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Metagame Scarlet and Violet CAP Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter spoo
- Start date
The Chromera Post
I used to think quziel was crazy, but I understand now. I have been inflicted with the same mind virus.
If you've heard me talk about SV CAP recently, you've probably heard me talk about Chromera. I've seen other people try to load the mon recently (to mixed results) so I figured it would be helpful if I shared my own experience with the Pokemon and how best to use it. Chromera is very fun to build with because of the incredibly unique strengths and weaknesses it presents in the builder, and it's very fun to use because you can click the funny button and kill things. I do not claim to be an expert, because frankly it's hard to get high-quality games in this tier and some things you can only really find out by testing. However, with that said, here are my thoughts.
For the rest of this post I will be referring only to the Silk Scarf set unless stated otherwise.
Why use Chromera?
The reason you use Chromera is because it beats down fat teams. The fatter the team, the better the matchup it has. Stall can be a little tricky because of Tera Steel Toxapex, but this matchup is still pretty doable for the lion, and non-Toxapex (or Clodsire) stalls likely just fold on preview. Non-stall fat balances have even fewer responses. Common special walls and/or Normal resists like Equilibra, Slowking-G, Garganacl, and Ting-Lu just get overwhelmed by Chromera's sheer firepower because they cannot meaningfully threaten you in return. Cresceidon is probably the most annoying, since it has the chance to Encore you into setup or trade its life for a Thunder Wave to neuter you (not a bad trade all things considered), but in general you steamroll most defensive mons with ease.
This is what makes Chromera effective: it is amazing at repeatedly trading for positive material. You largely shrug off attacks like Garganacl's Salt Cure or Equilibra's Earth Power because you can recover off the damage and/or boost through it, on top of incredible natural bulk and few weaknesses (once Tera'd). Chromera ends up being a check to these walls more than they are checks to Chromera. Because you cover bulkier matchups almost all by yourself (not much else does this in SV), you have four to five slots to dedicate to beating offense.
The best analogues to Chromera are Hoopa-U and Ursaluna, two other awkward fat breakers that excel at trading. What makes Chromera different is its better STABs, better Speed, and access to recovery and boosting. Hoopa-U is easily revenged on its physical side, easily outsped, is scared of even the weakest U-turns, vulnerable to status, and has imperfect STABs; Ursaluna is on a timer, terribly slow, has to activate its item to be of any use, takes contact damage, and has STABs with common immunities. A common strategy to dealing with these mons is pivoting around them into immunities or resists, slowly chipping them down and trying to get in something that can force them out. Chromera doesn't really care about that. You can pivot around it all you want, it won't work. Boomburst kills anything that isn't immune to it, and if the opponent does successfully get in a Ghost-type, you can often just keep clicking BB without risk because A) half of the Ghosts can't do anything back, and B) your health is more expendable since you can heal yourself. The opponent bears almost all of the risk, between letting their Ghost-type die to Dark Pulse, letting their Dark resist die to Boomburst, or letting you heal as they go into a midground—not that good midgrounds really exist. While you will never see Hoopa-U and Ursaluna straight up 6-0ing teams, Chromera has very real 6-0 potential into some builds. Some teams just do not have the speed or initial firepower to ever force it out.
A lesser benefit of Chromera, though one that I think is still worth mentioning, is that it's helpful versus two Pokemon that are very difficult for bulkier teams to answer: Gliscor and Kyurem. You outspeed both of them (this is why I prefer Timid), OHKO Kyurem through Substitute after Tera—assuming Kyurem isn't at full health if it has a sub up—and you can chew Facades from Gliscor reasonably well (Facade/Knock doesn't even change your typing!) while Tera Normal Boomburst is almost a flat OHKO back. This also applies to other Substitute sweepers like Hatterene and Primarina that are really awkward for balance/fat to deal with.
Where's the catch?
Chromera is not perfect, much as it pains me to say.
I'll come back to the second and third bullets, the third bullet is fairly obvious, and the last two I will group together here. I think the easiest way to talk about the last two points is to once again draw comparisons between Chromera and Hoopa/Ursaluna. Despite Hoopa's atrocious defensive typing, its bulk is so insane that you can actually switch into stuff with AV. It's a great mon into fat, but it's also a competent check vs HO threats like Iron Moth and Chuggalong. This can make building with it a little more forgiving. Ursaluna, too, has more defensive utility than Chromera due to its Ground typing. While Chromera pretty much needs to Tera in order to force positive trades, Ursaluna is strong even in its base state. There are pros and cons to using any of these fat breakers.
