Competitive Pokemon History - Celebi Quiz

Answer: Perish Song

Celebi did not yet have access to Swords Dance or Baton Pass, and Guillotine has always been illegal in competitive play.

Reminiscent of the Perish Song antics Misdreavus could pull, Celebi too was an amazing Perish Song Pokemon. The secret to its success was its access to instant healing in Recover, allowing it to easily stall out Perish Song's 3 turn build-up. This meant that Celebi could always handle any last-Pokemon sweeper looking to pull a comeback, most notably Curse Snorlax and Shadow Ball-less Curse Mewtwo.

Answer: Umbreon

Umbreon's access to Mean Look and Baton Pass meant it could trap a target with Mean Look, Baton Pass into Celebi and, because Baton Pass retained the effects of Mean Look on the target, Celebi could effortlessly PerishTrap the target the extreme majority of the time. Umbreon + Celebi became the deadliest core in the game because of this. Conveniently, their typings also had great synergy- Umbreon could switch into Shadow Ball and other Ghost moves aimed at Celebi, while Celebi could easily take Fighting type moves that would quickly overwhelm Umbreon. Together, the two inflated Celebi's dominant presence in second generation Ubers and gave Umbreon a meaningful niche for the tier in the process.

Answer: First Pokemon to ever become banned and unbanned in the same generation

Celebi began the generation being allowed in standard play. It would be re-banned to Ubers two weeks after the generation released, before an extremely controversial decision was made a few short months later in allowing it to return to standard play.

Celebi was ultimately unviable in Ubers this generation. The advent of deadly new threats such as Metagross, the Latios and Latias twins, Rayquaza, Salamence and more made the tier too hostile for Celebi, whose Grass/Psychic typing became an enormous liability in the tier.

In standard play, however, there is a very strong argument that Celebi was the best Pokemon in the entire tier. It gained access to Calm Mind, Swords Dance and Baton Pass, making it a key component of Baton Pass chains, as Celebi was often the last Pokemon to pass boosts to whoever the designated sweeper was. It could also run a set of Calm Mind/Recover/Baton Pass/ Hidden Power Grass or Psychic- a set which could both threaten a sweep or pass boosts to something else if the opposing team boasted too many countermeasures for a Celebi sweep to be realistic.

It could also call in its old friend Umbreon for the same PerishTrap set as the previous generation. It wasn't quite as effective, as common Pokemon like Salamence, Metagross and Regice could break the trap rather easily, but it could still trap anything which couldn't hit Celebi super effectively very easily.

Answer: Baton Pass Clause

The fourth generation's Baton Pass clause stated that "Teams may not have more than one Pokemon with Baton Pass in its moveset. Additionally, Speed + another stat may not be passed." This basically eliminated the already niche viability of Baton Pass chains, and hindered Celebi's status as a staple on these teams.

Answer: Ten

Celebi could run, in no particular order: its classic Perish Song set, a Substitute + Leech Seed set, a Calm Mind sweeper, a Choice Scarf + Trick set, a specially offensive wallbreaker, a Baton Pass set to help an end game sweeper, a Stealth Rock setting lead, a Nasty Plot sweeper, a physically defensive cleric for stall teams and its brand new "Tinkerbell" support set.

The latter was a set of Thunder Wave/Leaf Storm/Hidden Power Fire/Recover which abused Celebi's versatility more than any of its other sets. Overall, this Mewtwo-esque versatility kept Celebi unpredictable and lacking in any consistent hard counters- though Scizor and Heatran came extremely close to meeting the criteria.

Answer: Natural Cure

Natural Cure allows Celebi to function as a status absorber on any team it ends up on, since merely switching out would remove the status condition entirely. This also made Celebi a royal pain for stall teams to take out, since its access to instant healing and the ability to effortlessly remove status meant stall teams would have a bad time trying to whittle away at it.

Answer: None of these

While Celebi's water resistance might seem like it could fare well against rain teams, its weakness to the now-fully accurate Hurricane, which was obligatory for any decent rain team to have, made it struggle against these teams. Sun teams would simply mow Celebi down with sun-boosted Fire attacks which were already threatening enough as super effective moves. Finally, Sand teams always had the combo of Tyranitar and Excadrill as the main components, and the core fared incredibly well against Celebi.

Being ineffective against weathers of all styles once again blasted holes in Celebi's viability, though its ability to check key players in the meta, such as Keldeo, Thundurus-T, Landorus-I and Breloom, along with its massive versatility allowed Celebi to remain afloat.

Answer: UnderUsed

Celebi would finally drop to UU, though the loss of weather teams allowed it to remain viable for standard play. In UU, it was right back to doing the same exact stuff it had been doing for years. The introduction of the Fairy type would prove to help Celebi tackle Dark types, though pairing a Fairy with Celebi now meant the team had two Pokemon with poor matchups against Steel, Poison and Fire, so the player had to compensate elsewhere for this if they wanted to form a core of this nature.

Answer: No

Scizor was a phenomenal check to Celebi, but Celebi had too many ways it could potentially defeat Scizor if the Scizor user got reckless. Nothing Celebi had could OHKO a Scizor without boosting, but it had some options to outspeed and 2HKO. For one, Celebi's access to Nasty Plot and ability to equip a Z-Crystal meant it could boost as Scizor switched in, and potentially KO offensive variants with a +2 Shattered Psyche. Celebi could also simply outspeed and 2HKO Scizor with Hidden Power Fire, though this idea fell flat against Choice Scarf Scizor.

Simply put, Scizor could not reliably switch in and defeat Celebi if the Celebi user predicted the switch, meaning that, by definition, it was not a hard counter- though it came close.

Answer: The ability to get removed from the game

Like many others, Celebi was denied entry into the Galar region. To add insult to injury, Celebi watched as fellow mythical Mew was allowed into the game.