Creative Strategies in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 6) 

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".

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.

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.

This thumbnail is pure art. Just truly in awe at the layers.

Glad that you can use Ariados to absorb the toxic spikes which the opponent’s Ariados set up. Important developments in the Ariados mirror

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

theres 2 types of people "smogon is a tyrant who bans anything fun" and people who actually play showdown

The gangar counter bug feels really thematically consistant for a ghost type

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Back when I watched a lot of Showdown content on RU-vid, 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.

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 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!

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.

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.

Gotta say, I absolutely love your content. Found you for your fighting game content, but absolutely loving your Competitive Pokemon content! Keep it up!

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 moment I heard "Level 85 Chansey", I said out loud "So we abusing the healing glitch"

You've found a way to inject soul into the most drab of gens. Well done.

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

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).

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

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.

Anyone talking about limitations ruining creativity probably runs a full team of legendaries anyway.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I remember making crobat every single role possible in a team, fun times.

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.

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

My favorite joke in this video is the Mr. Mine named "18+ Minors DNI" being level 15

My absolute favorite way to turn bulky mons into absolute sweepers is with weakness policy. Usually the opponent likes to keep a solid coverage move to try and break down your wall but little do they know they're shifting the momentum entirely within your favor. Free +2 to both attacking stats that doesn't waste a turn or lock you into a single move. Around Gen 6-7 one of my absolute favorite sets in the world was autotomize Aegislash, since you automatically start off the battle in the shield form you've already got a massive bulk, and since stat boosting moves don't switch you between forms you can set up speed for free. If they switch out into a different mon or predict that you have king's shield it's basically a free turn, and whenever they do hit you with a super effective move you can completely shift to the stat block of a sweeper right then and there. And from there you can do whatever you want, you can run physical ghost/steel/fighting coverage, you can go with a mixed set to make use of both stats, you can use shadow sneak if you're afraid of priority, and if you wanna be really nutty you can run sword's dance alongside it if you know they'll switch, or even just go all in on swords dance with no speed if you're confident in shadow sneak killing. All-round really fun set. There was another set like that I used at the beginning of gen 8, weakness policy Runerigas, it was super bulky but had a ton of weaknesses so if you know they're gonna go for the super effective move you could use trick room and basically turn it into a strong bulky sweeper that outspeeds just about everything. Earthquake + Poltergeist (i used shadow claw before the dlc came out) is already super strong base power and you can add in something like body press to make use of the defense stat, or stealth rock/ will-o-wisp as a plan B in case they go for something else and you don't wanna be playing 5 v 6. I've even seen some sets that just go all in with iron defense + body press + rest and become a sweeper with max defense, throw in leftovers/chesto and something like amnesia or sleep talk for the last slot and it is hilarious, one of the most underrated mons I've played with, despite being PU currentlt it's won me more games than I'd like to admit.

I had this idea of running a PHYSICAL Pixelate Sylveon. Granted, 251 is not the best max attack, but with moves like Quick Attack, Body Slam and Last Resort, you could absolutely surprise your opponent. I don't know about the viability of this 'mon, but it's surely creative!

My biggest and most successful creative strategy that made me occasionally win some games in gen 8 ou, was an Assault Vest Kartana, on a rain team, specifically designed to survive standard defensive heatran's lava plume. Not because i needed i was using a rain team after all, but man if i had so much fun with that kartana

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.

Fly (or dig) was actually a thing on Gen 4/5 Gliscor too, where you'd swords dance instead of dragon dance and the poison heal/leftovers got you a ton of passive healing, alongside sandstorm giving passive damage. Yeah it wasn't used too much because Facade/EQ was so crazy and more immediately terrifying but still.

Making gimmicky sets that work in a vacuum is part of why I love settings like Draft Leagues. I made a Trevenant that hard countered specifically Mega Lopunny, and it went amazingly. I ran Overheat Houndoom, to counter the Mega Venusaur that I knew would be swapped in, since it usually checks regular Houndoom

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.

I used a stalling bulky sap sipper Azumarill on my mono water team once. The sheer number of grass type "checks" it hard countered was hilarious, plus it was fun to actually put the decent bulk of that blob to good use rather than abuse his crazy main ability

I love coming up with weird strats on showdown, even though I’m not skilled enough yet to make them work most of the time. The creativity of the community is definitely one of the best parts of competitive Pokémon.

