Kangaskhan, and non-Scarf Salamence. Hydreigon’s speed stat is what I attribute its lower usage to, its easy to be a hipster and say I’m going to promote the lesser used Dragon but it sees less usage for a reason.

Speed aside Hydreigon has been blessed with base 125 special attack, giving it the strongest Draco Meteor outside of legendary Pokemon (and only being 5 points behind Latios). 92 HP and 90 in each defence makes Hydreigon fairly bulky.

Dark / Dragon is what sets Hydreigon apart from Salamence. Hydreigon resists Electric meaning it resists all of Rotom’s STAB moves (unless you encounter these rogue Rotom-F and Rotom-A). Dark also gives you resistances to Dark and Ghost as well as an immunity to Psychic.  The downside to this typing is that you’re weak to Fighting and Bug. Instead of being 4x weak to Ice Hydreigon is 4x weak to Fairy. This is actually a pretty good trade off as Hydreigon can survive an Ice Beam unlike Salamence and while it gets KO’d by any Fairy move Salamence wasn’t surviving a Fairy move outside of a Dazzling Gleam.

Abilities:

Hydreigon’s only Ability is Levitate. This grants Hydreigon an immunity to Ground type attacks. Having a free immunity is nice, and it lets Hydreigon’s partner use Earthquake with worry.

Sets:

Choice Specs

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 60 Def / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 172 Spd
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Fire Blast
– Dragon Pulse

Choice Specs Hydreigon is one of the strongest special attackers we have in the format (considering most Pokemon with higher Special attack are either a Mega and don’t get to use Choice Specs or don’t have a reliable move with Draco Meteor’s base power). This Hydreigon can smash right through most of the metagame, OHKOing 4 HP / 4 SDef Mega Kangaskhan. Dark Pulse and Dragon Pulse are your reliable STAB moves for when you need to lock into one moves for the rest of the battle. Fire Blast is for Steel types and gets a clean OHKO on Ray’s Mega Mawile.

This spread reaches 140 speed which puts it ahead of neutral nature Rotom and positive nature Smeargle. It’s also considerably faster then DarkAssassin’s Hydreigon so it’ll beat anyone copying his set as well as anyone trying to speed creep that Hydreigon. Ideally I’d be able to invest a bit more into speed as 140 is a good number to settle for but I needed all the remaining EVs for bulk.

20 HP / 60 Def survives Jolly Garchomp’s Dragon Claw and Adamant Mega Kangaskhan’s Return. Being able to take a hit from either of these Pokemon is a major boon to a Pokemon that can’t out speed them. 4 HP / 76 Def survives these attacks all the same, but 4 HP / 68 doesn’t so theres no room to increase speed.

Choice Scarf

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 60 Def / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 172 Spd
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Fire Blast
– Dragon Pulse

Scarf Hydreigon is kinda like Scarf Salamence, except you always lose the speed tie, you don’t have Intimidate and you hit harder. You could use a Timid nature to beat Modest Scarf Salamence but since you won’t even have Intimidate to give you and indication of which Dragon is faster and you’ll always lose to Timid Salamence I wouldn’t bother trying.

The EV spread is exactly the same as before. I didn’t intend for this to happen but I actually came up with the same one without realizing it. At least you won’t have to worry about retraining a Hydreigon if you switch items. 252 Special Attack is obviously for maximum damage output. 172 Speed puts Hydreigon at 210 speed after the Scarf is applied. This puts you ahead of Mega Manectric and Scarf Smeargle. The remaining was put into HP until I realized I had the same amount of investment left for bulk and could survive the hits the previous set could (although surviving them is less important now that you out speed them).

Life Orb Attacker:

Hydreigon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 228 Spd
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Fire Blast
– Protect

If you don’t want to use Choice items there’s always a Life Orb set. Since we’re using Life Orb there isn’t much point investing in bulk as you’ll finish yourself off with Life Orb recoil.

