Creative Strategies in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 6)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Today we're looking at some pretty outlandish and creative strats in Smogon singles, some gimmicky strats, some genuinely good strats, but overall just a bunch of creative sets I've seen over the years that I find neat (:
BKC's Underated ADV OU Sets Video: • Underrated sets for ev...
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All the music in this vid is from Street Fighter 3: 2nd Impact!
#Pokémon #Smogon #Singles
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I think my favourite thing about this is that, while other gens are unusual usage of intended game behaviour, the gen1 strats are just "exploit the gen1 jank".
hey, if it works, it works
I recently used a ThroatSpray BugBuzz Escavalier to get through a substitute stalling ‘mon! The opponent thought with all their heart that I was otherwise backing physical moves, but I had AcidSpray, GigaDrain, and StEeLbEaM. I couldn’t stop laughing at how absurd my own set was and how it actually worked, I then proceeded to nearly beat an entire team of very competitive Pokémon using an IronDefense Leftovers Orbeetle and a max defense StruggleBug Illumise. Absolutely silly! I may have lost, but the fact that I barely lost on the last Pokémon is so funny to me!
monobug?
@@Pika250 Yeah! I felt like making a team of all beetles and went for it!
You should Try Sheerforce Druddigon, and spam those flashcannons against those pesky fairies.
love this video already just because of the thumbnail.
plus it fits the chansey strat perfectly
Even without super creative sets, I like interesting matchups for lower-tier pokemon in higher tiers. For example, I've been using Dry Skin Heliolisk in gen 8 OU. That shit shuts down rain without even blinking, and switching into Specs Shadow Balls from Dragapult for literally free will never get old.
My favorite dumbass strat was actually in Gen 6 doubles. You could run Skill Swap Espeon + Sticky Web Galvantula, while making sure Espeon outsped your own Galvantula. Then you'd use Skill Swap and Sticky Web on the same turn, setting up Sticky Web on your own side of the field. The rest of your team would look like Wigglytuff/Bisharp with Competitie/Defiant respectively. They'd get +2 buff to offensive stat on switch, and you could run Trick Room Competitive Gothitelle to outspeed stuff.
Pretty bad but really, really funny
I know you're busy with school, and your main gig is fighting game analysis, Which I also love btw. But thank you for aiding in my recent competitive Pokemon addiction. ❤️
In Pokémon Stadium, i used a combo of Toxic and Leech Seed with Venusaur to beat Lance's Gyarados. I don't know why, but the Leech Seed damage and recovery gets bigger each turn alongside the Toxic damage. Works almost everytime against the last pokémon in a team
Leech seed and toxic are on the same timeline or the same effect
In swsh I did something similar to offensive Skarmory, but it was defensive Gardevoir. I made it specifically to deal with Dragapult. I'm never going to outspeed one, and Gardevoir is weak to both of it's types, so Gardevoir was slowed down, bulked up, and given a berry to survive any single hit and ohko with moonblast. I had great results.
One strat I heard from a False Swipe Gaming vid (I think it was in ninjask? I really don't remember) was in doubles, where the pokemon ran a moveset of protect and last resort. The pokemon would protect turn one and nuke the rest of the game with last resort.
The last part rlly hit me
I remember playing this random game years ago
The point is, it was a team game, where u go 4 vs 4, and there is this one character with a long range attack that is considered to be terrible, mostly cuz long range usually means slow. Even if it is strong, it is extremely easy to avoid.
The thing is, the middle part of the map (the part where all the action happens) can be seen from a particular angle in the spawn point. The important part is that this skill that is considered to be bad has infinite range. Normally you wouldnt be able to directly attack to the middle of the map due to that zone having a lot of places to hide, but that skill in particular affects an area: Just attack behind the hidey-hole and you get your kill.
Now, this strategy isnt a win button, but what surprised me the most is that as a kid i wasnt expecting said strategy to be used by other people later. I never saw anybody using it before, so im pretty sure that i was the one that came out with it. So thats kinda funny i guess. (They even used to stand in the exact same spot i used to do so)
My favorite in doubles is to get shedinja the sturdy ability. In gen 7 I did it with skill swap and in gen 8 I use entrainment. You can also paralyze your shedinja to protect it from burn and poison, use trevenat to make it a grass type (this is for leech seed), and throw some safety goggles on it. It's a shit strategy, but it's really funny when it works
You can also use Soak on your Shedinja to make it pure Water type, which makes it pretty good defensively.
i fuckin love how you wear a different nail polish each video. its like a lil detail i dont think about until i notice it in the next video
I loved watching gimmick teams and my favourites were Z-Forest's curse trevenant + simple rototiller bibarel and toxic thread ariados + iron ball trick room mesprit with U-turn + guts haryiama cause toxic thread poisoned haryiama for guts and the speed lower made it faster in trick room
Not only did you find a use for Bibarel, but using Rototiller. Massive respect.
You killed me with the Dugtrio 2077 nickname, it was so good.
Fly isn't always that bad a move. I remember in gen 7 trying out a celesteela with leech seed, protect, substitute, and fly. Holding leftovers.
Basically it could tank a hit whilst setting up leech seed. Then it could alternate between protect and substitute to avoid all damage whilst healing up and draining the opponent. If the subs weren't broken straight away it could use Fly to get a free turn of healing and then deal decent STAB damage. Very situational and easily stopped but it did wall some players when I tried it.
Huh. Seeing Choice Band Ferrothorn vaguely brings back fond memories. It's probably because Gen 6 was the last time I ever touched OU and because when it worked you usually blew up at least one mon and chunked another before going out. Bonus points if it was their Fire type somehow given even with CB *and* Max Atk with Brave (+Atk, -Spe), Bulldoze can _just_ barely explode Utility Heatran (and Magnezone) if you roll well, which just shows much Bulldoze sucks otherwise.
Speaking of Fire types, probably my favorite silly set is (still) Trick Flame Orb Rotom-Heat, especially since it let you pretend you had a Choice Item given it never activates on a Fire type. It isn't a great set, especially with Stealth Rock everywhere, but it is funny when it actually works. (Also lets Rotom-Heat Trick something onto without the potential of making most them more dangerous, for even the ones it doesn't otherwise cripple like Rhyperior. Just, uh, watch out for Guts mons.)
I love the phrase "Gen 1 Fuckery" so much
Great video as always. Looking forward to the next one already. Cheers
my fav slowbro set in gen 8 is counter slowbro. it kills so many things that would usually overwhelm or wallbreak it, like scizor or even zerarora. its also great if you expect a u-turn cuz you get some pretty big damage on the switch in
That thumbnail is a BANGER
The evasion bans in earlier generations almost make sense. But I really wish it wasn't just written off. If there were more moves like sweet scent it'd be competitive. Maybe an offensive move that lowers evasion or has a chance to.
