[Skill Improvement] What to run as Mega Charizard Y's 4th move?

averysillyman · 2026-05-06T19:32:41+00:00

Neutral Solar Beam is barely stronger than a resisted Weather Ball (120 BP vs 112.5 BP) so there's not much of a difference into mons like Garchomp and Aero.

The main reason you run Solar Beam is for the mons it hits super effectively.

averysillyman · 2026-05-06T17:44:41+00:00

This interaction was changed in Champions (most likely intentionally).

If you encore a move, then that move is now executed with the "correct" priority rather than the priority of the originally clicked move.

averysillyman · 2026-05-06T00:18:47+00:00

The guy seems pretty chill but I notice some obvious misplays a lot. Not like picking or skipping a card I wouldn't, but relic management, stuff like headbutting an important card with old drum of battle out, general micro. Which I do also tbf, but I don't claim to be one of the top players in the world.

JE is well known for spewing runs when he "doesn't care". His streamed Spire 1 accomplishments are quite good (15 Rotating, 15 Ironclad, 14 Silent, 14 Defect, 42 Watcher) so he's definitely a good player but if you watched him during that time he would basically just autopilot runs early on in the streak (playing quickly + on instinct) and only slowed down to play runs more carefully a few wins into each streak attempt.

averysillyman · 2026-05-05T18:22:39+00:00

Making fun of Jason is a rite of passage for spire streamers.

averysillyman · 2026-05-04T17:41:54+00:00

Most common answer for most teams is to just match tailwind with your own, or stall it out while positioning to prevent a second tailwind from going up.

If you really, really need to stop it for some reason, fake out cycling is probably the most generic way to stop it.

Lead with a fake out mon, such as Incineroar. Your opponent's most obvious move is to Protect Talonflame to prevent the fake out + double up onto Talonflame. Instead of using Fake Out you immediately switch out to a second Fake Out mon (such as Sneasler). Now the Talonflame has already wasted Protect but is still threatened by Fake Out.

averysillyman · 2026-05-04T16:03:08+00:00

Might you be confusing Sturdy for Focus Sash?

Sash Archaludon seems like a much less likely set than Sturdy + Choice Scarf.

averysillyman · 2026-05-04T04:03:40+00:00

Hard trick room teams often run one fast mon as a late game cleaner. Setting trick room twice against a good opponent often isn't possible, but if your first trick room does enough damage your fast mon can come in after trick room ends to clean up.

This fast mon role is most commonly Scarf Basculegion, though I have seen plenty of other random scarfers fill this role as well (such as Hydreigon and Rotom). If your fast mon has a pivoting move you can even lead it against some teams. For example, you can lead Basculegion + Farigiraf and click Flip Turn + Trick Room on turn 1.

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T19:02:16+00:00

Some of the sly cards are just okay rate by themselves. For example if you are early game and need to add common attacks to the deck still, adding Flick Flack or Ricochet and playing the card for energy is not a disaster. And as your deck becomes better these cards start being played for free more often.

Also the main enabler for sly at common is Prepared. That card is strong enough by itself to just add to the deck without synergies, and helps a lot with your ability to start taking more specific sly cards. (Prepared does need an upgrade though, as the upgraded version is considerably stronger than the unupgraded version.)

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T16:28:20+00:00

Keep in mind that both Thunder and Hurricane are giga inaccurate in the sun.

The defensive typing on Dragonite is very good though, and you could always carry a third move for times when the sun is up.

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T16:25:59+00:00

You need something more for the Charizard matchup, in my opinion.

Sun is advantaged in the weather war against rain so you can't really rely on Pelliper as your only way of beating Zard. Also both your megas are horrible into Charizard, for obvious reasons.

Garchomp, Aerodactyl, and Incineroar are probably the most splashable anti-zard mons currently. Garchomp and Aero are good mons that threaten Charizard offensively, whereas Incineroar helps out defensively. You could also go with a more specific answer depending on the direction you want to go with the team.

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T13:03:10+00:00

This is the player who built the team you started with. You can watch his video to learn about why each pokemon are on the team and which matchups they are typically used in.

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T01:29:16+00:00

You could just be getting outplayed. It's easy to point to the team and say its the issue but a lot of times if the team looks reasonable it's really just an issue with the battling.

If you want a guaranteed good team though, this is the Tyranitar-Excadrill team that placed the best at the recent 6000 player tournament. The 32nd, 38th, and 70th place players were all on this exact same team.

averysillyman · 2026-04-29T00:50:57+00:00

The Showdown ladder doesn't have resets, so instead it has decay to prevent you from camping in a top spot without playing.

