Art by
Voluntary Twitch.
Zapdos-Galar @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 212 | 148 HP / 252 Atk / 44 | 108 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Agility
- Close Combat / Bulk Up
- Brave Bird / Bulk up / Drill Peck
- Throat Chop
Man this is a good bird. Once it presses agility the game becomes much, much harder for your opponent, (or it ends entirely depending on the team). Adamant life orb hits
unbelievably hard and even with srock chip spells the end for a lot of bulky pokemon. Another great thing is that it's fighting/flying typing, coupled with defiant, makes it very close to impossible to stop with traditional defensive walls. Observe!
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 491-580 (113.9 - 134.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 335-398 (82.9 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Honestly? This is literally it. Defiant means any mon with intimidate actually
increases it's attack stat so any incineroar/krook/mence/gyara gets sent to the shadow realm. You could try skarmory, sure.
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 153-183 (45.8 - 54.7%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO
But 1) that's not a switch in and (2) skarmory can only really press whirlwind here. Not much of an answer considering you lost half your health, meaning skarm could just die right away unless you got lucky and it switched to whirlwind to...
...zera? terrak? blaz? victini? zam? latias? keldeo? the amount of offensive pokemon that take advantage of that is startling, and that's not the full list, so you're in it for it if they're running an offensive team.
You could try aegislash, but why would you?
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Throat Chop vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 182-216 (69.7 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(Remember; king shield ain't worth it!)
252+ Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Claw vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 145-172 (38.7 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
42% on average. Pretty lame all things considered. You could run a defensive set to take a tchop better, but it doesn't change the 2HKO unless you're really fat. And if you're running a defensive set...
0 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Claw vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 111-132 (29.6 - 35.2%) -- 18.7% chance to 3HKO
Then you don't even check it at all. Also, if it's running bulk up you lose no matter what the set.
I actually came up with a semi-counter with aegislash. With max hp, max def and a relaxed nature, it gets 3hko'd by throat chop.
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Throat Chop vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aegislash-Shield: 138-164 (42.5 - 50.6%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO
The trick here is that you're running life orb to 2hko with shadow ball!
0 SpA Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos-Galar: 165-195 (44.1 - 52.1%) -- 16% chance to 2HKO
(remember, everytime zap g attacks you, it loses 10% of it's health)
This looks good, but you have to remember that this isn't working well if you have chip damage. 2 Throat chops deal 92% of your health on average, and with life orb you are
killing yourself so even in a best case scenario, you die too. Plus, if you have even stealth rock chip, your chances of taking the second throat chop drop dramatically. 46 + 6 from rocks + 10 from lo = 62% of your health gone, meaning the next chop is a guaranteed kill.
And this is the absolute bulkiest aegi imaginable.
There is also priority, but things are actually pretty good-those health evs aren't for nothing.
252 Atk Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Accelerock vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 87-103 (23.2 - 27.5%) -- 72.5% chance to 4HKO
252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Mach Punch vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 63-74 (16.8 - 19.7%) -- guaranteed 6HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 130-154 (34.7 - 41.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Scizor sort of works if it's chipped? But scizor dies in the process.
252+ Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 177-208 (47.3 - 55.6%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 273-321 (97.1 - 114.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
Mamo works but if it doesn't die it just goes too.
252+ Atk Choice Band Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Zapdos-Galar: 236-278 (63.1 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
There are also rival scarfers, but honestly most of them aren't that important. A majority of their attacks don't hit
too hard and they immediately die. Now, there
is scarf latias and scarf victini...but that's what the speed ivs are for! Because as it happens, with 108 spe, at the cost of bulk you outspeed every single scarfed Pokemon in the tier.
So yeah, it basically boils down to "do you want to remove mamo/scizor as a soft check, or latias as a scarfed check?"
Apart from that, it's a gg. There are other sets...but this is the best one by
far. Ban this chicken!