VGC 21 Zacian-Crowned

[Yourwelcomethanku]

[OVERVIEW]

Zacian-C is arguably VGC 2022's best Restricted Pokemon due to its high Speed, allowing it to outpace the entire metagame outside of Calyrex-S and Regieleki, its sky-high offensive presence, and Behemoth Blade, which allows it to check or outright OHKO many of the metagame's top Dynamax options such as Venusaur and Calyrex-I. Its Speed and immediate power make Zacian-C great at cleaning up weakened teams and pair well offensively with other Restricted Pokemon such as Palkia, Kyogre, Groudon, and Calyrex-S. Zacian-C does struggle against some of the format's common threats such as Groudon, Kyogre, and, most importantly, Incineroar; however, it often takes fairly minimal support for Zacian-C's few checks to be handled. For example, Defiant Thundurus checks Kyogre and benefits from Landorus-T's and Incineroar's Intimidate. Groudon and Kyogre are good restricted partners for Zacian-C, as the former checks Incineroar, Thundurus, and Regieleki and offers additional support against Kyogre with Drought, while the latter checks common Zacian-C answers like Incineroar and Landorus-T.

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Behemoth Blade
move 2: Play Rough / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 3: Substitute / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 4: Protect
item: Rusted Sword
ability: Intrepid Sword
nature: Adamant
evs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Play Rough allows Zacian-C to slam Palkia hard, 2HKO Kyogre after Intimidate, and 2HKO Seismitoad, Support Thundurus, and Gastrodon.

* Sacred Sword gives Zacian-C a a way to hit Incineroar super effectively, ignore defense boosts from Max Steelspike or Ferrothorn's Iron Defense, and avoid dropping Zacian-C's defenses as Close Combat does, letting it survive attacks like Incineroar's Flare Blitz. Close Combat is a much stronger option that allows Zacian-C to OHKO physically defensive Incineroar+1; this is a good pick on hyper offense teams where Zacian-C's bulk is less important.

* Substitute is great to take advantage of passive Pokemon like Amoonguss and Grimmsnarl by avoiding their status moves and to stall out Dynamax turns of slower Pokemon. Running three attacks with Fighting coverage over Substitute is viable; however, Substitute is generally more valuable.

* Zacian-C can afford to invest in its bulk without compromising its sweeping capabilities too much, and it gains benefits such as living Modest Life Orb Venusaur's Max Quake and -1 Life Orb Calyrex-I's Max Quake. Moreover, bulk investment is especially good alongside common damage mitigation tactics such as dual screens Grimmsnarl and Intimidate Incineroar. 236 HP investment gives Zacian-C an optimal number for Substitute. This being said, Zacian-C's EV spread is extremely flexible, as it can also viably run maximum Speed and Attack investment with a Jolly nature, especially on hyper offense teams where its bulk is less valuable.

[OTHER OPTIONS]

Swords Dance allows Zacian-C to offset Intimidate from the likes of Incineroar and Landorus-T and pose a more immediate sweeping threat. However, this leaves Zacian-C more vulnerable to status, more easily pinned down by Fake Out, and gives up its ability to waste Dynamax turns with Substitute. Imprison with a Jolly nature and max Speed allows Zacian-C to potentially outspeed and disable opposing Zacian-C; however, because of the variance of Zacian-C's attacking moves and the possibility of losing a speed tie to opposing Zacian-C, Imprison is inconsistent at shutting down opposing Zacian-C completely and comes with the significant opportunity cost of dropping Substitute or a third attack.

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[Yourwelcomethanku, 541847]]
- Quality checked by: [[zee, 501951], [Namuko Pro, 426995]]
- Grammar checked by: [[dex, 277988]]

 

[zee]

Yourwelcomethanku, post: 9086612, member: 541847

[OVERVIEW]

Zacian-C is arguably s12's VGC 2022 we certainly are going to call the formats by their full name in these analyses. that name will be VGC 2022. best Restricted Pokemon with its speed that can get past the entire metagame asides Calyrex-S, Regieleki, and sometimes Dragapult, its sky high offense, and respectable bulk—it can survive Incineroar's Flare Blitz these seem like secondary points more than the thing that sells me on zacian? the biggest reason I would consider zacian for my team is its ability to check all of the metagame's dynamax users and compliment most other restricted Pokemon's middling speed, which you kind of get into with the next sentence. Dragapult isn't a super important mention and the bulk can be thrown in later . Being so fast and immediately threatening makes Zacian-C exceptional at sweeping weakened teams, and especially thanks to it's powerful Behemoth Blade, which limits the effectiveness of even Dynamaxed Pokemon such as Venusaur and Calyrex-I as defensive counterplay. Zacian-C does struggle against some of the format's most pertinent forces such as Groudon, Kyogre, and most importantly Incineroar, however it often takes fairly minimal support for Zacian-C's few checks to be handled. For example Defiant Thundurus checks Kyogre and benefits from Landorus-T's and Incineroar's Intimidate. Groudon and Kyogre are good Restricted Pokemon partners, the former checks Incineroar groudon also checks the faster regieleki as well as thundurus and zapdos which give it an otherwise hard time with it's Drought being a valuable tool against Kyogre, while the latter checks Incineroar and Landorus-T.