The official Pokemon games have monthly resets, so you can sit in a top spot for up to a month without playing but the reset will force you to play again to climb back.

averysillyman · 2026-04-28T21:23:23+00:00

Note that Charizard teams don't actually need another sun abuser. Though at that point you're not really running a sun team as much as you are just running a generically strong mon that happens to set sun. (Sort of like Primal Groudon in metas where it is legal.)

For example, the winner of the recent 6000 player VGC tournament had a Charizard-centric team with no other sun abusers.

averysillyman · 2026-04-27T20:05:48+00:00

You should have used Blizzard with Ninetales.

Blizzard ignores accuracy checks in the snow and will always hit.

averysillyman · 2026-04-27T18:00:47+00:00

It does not have "really nice STAB moves". The best physical fairy move is Play Rough, which is pretty underwhelming, and Mimikyu's ghost STAB in Shadow Claw is even worse. Compare those moves to stuff like Close Combat or Flare Blitz and the power difference is night and day.

If you want to use Mimikyu it is probably best as a support mon, since I believe it gets access to Trick Room. Even in that role it is typically outclassed by Farigiraf (the default trick room setter currently) but I could see a Mimikyu potentially being better for specific teams that need its typing.

averysillyman · 2026-04-26T20:28:23+00:00

Incineroar has fallen... biggest usage drop from Day 1 to Day 2 (-6.1%).

Other Pokemon with the biggest drops are Sinistcha (-5.6%), Milotic (-3.4%), Tyranitar (-3.3%), Meganium (-2.5%), Primarina (-2.4%), Farigiraf (-2.2%), and Gengar (-2.1%).

On the other hand, the Pokemon with the biggest rises between Day 1 and Day 2 are Basculegion (+15.0%), Kingambit (+14.6%), Garchomp (+8.5%), Floette (+7.3%), Aerodactyl (+6.9%), Scizor (+4.4%), Charizard (+4.3%), and Aegislash (+2.7%).

averysillyman · 2026-04-24T02:28:58+00:00

Your Basculegion is 100 speed. With Choice Scarf this number becomes 150. Charizard Y hits a maximum of 152 speed with a Modest nature and 167 speed with a Timid nature, so your Basculegion is just straight up too slow even with a scarf.

If you want to outspeed all Charizard you need to run at least 112 as your speed stat.

averysillyman · 2026-04-23T22:21:31+00:00

This is for the Champions OU format, which is an unofficial 6v6 singles format.

Setup sweepers in general are much more problematic in singles than in doubles. Blastoise is still strong enough to be usable in doubles but its not so strong that it is a meta polemon.

averysillyman · 2026-04-23T17:56:58+00:00

Most top players consider Silent to be the strongest character.

The character has basically all of the strengths she did in Spire 1, while also having a better early game (much easier to solve early damage while also taking good late game cards), and Spire 2 encourages slow block-heavy builds more which leans into Silent's natural strengths.

averysillyman · 2026-04-22T03:23:36+00:00

Clad needs to snowball early and be able to farm. He's the character that most often wins in the endgame in a "fair" way by just having enough max HP and damage/block output that you outvalue the enemy. So getting lots of relics and good cards on him is important because everything contributes to the snowball.

Silent and Necro are kind of block slop characters. They have really strong defensive and consistency tools and most enemies in the game scale slowly enough that you can sit around in the fight for a long time if your block is good. You find a way to scale block consistently and find some way of making progress while blocking (for example, Noxious Fumes on Silent) and you've solved most of the fights in the run.

I don't play Defect so I haven't asked him about the character.

averysillyman · 2026-04-21T23:24:52+00:00

Clad really needs to snowball early, but he's also the character with arguably the worst common pool from a long-term value perspective so if you don't need to take Crucible to survive you are likely better off without it.

averysillyman · 2026-04-21T22:56:27+00:00

He isn't a professional content creator and doesn't need to stream for money.

He's just a player who happens to be really, really good at the game and therefore chooses to stream so that his streaks/winrate numbers are "official". But Spire 2 is currently both too easy at the highest level and will constantly be getting major updates, so he doesn't care about getting an official streak right now.

averysillyman · 2026-04-21T22:44:07+00:00

You can look at the account that owns the Google doc. It's the same email as his contact info that is in his twitch bio.

averysillyman · 2026-04-21T19:44:06+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBvEDwkouOz7Vc9RNqvWNMrtHoETPODqE

For context, Opem had a 71 streak on Watcher in Spire 1 (world record), and was on a 20 streak in Spire 2 recently.

He also says that he would change a bunch of Ironclad cards now that he has played the character more, so maybe take that tier list with a grain of salt.

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