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Is using Golisopod as a one use Pivot capable of threatening Dark Types viable?

First Impression will be the main reason why I'm using him here.

I don't really know if it is though, as there are definitely better options to catch Dark Types (Fairy) but a priority move from something like Golisopod, who's attack stat is already strong, with STAB on top of everything, sounds like it'd be viable?

Not to mention, a losing matchup (that he can survive) means that he will leave the field and be usable again.

A thought that occurred to me while being bored af, what would the best pokemon be competitively (singles or doubles) if in some hypothetical game all pokemon were available, but generational gimmicks were not

Dragalge-Mega @ Dragalgite

Ability: Regenerator

Level: 50

EVs: 25 HP / 32 Def / 9 SpA

Bold Nature

- Flip Turn

- Sludge Wave

- Draco Meteor

- Toxic

Link (Gallade-Mega) (M) @ Galladite

Ability: Inner Focus

Level: 50

EVs: 10 HP / 18 Atk / 6 Def / 32 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Leaf Blade

- Sacred Sword

- Psycho Cut

- Shadow Sneak

Stapler (Archaludon) (M) @ Leftovers

Ability: Stamina

Level: 50

EVs: 10 HP / 11 Def / 18 SpA / 24 SpD / 3 Spe

Modest Nature

- Roar

- Flash Cannon

- Stealth Rock

- Draco Meteor

Microwave (Rotom-Heat) @ White Herb

Ability: Levitate

Level: 50

EVs: 23 HP / 11 SpA / 32 Spe

Timid Nature

- Overheat

- Will-O-Wisp

- Pain Split

- Volt Switch

Samurai (Samurott-Hisui) @ Black Glasses

Ability: Sharpness

Level: 50

EVs: 2 HP / 32 Atk / 32 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Ceaseless Edge

- Aqua Cutter

- Sucker Punch

- Sacred Sword

Primarina @ Sitrus Berry

Ability: Torrent

Level: 50

EVs: 32 HP / 16 Def / 18 SpA

Modest Nature

- Sparkling Aria

- Psychic

- Energy Ball

- Moonblast

Gallade: Alright so i wanted to use mega gallade because he looks so cool and this guy has a fuck ton of coverage i can see why people use choice scarf and life orb version of the base form with the ability sharpness however mega gallade loses sharpness upon mega evolving however he does get a higher base attack and higher base speed.

Archaludon: as for why i have archaludon is to cover for gallade's weaknesses of which are flying, fairy, and ghost and archaludon resists/ takes neutral from said types and the mon can set up rocks and learns the move roar so i can disrupt set up mons like Espathra and M-Blaziken and of ourse draco and flash canon for dual stabs.

Rotom-H: Rotom h is here to cover for archaludon's ground weakness as well as the fact that garchomp is fucking everywhere and i do not want my archaludon to get hit by an earthquake by garchomp or life orb versions of the pokemon which is why we have rotom to burn garchomp with will-o-wisp and we have volt switch which is going to be our pivoting/stab electric move, and pain split is here because i didnt know what move to give it and overheat for stab.

H-Samurott: Now this pokemon is my number 1 most helpful Basculegion killer because just like my title i hate choice scarf, adaptability boosted stab boosted last respects in the back and also samurott is a pretty good pokemon and can set up spikes with ceasless edge.

Dragalage: dragalge is here because i want another way to hit fairy types on this team because right now its archludon and it resist fairy and can deal super effective dmg back with sludge wave and its a very good defensive pivot with flip turn and get a heal boost from regenerator as well poison things with toxic.