Other Options:

Flamethrower is an option if you don’t like the 85% accuracy of Fire Blast, but you’ll miss out on KOs against things like Mega Mawile depending on your set.

Hydreigon still learns Earth Power but there isn’t much point to it without Heatran in the format.

Sleep Talk is an option on choice sets to help against Dark Void and Spore.

U-Turn can be used on a Choice Scarf set to scout switches.

Hydreigon gets a couple support moves like Thunder Wave, Taunt and Roost, I wouldn’t recommend any of them but if you want to play Hydreigon that way go for it.

Hydreigon can be made to survive Draco Meteor’s by way of Assault Vest or Haban Berry so that it can respond with its own Dragon move. This can catch opposing Salamence and Hydreigon by surprise.

Teammates:

Some form of speed control is greatly appreciated by Hydreigon. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of options for this in the format. Thunder Wave support is probably the best way to use speed control right now. Hydreigon will enjoy seeing a Salamence or Kangaskhan paralyzed. Gyarados, Miltank, Rotom and Zapdos are all bulky Pokemon that spread paralysis with Thunder Wave.

Follow Me / Rage Powder support is greatly appreciated. Amoonguss is probably the best partner for Hydreigon, being able to tank a Draco Meteor or Fighting move aimed at Hydreigon and using Regenerator to heal itself.

Counters:

Fairy types will KO Hydreigon with ease. Azumarill can take anything standard Hydreigon can throw it’s way and OHKO in with Play Rough. Gardevoir and Mawile can also OHKO it with their Fairy moves, but both of them need to be wary of at least one of Hydreigon’s moves. Wigglytuff resists Hydreigon’s STAB moves and can KO with Dazzling Gleam.

Outside of Fairy types countering Hydreigon depends on what set its running. A non-Scarf set can be out sped by a number of Pokemon and OHKO’d with their STAB moves. Mega Lucario, Salamence and Hammer Arm Mega Kangaskhan are all examples of this.

Conclusion:

Hydreigon isn’t as easy to slap on a team as Garchomp and Salamence, but its still a strong Pokemon and can tear through teams if given the proper support and played properly. I expect this Pokemon to see more play at Nationals but only time will tell if it can oust Salamence as the goto Draco Meteor user.

~Max

Greetings Hat Lovers!

This week I’ll be looking at one of my favourite Pokemon in the format which has been a staple on many of my teams. Rotom debuted in generation four, and gained five alternate forms in Platinum. Each form got its own signature move and in generation five each Rotom’s secondary type became the same as the signature moves type.

Rotom-H began to gain popularity around the time of winter regionals when players realized they needed a strong Fire type and found the options to be scarce.

Base Stats:

 50 / 65 / 107 / 105 / 107 / 86

Rotom-H has a mediocre base HP, with some great defences to go with it. Investing in HP and giving Rotom-H Sitrus Berry makes it hard to OHKO. 105 Special Attack is enough for Rotom to have some offensive pressure, especially with a high base power move like Overheat. 86 Speed puts Rotom firmly below the base 100+ range but has it sitting above most everything else.

Electric / Fire typing is great with Levitate. Rotom-H resists Electric, Ice and Fire, all of which are types I find myself wanted more resistances too. Being a Fire type at all is a major boon to Rotom-H, as we have a severe lack of viable Fire types in VGC 2014.

Ability:

Rotom-H’s only ability is Levitate. This patches up Rotom’s would-be 4x weakness to Ground, which would make it nearly unplayable. Keep in mind that this ability won’t save you from Mold Breaker users like Mega Gyarados.

Sets:

Defensive Rotom-H

Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 156 SAtk / 12 SDef / 20 Spd
Modest nature
– Thunderbolt
– Overheat
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

This EV spread is the pinnacle of defensive Rotom-H spreads. I used this spread in Washington and I’ve never found a reason to change it. When I originally made it I only had a couple goals in mind but by shear coincidence it manages to just barely survive several strong attacks with the highest damage roll.