And remove double team (or make it 50% accurate) and/or add an offensive move with a 10% chance to raise AND lower evasion. Now that would be risk/reward.
If you get to gen 8 in this series, I've had great success using something similar to the skarmory set
Special corviknight sub calm mind roost and whatever attack
My favorite strats for gen 7/8 are HP ice landorus-t to counter other landorus users and level 99/98 slowking/slowbro in gen 8 to get a slower teloport giving you the advantage in a slowbro vs slowbro/slowking vs slowking matchup. Level 98 was used to counter the level 99 users.
ehh some bans can be pretty annoying for creativity, tbh it's worst in lower tiers. Look at LC, they banned Zigzagoon and with it the entire belly drum + priority style.
Scrugusdos, redbingus... Is that a reference I'm not catching? Is it a spoof on the "too many sprigatitos" guy?
i remember running choice band toxapex with gunk shot in generation 7. people would just brain dead switch in their tapu fini and be absolutely gobsmacked when they got ohkoed.
honestly looking back, i don’t even think the set was THAT terrible either. thanks to regenerator pex doesn’t mind switching out, usually it only does one or two things anyway, and is probably the perfect lure for fini, lele, and koko
That ferrotorn makes me remember ofensive blisey in gen 8 OU.
Cause Landorus always roams around on your ice beam can erase it.
Same with Ferrotorn switching into fireblast.
And it doesn't require that much investment.
Ariados having an uber niche in Gen 4 reminds me about how for the longest time, Quagsire was better in Ubers than in its home tiers (usually UU or NU) because of how handily it can counter Kyogre and one or two boosted threats gen 5 onward. Just, a slow pokemon that isn't too bulky somehow stonewalling the god of the sea.
Ariados is my favorite all time mon :)
I got to top 50 on gen 7 anything goes with an unaware Pyukumuku and an assault vest Ho Oh; I’ll never forget the satisfaction of completely walling e-speed arceus and taking 40% from a post-geomancy thunder
weakness policy dual wing beat dragonite, you dyna and use max air to get speed boosts. try it
This thumbnail is pure art. Just truly in awe at the layers.
I even click it. Pure genius.
I think the thumbnail is certainly interesting but here's something even more incredible - you see, the sign is a subtle joke. The shop is called "Sneed's Feed & Seed", where feed and seed both end in the sound "-eed", thus rhyming with the name of the owner, Sneed. The sign says that the shop was "Formerly Chuck's", implying that the two words beginning with "F" and "S" would have ended with "-uck", rhyming with "Chuck". So, when Chuck owned the shop, it would have been called "Chuck's Fuck and Suck".
ZAMN😍
I don't get it :) pls explain
@@chairwood ZAMN!
I'd like to say that Ariados can actually beat Darkrai in the funkiest way possible. You know, Ariados has two abilities, one of them being swarm. As you said, if the oponent is stupid and uses dark void on ariados, you can kill the darkrai using bug bite just twice, but a good player will obviously not do that
That's where swarm comes in
Just putting 128 EVs into HP makes Ariados survive any non choice specs Dark pulse from full health no matter the situation, making the adition of the insect plate a 100% to beat Darkrai, (having a 87.5% chance to K.O Darkrai from full health with a focus sash, swarm boosted bug bite with 252+ attack). Specially because as deoxys speed never runs psychic, Ariados isn't threatened by it either
Of course, this is a niche inside a niche, but I honestly think it can be very good... though, of course, being very good in the context of Ariados. It is not meta or anything but the upsides can be worth
WHAT THE FUCK WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
"Oh Ariados lead, that's cool. Too bad I have Darkrai and aren't going to Dark Void into it."
*Swarm activates, killing Darkrai.*
"..."
"I'm doing *that* next time."
Ariados goated
I once saw a guy run Focus Sash and Quick Attack on their Darkrai to counter Ariados. It was after Gen IV so they actually had to worry about X-Scissor Ariados, but still.
this is so fucking wack (affectionate)
Meanwhile in VGC we have IRL mindgames with the guy who brought a Mega Charizard X plushie and put it on the game table to make his opponents think he would run X, when he was actually running Y.
That moment is just so iconic lmao it's amazing
that is so fucking funny this had me laughing my ass off
Are there any clips of it? I'd just heard about it and would love to watch such a big brain moment
@@adelinehung6242 I found it in the Gen 6 VGC section of "How GOOD Was Charizard ACTUALLY?" by False Swipe Gaming. The player was Ryosuke Kosuge.
@@Leet-iz2fz I see, thanks! ;)
Many dont seem to realize, that in any competitive game, when considering a strategy, a player will always have to ask themselves “Why am I not using something else? Which advantage does this bring me, over the alternatives“
Sure you could go play OU with a team of Magikarp and Onix, but that isn‘t really creative. That is just doing things worse, for the sake of feeling special.
But a real creative strategy is all about looking at something generally overlooked and realizing its unique strengths and how they could be useful in the wider games context.
Exibit A: that damned pachirisu
@@noodlepoddle569 don’t say that name out loud Jeudy Azzarelli could be in this comment section and get trauma flashbacks
Never understood the sentiment that putting limitations automatically "destroys" creativity, because usually those limitations breeds some of the wildest, most inventive strategies that I've seen.
Anything Goes basically proves this point to the max. If you're not running Legendary spam or some type of cheese like Baton Pass Moody, you're almost guaranteed to lose.
@@JB-bc2ry AG SOUNDS like a good time, but the minute you jump in its nothing but all the cheese strats and legend spam and it gets boring real fast. The most fun I had on Showdown was in Gen 6 UU when I made a fun Batman themed team and beat people's shit in with a Shiny Technician Mr. Mime with Confusion. Close second was when I ran a fake Ash-Greninja in Gen 7 OU that was actually Protean Psychinium Z Extrasensory so I can OHKO Toxapex.
If you're removing restrictions, why stop at AG? Have 26 255 all stat pokemon which are all wonderguarded, and spam 255 bp multi-hit moves. Creativity!
Also, I don't get how everyone using a overpowered pokémon classifies as creative either.
@@DrDrao Yeah! That's real creativity! Just make every pokemon have the exact same options and have no real individuality amongst them!
