Project (Balanced) Hackmons - Contrary

[verbatim]

Welcome to Project (Balanced) Hackmons, where we "investigate" parts of the BH metagame, be it pokemon, items, abilities, or moves, in the hopes of discovering unique sets, fine tuning old ones, and giving old and forgotten sets a second chance to shine.

Project (Balanced) Hackmons will be updated weekly (every friday) by myself and moderator DTC.

With all that taken care of, the concept we will be investigating this week is...

Contrary

I know we've been doing pokemon up to this point, but I'd like to take a look at one of the more popular battle strategies, specifically the pokemon that can utilize Contrary.

Staple Contrary Mons

• Decent Bulk
• Managable Attack
• V-Create and Overheat STAB
• Decent Coverage
• Problematic Speed Tier

• Great Special Attack
• Passable Physical Attack
• Draco Meteor, V-Create, and Overheat STAB
• Perfect STAB coverage
• Problematic Speed Tier

• Problematic Physical Attack stat
• Excellent Special Attack Stat
• Psycho Boost STAB
• Decent Neutral STAB
• Subpar Defenses
• Great Speed Tier

Lesser Used Contrary Mons (If you present sufficient evidence for a pokemon's potential it could end up in here)

• Highest Physical and Special Attack in the game
• Psycho Boost STAB
• Decent Neutral STAB
• Fastest Effective Contrary User
• Will not take a hit.......ever

• High Physical Attack
• Strongest V-Create in the game
• Unusable Special Attack
• Problematic Bulk
• Acceptable Speed Tier

• Great Physical Attack Stat
• Unusable Special Attack Stat
• Amazing Bulk
• Good Speed Tier

• Managable Physical Attack
• Great Special Attack
• Draco Meteor STAB
• Great Neutral STAB
• Good Bulk
• Problematic Speed Tier

Questions to Answer

• Effective Teammates to Contrary Users
• Effective Counters to Contrary
• Leftovers Versus Lum Berry Versus Choice Items

 

[Arcticblast]

Despite not getting STAB on V-Create, Dialga makes an excellent user of Contrary.

- Great bulk
- Best defensive typing in the game
- STAB on Draco Meteor
- Great Special Attack
- Decent Attack - might seem low, but you really shouldn't be sweeping with V-Create anyway
- Problematic Speed tier

This is the set I'm using:
Dialga @ Leftovers
Contrary
Naive
- Substitute
- Draco Meteor
- V-Create
- Aura Sphere

Sub stops Blissey from stealing your boosts, and Prankster Groudon won't like taking a Draco Meteor unless it steals special defense boosts. DM and V-Create are standard Contrary moves, and Aura Sphere both destroys Flash Fire Steels and hits Evasion boosters.

 

[theBEEZ KNEEZ]

In my experience, STURDY SHEDINJA is a surefire counter to contrary. No contrary poke can do anything to it unless they have toxic or something weird, and Shedinja carries a lum berry for that. Also, shedinja can THKO back with endeavor and ice shard. Whenever I build a team around a contray sweep., I always make sure i have stealth rock or sandstorm up to take care of Shedinja, or I'm pretty much screwed.

 

[akela]

I have been having a bit of luck in dealing with Contrary mons lately. I have used a Prankster Slaking with Simple Beam, Recover, BD, and ES. Simple Beam just doubles the loss for the opponent. Since Slaking will outspeed all Contrarymons, if your opponent opponent with V-Create, -2 DEF/SPD/Speed. Maybe Pursuit would be a better inclusion than ES on it so you can take them out on the obvious switch.

Gastro Acid, Worry Seed, and Entrainment are alternatives. Mold Breaker, Turboblaze, and Teravolt are the alternative abilities. But I do not really like them. I find Simple Beam to be much more effective in dealing with it.

For a while, I was testing out Swagger as a counter. Confusing the opponent and -2 ATK?

Then there are the common ways to combat them. Haze. Heart Swap.