• Survives 252+ Dragon Claw from +1 Mega Charizard X
• Survives 252+ Waterfall from Gyarados
• Survives 252 Close Combat from Mega Lucario
• Survives 76 Hydro Pump from Rotom-W
• 3HKO’d by Rock Slide/Dragon Claw from 252 Garchomp
• 3HKO’d by 252+ Aqua Jet from Azumarill after Sitrus Berry most of the time (if they don’t activate Sitrus after the first hit and then get a high roll on the second attack there is a slight chance to 2HKO)
• OHKO’s Ray’s Mawile 15/16 times with Overheat

Rotom-Heat @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate

Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 8 Def / 164 SAtk / 228 Spd
Modest nature
– Thunderbolt
– Overheat
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Protect

This Rotom-H focuses on getting OHKOs instead of surviving multiple hits. There are a handful of Pokemon Rotom-H can’t OHKO on its own and Life Orb gives it the boost it needs to always net the OHKO on them. This Rotom always OHKOs Amoonguss, Mega Manectric, Garchomp and Salamence with either Overheat or Hidden Power. This set out speeds positive natured base 70 Pokemon. The rest is put into HP to reach 139 HP, a good amount for reducing Life Orb damage.

Rotom-Heat @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate

Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest nature
– Thunderbolt
– Overheat
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Will-O-Wisp

Scarfed Rotom will often take your opponent by surprise. This set out speeds Mega Manectric. Be aware that this set loses a ton of bulk by not investing in HP. I’m often disappointed by this set as it lacks the bulk of a standard Rotom and HP Ice lacks the power to OHKO Garchomp. Being able to Will-O-Wisp Kangaskhan before it attacks is nice though, as is being able to out speed Gyarados and avoid taking a Waterfall.

Other Options:

Expert Belt can be subbed in Life Orb so Rotom-H can stay in play longer. This will cost you the OHKO on Mega Manectric and reduce your damage output in general. Safety Googles makes Rotom-H a hard counter to Charizard / Venusaur, but that lack of healing will hurt you outside of this combo. Leftovers is an alternate healing item if another teammate needs Sitrus Berry.

Thunder Wave is an alternate status move that provides speed control over attack reduction. Discharge can work on a team with Lightning Rod / Telepathy / Ground Pokemon. Substitute is a cool move I’ve had successfully used against me, if neither of your opponent’s Pokemon can threaten Rotom-H you can put up a Substitute and make it harder to deal with. This also works great when facing Amoonguss and Mawile that want to bait an Overheat and switch into a Fire resist.

Teammates:

What can’t be paired with Rotom? I’m not kidding Rotom-H and it’s other form Rotom-W slot onto pretty much any team you want them to. Due to the lack of Fire types in the format you have your choice of Charizard, Rotom-H, Talonflame, Pyroar or using Pokemon like Manectric, Hydreigon, Salamence and Tyranitar that have non-STAB fire attacks. Of these fire types Charizard takes your Mega slot, Talonflame has its issues and while Pyroar handles the offensive side well it doesn’t take hits at all.

Rotom-H will want partners that can handle Rotom-W and other Water types. Amoonguss, Venusaur and Ludicolo. all fit the bill. These Pokemon benefit from Rotom-H hard countering Talonflame. Things like Mega Charizard and Specs Hydreigon that can simply muscle through Rotom-W’s defence are also welcome additions. While Rotom-H can burn a Kangaskhan it doesn’t beat it on its own so having Pokemon that help it out are nice to have.

Counters and Checks:

Rotom-W can take any attack from Rotom-H and OHKO with Hydro Pump. Most Water types that can out speed Rotom-H can check it with Hydro Pump, Ludicolo and Kingdra are good choice as they aren’t weak to Thunderbolt.

Mega Charizard X doesn’t care about anything Rotom-H can do to it bar Thunder Wave. Rotom-H can’t do anything to Rotom-H either, but Rotom-H won’t be able to do anything to Rotom-H to take advantage of this unless you run HP Rock or something. Garchomp can handle Rotom-H if it lacks HP Ice. Rotom-H will have to land 2 Will-O-Wisp to burn a LumChomp while being hit by Rock Slide each turn.