Now that's some of the REAL GALAXY BRAIN shit right there
My favorite creative strat was back in Gen 6 Ubers, somebody got to the top of the showdown ladder with a trick room team running Solrock, a pokemon in PU. The combination of its typing + levitate let it check useful threats like Ho-oh and Primal Groudon, it acted as a stealth rocks setter, and could even explode on threats. Was a super silly, actually useful choice
I love when people discover stuff like this, always super fun to see
Fitting how Solrock actually walls PDon
@@butteredsalmonella it walls groudon because there are really FEW people out there that uses Solar beam Pdon. It's not a really useful tech, as opposed to the niche advantage of running Dragon Claw or Shadow claw for some matchup
I used a Scarf Delibird in gen 5 OU because Ice Punch is a guaranteed ohko on the genies.
The is the first time I think I've ever read something positive about Solrock. Thank you. I've been fond of this mon since gba
I don't remember every detail too well, but in gen 7 PU people used to run level 99 Aromatisse to outspeed regular ones in trick room, since it was the slowest pokemon in the tier (besides Ferroseed). Needless to say, it's now PUBL.
Reminds me how SS OU has level 99 slow twins tbh
There has to be a badge of honor for somehow being in PUBL. That means you hit the mark of being just barely not complete garbage. Like getting a D- in school.
@@mettatonex7221 that's being PU. Completely garbage mons end up in Unranked (or ZU if you prefer to call it that)
Update: Musharna has the same speed as Aromatisse (29) so it's a tie for 2nd slowest.
I assume Aromatisse also clapped Musharnaso.
People did that with Cofagrigus at some point as well
The Ariados pick is definitely more creative but my favourite low tier pokemon in Gen 4 Ubers has got to be Parasect. With Dry Skin, it's completely immune to argueably the most dangerous move to switch into in all of Gen 4, Kyogre's Choice Specs Water Spout. It's then locked into the move and you get a turn to Spore something. After that, it doesn't do too much but despite having a bevy of weaknesses, some key pokemon in Ubers don't often run moves that hit it super effectively, allowing it to get a hit off without dying, such as Darkrai, Palkia and of course Deoxys which Parasect actually OHKOs with max attack X-Scissor.
A ton of otherwise bad Pokémon find success in Ubers just because Choice Specs Rain Water Spout on Kyogre is so ridiculous. Shedinja, Ludicolo, Gastrodon, among others are considered only because they could possibly survive it.
@@mjdxp5688 There's also Abomasnow, which resists water moves and will overwrite Kyogre's rain with it's hail due to being slower. It's also worth mentioning that while it may not be the bulkiest thing in the game and is generally considered to have a horrendous defensive typing, Abomasnow actually IS, in fact, known for it's defensive merits it does bring to the table. This also is one reason why I can NOT take anyone seriously who thinks that grass is one of the worst defensive types in the game; it's generally assumed by people who don't know better that it MUST be a bad defensive type because it's one of two types that has 5 weaknesses (the most any individual type has ever had), and yet they are overlooking the fact that grass types are most often at their best when played to their defensive strengths, which are more valuable than most people give them credit for. It should also be mentioned that several of the grass types weaknesses are generally not that bad when you actually take everything into account, with fire and flying being amongst the most threatening types it's weak to, which softens the impact of how supposedly "bad" it is by a decent margin. I also remember one of my friends once showed me a type chart that showed all of the different weaknesses a Pokemon of a particular dual type had, and used it as "evidence" that the grass type wasn't very good defensively because the type combinations it was part of often had a greater number of weaknesses than others did, I rolled my eyes at this since I had been telling him about why the type is not as bad as many people seem to believe it is, and this was just flat out missing the whole point of what I was trying to get at
@@mjdxp5688 Gastrodon also messes with Palkia pretty heavily. It can take Spacial Rends OK and is immune to everything else it wants to do. It can't really hit back or anything, but it can spam recover and run Palkia out of Spacial Rend PP.
Gastrodon is one of those weird (usually) low tier mons that actually just works in any tier to some extent. There's something about water/ground mons that just lets them work in any tier with the right team honestly.
@@Lankpants Gastrodon is even more special due to being immune to Water, which no other Water/Ground is, giving it immunities to two very good attacking types.
Parasect, Shedinja, and Ariados, the holy bug trio of Gen 4 Ubers.
I used to run a FEAR whimsicott lead back in gen 6 smogon. It played a large part in getting my mono grass team to 1400 elo.
Funnily enough I recorded a F.E.A.R segment for this vid and had to cut it, might get it's own vid down the line
@@BigYellowSilly F.E.A.R. and similar sets deserve their own video imo. Shoutouts to Endeavour\Sandstorm\Shell Bell Aron for being a pokemon in the F.E.A.R. genre that can threaten to sweep against the correct (or, rather, incorrect) team
@@WaaveLvl0 Magnemite: I'm bringing the Berry Juice for the F.E.A.R. video!
@@WaaveLvl0 and Togedemaru
I had a set like this in gen 6 uu which got me to about the same rank. Team was a pretty standard team with things like SD mega Absol. but the best part was the lvl 1 trollpass with painsplit and tentacool with toxic spikes. You lead trollpass and can kill the first Pokémon with toxic and pain split. Normally you then get a rocks set up and let trollpass die, but I had an idea to set up toxic spikes with tentacool and rapid spin hazzards so trollpass sturdy wouldn’t be broken. Now the lvl 1 trollpass is a legitimate late game sweeper that can come in after a mon dies and sweep teams with pain split. Really fun team. 100 times better to use a lvl 2 probopass so you can’t get toxiced but then you lose out on the meme potential.
downside: You might get OHKOd and you're generally worse
Upside: You have put her in a little birthday hat and gave her a birthday card
I see this as an absolute win
A note on the thing you said at the start of the video: When you don't ban one thing that is broken, you are defact banning everything that it stomps into the dirt, until the only allowed strategies are the broken thing and the broken thing's counters. Banning broken things actually enables MORE creativity, not less.
I question this because most metagames aren't given the time to make their course before the get changed by the devs. The broken thing may not be as broken as it looks like if people are given time to figure out it's weak points more troughly. And usually a month of two is not enought time, especially in games where there is an obscene amount moving pieces.
Hell even in the situation you detailed, what actually happen whitout a ban is that the Broken thing players eventually get fed up whit constanly losing againist dedicated counters that they stop running the broken things because playing whitout it yearn a better WR againist counters.
@@noukan42 Three months is plenty of time for skilled veterans of a given genre- they can compare the Broken Thing™ to the sorts of stuff they’ve seen in the past and make snap judgements about something’s strength on paper, which can then be quickly refined through practice. If playing to beat the counters of the broken strategy is more efficient than just using that broken strategy, then you’ve got a sort of RPS dynamic and the strategy was never broken to begin with. There’s a major difference between something being “broken” and something being “the best.”
