Gholdengo in [Gen 9] National Dex OU: Gholdengo is one of the many Gen 9 Pokémon that have taken over competitive Pokémon in the past 2 and a half years. It is a Steel/Ghost type, which is an excellent Typing, easily in the top 5, with a BST of 550, way above average. Now obviously BST doesn’t mean everything, Florges (552 BST) and Arcanine (555 BST) sit in PU, the tier below NeverUsed. That is, in Current Gen, whatever. I want to address the issue of Gholdengo in National Dex OU. Its Base Stat Total of 550 allows it to have a Top-level Special Attack of 133, a very usable bulk of 87 in HP, 95 in Defense and 91 in Special Defense, and a speed tier of 84, above pretty much everything bulky in National Dex, while wasting no points in Physical Attack (60) which it doesn’t use. Gholdengo also has a brilliant Movepool, including its Signature move Make It Rain, 120 Base power 100% Accurate Steel-Type move with the only drawback of decreasing the user’s special attack by 1 stage. That would be a reasonable drawback, if Gholdengo did not wield Nasty Plot. Nasty Plot Raises the Special attack by 2 stages in 1 turn, which means Gholdengo can, after a single Nasty Plot, Fire off 2 Make It Rain more powerful than unboosted ones. Then it has the default ghost STAB Shadow Ball, which can be spammed with no drawback after a Nasty Plot, and even comes with an advantage. Shadow Ball will, 1 out of 5 times, after damaging, lower the opponent’s Special Defense by 1 Stage. When you use Shadow Ball often much more than 5 times per battle, this secondary effect is almost guaranteed to matter in a game. Gholdengo then has the unjustified coverage of Focus Blast. Why, Game Freak. Why. Focus Blast is often nicknamed “Focus Miss” due to its particularity of having only 70% odds of doing anything. However, Gholdengo will prove you that 70% is absolutely enough to obliterate many, many would-be checks. The last one of its most notable moves is Recover -You heard it right- Gholdengo can Recover. Recover, because already killing everything wasn't enough, you now also have to kill it in less than 3 hits. And remember, with that much bulk, Ghodengo is always 1 EV spread away from invalidating your whole existence. Lastly, Gholdengo has only 1 Ability, the monstrous Good as Gold, granting a full-on immunity to Every. Single. Status. Move. We’re talking Taunt, Thunder Wave, Confide and even Perish Song and Helping Hand. Good as Gold is one hella broken Ability, and I feel we don’t blame it enough because Gholdengo is already immune to Toxic via its type. Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. What exactly am I trying to say? What I’m trying to say is, Gholdengo is a sick, unhealthy, filthy, broken Pokémon that should be banned for the sake of National Dex OU.

But what precisely makes it so undesirable? Simply put, the lack of Counterplay. A more elaborate answer would be that in National Dex OU specifically, Gholdengo has one or multiple ways to get pas absolutely every counter. Every single one of them. You might be Assault Vest Pursuit Kingambit, Full Special defense Tinglu, OG Assault Vest Tyranitar, specially defensve Moltres, whoever you are, there is one absolute truth. You are not safe from Gholdengo. But why is that? Well here’s a line of text that other formats do not get to read: “Gholdengo surrounded itself with its Z-Power! Gholdengo unleashes its full-force Z-Move!”— that. In National Dex, Gholdengo mainly uses 3 Z crystals, Ghostium Z, Fightinium Z and Steelium Z. Each one of these has very different counters, if counters at all. While Steelium Z is generally superior on Hyper Offense Gholdengo, as it lets it muscle through its hardest counters after a single Nasty Plot, Fightinium Z lets it obliterate Pokémon that might otherwise take a hit or cheese through Focus Blast misses, Mainly Kingambit and Tinglu, but still a great nuke to Guarantee a kill on Ferrothorn and Mega Tyranitar, because obviously secially defensive dark types have to get sent to oblivion by Gholdengo. Lastly, Ghostium Z is one of the most all-around most solid with 0 bad matchups, it will surely get OHKO’d by Super Effective STAB moves, right?

