I am sure that we are all aware of the purpose of Electivire. Electivire is a Pokemon who is supposed to come in on an Electric type move, gain a +1 speed boost and then rip the enemy team to pieces using a plethora of moves that strike the opponents for super effective damage. At +1 speed in addition to an Expert Belt/Life Orb as well as fearsome attacking stats Electivire should be a massive threat, should it not?
Well, not exactly. Electivire has a critical flaw that it has trouble getting around via conventional "attack until their HP is 0" methods. It is not capable of felling many non-steel walls. Several Pokemon such as Swampert, Rotom-A and Latias (to name a few diverse ones) really have no trouble switching in on Electivire and telling it to go home. Aside from random Hidden Powers (which limit Electivire in other ways) it has generally been accepted that Electivire may as well just go back into its Pokeball after being blocked by one of the aforementioned Pokemon.
Until now, that is. Electivire has exactly ONE move that will allow it to beat every wall the walls that it encounters. The move? Toxic. Introducing, Electivirus:
Electivire @ Expert Belt
Mild Nature
36 Atk / 252 Sp. Atk / 220 Speed
Toxic
Thunderbolt
Flamethrower
Cross Chop
Looks pretty similar to MixVire, no? Well, it pretty much IS MixVire except for one huge difference: Electivirus is sporting a fancy new move in Toxic to fell foes. Toxic ruins essentially all of the common switch ins to Electivirus. Consider the following scenario:
Electivirus switches in on an Electric move or switches in in another fashion.
Opponent sends out Swampert / Rotom-A to stop Electivirus.
Opponent is poisoned.
After this the opponent simply loses most, if not all, of their defensive ability. If the enemy attempts to attack Electivirus (it might!) then they'll begin taking fairly heavy poison damage that will only pile up. They cannot continue to switch in on Electivire or any Pokemon that you have, for that matter. They are out of the running unless they are a Restalking varient (in which case this buys you a lot of time for the rest of your team) or the enemy team has a cleric (which STILL buys your team a lot of time). That's the worst case scenario. The most likely case is that they DO NOT have a healing method and they just lost a wall. In addition, Electivirus is probably going to have a field day with the rest of the team's walls and is also going to be a valuable asset in other, fairly obvious, ways.
It's really not a difficult concept (Pokemon uses Status move to cripple Switch-In!) but this is the set that Electivire needs to function properly in the standard metagame. Too often is it the case that Electivire comes in, looks intimidating and then just fizzles out as he realizes that the enemy team has one of his all too common counters. Electivirus hopes to revolutionize this, forcing common enemy Pokemon such as Swampert and Rotom to lose much of their walling capability and later setting up for a sweep by itself. Normally Toxic would simply not be enough to fell team walls (due to how common steels are) but Electivire is interesting in a sense that Steels cannot counter it due to Flamethrower, Thunderbolt and Cross Chop. Add to this the fact that common Poison Pokemon are either a) weak to the attacking moves (Roserade, Tentacruel and Crobat) or are just weak defensively in general (Gengar) and you have a solid concept that has, to me at least, proven itself to be a worthy team slot if the need arises.
I should, however, stop typing so much and let you guys voice your opinions on what you think of Electivirus. Before I do that, however, I'm going to thank Colonel_M and Aldaron for their inputs on the set as this is a team effort, haha. I must also thank macle for providing an amazing picture for this topic.
Well then, your thoughts, gentlemen?
Well, not exactly. Electivire has a critical flaw that it has trouble getting around via conventional "attack until their HP is 0" methods. It is not capable of felling many non-steel walls. Several Pokemon such as Swampert, Rotom-A and Latias (to name a few diverse ones) really have no trouble switching in on Electivire and telling it to go home. Aside from random Hidden Powers (which limit Electivire in other ways) it has generally been accepted that Electivire may as well just go back into its Pokeball after being blocked by one of the aforementioned Pokemon.
Until now, that is. Electivire has exactly ONE move that will allow it to beat every wall the walls that it encounters. The move? Toxic. Introducing, Electivirus:
Electivire @ Expert Belt
Mild Nature
36 Atk / 252 Sp. Atk / 220 Speed
Toxic
Thunderbolt
Flamethrower
Cross Chop
Looks pretty similar to MixVire, no? Well, it pretty much IS MixVire except for one huge difference: Electivirus is sporting a fancy new move in Toxic to fell foes. Toxic ruins essentially all of the common switch ins to Electivirus. Consider the following scenario:
Electivirus switches in on an Electric move or switches in in another fashion.
Opponent sends out Swampert / Rotom-A to stop Electivirus.
Opponent is poisoned.
After this the opponent simply loses most, if not all, of their defensive ability. If the enemy attempts to attack Electivirus (it might!) then they'll begin taking fairly heavy poison damage that will only pile up. They cannot continue to switch in on Electivire or any Pokemon that you have, for that matter. They are out of the running unless they are a Restalking varient (in which case this buys you a lot of time for the rest of your team) or the enemy team has a cleric (which STILL buys your team a lot of time). That's the worst case scenario. The most likely case is that they DO NOT have a healing method and they just lost a wall. In addition, Electivirus is probably going to have a field day with the rest of the team's walls and is also going to be a valuable asset in other, fairly obvious, ways.
It's really not a difficult concept (Pokemon uses Status move to cripple Switch-In!) but this is the set that Electivire needs to function properly in the standard metagame. Too often is it the case that Electivire comes in, looks intimidating and then just fizzles out as he realizes that the enemy team has one of his all too common counters. Electivirus hopes to revolutionize this, forcing common enemy Pokemon such as Swampert and Rotom to lose much of their walling capability and later setting up for a sweep by itself. Normally Toxic would simply not be enough to fell team walls (due to how common steels are) but Electivire is interesting in a sense that Steels cannot counter it due to Flamethrower, Thunderbolt and Cross Chop. Add to this the fact that common Poison Pokemon are either a) weak to the attacking moves (Roserade, Tentacruel and Crobat) or are just weak defensively in general (Gengar) and you have a solid concept that has, to me at least, proven itself to be a worthy team slot if the need arises.
I should, however, stop typing so much and let you guys voice your opinions on what you think of Electivirus. Before I do that, however, I'm going to thank Colonel_M and Aldaron for their inputs on the set as this is a team effort, haha. I must also thank macle for providing an amazing picture for this topic.
Well then, your thoughts, gentlemen?