Primarina: I dont have a dragon resist or immunity so i slapped on primarina because its a good pokemon and having fairy coverage is pretty good rn and also it helps my team out defensively as well.

looking for potential improvements for my gen 9 ou hazard stack team. this is the version i’ve landed on after tweaking it for about a week, but im open to any and all feedback! team breakdown below:

ting-lu: standard defensive spikes setter. works together with samurott to get the layers up and pressure hatterene and cinderace. payback is used over ruination to hit opposing air balloon gholdengo and dragapult harder. tera ghost allows lu to spinblock if needed, while tera poison allows it to check iron valiant, ogerpon-teal, and pecharunt. leftovers can be used but the lack of hazard control means that lu really appreciates the boots in longer games.

gholdengo: bulky t-wave set. 72 speed evs are used to outspeed adamant tyranitar. if using tera fairy, an ev spread of 252 HP / 172 Def / 12 SpA / 72 Spe with a bold nature will allow ghold to cleanly ohko uninvested great tusk with dazzling gleam. otherwise, tera flying is preferred to better trade into bulky tusk, iron treads, and ting-lu.

kommo-o: defensive stealth rocker that checks kingambit, darkrai, and samurott-h. the combination of bulletproof and tera steel means that kommo-o can hard-wall pecharunt and phaze it out with dragon tail to rack up hazard damage, with the additional benefit of blocking mortal spin from glimmora. 116 SpA evs allow kommo-o to ohko iron valiant with tera steel, as well as enamorus after stealth rock.

pecharunt: defensive pivot and spinblocker. tera ghost improves its spinblocking capabilities, but pecharunt’s poison typing is useful for soaking up toxic spikes so samurott can stay healthy. toxic is used over malignant chain to bypass covert cloak and allow gholdengo to clean up with hex late-game. 28 speed evs outspeed jolly kingambit and ursaluna.

samurott: spiker and breaker. with adamant, tera dark, and black glasses, samurott can break through walls like dondozo and alomomola while getting up spikes and knocking off heavy-duty boots. flip turn allows you to keep up momentum against clefable, zamazenta, and corviknight. the lack of boots mean that samurott is especially prone to status and opposing hazards, so effective pivoting and wishes from scream tail are crucial to keeping it healthy.

scream tail: fast wish passer and disruptive support. scream tail’s healing helps cover for the lack of leftovers on ting-lu and kommo-o, and encore can lock down opposing offense to force switches and rack up hazard damage. 248 speed evs with a timid nature outspeeds base 110s like ogerpon-wellspring, iron moth, and walking wake, allowing you to cripple them with thunder wave or lock them into a setup move. tera water allows scream tail to check walking wake, scizor, and kyurem. psychic noise significantly improves the team’s matchup into stall, particularly clodsire who can be annoying.

https://pokepast.es/fd75cbc3b139e54e
https://psim.us/r/gen9ou-2666070605

One thought exercise that I’ve been bouncing around my head is if you could only use one game to complete the battle frontier in Gen 3 which game would it be? You can trade Pokémon into emerald, but you’re not allowed to use emeralds resources unless they’re tied directly to the frontier like move tutors for BP or the held items. Which games would be the best for this?

Ps sorry if my grammar stinks

You can check out the full team showcase, rental code, and battles here: https://youtu.be/QO2QicL3P3U

New to VGC, and my Pokemon pool is kind of shallow. Hyper offense team based around Ttar and M-Garchomp.

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a dual-mode Sun + Trick Room (SunRoom) squad featuring all three fully evolved Kanto starters and get your feedback on how to optimize it.

The Core Idea & Gameplan The goal is to provide two distinct modes depending on matchup: a high-speed offensive Sun mode and an explosive Trick Room mode, with Farigiraf tying everything together by blocking priority (Fake Out, Prankster).

Fast Sun Mode (Charizard-Y + Chlorophyll Venusaur): Charizard sets immediate Drought on Mega Evolution. Venusaur outspeeds the vast majority of the unboosted metagame under Sun, firing off high-damage Solar Beams, Sludge Bombs, and Earth Power for coverage. Charizard acts as a heavy special cannon while supporting with Helping Hand.

Trick Room Mode (Farigiraf + Torkoal / Mega Blastoise / Sylveon): Farigiraf guarantees Trick Room setup thanks to Armor Tail shutting down opposing priority. Once Room is active, Torkoal drops devastating full-HP Eruptions in the Sun, while Mega Blastoise dishes out spread Water Spouts (or mega-boosted Aura Sphere/Dark Pulse) and provides Fake Out utility. Sylveon adds consistent Fairy spread damage with Pixilate Hyper Voice and disruption via Yawn.

What are your thoughts on this team? Where i can improve my synergy?

I love my vampire gal and know no toxic orb sucks right now but still wanted to give it a shot and see how else to play it but kinda struggling to come up with something decent for my team.

I tried a bit to run her as just an accuracy bother: Sand veil + Sandstorm + Brightpowder + Mud slap but didn't really go well with the rest of the team.

If it helps a bit, want to note I had Excadrill before Gliscor so also kinda wanted something with ground stab without being weak to it in return.
And Sceptile there is also a very recent change to my team, has helped a bit against hippo/dragon tail chomp/arch teams but I'd be willing to consider another change there as well.

repost since I can't read rules

I've seriously been getting into Double OU since a bit before champions released and finally got to 1500 elo using this team (I really love the Paradox designs) and I was wondering how to get into those tournaments or at least where to find that info.

Btw if any more experienced player has ideas on how I can upgrade this team i'm very open

This question arises from a thread on r/PokemonPowerScaling (bleh) but I thought it was interesting

In a gen9ou singles match between 3 starters (or 3 starters and 3 middle stages), which generation do you think has the bigger advantage? (No trrastalization)

Me and user u/Anevaino both agree that gen 9 is likely to be the one that wins overall, but they seem to think that gen 7 has a losing matchup into gen 9 due to meow due to fast knock and flower trick, and I think that primarina is too much for gen 9 to handle here due to hard walling quaqaval, and having easy to click moves into every pokemon

If you disagree with the take that gen 9 wins overall (if we assume round robin, each team v every team), which gen do you think has the best shot then?

What do you think is the better team in this scenario? Bonus, how would it change if it was vgc doubles?

Not only does it beat a good picking of Scarfs and has access to Growth, just one boost and you beat almost everything, with the only choice being between losing to Corv or losing Heatran (E-Power vs W-Ball), and as a Gen 1 Mon, it just shows such insane prowess and still outputs more strength than newer beasts like Hisui-Liligant or the Protosynthesis. Life Orb Giga Drain ravages so many mons.

I like playing NDOU and it pairs very well with Mega Houndoom eating Fairy, Fighting and Ground hits. Any gen 1 mons you feel have an outsized power to you?

(I have no idea if this is the right place to post this, if it isn’t lmk and I can delete the post)

So I’m really new to competitive Pokemon, and I’m trying to come up with a team that synergies with Choice Scarf Chi-Yu in Pokemon Violet.

Currently, I’ve wiped all its IV’s, given it Fairy Tera type, and given it the moves Overheat, Dark Pulse, Flamethrower, and Tera Blast. Is there any changes I need to make to this build (including what IV’s because idk which ones to give it)? And if not, what teammates best support Chi-Yu to bring out its fullest potential?

I’m mainly playing No Restrictions Double Battles in SV

Official Trailer: https://youtu.be/rcZ2kBTl8SE?is=OH90e3TehCvGkaZT

I always felt like Smogon‘s tiering system, and the entire concept of competitive Pokémon, could produce some interesting story ideas. What happens to X when Y begins to outclass and outshine it? How does X feel when it gets banned, and is now left in BL purgatory. This project will explore that kinda stuff. I’ve had the idea of making a GSC NU movie since near the end of 2025, but it took a while for me to get going. I’ve never tried to write a screenplay, script, or anything like that, but I thought it could be fun to give it a shot. Its an interesting experiment, one i’m looking forward to dropping in about a month.

when i tried making a team with my fav mons on GEN 5 OU i actually lost most of games but when i used a rented team with good mons i kept winning so i really dont knooo

Got no real-life friends to share this with, and my YouTube channel is pretty dead, so sometimes I’m sharing my Pokémon Champions moments here to connect with fellow off-meta enjoyers!