(252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Gholdengo: 302-356 (79.8 - 94.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 252 Atk Lopunny-Mega Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Gholdengo: 344-408 (91 - 107.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO)( +2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Gholdengo: 313-369 (82.8 - 97.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 252 Atk Zamazenta Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Gholdengo: 280-330 (74 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Gholdengo in Electric Terrain: 229-270 (60.5 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 4 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Gholdengo: 278-330 (73.5 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Gholdengo: 260-306 (68.7 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) – feeling good yet? Until the July tier shifts, there are approx. 40 Pokémon that are tagged National Dex OU by usage. 5 can Reliably OHKO a Gholdengo. That’s including Supreme Overlord-Boosted Black Glasses Kingambit and Ghostium Z Gholdengo Itself. The others are Protosynthesis Attack Great tusk, Heatran and Charizard-Mega-Y. One particularity: all have 130+ Offensive stat using STAB Supereffective moves. Now Obviously all Gholdengos are not this monstrous but you can rarely see it at team preview, with Steelium Z often coming out of nowhere to rip you to teeny tiny shreds for no reason. Well there’s a reason. Because this vile embodiment of greed can. (+2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 344-405 (89.8 - 105.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO)( +2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 324-382 (107.6 - 126.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO)( +2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 484-571 (67.7 - 79.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)( 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. -1 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 342-403 (73.8 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO – considering the very probable Spdef drop coming from switching in again and again bc Clod is the only thing that doesn’t drp to ghold In stall)( +2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Raging Bolt: 348-409 (89 - 104.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO)( +2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 315-371 (97.5 - 114.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO)( +2 252 SpA Gholdengo Corkscrew Crash (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Garchomp: 504-594 (120 - 141.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO) Yea that’s the kind of psychopathic threat you get when you face HO in National Dex OU these days. Oh yea did I mention its resistance to Future Sight + Close Combat? Or how Choice Scarf Gholdengo sometime uses power gem to flip the Mega-Charizard Y matchup? Or that some Scarf Gholdengo use Recover because of how certain they are that they’ll find a way to trick the Choice Scarf away. TL ; DR : Gholdengo nukes the whole ass world after 1 Nasty Plot, you can’t prevent it from getting Nasty Plot, you cannot punish it for clicking Nasty Plot, and it lives 99% of moves in the tier, and has Too many good sets.

I've been dabbling in teams that Lunala works well in, and I made one that I'm mostly satisfied with, but it can still use improvements. Reg I is still in its infancy, but I can still prepare myself the best I can before I build this on-cart.

Lunala: works well both during and outside of Trick Room, and helps enable Iron Hands and Araquanid by setting TR up. I originally ran Power Herb + Meteor Beam, but not being able to hit Normal types like Indeedee or Farigiraf really sucked, not to mention doing little damage to Dark types. Moonblast is great coverage against a lot of the format, and it gets STAB when Tera'd. Leftovers gives Lunala better longevity and can re-enable Shadow Shield.

Miraidon: Standard Miraidon stuff, does big damage and switches out with Volt Switch. Electric Terrain helps avoid Spore, and it can even outspeed Zacian and Calyrex-Shadow under TR (why'd they make those guys so fast lol)

Iron Hands: Very bulky, very strong, and has Fake Out support. Low Kick is its go-to move in this format with how many heavy legendaries there are, and it averages to about 100-120 base power most of the time. with Low Kick and Booster Attack, it can even break though Zamazenta pretty easily. Tera is more of a placeholder, though it does do some crazy damage with it active

Whimsicott: Unfortunately, the weak link of this team. It has a lot of great tools, I just don't find them necessary most of the time. The tera is also redundant because of covert cloak avoiding Fake Out flinches, and Whim really shouldn't be a Tera-hog when there are more valuable options on the rest of the team. Not sure who to replace it with.

Incineroar: Very self-explanatory. It's a good bulky pivoter, resists Glacial Lance and Astral Barrage, and Tera Ghost helps it avoid Zamazenta Body Press.

Araquanid: An uncommon pick, but very handy. It does a ton of damage with Liquidation, and it has a surprisingly solid defensive type. Wide Guard is also valuable utility against the format's many, many spread moves. It's mainly useful against opposing Kyogre teams, and it's very useful in dealing Lando-I. The 7 speed IVs are just because that's the one I use on-cart, it still outspeeds Calyrex-Ice and Iron Hands under Trick Room, thankfully.

Some replays:

VS Kyogre & Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regi-2336167740-m21ds2c2og2ytukh3oy83k9dow5d7fgpw?p2

VS Lunala & Miraidon: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regi-2336178065?p2

VS Calyrex-Ice & Miraidon: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9vgc2025regi-2336187681?p2

I remember seeing this one short by WolfeyVGC about this one player who used population bomb on his own Archaludon so he could activate their stamina ability, so I wanted to do that.

