Why I'm gonna vote DNB
TL;DR Genesect having a lot of sets is fine because it's not too much trouble to have good answers to majority of them, and occasionally losing to a random one bc someone teched something super specific is...not that big of a deal. After thinking about it a lot, coming up with cool ways to counter your counterplay is just AAA fundamentals at this point.
If you have replays of Genesect being broken, that would be great, I didn't bother with replays because it's so mediocre in so many games I play/watch (even in tour play!).
Anyway,
to my understanding there are three categories of Genesect:
> Mixed Shift Gear (No Guard, SFLO, Primordial Sea I guess)
> Physical (Guts,Tinted Lens, -ate, SFLO sometimes)
> Misc. (RegenScarf)
There are probably more sets or whatever that someone in a dark basement has manufactured specifically for beating the meta, but this is what I came up with in a quick skim of recent memory. That being said,
I can honestly say that I have yet to see a decent team without some way of outplaying/beating Genesect.
Going to the very BASICS and only using the first few Sample teams as examples:
Admittedly is trouble if Genesect can shift gear on chomp, mew or pex, but even then...? Pex can knock it off so Moltres has good chance to eat electric move and kills it, limiting to a 2:1 trade, koko can do taunt/Facade 2HKO mindgames to prevent the setup, moltres outright kills it, scarf gene cooks it with flamethrower and is faster.
Tinted First Impression snaps Genesect in half, gzap is faster than standard sets and ohkos with STAB, Mew can trick, Blissey can Flamethrower on setup turn...there are actually quite a few options.
This team has a heatran so it innately has decent options vs virtually any Genesect set, but even then scarf lati prevents setup with mystical fire, zarude can darkest lariat and put it away for good, and zapdos (is slower for some reason but) chops it up with a hurricane.
I don't want to write an essay about every single sample team bc then this post would become too long, but I stand by my opinion that gameplans on how to beat Genesect aren't that hard to put together or realize. Sure, if you get outplayed by the opponent and they get every turn right, you lose--but that's absolutely fine and they probably deserved it at that point.
I also wanted to address a little bit of Genesect counterplay as well. To make it as straightforward as possible, I'll literally just go down the VR and mention common mons. If you are reading this and are like "Well, that mon's just bad anyway", then I personally think you're probably missing out on the scope of teambuilding options in AAA--all of these mons are either consistently viable or each have a relevant niche even outside of Genesect, but this isn't a viability rankings nom so I won't get into the meat of that argument. Also keep in mind that these are all assuming it's setup Genesect since while regen Genesect is really good, it also probably has the most straightforward counterplay ever: pivot around it lmao.
Pokemon
Choice Scarf
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- Threaten trick and/or fire move
- Definitely not a counter, but it can at least Taunt on Shift Gear, or do > 50% with Pixilate Facade, or even fish for para with Discharge (don't do this unless you're desperate LOL)
(DesoLand, Regen, Magic Guard, whatever you like tbh) - Can eat pretty much any hit from Genesect even after it gets a Shift Gear and OHKO it back (I don't rate flash fire genesect because come on now, you KNOW you aren't putting that on a team in any serious capacity LOL). Even without regen, you can keep your heatran relatively healthy with leftovers + slow pivoting into it very reasonably -> I'm not even good but I can at least recognize that much.
- Whether it's Unaware or not, Chansey can Thunder Wave -> Teleport to something to kills Genesect
- Volt Absorb bulk up can deal with boltbeam sets, flash fire works vs
the facade + gunk shot + blaze kick set that Laxpras mentioned (Flash Fire Steels are literally fine in Heatran meta btw, that mon is bonkers)
- Doesn't necessarily "win", but knocking LO and/or Leech Seeding on the Shift Gear can be good for pivoting around to teammates like Swampert and whatnot to wear Genesect down
- Beats purely physical genesect with Dauntless Shield or Unaware and puts it to bed with Foul Play (
Also lives the electric move from full more than 80% of the time lmao)
- Isn't setup fodder bc it outspeeds and OHKOs
- Isn't setup fodder bc it outspeeds and OHKOs
- Doesn't OHKO but does loads of damage so you can capitalize on weakened Gene w/ teammates
- Isn't setup fodder bc it outspeeds and OHKOs
- Isn't setup fodder bc it does 99.6% min if adamant, 90% min if jolly so you can capitalize on weakened Gene
- Isn't setup fodder bc it outspeeds and OHKOs
- Other than Thunder Wave -> Teleport, even BLISSEY can get licks in vs Genesect by opting to run Flamethrower (or Fire Blast) instead of Seismic Toss to abuse the Shift Gear turn or just plain eat any unboosted hit and cook it in return.
Extremely good mon already, also has the "niche" of OHKOing Genesect with fire moves
- you're dead if they use their brain and attack instead of trying to setup lmao, but you still prevent the setup turn bc poltergeist OHKOs if CB, almost OHKOs if LO and then you just GGlide after
- Isn't setup fodder bc it outspeeds and OHKOs
- Similar to ferro in that it doesn't necessarily win, but can run fire punch to do a ton then play around the weakened Genesect until it dies.
- Honestly depends on the set, if it's physical you can rocky helmet + body press to squeak out the win, if it's mixed then No Guard Blizzard only has a 6% chance to OHKO max HP + 40 spdef Kommo-o, meaning you can rocky helm + body press and capitalize on weakened OR triage drain punch and do the same
- Scarf Aerilate can Body Slam/Explosion, Scarf Regen/AV Regen can EQ and capialize on weakened w/ teammates
- Frankly I don't think Latios is A- to begin with, but even HERE if it's tinted Latios it isn't setup fodder and OHKOS, and even if it's any other set you do a million damage and capitalize on weakened w/ teammates
All of these are Pokemon I'd say are collectively very common and not unreasonable to build with (none of them are currently lower than A-), and this doesn't even include more generalized plans like having cores that do well into Genesect or other mons like Volcarona and Swampert that can OHKO or Roar it out. And before the argument of "why do you need multiple forms of counterplay for one Pokemon" come out, let's not pretend as though we don't already do that for just about every strong attacker or setup mon in the tier (Zapdos-Galar, Terrakion, Heatran, Tapu Lele, etc.)
So yeah, I think
Err0r Mobutt unironically put it best when in
his Genesect post in the main AAA thread he said:
"Your team won't beat all Genesect sets, but it's beating most of them, and they're only running one". I
highly doubt people are making a legitimate effort to have some kind of Genesect prep/gameplan and are just autlosing every game (or even any significant number of games) to random tech sets...come on now. If that was actually happening, every Genesect discussion would be littered with replays.