[SET]
name: Substitute
move 1: Behemoth Blade
move 2: Play Rough / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 3: Substitute / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 4: Protect
item: Rusted Sword
ability: Intrepid Sword
nature: Adamant
evs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe i think 236 gives you the best substitute number with 4n+1? you can swap the 8 wherever you'd like

[SET COMMENTS]

* Play Rough is important for Zacian-C to slam Palkia very hard, however if the team is comfortable enough against Palkia, Zacian-C can forgo it for Fighting coverage. I don't like this point, I think it's too narrow. Play Rough affords Zacian lots of things, hitting Zapdos/Thundurus for neutral, 2HKOing kyogre after an intimidate, chunking the likes of Seismitoad and Gastrodon, etc. Think you can pick a few of these to elaborate on

* Sacred Sword gives Zacian-C a stronger hit on Incineroar stronger than what? you have Close Combat listed on both moves that Sacred Sword is in, ignores defense boosts from Ferrothorn's Iron Defense and Solgaleo's Max Steelspike, and doesn't drop Zacian-C's defenses like Close Combat, letting it survive attacks like Incineroar's Flare Blitz. Close Combat is a much stronger option that allows Zacian-C to OHKO Incineroar while at +1, and is a good pick on hyper offense teams where Zacian-C's bulk is less important.

* Substitute is great to take advantage of the defensive counterplay Zacian-C so easily forces, can block status such as Amoonguss's Spore and Mimikyu's Will-O-Wisp thunder wave from grimmsnarl/thundurus is a more important mention, and its useful for stalling out the Dynamax turns of slower Pokemon. Running three attacks with Fighting coverage over Substitute is viable, however Substitute is generally most valuable.

* Zacian-C can afford to invest in its bulk without compromising its sweeping capabilities too much, and it gains benefits such as guaranteed living Venusaur's Modest Life Orb Max Quake and Calyrex-I's Intimidated Life Orb Max Quake. Moreover bulk investment is especially good alongside the format's common damage mitigators such as dual screens Grimmsnarl and Intimidate Incineroar. However, Zacian-C's EV spread is extremely flexible, it can run Jolly to outpace Dragapult and Adamant Zacian-C with more attack investment to compensate the power loss, or it can viably run maximum speed and attack with a Jolly nature, especially on hyper offense teams where its bulk is less valuable.

[OTHER OPTIONS]

Swords Dance alike Substitute allows Zacian-C to take advantage of its defensive counterplay, able to offset Intimidate from the likes of Incineroar and Landorus-T, as well pose a more immediate sweeping threat, however this leaves Zacian-C more vulnerable to status, more easily pinned down by Fake Out, and gives up its ability to waste this is probably better phrased as something like stall out opposing dmax turns? Dynamax turns with Substitute. Imprison with a Jolly nature allows Zacian-C to potentially outspeed and disable opposing Zacian-C, however considering the variance of Zacian-C's second moveslot, its inconsistent at shutting down opposing Zacian-C completely, and there's significant opportunity cost in dropping Substitute or a third attack.

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[Yourwelcomethanku, 541847]]
- Quality checked by: [[zee, 501951], [name, id]]
- Grammar checked by: [[name, id]]

QC 1/2

 

[Yourwelcomethanku]

Implemented ty. Few things I want to note.

Removed mention of respectable bulk, since its not that important.

I specified outpacing everything except x and x pertinent threats and removed Dragapult

I specified support Thundurus as a Prough target due to Thundurus's and probably Zapdos's propensity to Dynamax.

 

[Namuko Pro]

Let me know when you do this and I'll review. I am of course free to argue on Discord as per usual

Add Remove Highlight Comment

Not as good as Zamazenta

[OVERVIEW]