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.

I remember making a fun team in Gen 7 PU using a max speed, rock polish, and the berry that increases speed Regirock and I always enjoyed using it

Kartana occasionally uses a timid nature and lower attack ivs to make speed higher than attack on swords dance sets, making it to where beast boost raises speed on kills rather than attack

5:05 I love that they left a message for that nonsense

i feel like "Gen 1 fuckery" becomes more important the more you look into gen 1

I have some fun ones for you in more modern gens: Eject button toxapex + magenzone can trap even u-turn corviknight consistantly, becuase eject button cancels the opponent's switch and lets you switch instead. That got me to top 100 a while back in gen 8 OU. Another fun pex set, spite pex. With a set of block, spite, haze, and recover, toxapex becomes an almost offensive threat against defensive pokemon. It's especially good at trapping other toxapex, and is a rarely used tech on balance teams that need opposing pex removed. Recently, I hit #18 with rocky helmet blissey. Of course, blissey is a special wall; you would expect leftovers or boots. Rocky helmet allows it to punish u-turn from defensive landorus, tornadus, tapu koko, and dragapult. Although not as much of a gimmick, because it does have tournament results, is using regieleki + a defiant pokemon. Regieleki only learns normal moves, electric moves, and ancient power. This means that ground types will wall it forever, but it is an insanely fast and strong volt switch spammer with them gone. Because the main ground type in OU is landorus-t, the most common pokemon in the tier, it is often the best switch to regieleki. Eleki is so fast that it will always switch first, so if you go to eleki and immediately switch to zapdos galar or bisharp as they go landorus, you get the defiant boost and often claim a free mon. That and abusing hazards is how an attacker that can't hurt ground types made it to OU. Some stall now uses itemless tangrowth, because it is the only consistant stall answer to crawdaunt. On the more outlandish side, scarf final gambit victini can lead with a scarf copycat blissey behind it. This lets blissey kill any pokemon slower than it that isn't a ghost type in one hit. It's very inconsistant so it doesn't see any real play. Timid kartana is another viable gimmick, you run 19 attack IVs and a timid nature so that it has more speed than attack by 1 point. This means that beast boost will increase its speed every time it gets a KO instead of attack, and it can snowball lategame. A very niche but viable mew set consists of imprison, transform, u-turn/roost/teleport, and block. You use block to lock in the opponent, imprison to stop them from using shared moves, and then transform into them. They now share all of your moves and struggle to death. Bonus points if they have a setup move, because then you get to set up in their face as well.

love this video already just because of the thumbnail. plus it fits the chansey strat perfectly

my favorite jank i've ever seen in competitive pokemon was in gen 4 uu, when some turbochad hit me with power herb dig on their leafeon

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.

A couple of months ago I learned about Flynite in Gen 6, and that inspired me to create a set for Lugia in NatDex (Can't remember if it was AG or not). The set was your standard Bulky MultiScale Lugia, but I gave it a Weakness Policy to give it a +2 in Atk & SpA. I realized that since it was the bulky set, just having recovery in Roost wasn't gonna cut it since it was slower than a good portion of the Meta, so I checked if it had any speed control, and it had one that was near perfect for me, Scale Shot. So the strategy was to bring it in on a Mon that is super effective against it, gain the Weakness Policy boost, use Scale Shot on the same turn to get increased speed, and then do as much damage as possible with your two preferred moves.

My favorite gen 2 strategy was using thief to basically steal your opponents leftovers or catch a sleep talker totally off guard with nightmare. These are pretty cool actually.

I love how level 85 Chansey is "literal rascalism" it's so good and I adore it

My favorite set I came up with in Gen 8 is level 99 Sash Magic Guard Solosis with negative bulk investment, max Sp Attack, and Expanding Force, Shadow Ball, Endeavor and Trick Room. I put it on a team with Tapu Lele to make it immune to priority and make EF a nuke. Sash and Magic Guard allow it to tank any hit against something that doesn’t have a multi hit move and set up Trick Room, regardless of hazards, status or weather chip. It’s almost guaranteed to be at 1 HP after setting TR, meaning something is either dying to Expanding Force or if it’s a Psychic resist, going down to 1 HP with Endeavor. Having it be level 99 let’s it speed creep slow Psychic resistant walls like Ferrothorn and Slowbro inside Trick Room and surprise them with a bop from Endeavor. Shadow Ball let’s it use it’s beefy Sp Attack to hit Ghosts immune to Endeavor that also resist Psychic, like Aegislash. So yeah, Sash 99 Solosis is a chaotic little mid or late game mon that can really throw off your opponents’ momentum.

