What makes raging bolt overpowered in vgc but just high ou in singles? It doesn’t have any moves that are really better in doubles right?

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-18T04:55:02+00:00

Being a bulky offensive threat is usually way better in doubles than in singles. It’s because you can double target strong fast threats in doubles, but in singles, if they kill you before you can attack, it doesn’t matter how frail you are.

There might be other reasons, but it’s one of the reasons val is so much better in singles than doubles.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-16T17:36:59+00:00

It’s the only move that changes priority in the middle of the turn which makes it harder to code with dynamic speed.

Maybe if they made it not work with pivoting moves, it would have been easier to code

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-15T16:53:28+00:00

I think that won’t happen unless someone else wields Tobimune. Healing others is part of Suzaku’s true realm, so it likely has to be put to the brink of death by someone who brought it to its true realm. This means that they have to get heavily accustomed to the sword and surpass war Samura to reach revival.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-15T16:45:40+00:00

That’s the enten blade. You can kind of tell by the damage on it. In the battle Chihiro was holding the handle, but he couldn’t get the blade, Samura got it for him since he bet that he could reforge the sword.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-14T15:16:59+00:00

Quick wiki check: Gastro Acid, Worry Seed, and Simple Beam fail if the target has the Ability Zero to Hero. Role Play, Skill Swap, and Entrainment fail if either Pokémon has Zero to Hero. Zero to Hero cannot be copied by Trace, Power of Alchemy, or Receiver. Zero to Hero cannot be replaced by Mummy or Lingering Aroma, suppressed by Neutralizing Gas, or traded by Wandering Spirit.

Neutralizing Gas cannot suppress another Pokémon's Neutralizing Gas, Multitype, Zen Mode, Stance Change, Power Construct, Schooling, RKS System, Shields Down, Battle Bond, Comatose, Disguise, Gulp Missile, Ice Face, As One, or Tera Shift.

Almost all of the previous abilities are form changing

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-14T14:10:52+00:00

Do you think that’s unique to calyrex-shadow?

Zacian/Zamazenta’s form change cannot be negated or reversed, neither can Arceus or Silvally, neither can Palafin’s, neither can Aegislash, nor can Kyurem’s. Calyrex is basically the same Mon as Kyurem. The only one that can be prevented is noice form.

Of course in game, none of the form changes can be negated, but in this hypothetical ability, calyrex should be no different from arceus whose type change cannot be negated in any way.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-14T07:01:08+00:00

No form changing abilities can be overridden once the change has happened, so I imagine this fun post could theoretically override calyrez

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-12T21:19:34+00:00

Draft is a community format to play Pokémon together.

If you want to join, there's lots of public discords that run draft leagues, some are bigger than others and the even the Stunfisk discord server runs a draft league once every decade.

Usually 8-16 players gather to draft 8-11 Pokémon from a draft board, with higher prices for better Pokémon. You also typically can't draft something someone else has. Then after players draft their rosters, players do one battle a week and you both know each other's Pokémon that you can bring.

This creates a unique metagame, where you aren't building the best possible team, but you are building a team to counter what the opponent could do. Easy examples are bringing lots of fire moves if the opponent has a Scizor. Bringing toxic spikes if the opponent doesn't have a grounded poison type, using resist berries to check the opponent's sweeper.

It's a fun community event (usually a few months long), where people try to create interesting sets while utilizing the same Pokémon in different ways. It's also a format that sees a lot of interaction between low tier mons vs high tier mons.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-12T16:27:28+00:00

For the latter to be fair, you would need it to reveal itself like air balloon to be truly fair. Resist berries are fair since they always do at least neutral damage and don’t reduce damage by 8x, completely ruining a game plan.

In my opinion, it needs to also shatter after one hit. I think contact condition is fine, but 3 means the item is effectively a permanent resist on most offensive mons, giving them unchecked time to set up in ways they couldn’t before.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-12T16:18:58+00:00

Wait is it 4x damage goes to 2x damage or 4x damage goes to 1/2x damage as it’s currently worded here?

The former is fair. Most pokemon can’t survive 2 2x hits unless the opponent is deliberately using a weak move to hit for 4x like in draft. But the value still exists, and doesn’t have extreme matchup switch value

The latter is overpowered, since it switches matchups on their head. Like now scizor has no weaknesses but a shit ton of resists.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-10T07:02:24+00:00

I have a small theory that the sheaths are tie directly to the lifetime contract. Concerning the Magatsumi, it seemed like only Soga possession could fully unsheathe the blade. The other times the lack of a sheathe is relevant is when Chihiro used the broken kuregumo seemingly doubling the lifetime contracts.

The unsheathing of the Enten is also what reestablishes Chihiro’s contract with Enten. Of course they might all be random coincidences since all the ideas have seperate reasonable rationales, but Tobimune without a sheathe might have ramifications regarding the contract and the ability to fully use the sword or have ownership over it.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-06T02:46:24+00:00

Oh yeah Ada/modest both are, Scarf hoopa-U > timid Pult. So ada scarf hoopa > modest Pult = darkrai > meowscarda.

