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original thread by Elise
split infinitive count: 7
[OVERVIEW]
Victini's primary niche in the Doubles OU metagame lies in its access to a strong Final Gambit, allowing it to easily make early- or mid-game trades, removing important attackers or pivots from opposing teams early-game to make the matchup easier for its teammates. With its high base 100 HP, Victini is capable of OHKOing a wide range of threats, including even bulky Pokemon like Zapdos and Tapu Fini. Its unique STAB attack V-create gives it access to another way of dealing large amounts of damage without sacrificing itself. Outside of Final Gambit and V-create, though, Victini's damage output is often underwhelming, and thus it's generally outclassed as an offensive Fire-type by Volcanion and Heatran. Additionally, it's generally an inferior cleaner to most Choice Scarf users, as Final Gambit can only be used once and its other moves tend to produce disappointing damage outputs.
[SET]
name: Choice Scarf
move 1: Final Gambit
move 2: V-create
move 3: Bolt Strike
move 4: U-turn
item: Choice Scarf
ability: Victory Star
nature: Jolly
evs: 172 HP / 84 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
Final Gambit allows Victini to easily trade itself for the removal of a crucial attacker or pivot from an opposing team, generally without much counterplay. V-create is an alternate source of damage that doesn't sacrifice Victini, but unfortunately, it lowers Victini's defenses and Speed, leaving it vulnerable to damage that could lower Final Gambit's effective power or even outright KO Victini. Bolt Strike acts as a strong coverage move to hit Water-types such as Tapu Fini and Volcanion, while U-turn rounds out the set, allowing Victini to easily pivot out of unfavorable situations.
Set Details
========
The given EV spread focuses on allowing Victini to effectively use Final Gambit: the HP investment gives Victini the same HP stat as fully invested Zapdos, or and equivalently other base 90 HP foes, allowing Victini to OHKO it with Final Gambit. Meanwhile, its Speed is maximized to allow it to outspeed Choice Scarf Genesect to threaten it with a V-create. The remaining EVs are invested into Attack to get the most damage out of its other moves; 116 Attack EVs could be used to OHKO Mega Gengar with 4 EVs in Defense, but such sets are rare, and to do so would cause Victini to miss out on one of the other mentioned benchmarks.
Usage Tips
========
Victini is most effectively used as a lead, with the capacity to efficiently trade itself for a key threat on the opposing side or to U-turn out if no viable target presents itself. However, if it doesn't trade itself off early-game, it should be played cautiously later on—generally, one should keep Victini's health high in order to preserve its damage output from Final Gambit, so it should be brought into play primarily off free switches or off the back of a slow U-turn or Volt Switch. In the same vein, Victini should generally be played to avoid chip damage from Stealth Rock or priority moves like Fake Out and Zygarde's Extreme Speed; though these might seem like sources of insignificant chip damage, Victini needs to be near or at full health in order to OHKO some of its key targets, including Zapdos and Landorus-T, with Final Gambit. Furthermore, when using its non-Final Gambit moves, Victini should be going for guaranteed KOs, since it doesn't want to risk taking unnecessary damage and hamper its Final Gambit damage. Finally, when using V-create, one should be wary of the stat drops the move causes, especially the Speed drop, which nullifies the Choice Scarf boost and may force Victini to leave the field and return later before it can pose a significant threat.
Team Options
========
Victini's best use is alongside an ally that needs to set up in some way, as it helps to alleviate the offensive pressure exerted on its partner by removing a key threat on the opposing side with Final Gambit. Good examples of such teammates include Dragon Dance Mega Salamence and Zygarde, which can easily get an important boost to chunk teams early-game or clean up late-game. Aurora Veil Alolan Ninetales is a more passive example of a partner that requires this setup opportunity, but it can nonetheless make use of it to ease other teammates' setup, conveniently aided by the free switch Victini creates after fainting from Final Gambit. Similarly, offensive Trick Room setters like Stakataka and Hoopa-U appreciate Victini as a more permanent solution to their threats, in the form of Final Gambit incapacitating a foe for the remainder of the match instead of just for a single turn. Allies like Tapu Fini that typically struggle with opposing Grass-types will also appreciate Victini's strong Fire-type STAB attacks.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Trick is a strong option on Choice Scarf Victini, allowing it to cripple bulky foes such as Cresselia, which Victini can't come close to KOing with any attack. Trick Room is another option, allowing Victini to interestingly function as a Trick Room setter with the capability to OHKO Amoonguss, which is possibly the most common check to Trick Room. Glaciate is another notable option, allowing Victini to support its team through speed control. In terms of purely offensive options, however, Victini is rather limited: its other main STAB option, Zen Headbutt, is unable to achieve notable amounts of damage on any relevant target, while special variants of Victini using Blue Flare also deal notably less damage to important threats like Amoonguss. Victini sets could also go in a whole different direction, too—an Assault Vest could provide Victini with extra bulk, but this makes a Final Gambit set significantly less effective. Normalium Z could also allow Victini to run a Z-Celebrate set to act as a sweeper in and of itself with Blue Flare and Stored Power, but the boosts are often insufficient to KO key threats like Landorus-T.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Opposing Speed Control:** Since Victini relies heavily on its Choice Scarf to effectively conduct Final Gambit trades and hit with fast and strong V-creates, it struggles against teams that manage to get Trick Room up.
**Water-types:** Despite having access to Bolt Strike, Victini has issues beating the most common Water-type in the format, Tapu Fini, as it simply can't hit hard enough. It's also outrun and OHKOed by Swift Swim users like Kingdra and Mega Swampert, leaving Victini with no possible options for retaliation. They should be wary of switching into a Final Gambit, however, which easily OHKOes most of the tier's common Water-types.
**Fire-types:** Most Fire-types are more than capable of taking a resisted V-create from Victini; notably, Heatran is completely immune to Fire-type attacks while Volcanion has a quadruple resistance against V-create. Both should beware a potential Final Gambit, though, which is more than capable of OHKOing either.
**Intimidate:** Victini's physical attacks are drastically weakened by Intimidate users such as Landorus-T and Mega Salamence. To make matters worse, Victini can't really properly damage either of these Pokemon without sacrificing itself with Final Gambit
**Tyranitar:** Tyranitar makes a strong switch-in to Victini's V-create, which it takes little damage from, and also activates a sandstorm as it switches in, slowly whittling away Victini's HP and neutering the power of Final Gambit in the process
**Pokemon with High HP Stats:** Pokemon like Cresselia can easily take a Final Gambit from Victini and heal off the damage with recovery moves, heavily neutering Victini's contribution to a game. Other Pokemon such as Kyurem-B and Mew can also often take a hit and still survive to move on the same turn, though they're often heavily impaired by the resultant damage.
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