How to use Chromera
The second and third bullet points from before are now relevant. At least four of Chromera's team partners are going to be hyper-focused on shoring up its specific bad matchups. Revenankh is the major one to worry about; if Chromera is your team's primary progress maker (it will be), you need something that can repeatedly switch into Revenankh and, ideally, actively convert it into other means of progress. HO in general is going to be a difficult matchup to account for in the builder because you're basically starting off with a dead slot.
In my experience, the best partner for Chromera is Alomomola. Despite Chromera's ability to recover its own health, having a wishpasser makes it infinitely easier to trade into the opposing team, which is what Chromera's best at. You can do greedy shit like stay in and attack on Zama's Body Press, Tera-boosted Ivy Cudgels, even Darkrai's +2 Dark Pulse, because you can just be back at full health in a few turns. The fewer turns you spend recovering, the more turns you spend clicking the best move in the game, and the fewer chances you give your opponent to regain lost ground. Alo is also decent into some Pokemon that annoy Chomera like Revenankh, Cresceidon, and can be teched to help against HO with options like Red Card.
Starting off with Chromera + Alo admittedly makes the HO matchup a bit awkward to figure out. There are ways around it, but that will be the primary challenge in the last four slots. If you use Chromera on HO, Hatterene and Cresceidon are both cool partners since Chromera loves the Healing Wish support. You also want a few pivots to get Chromera in as often as possible—Meow, Woger, Pecharunt, Cinderace, Corv, Dragapult, etc. are all good picks.
Other options
88HP evs are an option to live Zama's +1 Body Press. Modest improves some rolls like going from a 12% chance at OHKOing Slowking-G to a 68% chance at +1, 2HKOing Steel Pex at +1, and having a better roll to OHKO Gliscor, but the Pokemon you lose out on outspeeding are actually pretty important. Covert Cloak is an option to deal with Garganacl better, but the damage drop without Silk Scarf is noticeable. Tera Ghost + Shadow Ball is a good tech into Revenankh and Zamazenta, but of course leaves you more revengable by other Pokemon like Kitsunoh, Kingambit, Darkrai, and so on. Covert Cloak goes quite well with Tera Ghost since you're not going to have the nuke option of Tera Normal BB anyways. This set can also run an EV spread of 252 HP / 228 Def / 8 SpA / 20 Spe with a Bold nature to just be a total fatass, unkillable except by status or Knock Off + Salt Cure. Taunt completely shuts down status users, which is especially nice into stall, although you're more reliant on Wish support now. Psychic Noise is another tech vs Revenankh that combines some of the utility of Taunt. Trailblaze is an interesting option on HO that lets you function as a sort of dual-dance mon; you can CM to break fat, or TB to clean opposing offense. Specs is also not bad.
Replays and teams
A lot of these games aren't the best quality; most are either casual tests I played with friends, unofficial tournament games, or early-round tour matches. I've cherry-picked replays where Chromera wins, but I think these games should get the point across regardless.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2408829308-ampsuxcpjyqqlfm3jkqwdrsjkbqj5gopw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399975140-ctlxt1yjwmwbcmoesgpqf8bymgdl182pw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399980968-tsx2h2aw0wojx6367ks98gwlh4yqt1wpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2407953005-hlv3cinb83ly6l441pdygecq6avt2hdpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2407946980-kxipgdo1025v3b4jdokx7bcihikpok2pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2433306353-ydrqtwijdnnefpmil51k3m4adk754v7pw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2436993136-yh92fhbwpr5p6wcbmp3khsjpave0wu7pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399821347-c0imowxxvhx0fjak8r0xjav54g6u388pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2460317115-e1r8ww66dnw9tdddfraskhgv97eqq1vpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9cap-871578
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9cap-874241 ignore this one
Finally a few teams, some better than others. The second to last two are fun but not very serious. Do not use the last team under any circumstances.
I used to think quziel was crazy, but I understand now. I have been inflicted with the same mind virus.
If you've heard me talk about SV CAP recently, you've probably heard me talk about Chromera. I've seen other people try to load the mon recently (to mixed results) so I figured it would be helpful if I shared my own experience with the Pokemon and how best to use it. Chromera is very fun to build with because of the incredibly unique strengths and weaknesses it presents in the builder, and it's very fun to use because you can click the funny button and kill things. I do not claim to be an expert, because frankly it's hard to get high-quality games in this tier and some things you can only really find out by testing. However, with that said, here are my thoughts.
For the rest of this post I will be referring only to the Silk Scarf set unless stated otherwise.
Silk Scarf (Chromera) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Color Change
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Boomburst
- Dark Pulse
- Recover
Ability: Color Change
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Boomburst
- Dark Pulse
- Recover
Why use Chromera?