Conclusion:

Back in my day Hidden Power Flying was my best move, and it was awful

Hello Hat Lovers!

Today I’ll be looking Gyarados. Gyarados was introduced in Generation 1, and while it’s one of the coolest Pokemon around it wasn’t very good until Generation 3 when it got Intimidate and Dragon Dance. In Generation 4 Gyarados really hit its stride with the physical/special split making Waterfall a physical attack. Gyarados hasn’t changed much since then, but it hasn’t needed to. Generation 6 has given Gyarados a Mega Evolution, adding to the list of roles it can play.

Gyarados has been a great Pokemon in VGC, bringing Intimidate support to teams, threatening with Dragon Dance, even running Choice Specs that one time. Despite all of its great traits Gyarados has always had to deal with its 4x weakness to Electric. Over the last three years Thundurus and/or Rotom have been very popular Pokemon and Gyarados will need to rely on its teammates to deal with these Electric types.

Base Stats:

 95 / 125 / 79 / 60 / 100 / 81

Gyarados has a fantastic base 125 attack. 81 Speed is decent especially when Gyarados uses Dragon Dance. 95 / 79 / 100 defences are also pretty great when you factor in Intimidate. Water/Flying typing comes with an unfortunate 4x Electric weakness and an inconvenient Rock weakness but provides resistances to Fighting, Fire, Water, Steel, Bug and an immunity to Ground.

95 / 155 / 109 / 70 / 130 / 81

In terms of stats Mega Gyarados just gets stronger and more resilient. What’s interesting is the change in typing. Water / Dark is worse overall compared to Water / Flying but Gyarados’ previous weaknesses are lessened and while it gains several problematic weaknesses it’s base form resisted them so before you Mega Evolve your opponent will be left to guess which moves will be effective.

Abilities:

Gyarados’s main Ability is Intimidate, one of the greatest Abilities in VGC. Lowering both the opponent’s attack whenever Gyarados switches makes Kangaskhan more manageable and makes it easier for Gyarados to take repeated Rock Slides.

Gyarados’s Hidden Ability is Moxie, which boosts it’s attack whenever it KO’s a Pokemon. While this isn’t a bad Ability it isn’t worth giving up Intimidate to use.

Mega Gyarados’s Ability is Mold Breaker. This allows Gyarados to hit Rotom with Earthquake and ignore Mega Venusaur’s Thick Fat. Keep in mind that Mold Breaker will affect your Pokemon as well, so any partner with Levitate or Telepathy can still get hit by Earthquake.

Attacks:

Waterfall and Aqua Tail are Gyarados’s choice of STAB moves, with Waterfall having perfect accuracy and a flinch chance and Aqua Tail having a chance to miss but more power to make up for it. Other attacks include Ice Fang, Earthquake and Stone Edge. Gyarados generally has room for two damaging attacks unless it’s a choice set so you’ll need to pick based on which type coverage you want on Gyarados. If you want a Dark move for Mega Gyarados your only options are Bite and Payback. Its a shame Gamefreak didn’t give Gyarados something like Crunch to go with it’s new Mega Evolution when they gave Blastoise Aura Sphere, Dark Pulse and Dragon Pulse to go with it’s Mega Evolution.

For non-damaging attacks Gyarados has Dragon Dance, Taunt, Thunder Wave and Protect.

Dragon Dance

Gyarados @ Sitrus Berry / Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 172 / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 212 Spd
Adamant Nature
– Waterfall
– Ice Fang
– Dragon Dance
– Protect

I came up with this spread while trying to reverse engineer Tony’s EV spread from Washington Regionals. From the streamed games I could see that it had an HP stat of 192 so I used 172 EVs to reach it. Tony later told me that this is a good Leftovers number and conversely a bad Sandstorm number, and he meant to drop the HP by 1 before the tournament. The Speed EVs allow Gyarados to reach 192 speed after a Dragon Dance, putting it above Scarf Tyranitar with a positive nature. The rest were put into Attack.