The only times where the best players struggle to identify a broken thing is when said thing’s brokenness is subjective and legitimately debatable, even across years of discussion- which is where a competitive scene runs into a serious dilemma (this video is a great breakdown of it from a fighting game perspective th-cam.com/video/TkNl6labtyo/w-d-xo.html ). You’ll often find tournaments using wildly different rulesets because people can no longer agree on the ideal competitive standard. This is where patches make for very helpful and decisive arbiters. The thing about patches is that they don’t actually sabotage the development of counterplay, at least as long as they’re done properly, but augment it instead.
@@technicolormischief-maker5683 chess has a lot less moving pieces than pokemon and it is far from being solved. Do you think competitive players know each movepool of every of the 1000+ mons that exist? Just from his videos i assume Wolfey at least doesn't.
For any broken thing there can easily be 10 different "quagsires" in lower tiers than no one ever tried testing in a simulator because the never got brought up in OU before. I don't think 3 months is enought for most people to properly test if those 10 quagsires may have an actual place in the tier or are too gimmickly.
@@noukan42 first off it's not 1000+
Second, even if there *were* 1000 pokemons, more than half of them are stuff that has no place in competitive
You're not gonna sweep anything with a Caterpie that you couldn't have sweeped with anything better
The options are a lot more limited than you think dude
And even if they did as you say and "gave time for people to develop counterplay to the broken thing" (as if that hasn't been already tried) the problem is exactly the same
People are gonna be forced into using something to counter the broken thing, and the broken thing will still be OP af and no one will be able to run something that doesn't has a counter specifically for the broken thing
@@azurabbit12 Dota2 is the most competitive game around and for a while it only made major changes twice a year. Afaik it still only does big changes this rarely but my informations may easily be outdated. I am not saying this without any base.
But even just looking at Pokemon things change in older metagames more often than one may think. If a 15 years old meta isn't solved how can a 2 months old meta be?
The level 85 Chansey thing reminds me of a recent freezai video where he talks about using lower level Slowking to lose the speed war in the mirror match and ensure you go last with Teleport.
Glad that you can use Ariados to absorb the toxic spikes which the opponent’s Ariados set up. Important developments in the Ariados mirror
going back to your older vids and seeing this yassless, just completely non-girliepop'd big yellow has me fucked up. that's not big yellow that's Medium Orange
Okay I've already commented once but I couldn't leave without also talking about my favourite questionable strat - Assault Vest Klutz. Klutz's effect means that holding AV doesn't stop you from using Trick/Switcheroo, and tricking an AV onto most defensive mons renders them basically useless. This worked pretty well on Lopunny with other utility like Healing Wish, but my personal favourite user of this set is Swoobat, who can also learn Skill Swap to give an opponent Klutz, which is almost more funny that it is actually useful, and also gives it some funny interactions like Skill Swapping something with Volt Absorb vs Choice Jolteon, for example.
Klutz Lopunny is a super funny troll strat. I used to run an entrainment + trick flame orb set which did wonders for shutting down physical attackers (and Gliscors)
Man as someone with passing knowledge on pokemon because i've been pushed away from it, that almost makes me want to get back into it. If this was common i'd kill to see it.
Iron Ball or Lagging Tail are good "gifts" for sweepers. I always forget that tricky rabbit has Klutz.
AV swapping is based af
Honestly, this is probably the most fun I've had reading through a comments section in years. You always seem to know how to make videos that just bring out the friendliness and fun in people without it feeling synthetic.
Something I really like, that i feel also fits into this, is running Focus Punch on Abra in LC
Abra has a fucking base 20 attack, and focus punch is a terrible move which made me go "huh" when i saw it on a friend's team but it's genius. People will always switch Pawniard into Abra because it cant touch it, and with FP it just melts through pawniard even with no attack investment. Really neat
This reminds me of Gen 2 little cup and the most viable strategy for Chansey is to make it a CURSING SWEEPER.
Yes. After two curses you can hit anything with body slam or shadow ball and threaten a sweep. It's crazy.
@@lvl5Vaporeon oh hello Vap, also I would like to mention that curse chansey is also good in gen 2 UU, because it's almost impossible to stop Chansey from getting six curses
focus punch really isnt a "bad" move just a "meh" one
prediction reliant strategies are kinda like accuracy moves with alternating %'s
I guess Focus Punch may actually be fairly good on abra then, even if it probably isnt the best choice (which literally a contradiction but let me have it lmao)
@@lvl5Vaporeon lc just has low power level
The most "successful" creative set I remember coming up with is Quick Attack Sylveon in gen 6. It wasn't that great but every once in a while it picked off a totally unexpecting Krookidile with that 54 BP physical fairy move.
My favorite is heat crash rhypherior. Lures and destroys venusaur on the sun teams common in uu
What if Sylveon could learn Extremespeed?
Actually, not even fucking Jolteob has it, so it would be real broken.
The one thing that it should be able to use is a special Ground type move. This is so it can tank a poison/steel move with its bulk and fire back with damage enough to kill anything that doesn't have Sturdy.
Even if its 60 power. (Like HP Ground)
While it's not exactly a niche strategy, one of my favorite things about the ultra beasts is that beast boost really diversifies the builds they can run. My personal favorite is butchering Stakataka's defense stat through bad IVs and a lonely nature so that it gets attack boosts, which can make it a terrifying trick room sweeper if set up properly.
Also timid Kartana with a destroyed attack IV to get speed boosts
I used to do quiver dance Phermosa where I had to lower my speed ivs just so I can get the special attack boost since her movepool isn't that great so more power means I can sweep easily
My favorite set is a Calm Mind Kartana. As stupid and fucked up as it sounds, it actually kind of works, since it gets Synthesis and Giga Drain.
@@SoulBro12 pheromosa should never need to lower ivs, just run modest over timid instead.
Another ultra beast W
In Gen 7 PU people also ran low leveled Alolan Exeggutor to underspeed the opponent's one under Trick Room. It even came up in the suspect test discussion before it was banned.
The lowest level used that was documented was 79.
They were too afraid of the inevitable level 78 Alolan Exeggutor.
@@motherhorse6695 I shudder to imagine the horrors unleashed by level 77 Exeggutor
@@ink3487 76
That's really funny. It's like the opposite of an arms race, both sides trying as hard as they can to cripple themselves better than their opponent
@@Deadflower019 how about lvl 39?
Anyone who says that smogon bans limits creativity hasn't seen a single video of Anything Goes kids running 6 Zacians or Mega Rayquazas and getting swept by dunno Magikarp or something.
Or a single WeedleTwineedle video for that matter.