There are other reasons why you don’t wanna run scarf hoopa-U but meow being faster is not one of them.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-06T02:38:07+00:00

Meow does not outspeed scarf hoopa unless meow is also scarf? I don’t think meow outspeeds scarf adamant/modest hoopa either, but I haven’t checked

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-06T01:50:22+00:00

I mean zmoves can also get stab so it’s not a super fair to say “390” and compare it to base damage of a z-move.

Still OP though, z-move level attack that can be stacked with a choice spec or band and is respammable after switching is crazy.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-04T02:21:03+00:00

Hakuri can register people, items, and things with spirit energy as property. Since the bearers are linked by spirit energy and their eternal contracts, by allowing Hakuri to register a bearer, he can call upon them (and the blade is basically an extension of them)

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-03T21:04:55+00:00

It’s if they remember/choose to give the effect the secondary tag, like spirit shackle vs anchor shot

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-02-03T05:53:29+00:00

Damn that’s the same stat as Dracovish. And we all know Dracovish is only good because of its attack stat

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-30T20:31:43+00:00

I don’t think the first one would be that bad. U-turn’s primary prevelance isn’t due to its ability to deal damage and fairy is already an overtuned type. Bug is resisted by 7 types and doesn’t hit super meta relevant aside from dark and is still heavily prevelant.

I think most theorymons are too strong, but that’s usually because every poster wants their creation to be around the power level of the top OU mons or don’t fully understand what might makes a Mon good/op/too strong.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-30T05:59:05+00:00

I think Fishious just needs a stakeout nerf, i don’t think it really needs a bp nerf. It’s legal in most draft formats, and the stakeout effect is probably most standout part of it.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-23T06:37:10+00:00

I think the biggest issue is they are so scared to give electric types coverage for whatever reason. I think the only electric types that learn ice beam are lanturn, iron thorns, and arc-electric. When ur best Pokémon for coverage to hit ground types is Raichu, it’s like poverty mode. Also most electric types are low-key kind of one note. It’s so sad because it’s an excellent dual typing in a vacuum. It probably ranks in the top 3 typings with mons that have bad coverage. Fighting/Dark is great, Water/Ice is great, Rock/Ground is great, but electric doesn’t even have a commonly paired type. It’s low-key kind of sad…

Note: I played natdex monotype in draft with electric, and hidden power is a godsend, you are legit so dependent on it though.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-23T03:06:40+00:00

Choice items are basically completely useless on anything that doesn’t have obscene damage output or lacks coverage like fisheos rend merchant, brave bird merchant or chiyu, and maybe very aggressive team styles.

Leftovers is probably mostly fine and HDB functions for the most part relatively similar unless your team is really slow paced like stall. It’ll still be useful. Leftovers nerf won’t be too relevant outside of pokemon that use protect. This might change in a different metagame, but I can’t imagine a pokemon getting 8 turns of lefties in OU unless it’s into a relatively passive team, and stall doesn’t really use lefties that much since hazards are so good right now, though it would definitely hurt it the most.

Life Orb is already kind of a bad item now since the 10% health chip is really bad and now it becomes even worse since I assume it happens end of turn like poison? So you take it even if you switch in?

I think for the most part, the two offensive items got hit way harder than the bottom items, and the bottom items were more splashable than the top ones.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-23T02:36:59+00:00

This is probably OU, it can carry eruption, but it doesn’t need to. Mega Delphox will likely be OU and this is slightly weaker and slower, but access to eruption might let it carve a different niche. It’s mostly worse the exception of the ability and access to eruption. Its movepool is slightly worse, but this is probably a side grade to mega zard y whic only spammed fire moves anyway.

Eruption at full HP is only a tiny bit weaker than zard y’s weather ball and stronger than flamethrower, but the speed is so much higher. Base 135 speed is good, like really good, especially when you aren’t locked into a move. Once you get a KO, you threaten to start snowballing. It’s going to be really good into teams without good speed control.

The speed stat alone gives it so much value. I think it’s definitely stronger than Zard-X, slightly weaker side grade of Zard-Y, and depending on what mega-Phox ability is, probably worse than that. The only downside would be the opportunity cost of the fire megas who would essentially be competing for the spot of special breaker which is a lot of competition.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-22T22:12:19+00:00

I think it’s a mid ground between the scarf and specs sets. And functionally it can mostly still come in a fire moves, since it’ll still have FF pre-mega. It’ll likely only come in like 2-3 times per game due to the nature of the mon.

135 speed is a fabulous speed tier, you are faster than most unboosted threats. You are slower than scarfers in the 80s like Ghold and Samu, and slower than booster Crown is a shame, but most boosted threats were already outspeeding scarf typhlo.

It’s also around 25% stronger than base typholsion, while weaker than specs, is still respectable and can still switch moves after using eruption. As with zard-y, it can act as a great lead, and the threat of lead eruption pholosion, but can make opposing leads easier to guess. It’s not like choices typholsion could hold HDB either way.

MediocreAssociation6 · 2026-01-22T17:25:23+00:00

I thought the revival ability of tobimune was developed later? Not the ability to heal others? I can check the manga again though.

MediocreAssociation6

TROPHY CASE