The reason you use Chromera is because it beats down fat teams. The fatter the team, the better the matchup it has. Stall can be a little tricky because of Tera Steel Toxapex, but this matchup is still pretty doable for the lion, and non-Toxapex (or Clodsire) stalls likely just fold on preview. Non-stall fat balances have even fewer responses. Common special walls and/or Normal resists like Equilibra, Slowking-G, Garganacl, and Ting-Lu just get overwhelmed by Chromera's sheer firepower because they cannot meaningfully threaten you in return. Cresceidon is probably the most annoying, since it has the chance to Encore you into setup or trade its life for a Thunder Wave to neuter you (not a bad trade all things considered), but in general you steamroll most defensive mons with ease.
This is what makes Chromera effective: it is amazing at repeatedly trading for positive material. You largely shrug off attacks like Garganacl's Salt Cure or Equilibra's Earth Power because you can recover off the damage and/or boost through it, on top of incredible natural bulk and few weaknesses (once Tera'd). Chromera ends up being a check to these walls more than they are checks to Chromera. Because you cover bulkier matchups almost all by yourself (not much else does this in SV), you have four to five slots to dedicate to beating offense.
The best analogues to Chromera are Hoopa-U and Ursaluna, two other awkward fat breakers that excel at trading. What makes Chromera different is its better STABs, better Speed, and access to recovery and boosting. Hoopa-U is easily revenged on its physical side, easily outsped, is scared of even the weakest U-turns, vulnerable to status, and has imperfect STABs; Ursaluna is on a timer, terribly slow, has to activate its item to be of any use, takes contact damage, and has STABs with common immunities. A common strategy to dealing with these mons is pivoting around them into immunities or resists, slowly chipping them down and trying to get in something that can force them out. Chromera doesn't really care about that. You can pivot around it all you want, it won't work. Boomburst kills anything that isn't immune to it, and if the opponent does successfully get in a Ghost-type, you can often just keep clicking BB without risk because A) half of the Ghosts can't do anything back, and B) your health is more expendable since you can heal yourself. The opponent bears almost all of the risk, between letting their Ghost-type die to Dark Pulse, letting their Dark resist die to Boomburst, or letting you heal as they go into a midground—not that good midgrounds really exist. While you will never see Hoopa-U and Ursaluna straight up 6-0ing teams, Chromera has very real 6-0 potential into some builds. Some teams just do not have the speed or initial firepower to ever force it out.
A lesser benefit of Chromera, though one that I think is still worth mentioning, is that it's helpful versus two Pokemon that are very difficult for bulkier teams to answer: Gliscor and Kyurem. You outspeed both of them (this is why I prefer Timid), OHKO Kyurem through Substitute after Tera—assuming Kyurem isn't at full health if it has a sub up—and you can chew Facades from Gliscor reasonably well (Facade/Knock doesn't even change your typing!) while Tera Normal Boomburst is almost a flat OHKO back. This also applies to other Substitute sweepers like Hatterene and Primarina that are really awkward for balance/fat to deal with.
Where's the catch?
Chromera is not perfect, much as it pains me to say.
- Color Change sucks, and by extension, Chromera is a Tera hog
- It demands very specific partners and team structures
- Revenankh
- 100 base Speed still isn't great
- Very little defensive utility
- It's poor vs faster tempo playstyles
I'll come back to the second and third bullets, the third bullet is fairly obvious, and the last two I will group together here. I think the easiest way to talk about the last two points is to once again draw comparisons between Chromera and Hoopa/Ursaluna. Despite Hoopa's atrocious defensive typing, its bulk is so insane that you can actually switch into stuff with AV. It's a great mon into fat, but it's also a competent check vs HO threats like Iron Moth and Chuggalong. This can make building with it a little more forgiving. Ursaluna, too, has more defensive utility than Chromera due to its Ground typing. While Chromera pretty much needs to Tera in order to force positive trades, Ursaluna is strong even in its base state. There are pros and cons to using any of these fat breakers.
How to use Chromera
The second and third bullet points from before are now relevant. At least four of Chromera's team partners are going to be hyper-focused on shoring up its specific bad matchups. Revenankh is the major one to worry about; if Chromera is your team's primary progress maker (it will be), you need something that can repeatedly switch into Revenankh and, ideally, actively convert it into other means of progress. HO in general is going to be a difficult matchup to account for in the builder because you're basically starting off with a dead slot.
In my experience, the best partner for Chromera is Alomomola. Despite Chromera's ability to recover its own health, having a wishpasser makes it infinitely easier to trade into the opposing team, which is what Chromera's best at. You can do greedy shit like stay in and attack on Zama's Body Press, Tera-boosted Ivy Cudgels, even Darkrai's +2 Dark Pulse, because you can just be back at full health in a few turns. The fewer turns you spend recovering, the more turns you spend clicking the best move in the game, and the fewer chances you give your opponent to regain lost ground. Alo is also decent into some Pokemon that annoy Chomera like Revenankh, Cresceidon, and can be teched to help against HO with options like Red Card.
