0:00 - Malamar
Regular-moveset Dragon Dance is the main problem here... and so of course Skill Swapping Contrary neuters it. Nothing new here, Blaziken had two fixed Swords Dance buffs and Malamar excelled there too... but as it turns out, it is WAY harder to have Malamar faint after using Skill Swap here for some reason. I had to resort to using multiple Superpower and then reapplied defense cheer myself (instead of just making the AI cheer permanent)!
After you revive you Superpower more until you can terastallize, then spam tera stellar Tera Blast with a metronome until you win, taking little damage on the way. Pretty fun, straightforward, and reliable unless you try to faint very early to make cheers infinite.
6:31 - Lurantis
Okay, but like, Sceptile also has a debuffing attack here in Breaking Swipe, so like... why not just use a Contrary Pokemon without bothering to Skill Swap? It's obviously worse since a crit will still end you, but it works.
Ignoring legendary Enamorus, there are two comparable Contrary options: Serperior and Lurantis.
Both are mono-grass types; Serperior can use Scale Shot (for +1 Def/-1 Spe) and Leaf Storm, while Lurantis can use Superpower (for +1 Atk/Def) and Leaf Storm; Serperior has 75 Atk/75 SpA while Lurantis has 105 Atk/80 SpA; Serperior has 75 HP/95 Def/95 SpD while Lurantis has 70 HP/90 Def/90 SpD.
They're basically fully interchangeable! Personally I think Lurantis' offenses give it the edge, though it does make me sad that Serperior doesn't have its own raiding niche... but at least its high speed (and access to Taunt/Substitute) make it really good in competitive singles.
Anyways, you basically only need Superpower and Tera Blast so Lurantis has quite a few support options. Personally I ran with Ingrain (for a bit more sustain while holding a metronome for damage) and Synthesis (for burst healing)... though amusingly, despite Ingrain not being wiped by the buff-wipe you still don't want to use it immediately and then wait for the buff wipe to start using Superpower, because the buff wipe also removes your ability for one turn and therefore Superpower would actually be debuffing you!
Unfortunately, while your grass type dissuades Sceptile from using high-crit-rate Leaf Blade (which, as a reminder, means 1/8 crits), a critical Breaking Swipe (at base 1/24 odds) is still enough for a guaranteed oneshot. It was incredibly depressing to lose two runs to Breaking Swipe crits...
13:35 - Galarian Slowking
The ever-reliable Smogon user DougJustDoug reminded people that Galarian Slowbro/Slowking (and Mew) are the only Pokemon that have access to all three of Iron Defense, Nasty Plot, and Acid Spray. Needless to say, being able to buff physical defense to stave off all of Sceptile's physical moves, but then use special attacks to ignore Breaking Swipe's debuffs, is very appealing!
They then went on to suggest a Galarian Slowbro set with Shell Side Arm (which, as a reminder, is both physical and special, picking based on whichever would deal more damage... so, special here)... but like, if you're buffing up to +6 Def and +6 SpA as well as debuffing to -6 SpD, then why not just oneshot with a tera psychic Stored Power?
And indeed, Galarian Slowking can do just that. It's so overkill that you don't even need to use an attack cheer, or hold a Life Orb (though I was lazy and still did), or even run a Modest nature (so I minted to Bold here); your poison typing means Sceptile doesn't use high-crit-rate Leaf Blade, and since you oneshot as soon as you terastallize you avoid Leaf Blade afterwards. This seems like a super-reliable strategy to me!
Other options that I didn't bother to try include the classic Belly Drum Drain Punch Iron Hands strat (who resists Leaf Blade until you terastallize, and always barely survives a +6 crit Leaf Blade after tera), as well as Defiant Annihilape with Drain Punch/Rage Fist. Very boring strats that we've seen dozens of times by now.
4 июл 2024
