Idk why but seeing girafarig, an infamously statistically weak mon, finally evolve and manage to become an important aspect of a meta alongside crazy strong legendaries mythicals and paradox mons while a large portion of the old staples faded out of relevance is beautiful to see
girafarig has always been a favorite of mine, honestly its crazy how farigiraf has managed to carve out this niche without crazy stats. Psychic normal is an underrated typing in my opinion and farigiraf uses it really well, that plus having a great ability and being rather tanky with a great move pool makes it just an awesome pokemon.
Farigiraf is just the perfect example of a pokemon that has a high skill ceiling and low skill floor. Sure you can just slap it on a team to block priority moves but being able to do everything else you mentioned takes a lot of skill and knowledge to make it work reliably. It deserves to be where it is right now
Can I just say that the pacing of your videos is basically perfect? Every sentence is full of information, while going into just the right amount of details.
@@herhhetj5372that a collab between Freezai and BKC would be amusing. Freezai being scripted and paced perfectly and BKC being unscripted and tangential.
I completely agree - Freezai's excellent pacing is probably his biggest strength as a content creator. Every line holds my attention without ever getting too bogged down in irrelevant details.
I've found the perfect partner for Fairigiraf is not Iron Hands, but actually Guts Hariyama. While Hari has lower base damage than IH, it does actually exceed IH's after Guts activates. Moreover, Hari has two critical tools that IH lacks-- Wide Guard and Knock Off. Fake Out and Wide Guard allow a near guaranteed Trick Room setup for Farigiraf, allowing Hari to hit extremely hard the next turn with Guts activated (or protect both mons again with Wide Guard until the offending party-wide attackers have been removed by Fari). I've got a fairly unconventional team with Farigiraf, Hariyama, Arboliva, and Bellibolt as the core that actually has remained viable since Reg A, because the goal of the team is to remove anything that could stop Bellibolt and then have Arboliva set up screens and grassy terrain before Bellibolt cleans up without any chance for recourse on the opponent's side. Bellibolt wants to hit the field after trick room is gone-- if it enters while TR is still up, it risks a turn where it takes four attacks in a row before it can act. With deceptively high damage from its ability fueling the field-wide Parabolic Charge and the subsequent healing from PC, it can keep itself alive surprisingly easily, especially if you run Grassy Seed on it. Soak and Muddy Water provide excellent utility for hitting ground types, and Hariyama already clears out one of the most common, Ting Lu, pretty effectively, with Arboliva being very good at removing any others. If anyone is looking for team ideas, I strongly encourage these mons, it's very fun.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that Farigiraf + Hariyama is an excellent combo. Combine it with Goodra - H and you've got an immensely tanky team that's near impossible to stop once it sets up.
Love the Empoleon vs Torterra example. That was the very interaction that made Pokemon's mechanics "click" in my mind as a kid. My friend and I would constantly play out that situation in our battles in their backyard. Good memories!
Farigiraf @ Leftovers Ability: Armor Tail Tera Type: Fairy EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA Bold Nature IVs: 0 Atk - Dazzling Gleam - Psychic - Imprison - Trick Room This is what I picked up on from the video. The item, nature, and EVs were guesswork.
I wouldn't quite call this him defying power creep but simply not being creeped like him has a great mixture of tools that no one else particularly has in one creature
I think it’s so cool that Farigiraf is finally seeing competitive representation. Girafarig was always one of my favorite Pokémon but it suffered from being an unevolving Pokémon in Gen 2, it’s nice to see the line finally glowing up.
Quality of these videos keeps improving, you are doing such a great job both in editing aswell as script writing. Consice, accessible even for less informed people, backed up by relevant but not excessive data and statistics that people can pause for if they need it. Always a clear red line throughout the entire video, keep up the good work!
Love the new editing style! Been watching your content for a year now, I click at regieleki speed whenever a new video comes out. Love your videos, keep up the quality work!
I have been following you for a while, and seeing how S/V propelled you to not only have 100k+ subs, but also completely shift from a smogon player to a VGC worlds competitor, so hey, congrats!
Girafarig has always been one of my favorite pokemon for no reason other than my love for giraffes so I feel so validated and proud of it for it’s evolution getting time in the spotlight. like my baby is all grown up.
I think armor tail ability would be fun to use on other pokemon too, maybe rhydon or kangiskan. I think they should focus on upgrading some of the older mons that werent as good like they did here with girafig Edit: kangkiskan would be cool with armor tail since its got STAB fake out and is pretty bulky for pivoting, and only weak to fighting type.
Fargiraf is only going to get better because even more priority is coming to the game. Rillaboom is getting grazzy glide and if Raging Bolt ends up being good, its signature move is an electric sucker punch.
I don't even play pokemon but I always like learning about the meta cause its just so complicated with all those mons that compliment or overshadow eachother
I'm glad the Farigiraf I got ready for my Regulation A team has a chance to shine again Being able to stop priority was such a powerful tool when people were banking on their priority in all their calcs
Farigiraf has always been great I had a horrible trick room team from charlotte with pincurchin but the only reason I was able to win games there was the consistency of the giraffe and iron hands
Proud to say been using farigiraf since SV launched. Been using her as a bulky special attacker with max EV’s in hp and def with calm mind to boost sp atk and sp def. Slap on a rockey helmet and wish to become a menace.
Never have though that watching Pokemon analysis with battle theme from XC2:TTGC as bgm could be this oddly satisfying. ps. As gen 2 lover, it's great that an interesting Pokemon (in term of design) like Girafarig can have it own glory.
I’ve been a Farigiraf Stan since Reg A, I’ve always been a TR fan and I saw early on that with the right setup, nothing could stop it from setting up TR, I always used it over Indeedee throughout this series