Support

Gyarados @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 212 Spd
Jolly Nature
– Waterfall
– Ice Fang
– Thunder Wave
– Taunt

I stole this spread from Imouto Island. This Gyarados out speeds Jolly Smeargle and Taunts it before they can use Dark Void. This set aims to support the team with Thunder Wave and Intimidate instead of trying to sweep. Rocky Helmet punishes any Kangaskhan that attack Gyarados, especially if they try to use Fake Out on it.

Choice Band

Gyarados @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 244 Spd
Adamant Nature
– Waterfall
– Ice Fang
– Earthquake
– Stone Edge

Choice Band Gyarados will probably catch people by surprise by hitting as hard as a Dragon Dance set without needing a turn to set up. The switch heavy nature of choice items works well with Intimidate.

Mega Dragon Dance

Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 36 / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 212 Spd
Adamant Nature
– Waterfall
– Earthquake
– Dragon Dance
– Protect

Mega Gyarados can now hit Levitate users with Earthquake, allowing it to OHKO Rotom-H and 2HKO Rotom-W. Mega Gyarados has some fantastic natural bulk, being equivalent to Umbreon. If you’re choosing to focus your team around Mega Gyarados be sure to provide with plenty of support. Gyarados doesn’t carry itself like Kangaskhan and Mawile do, and will need help to reach it’s full potential.

Teammates:

Gyarados’s BFF is Manectric. Manectric redirects Electric attacks away from Gyarados with Lightning Rod, eliminating its greatest weakness. Mega Manectric also provides a second Intimidate to shut down physical attackers. Raichu can also provide Lightning Rod support as well as Fake Out and Encore support.

Amoonguss, Smeargle and Pachirisu can redirect attacks with Rage Powder / Follow Me. Amoonguss and Pachirisu are the more notable users as they take little to no damage from Electric attacks. Amoonguss also threatens with Spore while Pachirisu can use Nuzzle and Super Fang to help Gyarados take out foes. If using Pachirisu you can use Ion Deluge to make Return an Electric attack giving Gyarados an Electric type move for a turn.

Garchomp makes a good offensive partner for Gyarados. Garchomp is free to use Earthquake beside Gyarados. Gyarados can slow down Salamence with Thunder Wave and take out other Dragons with Ice Fang. Both make life harder for Kangaskhan which is also a positive in this format. Hydreigon appreciates Thunder Wave support to make up for its low speed, and helps Gyarados by threatening Rotom with Specs Draco Meteor.

When using Mega Gyarados you’ll want some Flying types that Gyarados can use Earthquake beside. Salamence is a good partner in general. Talonflame will deal with Amoonguss and Venusaur which will give you trouble. Aerodactyl and use Sky Drop to help deal with troublesome foes.

Counters:

Rotom-W is a hard counter to Gyarados, which is unfortunate given the popularity of Rotom-W. Rotom-W has the choice of using Thunderbolt to OHKO Gyarados or using Will-O-Wisp to cripple it while punishing a potential switch. Rotom-H also has these options but has to worry about taking a Waterfall. Bulky Rotom-H will take an un-boosted Waterfall but it won’t enjoy it and the flinch chance makes things dicey. Mega Manectric doesn’t enjoy switching into an attack from Gyarados but it out speeds Gyarados even after a Dragon Dance and OHKOs with Thunderbolt.

Grass types give Gyarados a rough time. Mega Venusaur will take anything Gyarados can dish out and heal it off with Giga Drain. Amoonguss takes most of Gyarados’ attacks, redirects them from their intended target, and punishes them with Rocky Helmet. Ferrothorn can also withstand Gyarados’ attacks and set up a Leech Seed on it.

Conclusion:

Gyarados can fill a myriad of roles on a VGC team. If you can get around the obstacles facing Gyarados it will put in a ton of work. So give the other wannabe Dragon from Gen 1 a try, you might like what you see.