OU Gyarados In GSC OU

Falcon-M

Falcon-M

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Hello to whoever's reading this thread! I've been playing through a lot of sample teams recently and decided I wanted to build a team of my own using an obscure Pokémon. As I scrolled down the UU list, I came across a very cool blue water dragon—Gyarados—and I wanted to share my thoughts on it.


At first glance, Gyarados struggles in the tier due to its nasty 4x weakness to Electric-type moves, which are among the most common attacks in the metagame. Its movepool, while expansive, is hampered by a very low Special Attack stat and the lack of a strong physical Flying-type STAB move. These drawbacks likely contribute to why many players overlook the flying fish. However, after some testing, I believe Gyarados may have a unique niche as a phazer with the following set:


- Surf
- Thunder
- Hidden Power Flying
- Roar

Gyarados’ typing allows it to function as a backup phazer against physical Baton Pass teams, reliably forcing out Scizor, who can otherwise destroy the tier’s most popular phazers with Hidden Power Fighting. Thanks to its solid bulk and typing, this specific moveset also lets Gyarados check threats like Jynx, Cloyster, and Vaporeon, while serving as an emergency answer to Snorlax and even 2HKOing Skarmory. With these tools, it can threaten key Pokémon such as Machamp, Golem, Rhydon, Exeggutor, Marowak, Steelix, Tyranitar, and Heracross. These targets usually don’t want to take a Hidden Power Flying or Surf and are often forced to switch out—this is where Gyarados’ strength as a phazer truly shines. When paired with Spikes, Gyarados can rack up significant chip damage not only on the Pokémon it pressures but also on its typical checks like Snorlax and Raikou. Against opponents like Golem or Steelix, the pressure may even lead them to explode prematurely, opening up opportunities for teammates like Snorlax, Zapdos, Raikou, or Tyranitar to clean up.


As for team partners, due to Gyarados’ crippling 4x weakness to Electric, Raikou is preferred over Zapdos to handle opposing Electric-types more effectively. Other strong partners include Pokémon that can absorb Thunder and threaten Electric-types in return, such as Exeggutor or Nidoking. With multiple Thunder absorbers on a Gyarados-centric team, the last slot becomes flexible: Golem offers fantastic role compression, while Tyranitar is a solid groundless option that appreciates its common checks being worn down by Spikes and Gyarados' pressure.


All in all, Gyarados has a unique and underrated niche in GSC OU as a phazer that checks and counters a unique group of Pokémon. How do you all feel about this Pokémon?
 
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It is possible to use Gyarados in OU, but the problem is that it is almost completely redundant to Zapdos. In any team where Surf/Thunder/HP Fly/Roar Gyarados fits in I would much rather use Thunder/HP Water/Drill Peck/Roar Zapdos. Gyarados has a marginally better matchup than Zapdos into Jynx and Exeggutor but comes at a steep cost of Speed and Special Attack. Not to mention that Gyarados still needs to respect the sleep threat that these mons pose.

I think the only niche Gyara has is on a "double Dos" team with Zap. Unfortunately as you mentioned it isn't easy to fit both mons on the same team.
 
Siatam said:
It is possible to use Gyarados in OU, but the problem is that it is almost completely redundant to Zapdos. In any team where Surf/Thunder/HP Fly/Roar Gyarados fits in I would much rather use Thunder/HP Water/Drill Peck/Roar Zapdos. Gyarados has a marginally better matchup than Zapdos into Jynx and Exeggutor but comes at a steep cost of Speed and Special Attack. Not to mention that Gyarados still needs to respect the sleep threat that these mons pose.

I think the only niche Gyara has is on a "double Dos" team with Zap. Unfortunately as you mentioned it isn't easy to fit both mons on the same team.
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I think the double electric sample team with Gyarados over Gengar is a neat try. The trade off for losing Gengar's speed and special attack was a stronger defensive presence, while gaining the ability to better deal with threats that sample team had trouble answering before (Exeggutor, Machamp maybe, and another Steelix answer never hurts to have). What's cooler, is that since Gyarados is generally worse than Zapdos, if your opponent uses explosion on Gyarados then that saves Zapdos a lot of stress and opportunities to enter the field. Losing Gyarados does not hurt nearly as much (a good amount of the time) as losing Gengar. The only disappointment really is that it can't 2HKO Tyranitar after spikes, so I guess I lied about Gyarados being able to counter that. Overall, for a UU mon it can perform deceptively well and has a real niche on that double elec sample team.
 
Fun idea. Always love to see weirdo Pokemon make things happen. But I'll be honest, I don't think I'll be going out of my way to use Gyarados in OU anytime soon. I guess it's a funny way to lock out your opponent's spikes game if they're relying on Golem + Cloy to do the job, but it just does *nothing* to any of Snorlax, Zapdos, or Raikou (okay, DE might give it a chance with a crit, but the posted set is absolutely not accomplishing anything), so it's not like you can sit there forever and make your opponent dance. At least the oldschool Suicune pick could, in principle, tank a hit from lax and mirror coat the elecs.
 
I think a defensive set might work better here - surf / rest / roar / talk or tox. It would let stall cheat on vaporeon and lix duties while also being able to surf something down in a pinch (though it does not eat hits like a suicune would). Something like gyara / roar kou / talk lax / missy / forre / skarm, or taking suicune's role on certain double dog structures would work.

edit: heres a replay https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen2ou-2404705604-gl00guvgmu8l6etle1dd06927fn0jlspw
 
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Stumbled upon this thread by chance and thought it would be fun to try and cook up some Gyarados sets for OU play. How’d I do?

:gs/gyarados:

Curse + Roar (Gyarados) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 14 HP / 24 Atk / 26 Def
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Curse
- Roar

:gs/gyarados:

Paralysis Support (Gyarados) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
IVs: 0 SpA
- Double-Edge
- Dragon Breath
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

:gs/gyarados:

Toxic (Gyarados) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Toxic
- Surf
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Gyarados feels like something that might be hard to fit on a wide variety of teams but could still be utilized on certain defensive builds. When I started exploring Gyarados’s movepool, I found that it could maybe be a solid Curse user for teams looking for an answer to certain physical threats while retaining some role compression against special attacking threats, specifically those in a tournament setting that may have proven to lack Electric-Type coverage. Thanks to GSC mechanics, if two Pokémon use Roar/Whirlwind at the same time, the slower one succeeds while the faster one fails, and Gyarados is able to make use of an excellent Speed tier for a Curse + Roar variant. Curse boosts Gyarados’s primary attacking stat and weaker defensive stat while still being fast enough to outspeed some slower Roar/Whirlwind users, especially those also using Curse themselves. Hidden Power Flying has a number of key targets and Surf still does enough to deal with Golem and Rhydon, and to a lesser extent a weakened Tyranitar.

Gyarados also feels like it could have some use as a RestTalk support Pokémon that wants to sit on Pokemon it matches up well against to spread status to the enemy team. Dragon Breath immediately caught my eye seeing as Gyarados can pull similar tricks to Dragon Breath Steelix but with way different matchups, and Toxic was already mentioned here as a nice check to Vaporeon and some other things for certain stall teams. Regardless of the set, I feel like Gyarados would be best used when kept away from Electric-Type Pokémon and moves, possibly in preferred late game scenarios where Zapdos and/or Raikou have been weakened or removed. It’s worth nothing that I actually don’t really like Hidden Power Ground on this Pokémon, since the IV sacrifice isn’t ideal and it doesn’t hit as hard here as I would like (even in UU most Gyarados don’t run the move as much as you’d expect). I would much rather have Hidden Power Flying for its own matchups and the better Speed IV.
 
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