Competitive Pokemon History - Deoxys-D Quiz

Answer: Entry hazard setter

With access to the lowly distributed Spikes, Deoxys-D even put Skarmory to shame with how good it was at setting this hazard. It had access to instant, reliable recovery, which Skarmory didn't have at the time. It was also essentially immune to trapping, as it could defeat Magneton (who stupidly countered Skarmory) and Dugtrio one-on-one, making it very consistent at performing the act.

Answer: 160

With 160/160 defenses, Deoxys-D has higher defenses than even Lugia. It also offered more utility, with access to Spikes as well as Night Shade or Seismic Toss for consistent damage. This made Deoxys-D a nice defensive entry hazard setter in the third generation Uber meta.

Answer: 50

160 in Defenses makes Deoxys-D look unkillable on paper. But its base 50 HP is so utterly awful, that in practice, Deoxys-D's actual bulk is merely above average. Combined with its iffy Psychic defensive typing, and Deoxys-D would not be able to outperform Lugia or Skarmory as a Wall.

In the third generation, its bulk was good enough to switch in to deadly threats should the need arise. However, as later generations implemented more and more power creep, Deoxys-D would find itself getting overwhelmed easily trying to do this, no thanks to its poor HP stat.

Answer: Pressure

Deoxys-D certainly made better use of Pressure than its other formes, due to the fact that it could take hits respectfully well. It didn't exactly abuse the ability, like Lugia, Zapdos or Suicune could, but there are certainly worse abilities it could have received.

Answer: Stallbreaker

Access to Agility, Toxic, Taunt and Recover makes Deoxys-D a worthwhile stallbreaker. By using Agility on turn one, Deoxys-D would outspeed everything relevant that a stall team could run. From there, Taunting the target on turn two would prevent them from inflicting Deoxys-D itself with status, which would ruin the strategy completely otherwise. Taunting on turn one is the way to go if the opponent, such as Blissey or Skarmory, is already slower to begin with. From there, Deoxys-D can spam Recover while the target slowly dies off from the progressively worsening Toxic damage, and fails to seriously hurt Deoxys-D. While Skarmory was immune to Toxic, it could be foiled thanks to Deoxys-D's Pressure sapping away its only attacking move, eventually resulting in Skarmory KOing itself with Struggle, as Taunt would disable its support moves.

Deoxys-D was still not too good for offensive teams, due to its bad offensive stats and inability to generate too much momentum. However, it was quite decent in this specific role, which could see use on offense, balance, and even one's own stall team.

Answer: Tyranitar and Heracross

Given that Tyranitar and Heracross are only Uber viable Pokemon not banned to Ubers as options for the correct answer, they were indeed correct.

Tyranitar could switch in to Deoxys-D easily, and beat the bejesus out of it with strong Dark type moves. A Choice Banded Crunch will effortlessly 2HKO, doing north of 80% damage, a near OHKO after Stealth Rock and sandstorm damage.

Heracross, unlike most other Pokemon, actually profits off of being Toxiced by Deoxys-D. This triggers Heracross' Guts ability and causes it to hit obscenely hard when mixed with its Choice Band boost, should it be running one. It cleanly OHKOes Deoxys-D with Megahorn, or can do tons of free damage to whatever teammate switches in to it for Deoxys-D.

These two wreaked havoc in Ubers in general, and were hard to switch in to. This made using Deoxys-D quite troublesome for most builds.

Answer: It briefly was allowed in standard play

Deoxys-D was briefly re-allowed in standard play. At the time, Genesect, Scizor and weather teams in general dominated the meta, and Deoxys-D was found to be reasonably tame and not overpowered for the metagame. Not too long thereafter, Genesect got banned, which took away Deoxys-D's biggest and only real consistent offensive check. Scizor could be outsped and dealt with by running Fire Punch, while Volcarona's inability to do anything to a partner Chansey or defeat Deoxys-D consistently without running a dedicated set meant that the counterplay to Deoxys-D became very narrow. It could even be tailored to run weather setting moves to easily combat rain or sun teams and temper their power all by itself. In time, Deoxys-D's old stallbreaking set pushed it back over the edge, and it ultimately got banned back to Ubers.

None of the other Deoxys formes were ever allowed in standard play, making it so that Deoxys-D was the only of its kind to see legal use in standard play.

Answer: Xatu

Once again, the correct answer in Xatu was the only option listed to not have been banned to Ubers, automatically making it correct. Xatu's Magic Bounce ability enabled it to shut down Deoxys-D completely, preventing it from being Taunted, afflicted with Toxic, or have entry hazards set against it, reflecting all of these efforts right back at Deoxys-D. Xatu could easily boost with Calm Mind against Deoxys-D and eventually win.

It could also pack its own Toxic, smack Deoxys-D with it, and just spam Roost until Deoxys-D eventually perished.

This made Xatu into another troublesome counter.

Answer: Ghost and Dark

The introduction of Yveltal, Mega Gengar, along with the rise of Giratina-O and Arceus-Dark caused numerous hard counters to start showing up on offensive teams everywhere. Deoxys-D also couldn't do a thing to slow down conventional set up sweepers, even less if they were resilient or somehow immune to Toxic.

Its inability to viably function as either a stallbreaker or entry hazard setter ultimately led to its demise in the Uber tier, as a completely useless Pokemon.

Answer: No

As an entry hazard setter, Deoxys-D was now fully outclassed by Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Dialga, Necrozma-DuskMane, Primal Groudon... And so, so many more. As a wall, Deoxys-D was completely unviable, as well as horrifically outclassed by Skarmory, Lugia, various formes of Arceus (who weren't tasked with being a wall to begin with the vast majority of the time), and even Lunala, who was genuinely terrible for that particular role, would be better. As a stallbreaker, Deoxys-D's old antics were just totally insufficient. Considering it was stopped cold by Toxapex, Alolan Muk and Mega Gengar, this set was totally worthless 9/10 times.

Sadly, Deoxys-D fell to depths not unlike that of other worthless Uber Pokemon, like Deoxys-N, Arceus-Fire and Mega Metagross. It was bottom tier to the max, unfortunately.