Starting off with Chromera + Alo admittedly makes the HO matchup a bit awkward to figure out. There are ways around it, but that will be the primary challenge in the last four slots. If you use Chromera on HO, Hatterene and Cresceidon are both cool partners since Chromera loves the Healing Wish support. You also want a few pivots to get Chromera in as often as possible—Meow, Woger, Pecharunt, Cinderace, Corv, Dragapult, etc. are all good picks.
Other options
88HP evs are an option to live Zama's +1 Body Press. Modest improves some rolls like going from a 12% chance at OHKOing Slowking-G to a 68% chance at +1, 2HKOing Steel Pex at +1, and having a better roll to OHKO Gliscor, but the Pokemon you lose out on outspeeding are actually pretty important. Covert Cloak is an option to deal with Garganacl better, but the damage drop without Silk Scarf is noticeable. Tera Ghost + Shadow Ball is a good tech into Revenankh and Zamazenta, but of course leaves you more revengable by other Pokemon like Kitsunoh, Kingambit, Darkrai, and so on. Covert Cloak goes quite well with Tera Ghost since you're not going to have the nuke option of Tera Normal BB anyways. This set can also run an EV spread of 252 HP / 228 Def / 8 SpA / 20 Spe with a Bold nature to just be a total fatass, unkillable except by status or Knock Off + Salt Cure. Taunt completely shuts down status users, which is especially nice into stall, although you're more reliant on Wish support now. Psychic Noise is another tech vs Revenankh that combines some of the utility of Taunt. Trailblaze is an interesting option on HO that lets you function as a sort of dual-dance mon; you can CM to break fat, or TB to clean opposing offense. Specs is also not bad.
Replays and teams
A lot of these games aren't the best quality; most are either casual tests I played with friends, unofficial tournament games, or early-round tour matches. I've cherry-picked replays where Chromera wins, but I think these games should get the point across regardless.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2408829308-ampsuxcpjyqqlfm3jkqwdrsjkbqj5gopw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399975140-ctlxt1yjwmwbcmoesgpqf8bymgdl182pw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399980968-tsx2h2aw0wojx6367ks98gwlh4yqt1wpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2407953005-hlv3cinb83ly6l441pdygecq6avt2hdpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2407946980-kxipgdo1025v3b4jdokx7bcihikpok2pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2433306353-ydrqtwijdnnefpmil51k3m4adk754v7pw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2436993136-yh92fhbwpr5p6wcbmp3khsjpave0wu7pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2399821347-c0imowxxvhx0fjak8r0xjav54g6u388pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9cap-2460317115-e1r8ww66dnw9tdddfraskhgv97eqq1vpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9cap-871578
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9cap-874241 ignore this one
Finally a few teams, some better than others. The second to last two are fun but not very serious. Do not use the last team under any circumstances.
sorry
Spoo changing the order of his mons so it's not obvious that Chromera is on all of the teams.Finally a few teams, some better than others. The second to last two are fun but not very serious. Do not use the last team under any circumstances.
dont tell me what to do
+2 252 Atk Galvanize Tera Electric Caribolt Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 124 Def Iron Moth in Electric Terrain: 296-350 (98.3 - 116.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
I was thinking Caribolt on eTerrain could be funny so here's an attempt at a team:
Caribolt / Pinurchin / Hawlucha / Iron Treads / Iron Valiant / Iron Boulder
https://pokepast.es/70d853442e8f1045
I've barely tested it and any suggested improvements welcome! Have fun with the cheese :-p :-)
(PS: a bunch of Iron Moth teams don't actually run Tera Blast Ground on it, in case ppl are not aware of this.)
Team Edits: Replace Knock Off with Double-Edge - the potential to OHKO a chipped Hemo is too good to drop (while +0, no tera, and active terrain). Perhaps put KO on Valiant somewhere.
I was thinking Caribolt on eTerrain could be funny so here's an attempt at a team:
Caribolt / Pinurchin / Hawlucha / Iron Treads / Iron Valiant / Iron Boulder
https://pokepast.es/70d853442e8f1045
I've barely tested it and any suggested improvements welcome! Have fun with the cheese :-p :-)
(PS: a bunch of Iron Moth teams don't actually run Tera Blast Ground on it, in case ppl are not aware of this.)
Team Edits: Replace Knock Off with Double-Edge - the potential to OHKO a chipped Hemo is too good to drop (while +0, no tera, and active terrain). Perhaps put KO on Valiant somewhere.
Last edited: