- Dragon immunity alone is pretty cute and, together with Psychic-typing, erases Lati@s from memory
Except Lati@s are also Psychic types, meaning they're neutral to Fairy and resistant to Psychic, in addition to having good/great Sp.Def and Sp.Atk and being faster than Gardevoir. I don't think Gardevoir can take very many Psyshocks either, even if they're resisted.
- It has solid Sp.Def and Trace to make Heatran, Thundurus-T, Jolteon, DW Zapdos, DW Raikou, and the various Water Absorb Pokemon completely ineffective.
That's only if they're Choice-locked into such nullified moves. Heatran will be resistant to both of Gardevoir's STABs, has super-effective STAB of its own, is already a good special wall, and is immune to the only moves boosted by Flash Fire, so I don't know why you listed it. The Electric types listed are faster than Gardevoir, and many have super-effective coverage options.
- Psychic resists Fairy so it gains another useful resistance.
- Trace also lets Gardevoir abuse anything from Rain Dish/Dry Skin, Natural Cure, Intimidate, Chlorophyll, Sand Rush, Multiscale, Sheer Force, Regenerator, Magnet Pull, Shadow Tag, Prankster, Poison Heal, I mean the list goes on and on.
- It has access to a wide support move-pool consisting of such gems as Hypnosis, Will-O-Wisp, T-Wave, Encore, Taunt, Destiny Bond, and Healing Wish on top of any goodies its new Fairy-side gets.
- It no longer has to rely on Psychic for STAB and can actually hit Dark-types Super Effectively and hitting Steels neutrally with STAB alone. (Take that, Scizor...until you SE Bullet Punch or Pursuit.)
Why wouldn't Scizor Bullet Punch or even Bug Bite if it smelled Gardevoir coming? How strong would a Fairy STAB have to be if Gardevoir wants to stop Tyranitar in Sand (Max investment can tank 480 BP after SE and STAB modifiers from ~110 Sp.Atk) before it Crunches you to death? What stops Sucker Punch from ruining you?
- Gardevoir's Fairy-STAB keep its SE coverage on Fighting-types that Psychic gave it and at least hits Poison-types neutrally. (meaning it still can wreck Toxicroak and steal Dry Skin in Rain)
None of this is new for Gardevoir, and it does need to watch out for Sucker Punch from Toxicroak, or even STAB Poison moves since it's still faster.
Aside from Gardevoir, Fairy just has so much going for it; Great neutral coverage including hitting Steel-types which is huge, its weaknesses are very rare and have relatively low Base Power overall, the Fire- and Psychic-types that resist Fairy STAB don't hit Fairy Super Effectively, and Fairy is Super Effective against Dragon, Fighting, and Dark which are some of the most common types out there.
There are two Dark-types in OU, one of which is Hydreigon (who is completely screwed by Fairy attacks existing) and the other has six other weaknesses to arguably common types. The Dragon and Fighting types in the tier are usually able to hit hard, hit first, or some combination of the two while also tanking hits or being Breloom. Fairy doesn't resist anything other than Dragon, and most (nearly all) OU Dragons have enough power behind their coverage options to be threatening if they can make a neutral hit.
Being a Fairy-type has one and only one small downside; being hit SE by Scizor Bullet Punch and Jirachi Iron Head. Absolutely everything else is a blessing: a virtually free Dragon immunity and a STAB with great coverage.
Fairy-type is a free buff no matter what gets it. Pokemon like Gardevoir and Azumarril, which were decent to begin with, are just getting better. Again, any Pokemon that gains a Fairy-typing just gets better.
Toxicroak, Venusaur, and Gengar are all viable OU candidates for running Poison-type STAB moves if Fairy's presence warrants it, with Roserade looking on hopefully. Lucario can opt to run STAB Bullet Punch as well. Metagross has a resistance to Fairy, which means it will likely rise in usage. Gyro Ball is also very usable on slow Steel-type walls like Ferrothorn and Forretress. Finally, I suspect Jirachi, Chansey and Blissey would be worse off as Fairy-types, Jirachi because it would lose either its Bullet Punch resistance or its neutrality to Mach Punch and already resists Dragon, and the Blobs because they would have three times as many weaknesses and they lack the offensive presence to take advantage of the Fairy-type's coverage.
There hasn't been a type like this since Gen 1 Psychic-type.
I don't see it. Psychic I had no viable weaknesses, no resistances outside of itself, and an egregiously unfair natural statistical advantage based on how Special and Speed worked. If Fairy is the closest type to reach that level, it can't be by very much when you consider things like Dragon IV.Yeah, I said it. Let that sink in. No type today has virtually no downsides.
Bullet Punch is a downside, as is having as many resistances as Normal.Even Dragons have to worry about the omnipresent Ice Beam and other Dragons. As of now, Fairy has to watch out for exactly two moves from two Pokemon; Scizor & Jirachi.
Metagross is still OU, and can't wait for X and Y. Lucario has Bullet Punch. For a change of pace, Mons like Crobat and Nidoking could be pretty cool, and both are solidly UU and somewhat viable in OU.Pokemon have to neuter their coverage by running a Steel-type attack like Iron Tail to hit Fairy Super Effectively.
I'm not sure how many Dragons will actually need to hit Fairy-types super-effectively. Hitting them AT ALL is probably going to hurt if it's neutral, given the famous Dragon attack stats. DD, Outrage, Earthquake, and Iron Tail seems a lot worse than say Fire Blast, DClaw, or Roost but that's likely how it has to be. I mean even DragMag is done. Hell, Gardevoir can Trace Magnet Pull and take out Mag herself and without Flash Cannon,
If Fairy is a problem, Flash Cannon will be run. Mag stands no chance. And even then, with Dragons running Iron Tail, you have Pokemon like Azumarril that are neutral to Steel.
This one I can agree with, as long as it stays clear of Kyu-B. Azumarill + Fairy + Rain still existing = OU, in all likelyhood. What now? Non-STAB EQ I guess? Great; that's like 70% at +1 right?
Do you have some calcs for that, actually? It's all because nothing of value hits these things Super Effectively.
Fuck, I'm going to start suggesting Scolipede and Durant now, or even Venomoth. And it even gets better than that!
Outrage is a thing of the past! To take out a Pokemon like Rotom-W, Dragons have to lock themselves into a move for 2 to 3 turns that Fairy is immune to.
1. Team Preview. 2. Moves like Outrage will immediately end if they don't deal any damage, try switching a Ghost-type in to Thrash or a Sap Sipper into Petal Dance (or just Shedinja into Outrage, really). If Rotom-W were to Volt Switch after Outrage hits, your Fairy switch-in would get the pseudo-trap, but otherwise it's the same as switching into any other Not Effective attack: you get a free switch in on the first turn (which isn't bad) and they get to switch to a coverage move or a different Pokemon on the next. That is insane power to hold over a metagame.
Eh.
You might say that we don't know enough about what moves and new toys X/Y will give us to combat these and that is very true but from how it is looking at this very moment, we will have to jump through hoops to keep Dragons relevant. Garchomp seems like he might be reclaiming his title of Dragon King since he's the only one with relevant STAB to hit Fairy with.
Kingdra's also pretty cool, since Rain keeps existing, but it does look like Garchomp for Dragonlord 2014...
I mean, I know this is like the New Super Theorymon 4 Alpha Turbo HD Remix of over-speculating but I believe it's justified because of just how game-changing these things could be. I'm not saying Fairy is a bad thing at all, I'm just saying that this is going to be the biggest transition since Gen 3 to Gen 4 just because so Fairy is going to mix things up so much. Again, SE against Dragon, Fighting, and Dark, Neutral to Steel and Water, and Immune to Dragon,
But neutral or worse to a Dragon's coverage, 5th Gen teams rely on those types too much and Fairy's weaknesses too little
... to not struggle a bit in the transition.