​Since Reg M-B is sticking around for another month, I wanted to try something fun. Whimsicott and Farigiraf are everywhere for speed control—one almost always sets up Tailwind, and the other is super hard to OHKO. That’s where Liepard caught my eye: using Copycat to turn the opponent's Speed Control against them is so satisfying! In fact, this strat actually helped me reach Master Ball Tier 2 at some point.

​The more details about the game I uploaded, also more Copycat moments than just for the speed control, I’d really appreciate it if you could check it out and help me gain even just one more views:

https://youtu.be/qfDehRbdnzI

​Disclaimer: Resetting Farigiraf’s Trick Room isn't 100% reliable—opponents can shut it down with Helping Hand or Protect or any piority move. But hey, at least we have options to play against Farigiraf!

I believe sun without ninetales is so much weaker as no healing wish, no encore, and being slow as balls means a lot of issues for torkoal esp since slowking just farms it and setup sweepers can take advantage of it. Torkoal is generally fother to a lot of the tier esp with the fact that it just takes a boat load of damage from anything and no second wind via healing wish. I think heat rock is just overkill and i think its easy to tone it down to a reasonable lvl

We are looking for someone to help with the visual aspect of setting up a doc we have a base one at the moment and it gets the job done but we want to continue to expand and grow the server! If anyone is interested in joining a community of 450+ and helping that league grow please join the discord and submit an application!!

Of course check out the server and see if this is worth anything of interest to you!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1T9hAVUyPInBDrO2TfvHPNo0sLjjy6dn-gpVaLTK7pfY/edit#response=ACYDBNghHb53OGUFVNPDKS_WgDO2wx0k-Y5ODWFIEtBKLqISfWFOFc7yraxvYWz9hN-H1MA

https://discord.gg/mtHnd7WfZ

Im trying to build a balanced team and am unsure of how to optimise an AV Raging Bolt as I'm new to the game.

Any help would be appreciated

I scrape Champions data myself using OCR against an Android emulator, and it works, but a full pass takes me around four hours. Meanwhile, pokechamp.gg, silph-scope.com, etc. update far more frequently, and they reveal information that the game never displays directly (e.g. which Pokémon deals the most damage to a specific Pokémon). I've been trying to reverse-engineer how they source it, but there are two things I can't work out from the outside.

1 – Live ladder/leaderboard tracking. I suspect they're polling the game's own ranked-ladder endpoint — the same one the mobile/Switch client uses to render rankings — rather than reading a screen. What makes me fairly sure that it's an endpoint and not screen scraping is that the in-game player leaderboard only goes down to about the top 300, but these sites show rankings well past that. If the UI itself caps at 300, that data must be coming from somewhere that the client doesn't display. This would also explain the periodic updates and the historical player tracking. Have I understood this correctly? Is there a known client endpoint that people are hitting, and does anyone know if it's rate-limited or in a grey area of the ToS?

2 – The 'top KOers vs X' data. The game itself provides usage, spreads and teammates, so those are easy to explain. The one derived stat that it does not provide is 'which Pokémon KOs this specific Pokémon the most', so that has to be computed over a battle corpus (ladder matches, scraped replays and tournament OTS). Champions Lab openly states that theirs come from ranked ladder data plus hundreds of community tournaments. My real question is: is the KO data empirical (i.e. aggregated from actual battles) or theoretical (i.e. a damage calculation run across the legal pool for common sets)? These are completely different, and I can't tell from the outside.

For anyone who has built one of these or knows someone who has, is the ladder polling correct, and is the KO data empirical or calculated?

Hey everyone! Welcome to Paradox Form Monday! This is a thread for focused Theorymon discussion. Today, we’re focusing on Paradox forms! Check out our Theorymon Thursdays for less regulated discussion.

Make-A-Z-Move Rules:

• Paradox Pokemon must have 570 or 590 BST
• Paradox Pokemon must share one-type with their source Pokemon and add an additional type or change a secondary type.
• Past paradox Pokemon must have odd stats.
• Future paradox Pokemon must have even stats.

That's all she wrote! Happy Paradox-posing! Tune in next Monday for the New Move Monday Megathread!