If you think "having no rules in a competitive game where the objective is to win" is a good thing that will let people be creative, I'm sorry but you're severely underestimating how degenerate people can be for the sake of winning. If you don't believe me, go play the fun drinking game of going into the AG ladder and taking a shot every time you see a Pokémon you already did (multiple times if it's on the same team) but you might want to have 911 on dial 'cause you aren't going to survive
Sources for that? Maybe some usage rates?
@@oof5992 Man, you should've seen what Gen 7 OU was like during the entire Baton Pass suspect period.
@@breloommaster12 wait, people were actually considering banning Baton Pass from the tier where the whole gimmick is that nothing is banned?
@@aclonymous do you mean from Ubers? It has already been done mate; turns out unrestrained Baton Pass was too much even for Ubers when the recipients can run away with the game with only a couple of boosts, much less with things like SmashPass, QuiverPass, GeoPass, and other such broken pass strats
@@aclonymous wait I just realized what u meant; no AG didn't ban Baton Pass. The only thing banned from AG is the Endless Battle Clause because that is degenerate not even for the sake of winning, but for the pure troll factor of, well, dragging a battle on for eternity.
Gotta say, I absolutely love your content. Found you for your fighting game content, but absolutely loving your Competitive Pokemon content! Keep it up!
Always love to hear when people enjoy both, super nice to see!
Same here. I like how both topics can have similarities like a low tier fighting game character having one amazing special move or cheap combo and a NU Pokemon having access to something like Sticky Web where it may be niche but can be a game changer when used right.
The gangar counter bug feels really thematically consistant for a ghost type
When killing your opponent literally comes back to haunt you.
@@jaschabull2365Notorious BIG moment
I remember being so tired of ferrothorn walling my teams in shoddy battle that i ran a choice banded one and seeing your opponent's brain melt about the power whippin / gyro ballin ferrothorn, even if i was losing in the end, was great
I still love the Ariados factoid. It's one of the funniest things I've heard, and it shows how crazy Gen IV's meta was where something like this is even remotely viable. It's obviously not "strictly" viable, but it's still hilarious.
P sure I was the one who mentioned it "beating" Darkrai in the other video's comments. That was a big stupid boo boo on my part because I didn't word it right at all. At best it can hope to set up Toxic spikes and break Darkrai's sash. That's basically all it can do against Darkrai.
It's still funny though. And that's good enough for me.
This is all cool info, but as an aside - factoid doesn't mean "small fact", it means "fact-like", generally referring to things that are false but presented as facts
@@thelittlestsealThat’s a great factoid good to know!
I just love when any character thats not typically popular gets love like this. I've always gotten hype when people have mons no one thinks of as their favorite.
Kinda reminds me of that meme where people talked about using Golduck in ubers to beat Omega Groudon. No-one actually did it but the idea was always hilarious.
theres 2 types of people
"smogon is a tyrant who bans anything fun"
and
people who actually play showdown
so true bestie
I can say this is true. I play balanced hackmons and obvious moves, abilities, and pokemon that would be op are banned. What did I do? I experimented with my team until I came to register running leftovers, cosmic power, protect, recover, and heavy slam. Why heavy slam? It deals damage based on defense. Registered has 150 in both defense stats, and in balanced hack.ons, it can learn a ton of moves. I have regileki set up both screens, trick room, and u-turn so registeel can be switched safely. Then it sets up cosmic power while the screens and trick room is up, meaning it takes reduced damage and goes first. Protect and recover are for stalling, and cosmic power is for increasing its defense, meaning it just becomes more tanky. By the time it have +6 to both defense and special defense, it's taking little damage from everything. So what's the weakness of this? Brickbreak and moves that registeel is weak to. Plus it takes a lot of set up
Y’all better watch out for Big Kevin the Delibird, he’ll sweep your Ubers team without even blinking.
Looking forward to this one, I’m interested to see what crazy stuff is in store.
The problem IS that he blinks, he blinks constantly and misses his moves every single time
This aged very well after S/V
@@nothingespecial1 I completely forgot about this, but you’re right. All hail the new era of Robo-Big Kevin.
he knew
I wholeheartedly agree with you, banning certain broken strategies doesn't stifle creativity. Quite the opposite, by expunging strategies that are "way too good" and would risk monopolizing the meta, you allow for a wider range of potential strategies and gimmicks to work.
There’s a reason why no one plays AG cause without limitations it’s so boring
The problem is there's already an official singles format with no bans, and most of the "problematic" things aren't a problem there because things aren't arbitrarily banned.
My favorite strategies to use are the ones that just involve spamming like 4 or 5 Pokémon of the same type with 1 or 2 mons supporting them. Dragmag is really fun but it kinda sucks gen 6 and onward. Fairy spam though is really funny since there’s a lot of powerful fairy types that can demolish fire, and poison like azumarill and lele. With support from magnezone it’s a surprisingly good gimmick
Lemme be clear that it is a complete gimmick lmao. If they have multiple steel types, you’re fucked. It’s also really vulnerable to hazards because you can’t always fit defog or spin. There are a billion other problems with it too
@@hiphops8082 also heatran destroys mag and has a 4x resist to fairy stab
@@that_dwayneee the tran mag matchup isn't completely set in stone. depending on the sets and whether hp is legal, and if it's a straight 1v1 or one is switching in, changes it drastically. offensive tran has the best matchup with mag, so if it's offensive, it's 2hkod by banded azu aqua jet without rocks. Even if it's max def, it's ohkod by banded liquidation after rocks. lele focus blast can do similar things, but that's much less consistent because spdef heatran takes 1 from full and focus blast isn't very accurate. heatran is honestly nowhere near the biggest threat to this kinda team. teams that contain heatran and pex are much harder to deal with especially if pex is running rocky helmet, but still possible because lele can threaten both. offensive steel types, especially ones like av melmetal really shut down this style.
tbh the biggest problem with this team style is the poor synergy between psychic terrain and priority.
This is the same energy as one dual screen user and 5 really scary setup sweepers. It's not good, but its fucking funny.
One-type weather spam seems to inexplicably become really good at random points throughout a generation lmao
Hey I know this doesn't really have anything to do with the current video, but you've basically singlehandedly raised my interest in Street Fighter to the point where I want to pick up SF6 when it comes out. So basically, Capcom owes you at least $60. Keep up the great videos.
icarly
@@deathrod123
icarly
this tbh
hi mish
Using Ariados in Ubers has the same vibe as bringing your newborn kid to a college football game, and just throwing the kid into the field.