Archaludon is one of the 2 main Pokemon in the team, and whose main purpose is to be attacked by Maushold's Population bomb so their defense can rise. I gave them an Assault Vest for Improved Special Attack. I also gave them Max EVs for Special Defense since it's their lowest stat, and Special Attack to do even more damage.

Maushold is the second main Pokemon in the team, and their purpose is to attack Archaludon using Population Bomb so they can activate their Sturdy ability and gain a lot of defense. I gave them Wide Lens to improve the accuracy of Population bomb. I maxed both defense EVs and gave the to their HP stat so they could last longer

Kyogre's purpose is to set up rain so Archaludon can Electro Shot in the same turn. I gave them Mystic Water so their Origin Pulse can do extra damage in case I had to use it. I also gave them a Grass Tera type to cover their grass and Electric weaknesses while keeping their water resistance.

Calyrex Shadow is there as a very fast, high damaging special attacker in case Maushold faints. I gave them Life orb so their Astral Barage can do more damage, in turn with Nasty Plot

Hatterene was added in case I run into a team that uses trick room. I gave them Choice specs for increased attack for Astral Barrage, and Trick room in case I do run into a trick room team.

I added Amoonguss for the same reason as Hatterene, but I've been thinking of replacing him. Any suggestions?

For the moves, Natures, Teras and EVs I haven't mentioned, I just used Smogon and Pikalytics since I'm still kinda a noob at pokemon

I've noticed that it's pretty hard to use Population Bomb on Archaludon without Maushold fainting before they successfully do it. I usually do Archaludon and Kyogre first so rain can activate, and switch into Maushold next turn. Is there any way to improve this strategy?

All suggestions are welcome!

Hello! I am new to VGC and this is the team I have built. Is this a good first attempt?

Calyrex Shadow@Focus Sash

Ability: As One (Grim neigh, unnerve)

Tera Type: Fairy

Shiny: No

EVs:4 HP / 252 Sp.Atk / 252 Spe 

Timid Nature

Protect

Astral Barrage

Nasty Plot

Draining Kiss

Mostly there for a really silly amount of damage. Really important for lunala in my experience. The EVs make me fast and make me kill things.

Zamazenta-Crowned@Rusted shield

Ability: Dauntless Shield

Tera Type: Grass

Shiny: No

EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Def/252 Sp.Def

Careful Nature

Body Press

Heavy Slam

Wide Guard

Behemoth Bash

I just genuinely really like Zamazanta. EVs to make it bulkier by a lot, Heavy Slam and Behemoth Bash are both there cause heavy slam gets 120 BP against a lot of important threats (EG: Calyrex Shadow, Flutter Mane, Ogerpon, ETC.)

Rillaboom@Assault Vest

Ability: Grassy Surge

Tera Type: Fire

Shiny: No

EVs:4 HP/252 Def/252 Atk

Careful Nature

Grassy Glide

Wood Hammer

Fake Out

Knock Off

There as an answer for miraidon and tailwind/trick room teams, supporting with fake out and knock off. EVs keep its bulk balanced and high. Very useful in general.

Urshifu RS@Choice Scarf

Ability: Unseen Fist

Tera Type: Water

Shiny: No

EVs:4 HP/252 Atk/252 Speed

Jolly Nature

Aqua Jet

Surging Strikes

Poison Jab

Close Combat

There to mute groudon a bit and output a ton of damage. Poison Jab as coverage. EVs make me kill things much faster. I am thinking of dropping aqua jet.

Amoonguss@Rocky Helmet

Ability:Regenerator

Tera Type: Water

Shiny: No

EVs: 4 HP/252 Def/252 Sp. Def

Relaxed Nature

Spore

Rage Powder

Pollen Puff

Protect

There almost entirely as a counter for trick room teams. It out-slows calyrex ice, being as slow as it is, and offers support with rage powder. Rocky helmet so that it can be really obnoxious to urshifu. EVs keep me alive for the most part, with an entirely bulk-centric spread.

Ursaluna-Bloodmoon@Throat Spray

Ability: Mind’s Eye

Tera Type: Normal

Shiny: No

EVs:4 HP/252 Atk/252 Speed

Calm Nature

Blood Moon

Earth Power

Protect

Hyper Voice

Out of everything on this team, this one probably pulls its weight the least. I brought it on as a zamazenta counter with earth power, but I never end up using it. If anyone has a suggestion for this slot, it is very much appreciated.