My favorite creative strategy is naming Arceus - Flying “Arceus - Steel” so they try to use earthquake

"18+ minors DNI!" From the lvl 15 mr mime is gold

Back when I played Gen 5, one of my favorite strategies was running Magic Coat on a very slow pokemon, essentially a worse (because it takes up a move slot) but more versatile Magic Bounce - since it was a tutor move there's a lot of weird pokemon you can teach it to, including for example Dunsparce, Bastiodon and Probopass. At least most people early didn't expect pokemon with that as leads.

I've never touched Gen 4 Ubers but that Ariados strat inspired me so I did it and after a few matches got a W. I have never touched Gen 4 on Showdown before so im proud it only took me 3-4 tries lmao. Thanks for inspiring me, Big Yellow.

This is bound to be one of your high performers relative to others on the channel. Please god keep making more Pokemon and Smash Bros content!

Way back in gen4 when Pokemon Online was the simulator of choice, I ran a focus sash Gengar as my lead with Shadow Ball, Hypnosis, Counter, and Destiny Bond. Sleep their lead, let Scizor or Metagross come in, wreck them with Counter, then Destiny Bond whatever comes next. It didn't always work out like that of course, but it could basically delete half a team if everything went right.

Putting an offensive stat investment in Skarmory reminds me of the bizarre thing I did in Gen 6, turning my Protean Greninja into a special attacker (something that's basically never done) so it could run Hidden Power Steel and mess up Fairy types. No one ever saw it coming. It was awesome.

Back in the BW days people around our local groups joked about choice specs excadrill with HP ice just to bait lando, and for some reason it also had sludge bomb

man out here rocking the Blue hoody and starburst nails

One of my favorite creations was in Gen 7 Hackmons, where I used Cosmoem with Eviolite, Fur Coat (which doubles your defense), and Cosmic Power. It was nearly unbreakable despite the extreme hyper offense Hackmons is known for. Unfortunately, pretty much everything knew Spectral Thief, so it could be destroyed pretty easily.

I know this is unrelated to the video, but you're killing it with the nails. Looks nice.

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

The most creative strat I have, I haven't tested, but it's down in PU so maybe it'll work. Body Press, Stuff Cheeks Greedent. Ability: Cheek Pouches Item: Ganlon Berry Moves Rest: You gonna be sitting there for a bit, so take this to cure status and heal. If your chunky enough you'll be fine while you nap. Stuff Cheeks: Hypercharge your Defence and thus Body Press, as eating the Ganlon Berry triggers the berries defence boost, the moves sharp defense boost, also heal from Cheek Pouches. Body Press: Your main attack and the entire point of the set. Get fat and then sit on everyone. Choose whatever 4th move you want, but here are some recommendations. An attack that can hurt ghosts Amnesia: So you can get chunky on the special side Recycle: Essentially reset the build if you need to. Maybe run an Apicot Berry if you run Recycle, best of both worlds.

"These bans limit your creativity" Man, you know what would REALLY limit your creativity? If everyone used Double Team, so your team absolutely needed no-miss moves of multiple types to be able to compete

skarmory, with a gun "x, with a gun" is a guaranteed way to make me laugh no matter what or when

lmao love the reference at 19:10 to your niche items video "I dont care if Scrugusdos can do pretty well with the redbingus in generation fuck"

thumbnail so good. both clever and genuinely attention grabbing without being clickbaity

I’m honestly surprised F.E.A.R wasn’t mentioned. The ultimate low ladder noobkiller worth hours of fun. Until you meet a wise guy who gets a single hazard up that is.

I started watching your channel for fighting game content, but your Pokémon videos inspired me to start playing on smogon! So far I’ve only played gen1 and gen8 OU but I’ve been having a great time with both Also I love your nails ❤️

Woah, that aerodactyl gen 3 strat is crazy.