Zacian-C is arguably VGC 2022's best Restricted Pokemon with its speed that can get past the entire metagame asides the pertinent threats of Calyrex-S and Regieleki, its sky high offense, and it's (remove the apostrophe) Behemoth Blade which allows it to check or outright OHKO many of the metagame's Dynamax beneficiaries top Dynamax options such as Venusaur and Calyrex-I. Being so fast and immediately threatening makes Zacian-C exceptional at sweeping weakened teams and complement the many slower Restricted Pokemon such as Groudon, Kyogre, and Palkia well (I don't really get the logic of this sentence, if anything sweeping weakened teams complements fast teams who can get the damage off quickly. I get that Zacian can clear a threat that would otherwise outspeed those, but that is not what the sentence implies). Zacian-C does struggle against some of the format's common forces such as Groudon, Kyogre, and most importantly Incineroar, however it often takes fairly minimal support for Zacian-C's few checks to be handled. For example, (Add comma) Defiant Thundurus checks Kyogre and benefits from Landorus-T's and Incineroar's Intimidate. Groudon and Kyogre are good Restricted Pokemon partners for Zacian-C, as the former checks Incineroar, Thundurus, and Regieleki with it's Drought being a valuable tool against Kyogre (This is phrased really awkwardly, maybe change it to something like "and offers additional support against Kyogre through Drought), while the latter checks common Zacian-C checks like Incineroar and Landorus-T.

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Behemoth Blade
move 2: Play Rough / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 3: Substitute / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 4: Protect
item: Rusted Sword
ability: Intrepid Sword
nature: Adamant
evs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Play Rough is most important for for allows Zacian-C to slam Palkia hard and it comes with other benefits such as giving Zacian-C an option to 2HKO Kyogre even after having been Intimidated and hits the likes of Seismitoad, Support Thundurus, and Gastrodon hard (Should probably specify which of these it OHKOs / 2HKOs).

* Sacred Sword gives Zacian-C a strong super effective hit on Incineroar, ignores defense boosts from Ferrothorn's Iron Defense and Solgaleo's Max Steelspike or Ferrothorn's Iron Defense, and doesn't drop Zacian-C's defenses like Close Combat, letting it survive attacks like Incineroar's Flare Blitz. Close Combat is a much stronger option that allows Zacian-C to OHKO Incineroar while at +1, and is a good pick on hyper offense teams where Zacian-C's bulk is less important (I think you need to break down what kind of Incins these can OHKO. +1 CC picks up all of them besides Sash or Chople of course, but 4+ Zacian-C +1 Sacred has solid odds to OHKO non-defense invested Incins, which might be more relevant with the advent of no fighting move Zacian).

* Substitute is great to take advantage of the defensive counterplay Zacian-C so easily forces, can block status moves such as Amoonguss's Spore and Grimmsnarl's Thunder Wave and its is useful for stalling out the Dynamax turns of slower Pokemon. Running three attacks with Fighting coverage over Substitute is viable, however Substitute is generally most more valuable (Should move this before the fighting move section if you think Bblad/Prough/Sub is the primary set. I'd also give the fighting move section a lead-in to the effect of "As an alternative to Substitute or Play Rough..." or something).

* Zacian-C can afford to invest in its bulk without compromising its sweeping capabilities too much, and it gains benefits such as guaranteed living Venusaur's Modest Life Orb Max Quake and Calyrex-I's Intimidated Life Orb Max Quake. Moreover, (add comma) bulk investment is especially good alongside the format's common damage mitigators such as dual screens Grimmsnarl and Intimidate Incineroar. 236 HP investment gives Zacian-C an optimal number for Substitute. However, Zacian-C's EV spread is extremely flexible, it can run Jolly to outpace Dragapult and Adamant Zacian-C with more attack investment to compensate the power loss, or it can viably run maximum speed and attack with a Jolly nature, especially on hyper offense teams where its bulk is less valuable (I think you should cut the section I highlighted in red since 1) Pult isn't all that common, 2) you need to run 212+ to outspeed Pult and you should just max Speed at that point for the mirror, and 3) running Bulk + Attack with less speed is probably more common than going Jolly with minimal attack. Consequently I'd also mention that option of dropping speed and pumping attack. Can probably rephrase the rest of the sentence if you absolutely want to mention Jolly with minimal attack investment).

[OTHER OPTIONS]

Swords Dance allows Zacian-C to take advantage of its defensive counterplay, able allowing it to offset Intimidate from the likes of Incineroar and Landorus-T, as well and pose a more immediate sweeping threat, (This is a run on and I'd probably split it into two sentences with this comma becoming the period) however, (add comma) this leaves Zacian-C more vulnerable to status, more easily pinned down by Fake Out, and gives up its ability to waste Dynamax turns with Substitute. Imprison with a Jolly nature and max speed allows Zacian-C to potentially outspeed and disable opposing Zacian-C, however, (add comma) considering the variance of Zacian-C's second moveslot attacking moves and the possibility of losing a speed tie to opposing max speed Zacian-C, its Imprison is inconsistent at shutting down opposing Zacian-C completely, (Remove comma) and there's comes with the significant opportunity cost in of dropping Substitute or a third attack (Sorry to mess with this sentence so much but it was phrased pretty awkwardly and as an econ guy I need to make sure the opportunity cost section is phrased correctly :^) ).