Back when I watched a lot of Showdown content on TH-cam, one of my favorite channels to watch was The Garbodors. He basically determined his teams with roundabout randomization and/or with whatever completely impractical gimmick he can come up with and bullied the tiers with it. And one of my favorites is when he took a Hitmonlee into Gen 7 Ubers which had Unburden as its ability, Liechi Berry as its item, and Knock Off, Endure, Fake Out, and Reversal as its moves. You probably see what the gimmick is, but in case you don't, you use Endure to survive a fatal attack, pop the Liechi Berry to get an attack boost, and be free of an item so Unburden gives you double speed, then sweep everything using 200 BP Reversal. It won him just one game all on its own, even managing to outspeed a Xerneas with a Geomancy boost to 2HKO it. Obviously not a foolproof strategy either; any sort of priority will shut it down, something that does come up quite often in Ubers. But it was still fun to watch, and it really makes you want to think of non-conventional ways to catch a few opponents off guard.
new meta stuff
He's still killing it on YT I discovered him like a month ago
Really like that last bit about metas and tiers being driven by player creativity. Reminds me of SSBM's Yoshi, who was generally considered to not be that good until aMSa, a Japanese Yoshi player, took high placings and shifted the character's tier list placement upwards practically singlehandedly. Not every Pokemon has hidden viability waiting for someone to discover it, but ultimately the meta depends on people discovering what can counter this and how to make that work.
His Yoshi is easily one of my favourite things to watch out of any fighting game, tbh I've kinda been hoping the same happens with Mewtwo, but that might be a bit out there lmao
Honestly that was kind of on them for not realizing
@@mattzr1550 Not really, meta tier lists are really dependent on players because of how many different situations there are. Especially for old games- the age means they really aren't well documented and the janky mechanics of Melee in particular means that it's not always obvious what a char can do at first glance.
AMSA WON A SUPERMAJOR NOW
At 6:42 The joke just hits on so many levels, pun possibly intended.
It's lvl 15. With the joke earlier about "85th birthday" it's established level= age.
So it's 15. And the name "18+ minors dni!". There are SO many minors hiding in nsfw spaces. And a lot of them think that saying "no minors allowed!!!11" clears them of any suspicion. It just...
*chef's kiss*
i really appreciate how confident you portray yourself on this channel. i’ve struggled to allow myself wear nail polish for fun, but you give a “fuck it” vibe that really does kinda inspire me! love the videos too, really entertaining and authentic! cant wait to see more!
I really dig the nail polish as well! Nice to see it changing between videos as well
I think once you do it once, you realise you look awesome, so fuck it 😎
Big Yellow probably already knows about this one but the same guy who came up with Level 85 Chansey (Enigami if you didn't see the currently pinned comment) also came up with a bunch of other wacky stuff that has slim, but possibly realistic uses, the one I can find the most info on being Mega Punch Mewtwo in RBY Ubers. 3HKOs are pretty big to get in RBY, and critting opposing Mewtwos in the mirror match is important, and Mega Punch has more PP than any other move that can 3HKO opposing Mewtwo in the mirror. It's so specific that nobody's ever going to run it, especially when Mewtwo's moveslots are all pretty important, but it's still really cool to know that the little hypothetical exists.
He's done all sorts of other stuff, like finding a hypothetical use for Tackle Porygon that I can't remember off the top of my head. It's in general really sick to talk to top level RBY players, they all know so much about the game and it's really much more fascinating to me than any of the more recent gens. I would highly recommend joining the Discord server in the pinned message.
also if there's another one of these in the future RBY OU Porygon's mere existence could be enough of a topic to be interesting, as long as i'm not forgetting it being covered in another video
The fact that mega punch has a niche use anywhere is really heartwarming. Mega Punch and Mega Kick might not be amazing moves, but they have that charm to them. It's like a kid trying to name the moves the dopest things they could possibly think of.
Oh my lord, I just hopped into Gen III competitive Pokemon and I never even imagined some of these ideas. I can't wait to try some of this out, thank you so much! Another amazing video like always
This wasn't brought up in the video so I figured I would share with you my favorite meme set with Aerodactyl because actually okay and can do stuff a lot of the time.
Flamethrower
Protect
Substitute
Toxic
Ability: Pressure
Item: Leftovers
First of all I have to credit BKC because I did not come up with this one.
The idea here is you send it in versus a Pokemon it would normally beat, so the opponent switches out and you set up a substitute and at this point you have many different options.
First of all individually you can PP stall basically every Pokemon through the combination of substitute and protect, because aero is basically the fastest thing in the tier you can just keep spamming those moves and pressure will kill the opponents pp
Also you can do the same thing but with toxic and toxic stall, they will eventually have to switch out, and you can get extra value If instead of going for protect on that turn you read it and go for substitute and even if they stay in you only sacrifice 25% of your health and if they do switch out you can just do the whole thing again and one of their Pokemon is already poisoned
Flamethrower is there so this can actually do something against steel types especially Skarmory because while aero doesn't have the greatest special attack it's not terrible so when coming off a super-effective move it actually does very decent damage to things like Metagross and Skarmory, plus it means that it can still function as a Revenge killer against low HP Pokemon as long as they don't resist fire.
Probably the most annoying things you face for this are bulky Pokemon with refresh or natural cure that just keep switching around to preserve their PP, but apart from that you're pretty certain to get a good amount of damage and again it can still sort of function as a Revenge killer
@@kingarthur3236 That's so devious I love it lmao
Not OU, but rather Gen 6-8 Hackmons, I've enjoyed running my hidden ace that is Fur Coat Mega-Steelix. Hackmons lets you run any set any mon even megas without their stones, so I liked slapping down Mega Steelix with Fur Coat so he can tank any physical damage possible. Gen 6 didn't have much for Mega Steelix to work with, but I still managed. Gen 7 brought Spectral Thief which allowed him to counter sweep after stealing from a physical sweeper. Gen 8 removed megas, but introduced Body Press which gave him much needed initiative in plenty of good matchups. I've seen only two other people on ladder run a similar set with similar amounts of success, it's a fun build that obviously gets countered real hard by any special attackers, but I have fun with it.