 

[Gerard]

What happened to Latios?
He's one of the most amazing Contrary users

• Excellent Special Attack Stat
• Excelent Neutral STAB
• Draco Meteor STAB
• Psystrike STAB
• Soul Drew
• Great Special Defense
• Good Speed Tier

The set I've been using, great sweeper, and with SR on the field almost nothing can stop it, use it with safeguard and then you are almost certainly gonna sweep the opposing team, Bissey can't even revenge it at +2 due to Soul Drew, and due to STAB Psystrike you manage to 2HKO Unaware Chansey with a little prior damage

Latios @ Soul Drew
Contrary
- Recover
- Draco Meteor
- V-Create/Overheat
- Psystrike

V-Create serves as a pretty good move against many steel types, and it's a great finishing move to boost your speed and defenses, which thanks to recover make you pretty hard to kill in the special side, and gives you OK bulk in the psysical (enough to survive a scarfed outrage), Psystrike gives you a pretty nice STAB and lets you break trough Chansey, the +1 enemy to special sweepers, with SR Shedinja won't bother you


Counters:

Unaware Chansey counters all Special Sweeper
Unaware Giratina counter many Physical Sweepers, but has to be wary of Dragon Attacks
Unaware in general on a really bulky mon
Shedinja can counter all of them if no Hazzards or Weather are on the field
Priority Heart Swamp can use your boosts against you, more if you can BP to something
Haze/Whirlwind/Dragon Tail removes boosts and make you take hazzard damage again
Toxic Spikes work wonders to slowly get rid of Sweepers without reliable recovery
Perish Song can help you deal with it to an extent

 

[Heroes and Cons]

It's not exactly a common sight, but I think a Contrary Scizor (or Durant) with Superpower / Close Combat, V-Create, Meteor Mash (or Iron Head if you don't like the risk of Attack being lowered) and U-turn / X-Scissor / could work wonders. The thought of something with as high attack as Scizor (who also gets STAB on Meteor Mash and X-Scissor) and such an excellent defensive typing getting speed, defense and attack boosts is quite frightening, IMO.
Other options include Bolt Strike, the strongest move it can use to hit Lugia and Ho-oh with, and Icicle Crash / Ice Punch which still does good damage to Lugia while hitting Giratina and Groudon hard.

Counters:
Faster / scarfed Fire types (such as Reshiram) will destroy it without a second thought unless it is subbed, in which case it can retaliate.
Giratina / Giratina-O / Lugia / Ho-oh can all easily take anything Scizor may use except Outrage / Icicle Crash / Bolt Strike.
Groudon has the bulk to take even boosted Icicle Crashes and retaliate.

Uses:
Easily destroys common threats after V-Create boosts its speed; Dialga, Palkia, Mewtwo are both OHKOed by the appropriate coverage move.
Good enough to outspeed all common non-scarfed threats after a single boost, except Mewtwo which is quickly destroyed by any unresisted move.

 

[verbatim]

Scizor's defensive typing is not wanted in a tier where fire attacks are so common (moreso than OU). Furthermore Dialga pretty much does what you're stating infinitely better, can make much better use of a Contrary set w/ V-Create and Special Attacks.

 

[ForeverPerfectXI]

Contrary Kyurem-W is absolutely terrifying.

- Amazing Special Attack (Second only to Deoxys-A)
- STAB Draco meteor
- Very good Attack Stat
- Manageable Bulk

CONS
- Somewhat problematic Speed
- Crappy defensive typing
- SR Weak

The sets I've commonly seen look like this:

Kyurem-W @ Life Orb/Choice Scarf
Contrary
Naive
- Substitute/Blizzard
- Draco Meteor
- V-Create
- Superpower

Blizzard always seemed a little silly to me, but Lugia doesn't enjoy it much. CHoice Scarf can really cause a problem for any Imposter Blissey trying to come in and revenge after a D-Meteor.