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[Yourwelcomethanku, 541847]]
- Quality checked by: [[zee, 501951], [Namuko Pro, 426995]]
- Grammar checked by: [[name, id]]

edit: QC 2/2

 

[dex]

GP Check
blue = add
red = delete
green = comments

GP Check

[OVERVIEW]

Zacian-C is arguably VGC 2022's best Restricted Pokemon with its speed that can get past the entire metagame asides the pertinent threats of due to its high Speed, allowing it to outpace the entire metagame outside of Calyrex-S and Regieleki, its sky-high (add hyphen) offense offensive presence, and its Behemoth Blade, (add comma) which allows it to check or outright OHKO many of the metagame's top Dynamax options such as Venusaur and Calyrex-I. Being so fast and immediately threatening makes Its Speed and immediate power make Zacian-C great at cleaning up weakened teams and makes it pair well offensively with other Restricted Pokemon such as Palkia, Kyogre, Groudon, and Calyrex-S. Zacian-C does struggle against some of the format's common forces threats such as Groudon, Kyogre, and, (add comma) most importantly, (add comma) Incineroar; (comma->semicolon) however, (add comma) it often takes fairly minimal support for Zacian-C's few checks to be handled. For example, Defiant Thundurus checks Kyogre and benefits from Landorus-T's and Incineroar's Intimidate. Groudon and Kyogre are good Restricted Pokemon restricted partners for Zacian-C, as the former checks Incineroar, Thundurus, and Regieleki and it's Drought offers additional support against Kyogre with Drought, while the latter checks common Zacian-C checks answers like Incineroar and Landorus-T.

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Behemoth Blade
move 2: Play Rough / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 3: Substitute / Sacred Sword / Close Combat
move 4: Protect
item: Rusted Sword
ability: Intrepid Sword
nature: Adamant
evs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Play Rough allows Zacian-C to slam Palkia hard and comes with other benefits such as giving Zacian-C an option to 2HKO Kyogre even after having been Intimidated and 2HKOes Seismitoad, Support Thundurus, and Gastrodon hard, 2HKO Kyogre after Intimidate, and 2HKO Seismitoad, Support Thundurus, and Gastrodon.

* Sacred Sword gives Zacian-C a strong super effective hit on a way to hit Incineroar super effectively, ignores defense boosts from Max Steelspike or Ferrothorn's Iron Defense, and doesn't drop Zacian-C's defenses like Close Combat avoid dropping Zacian-C's defenses as Close Combat does, letting it survive attacks like Incineroar's Flare Blitz. Close Combat is a much stronger option that allows Zacian-C to OHKO Physically physically defensive Incineroar while at +1, and +1; this is a good pick on hyper offense teams where Zacian-C's bulk is less important.

* Substitute is great to take advantage of the defensive counterplay Zacian-C so easily forces, can block status moves such as Amoonguss's Spore and Grimmsnarl's Thunder Wave and is useful for stalling out the Dynamax turns of slower Pokemon passive Pokemon like Amoonguss and Grimmsnarl by avoiding their status moves and to stall out Dynamax turns of slower Pokemon. Running three attacks with Fighting coverage over Substitute is viable; (comma->semicolon) however, (add comma) Substitute is generally more valuable.

* Zacian-C can afford to invest in its bulk without compromising its sweeping capabilities too much, and it gains benefits such as guaranteed living Modest Life Orb Venusaur's Modest Life Orb Max Quake and -1 Life Orb Calyrex-I's Intimidated Life Orb Max Quake. Moreover, bulk investment is especially good alongside the format's common damage mitigators mitigation tactics such as dual screens Grimmsnarl and Intimidate Incineroar. 236 HP investment gives Zacian-C an optimal number for Substitute. However This being said, Zacian-C's EV spread is extremely flexible, as it can also viably run maximum speed Speed and attack Attack investment with a Jolly nature, especially on hyper offense teams where its bulk is less valuable.

[OTHER OPTIONS]

Swords Dance allows Zacian-C to take advantage of defensive counterplay it forces, allowing it to offset Intimidate from the likes of Incineroar and Landorus-T and pose a more immediate sweeping threat. However, this leaves Zacian-C more vulnerable to status, more easily pinned down by Fake Out, and gives up its ability to waste Dynamax turns with Substitute. Imprison with a Jolly nature and max speed Speed allows Zacian-C to potentially outspeed and disable opposing Zacian-C; (comma->semicolon) however, considering because of the variance of Zacian-C's attacking moves and the possibility of losing a speed tie to opposing max speed Zacian-C, Imprison is inconsistent at shutting down opposing Zacian-C completely and comes with the significant opportunity cost of dropping Substitute or a third attack.

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[Yourwelcomethanku, 541847]]
- Quality checked by: [[zee, 501951], [Namuko Pro, 426995]]
- Grammar checked by: [[dex, 277988]]

1/1