I've used Eviolite Fur Coat Cosmoem to pretty good success as well. Fur Coat Ferrothorn can also be pretty difficult to deal with.
most gimmicky thing I ever ran in balanced hackmons was serene grace quick powder ditto. even though ditto's stats are abysmal, doubling its speed with its item for free actually landed it in a good speed tier, free to outspeed with spore, then boost, and spam 60% flinch stab headbutt. The kicker is that the most common sweep counter, imposter chansey, also got outsped, since it never ran quick powder, allowing you to put it to sleep with spore, while also letting you abuse the hell out of leech seed and headbut. it was by no means an especially viable set but man was it fun to completely cuck imposter chansey with ditto of all things.
the whole creativity aspect of it is why I love Balanced Hackmons so much, using broken rules to invent broken sets to sweep each other's broken teams is so ridiculously fun
I know this is VGC and less crazy than the strategies in this video, but Ray Rizzo’s defensive Thunderous changed how at least 3 entire metagames in VGC were played, so I think it deserves a mention. (Side note did defensive Thunderous exist on a widespread level in singles prior to Ray? Don’t know about that).
i was putting on your pokemon vids as sleeping background audio and "if you have an idea, try it out and see what you can do" was one hell of a motivational message to wake up to when i think of it in a more general context
A simple but cool idea on my part that I feel like sharing was to run Air Balloon on Barbaracle. An item that you pretty much don’t see nowadays since its advent in gen 5. This item allows you to switch for free into your opponent’s Ground-Type, which they obviously won’t be expecting. After that most Ground-Types don’t usually carry grass, fighting, or electric-type moves, so not only have you switched in for free, but now Air Balloon has continued to help you by turning that Ground-Type into setup fodder. The thing is Shuca Berry is already a viable option for Barbaracle. Air Balloon still helps you out in most situations in where a Shuca Berry would, so there’s not a lot of opportunity cost to running Air Balloon in comparison. It even makes you temporarily immune to Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Sticky Web to boot, which is a nice bonus.
The Breeloom of doom: Max attack and speed, technician, item: metronome.
Moveset: seed bomb, power up punch, mach punch and rock tomb (for predictable fire/air pokemon switch ins)
I believe bullet seed would be better than seed bomb. With technician, a 2-hit bullet seed is slightly weaker than seed bomb, so any extra hits give a ton more damage
Here's one I'm genuinely proud of in gen 7 OU:
Step 1) Lead Hoopa-Unbound
Step 2) Opponent probably does not have something that can kill you, but will be tempted to use U-turn for good damage.
Step 3) Use Fling, and watch as your opponent realizes you were holding an Iron Ball.
Step 4) Magician activates and you now have an item.
So in one move, you use a very strong stabbed dark type attack, and even if you don't kill the opposing pokémon, you still get its item. Don't like the item ? Fling again on a different pokémon to get another one !
Now the opportunity cost of this is terrible, and a crit on that initial U-turn will kill you, but it's pretty funny to steal an opponent's item.
In the same vein, I've also had fun with air balloon thief bisharp.
Ngl, I once thought about Solar Beam Delphox, but your strat is even more interesting
What even are those U-turn users? Iron ball halves your speed, even something slow as Lantherian or MScizor will be able to outspeed you, and Hoopa-U has very poor Pdefense and a x4 weakness to bug.
Just give it trick on cb/specs if you want to cripple a switch in.
@@EldenRingBuildsArchive Yeah, you take 60-80% depending on bulk investment, but you can usually kill 1 poké (even a very bulky one à la toxapex) + you can fling again to cripple another poké. So if it works it's a net gain
I think my favorite creative strat might be an Assault Vest Ferrothorn I came up with in Gen 8. I think this was the setup, might've had max Defense or Sp. Def instead of HP, I can't remember:
Ferrothorn @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Knock Off
- Body Press
You typically expect Ferrothorn to be sitting there with Leech Seed and Spikes and stuff, but it hits deceptively hard with STAB Power Whip and Gyro Ball, has good coverage / support with Body Press and Knock Off respectively, and it can take a few hits courtesy of its stats, typing, AV, and the fact that most physical attackers hate Iron Barbs. Hell, you can actually take a lot of non-STAB Flamethrowers and Fire Blasts, it's like a Garchomp with briars. The super low Speed isn't even a problem a lot of the time, since Ferrothorn ends up forcing a lot of switches by default, and it actually gets a lot of 2HKOs. Basically, Ferrothorn switches in, opponent switches out only to lose a massive chunk of HP, and most of the time, they can't even revenge KO me. I think my favorite part about this set is how it shuts down mono-Water rain offense (at least ones without strong Fighting-type attacks), a super annoying teamstyle to encounter in Monotype, especially when you use a Steel-type team. Where before something like Pelipper could chip me down with Hurricane as I barely managed to switch in and do much in return, not anymore. Obviously, this set is not quite as consistent as normal sets, but it has genuinely won me games
EDIT: I guess I had a near similar idea to that one CB Ferrothorn guy, lol
Body Press is such a fun move, this sounds like a blast tbh
0:20 I don't think they understand just what would happen should you remove said restrictions. It would remove creativity by centralizing the meta around only several, if not one overpowered unfair strategy, such as SwSh Pure Hackmons with Integer Overflow Eternamax Eternatus.
gen 9 natdex revival cats spam
I remember playing through a nuzlocke of Omega Ruby (also beating the Delta Episode) and choosing to put Aggron in my team because its mega is my favorite. It had the Careful nature (-SpAtk, +SpDef) and I maxed its HP and SpDef for max bulk. It could still hit hard thanks to a high base Atk and it was able to live two Eruptions from an enemy Mega Camerupt.
I thought I was on to something, so I look up what Mega Aggron does in Gen 6 singles, and sure enough, it's decent in UU using Careful and SpDef EVs to shore up its special bulk, but apparently it's a Rest Talk Curse mon which I guess makes sense because it's the only way it gets healed outside of Wish. Point is, I was happy to discover a similar set on my own.
The moment I heard "Level 85 Chansey", I said out loud "So we abusing the healing glitch"
The moment i saw the level i went "seismic toss is involved huh"
Awesome video, and it reminds me of one of my own most successful creative strategies that ever put in work in Gen 6 Ubers. Mega Banette as a honest-to-goodness counter to Xerneas. With max HP it could switch in on Moonblast (you could even run some SpDef to guarantee surviving highroll Moonblast after Rocks), but most likely your opponent is bringing Xerneas in on something they can Geomancy in front of, so you switch in on the Geomancy. You run Protect to survive the fact that Prankster didn't apply on the turn you mega evolve, Destiny Bond to take down Xerneas if it attacks you, then the combination of Prankster Destiny Bond + slow Shadow Claw means you're always covered by Destiny Bond, since Destiny Bond's effect only wears off after you act the turn after using it. Then finally you can also run Taunt, in case they try to play around Destiny Bond's PP by using Geomancy again. This thing was legitimately a staple in my Ubers teams, the tier I played most in Gen 6.
Here's an interesting Gen 2 set: Chansey is actually one of the very best physical attackers in UU, despite its base attack stat of 5. However, since it has Curse, it can become extremely bulky while increasing its attack stat by a lot, which allows it to sweep.