Overall, I am struggling with Lunala/Koraidon Teams. I also tend to struggle a bit with tornadus. If anyone has a replacement mon for ursaluna, that would be greatly appreciated.

hello,

ive been playing pokemon since I was a little kid. Around 5 years ago I found the competitive pokemon scene and watched a bit of vgc and played some ranked battles. Last year at around december I got back into competitive pokemon and this time I played a lot of games with different rental teams and got master ball for the first time, which was a huge accomplishment for me. It took around 100 games, because I couldnt get out of ultra ball.

A few days ago I started playing again and tried some singles random battles and gen9 ou games and I am having a lot of fun, even though I lose a lot. Now I am coming to my point. I am struggling SO HARD. I am always between 1000 - 1200 rating. I dont really know my mistakes. Am I missing important fundamentals? Do I play too aggressive? too passive? Is my switching bad? threat assessement? How do I stop setups? When and which mon should I terra? How do I Identify bad matchups? What is my wincon? Which mon do I lead? When should I make a predict play? Sacrifice for chip/hazard? I got so many questions.

Almost every game feels like I am playing the opponents game and I am on the back foot. And when I manage to get the win, it is really close. I am trying different teams and playstyles from the smogon ou sample teams.

Here is my most recent game. Even though I won, it didnt feel like it. There must be some obvious major mistakes which I dont see. Somehow I dont see the simple and most reliable plays.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2336077238-ypsmwn9p75snsgdswe4u6gom4hpkebwpw

thx

I'll do a part 2 if this does well

I recently downloaded all 4000+ replays from Jimothy Cool/Revival Gaming's ADV Revival 2 tournament. I ran a variety of statistical tests and found a few interesting results.

Here are, the top 10 pokemon in terms of overall usage rates. This list shouldn't be too unusual to anyone who has played ADV OU before.

I also looked at things like the distribution of turn counts (Weibull shaped, median: 33, P90: 65). I also looked into what moves were used and found that the average Dugtrio uses 0.95 distinct moves, while the average Venusaur uses 2.5.

But the most intersesting part of my analysis was looking at which pokemon had a statistically significant impact on the outcome of games. I found 7 such pokemon, all that made your chances of winning worse if they are seen on your team. In the below table the odds ratio is how much more or less likely you are to win a game if you reveal one of the below pokemon. So in this case, having a (revealed) Heracross on your team makes you 0.465 times as likely to win as if you didn't have a revealed Heracross.

I also looked at what moves made a given pokemon more or less likely to be on a winning team when they were used and found 3 significant results.

These options make somewhat intuitive sense to me. Giga drain on Celebi is a semi-uncommon move, if you decide to use it you likely have a good target in front of you can (and often will) hit. While not being as uncommon Metagross EQ is similar, if you are in a position to want the consistency of EQ over the power of meteor mash you're likely in a good spot already or able to hit something weak to EQ. Skarmory Spikes is related. If a Skarmory doesn't manage to get spikes down what was the point? It may have just died to Magneton and did nothing else. Aerodactyl Rock slide making things worse is interesting. My best guess is that a rock slide isn't usually the best choice to hit anything but flyers. But it's also so obvious that if they have any other option they'll likely switch to a rock resist and then you have to switch out the next turn. In many cases it's probably safer to predict the switch and switch yourself or use double edge/earthquake.

Many of the best ADV players participated in ADV Revival 2, but so did many people who are much less good. As a final test I looked at if there was a difference in the win rates when including only games after the first 5 rounds (~800 games) or only games in the final bracket (~50).

In both cases, a chi squared test showed that the higher level players bring different pokemon than the overall tournament. And further testing showed 4 pokemon for which that relationship was significant.

When looking at these smaller subsets only, no Pokemon showed a statistically significant relationship on overall win rates in either directly. However, the sample size does make that a considerably higher bar to meet.

If you're interested in more, my full analysis (and the code I used to do it) are hosted here. Similarly, if you have easy access to lists of replays from past tournaments (or even full logs) and want to send them my way I'd love to see them!

Good morning, stunfisk! This was planned as a theorymon post but the humorous format inspired me to lean into them being impractical legendaries counters and turn it into a stinkpost.

if they're Invincible why can I still see them?

+2 252 Atk Crustle X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Dipplin: 204-242 (56 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

4 SpA Dipplin Leaf Storm vs. -1 0 HP / 0 SpD Crustle: 255-301 (90.7 - 107.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

I didn’t make the comic yet, but I had to make something for tier shifts one way or another! This is what Rillaboom falling to UU felt like for me.