Recent content by bstella1

I find that the reverse is often true, too; Mawile is slow and squishy enough that aggressive plays can force your way out of an apparent checkmate. Sure M-Mawile can easily come in on a resisted hit, but then what? Most pokemon have something they can use that will put a serious dent in Mawile...

Those Azumarill calcs are wrong, I suspect you left out huge power somehow. +6 aqua jet will deal ~85-90% to a max HP/max def Malamar.

I would argue that Malamar deserves C. Topsy-Turvy and Contrary Superpower are both truly amazing moves, and Contrary has other niche uses as well such as foiling King's Shield (taking away Aegislash's one option for handling Malamar, leaving it helpless) and Sticky Web. Obviously it's held back...

Scald is a more defensive move, so no. Greninja can't afford to stick around and spam Scald until the burn sticks, and even if you luck out and burn a physical attacker on the switch they're still going to punch big holes in Greninja because he's so fragile. Greninja wants to hit hard and fast...

Thanks for the input! I think calling leech seed "terrible" is a bit harsh; anything switching into Venusaur is probably going to be able to take its attacks, so Leech Seed is likely to do as much damage as anything else, except it also spreads healing around and racks up damage if the opponent...

The best use I can think of would probably be for baton passers that you don't want to gamble on Weakness Policy with. Scolipede for example doesn't have the bulk to reliably survive supereffective hits, but he can reasonably come in on a resisted or weak neutral hit and get a free boost for his...

Any comments or suggestions? I'm up to 1750+ and still doing pretty well. I've made two changes: Malamar @ Leftovers Ability: Contrary EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def Impish Nature - Superpower - Night Slash - Taunt - Topsy-turvy In practice I found that Psycho Cut was very rarely used; in...

Those fairy types will demolish Malamar with or without Psycho Cut. Malamar sweeps are hilarious when they happen but it's better to plan Malamar handling specific situations that he can reasonably handle instead of hoping the opponent plays into your plans for a grand Malamar sweep...

Malamar is not a great defender, but he needs bulk in order to do his job. Topsy-Turvy is Malamar's biggest ace in the hole but even at max speed he doesn't outspeed the boosted threats he needs to reverse (especially DD users), so he has to rely on being able to take a hit and Topsy-Turvy away...

Destiny Bond is a fantastic move for Mega Houndoom. He's not going to stick around for long in any event, so the best case scenario is to blast a couple of enemies and then suicide on a tough counter. His offensive presence means people will usually be in a "kill or be killed" mindset when he...

You can make a ridiculously obnoxious set with Cotton Guard / Headbutt / Thunderwave and try to get people to ragequit. That's probably the only way Furfrou is ever going to win matches.

Dazzling Gleam is becoming popular as a coverage move for psychic types and Gengar, so Crunch can be useful for nailing some potential counters that switch in thinking they're going to take out Tyrantrum with his fairy weakness.

Hi. I'm only an occasional casual player but with the release of X/Y I decided to take a look at the new additions to the game. I'm not very familiar with the competitive scene so I've been playing in the pre-pokebank meta as a way of testing the waters, since it's a smaller meta and there are...

Scarf Tyrantrum is pretty effective. He gets fantastic coverage from Strong Jaw, giving him 97 BP Fire/Ice/Thunder attacks to run off of his very good attack stat, and has just enough speed that a scarf will outrun almost anything with a boost. He's a great revenge killer and also has the...

I've had a lot of fun using a physically bulky build. Investing in defense makes it much easier to survive and get boosts against physical attackers, which increases your survivability even more and makes up for your lack in offensive investment. Any special attacks are going to send you running...