I never understood why people think banning pokemon in competitive = limiting creativity. Most of the time, when strategies are banned, it's to prevent an overpowered/broken pokemon or strategy from dominating and overcentralizing stuff. No one wants to be forced to use teams consisting of only mons that are powerful and checks to all the broken shit to stand a chance. Banning a handful of things keeps this from happening and makes it so more options are more viable in the long run, so you CAN use more creative strategies.

Honestly one of the best thumbnails on RU-vid

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

After wracking my brain, the best idea I could come up with was "an Electrode with Headbutt." Sometimes folks just aren't cut out for this sort of thing.

Ariados is still ass in Ubers, but they’ve officially won a tournament set for someone in BKC’s invitational, so that’s something

King making time for his passions between college essays, be like this king

I LOVED vids like this! The creativity is honestly endless and I feel like you could make 15 videos on this topic on those old gens alone, I don't even play much old gens but I know some awesome sets like Breloom in DPP Ubers as a Mewtwo/Darkrai wall or Trick Claydol lead in DPP OU. I'm gonna share a few awesome sets from gen 8 OU as it is what I play and what I'm good at (1800+ ladder) Rocky helmet physdef Blissey This sounds like a sick joke but it actually does have a massive niche in the meta. Dragapult, Tornadus, Tapu Koko and sometimes Zapdos likes running u turn to get pivot on walls switching in like blissey, so helmet punishes that by chipping it down for it's teammate, it even somewhat walls landorus due to them being defensive also. Spdef timid Kartana with 19 attack IVs Having it's highest stat lowered and it's lowest stat invested sounds horrible, but this let's it live quite a bit of special moves like scarf Lele psychic, Tornadus t hurricane, Koko thunderbolt, Slowbro ice beam and much more that you can't live with max HP only, and since it has massive defense stat anyways, you don't need investment on it. So In theory it can set up swords dance while the opponent switch to their special attacking counter like Tornadus, they hurricane and you knock them out with knock off and you got a speed boost, and if you also have synthesis you can heal up. So now you have a non special weak kart with +2 attack and +1 speed (with timid and 19 attack IVs kart still has a respectable 347 attack stat) Meteor Beam dracozolt Dracozolt is an amazing sand sweeper because of bolt beak which if it goes first you basically have an electric type explosion going out everytime (doubles the damage) but it often uses mixed with life orb to beat Lando and hippo, but since Lando and hippo runs spdef, it can't draco kill anymore. However, with power herb meteor Beam it let's it get +1 special and a 150 power rock move, letting it hit Lando on the switch with that, and threatening to dish out essentially a specs draco and killing it, making outplaying it even harder. Mono Scald Keldeo Keldeo NEEDS 5 move slot in gen 8 ou, 2 for stabs, 1 for calm mind to set up, 1 for substitute to not get revenge killed or chipped, 1 for taunt to not get hazed by pex. By removing secret sword keldeo is now VinCune on crack by setting up sub cm and not be able to be statused or hazed due to taunt beating things like tapu fini, slowking, glowking, toxapex, Kartana, Tornadus and things it is supposed to beat while still able to set up through ferrothorn and other steels. Audino (not mega, just audino) It exist, and it's good. It's a very gimmicky stall pokemon that can knock things off, status with twave or toxic, heal bell or even wish. With heavy duty boots + regenerator it is surprisingly hard to kill with very little things that aren't fighting type stab to be able to kill. And with ghosts and knock off never being better to get rid of choice items and boots EVERYWHERE audino actually has a very nice niche for hardstall teams which are admittedly, the worst it's been (which is why things like audino, lickilicky, Shedinja, xatu, weezing and mesprit are being used) These are what I can think of as of now, there are even more that I didn't mention because either I forgot or not cool enough to mention, and believe me, there's a lot. Gen 8 OU is in a state of balance where nothing is broken and stall sucks so A LOT of creative sets are coming out left and right to be able to beat the ever present balance and BO teams.

Viper- you'll go magneton? Hidden Power Ground bich Absolute banger of a song right there

What's the scream sound used at 9:35? I'm dying of laughter just replaying that scene over and over again!

For a second I was like "you cut your hair?", then I realised I've seen this already and it's from a year ago. I guess I'll let it play out.