I had seen another pink blob strategy in Gen 4, where you gave Blissey a Mail so that it would be immune to Trick/Switcheroo.
The Aerodatyle thing is also rarely used on crobat with a scarf in gen 4
One strategy that I used in gen 8 uu before aegislash moved to uubl was a set with solar blade on a sun team… it caught so many people off guard and I enjoyed it
Anyone talking about limitations ruining creativity probably runs a full team of legendaries anyway.
This is a lot less gimmicky, but in the older gens people used to really sleep on Power Herb. A lot of fire types only had solarbeam for reliable grass coverage, and especially in metas with strong pokemon with 4x grass weaknesses like Rhyperior or Swampert, it can get you a surprise KO. Also in Gen 6, Power Herb + Sky Attack + Unburden was a great set for Hawlucha, who lost the Acrobatics + Flying gem combo and didn't have the terrain seeds yet
I remember making crobat every single role possible in a team, fun times.
In regards to your comments about flynite and creativity, I wholeheartedly agree. I recently wrote an analysis for Necrozma Dusk Mane in the Battle Stadium Singles meta, and one of the things I tried to do was provide a ton of options for things to tweak. Different EV spreads to use, different items for whatever purpose you want (BSS also has item clause so it’s more important to be creative with your item choices than in smogon formats), and even though I really think fini and Landorus are great partners, I refrained from actually recommending any partners for NDM, as I really want people to read my analysis as a “hey, so you can start here,” sorta thing and not “this is the only way to use it” sounding analysis.
Creativity is super important in mons and I think people really discount the value of being unpredictable because when you look at the top mons and see how many people use them, you just assume they’re all doing the same thing, when that is very rarely the case.
Edit - a quick note, one of the coolest NDM sets I ended up mentioning was a calm mind variant, which was brought to my attention by Theorymon, and he was able to do extremely well with it. I wasn’t able to replicate his results, but I have much less experience with the set (and tmon is also wayyyy better than me lol), but I found it worth making a note of because it’s a non-intuitive set that ended up having genuine value, and I want to encourage people to try stuff like that.
One of my favorite "gimmick" sets is Lansat Berry drapion
Agility, Night Slash, Cross Poison and Fell Stinger
If they don't one-shot you, you have a very ok chance to sweep a team after removing the resists with Magnezone or something like that.
Ah yes.
I remember that shit.
Papa Garbodor the madlad....
@@NeoGraena Indeed
Some of my favorite sets I've used that only worked like twice but boy was it funny.
Anti Darkrai Mega Gardevoir. Pixelate and Snore made it hit pretty hard, though once your opponent sees that happen once it's not so viable anymore.
Entrainment Dedenne who would be followed by Trace Porygon2 with a Sitrus Berry and Recycle. It's funny until you run into someone else running Ditto.
And, of course, Final Gambit Ninjask with max Spd and HP investment. Super suicide lead, it got me to demolish a mega once and the opponent disconnected.
A buddy of mine in High School gave me some weird set ideas and some of them were really fun to use and I think this video by Big Yellow is what sort of got me into thinking about some of the more off the wall sets but not going too crazy.
Like some of the sets I’ve built and am quite proud of in SV are two of my Blunder Policy sets such as BP Hypno and BP Eelektross.
Some Gen 2 creativity (gen 2 jank?): Present uses a really weird damage formula that increases in power based off the index number of the target's secondary (or primary if only monotype) type, and does not use the user's attack stat in any way.
Because of this Blissey runs it pretty frequently for the rare chance to absolutely nuke special threats like Raikou with the 10% chance of the 120 bp variant having a chance to OHKO, and even the 40 and 80 bp variants doing pretty respectable damage. It even justifies using a move with a 20% to heal the target. Especially with how many free turns a fat blob like Blissey can get.
Honestly though, kind of hard to say what is and isn't creative in gen 2 with how many strange things are standard there, like Growl Miltank to stall out Curselax.
You've found a way to inject soul into the most drab of gens. Well done.
Golduck to kill Primal Groudon and Mega Rayquaza is one of my favorites, it’s questionable whether it’s good or not but I like the idea of golduck being able to annihilate two of the scariest Pokémon ever designed
golduck was used in vgc
My favorite joke in this video is the Mr. Mine named "18+ Minors DNI" being level 15
During Gen 5 I was into mono-type battles; I was running a rock type team and a little tech I ran was Redcard Crustle. Gen 5 was when sturdy was buffed to act like a focus slash. I used Crustle to counter stat buffers since study prevents 1hit KOs and redcard switches out the opposing pokemon, getting rid of all their buffs. Might not be the greatest tactic in the world but it was something I was proud of.
Criminally underrated channel, I could watch this sort of Pokemon content all day. Reminds me of back when I played competitively from gen 4-6 and always tried to find the silliest possible strategies.
My favourite of all time was ORAS anti-Meta contrary shell smash Shuckle with infestation, toxic and rest paired with mega Sableye - genuinely evil. Predict a Taunt or roar with a sableye swap and the other team has to out stall a defence and sp. Defence invested shuckle with shell smash
One of my funniest wacky ideas like this was making a Gen 6 OU team that was set up like a Sun team (with a few Chlorophyll sweepers and a couple other things I can’t remember) and making the obvious Sun setter out to be a Charizard (and it was the only thing on my team that could mega evolve).
The plan was that the foe would think that I would lead Zard, mega evolve into Zard Y, and get the sun up, and they would either lead with or send in something like a Heatran to counter it. And here’s where the trick came in: the Charizard was actually a substitute + salac berry + belly drum sweeper.
It only worked like twice, but it was funny as hell dropping half or more of an opponent’s team with something so stupid and impractical.
Hit em with the gen 3 special.
Ever since FSG talked about Ariados’ Uber niche in Gen 4 it’s became one of my favorite strats
I will run offensive blissey pretty regularly, serene grace charge beam guarantees a special attack boost, also it gets a lot of moves that get good use out of serene grace too such as tri attack, shadow ball, and thunder. I’ve tried both a more traditional spread with leftovers and softboiled as well as a more extreme assault vest set with max HP and special attack. It’s so satisfying seeing something like a glisgor or garchomp or Lando switch in only to lose a massive chunk of health at minimum.
From Gen 5, my favorite weird strats was Skill Swap on Chansey and Blissey. With skill swap they now counter Reunicles specifically, but they also now make it so that Gliscor isn't a free switch in. A lot of other Pokemon really don't like loosing their ability either. Psych-Up also allows it to counter Reunicles, but it isn't nearly as cool.