Competitive Pokemon History - Gallade Trivia Game

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. One of the things that jumped off the page about Gallade in its debut generation was its hefty Attack stat. While not allowing it to natively be a member of fourth generation standard play, this large number made Gallade worth considering for standard play teams as a wallbreaker. What was Gallade's Attack stat?

Answer: 125

A number higher than the formal God of Pokemon, Arceus, as well as higher than any other Fighting or Psychic type available in standard play. Combined with access to Swords Dance and the strong Close Combat, this made Gallade's role on the average team clear; come in, boost with Swords Dance, and proceed to wreak havoc on the opposing team.

2. When deciding whether or not to use Gallade over other options in fourth generation standard play, such as Lucario, Machamp or Heracross, its movepool would be the main deciding factor. It uniquely had access to one priority move with interesting coverage that the aforementioned three did not get. Therefore, it clearly saw a good deal of usage on most Gallade sets. What priority move was this?

Answer: Shadow Sneak

Lacking STAB, Shadow Sneak is unfortunately extremely weak, so it's reasonable to wonder why Gallade would ever run this move. Like Lucario, Heracross and Machamp, Gallade's Speed is rather poor and its bulk is fairly middling. Seeing as how its Psychic typing leaves it weak to the omnipresent Ghost, Pokemon like Gengar, Alakazam with Shadow Ball, and Rotom formes would be likely to try and revenge kill it.

A Gallade that has boosted with Swords Dance can cleanly OHKO the former two and deal hefty damage to any Rotom appliance, allowing Gallade to stave them off and proceed to keep blowing holes in the opponent's team. None of Gallade's competition can do that, meaning Gallade had priority and coverage that could help deal with Pokemon immune or resistant to Close Combat.

3. Gallade began its competitive career with an interesting, fairly rare ability in Steadfast. What does Steadfast do?

Answer: Raise the user's Speed by one stage if they are flinched

Gallade's middling bulk means it cannot take too many hits, so Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, and especially Air Slash can still be used somewhat safely against it even despite the existence of Steadfast. However, Gallade can at least reliably defeat Jirachi one-on-one if Jirachi doesn't have Thunder Wave solely because of Steadfast, which is worth something at least.

4. Gallade's incredible power made it uncounterable in the fourth generation. However, in the fifth generation, it descended all the way to the RarelyUsed tier, where it finally had met its match. Which Pokemon in fifth generation RU was able to reliably switch into Gallade and win?

Answer: Spiritomb

The other options listed make for fine checks to Gallade, but can lose to it in certain scenarios. Spiritomb, however, can switch into Gallade with essential impunity, and deal with it every single time. In particular, Spiritomb's Calm Mind set is dangerous, as it can easily begin boosting right in Gallade's face, then proceed to sweep its team if Gallade's team doesn't have an answer to it, or if said answer has been taken out of the game.

5. Gallade was no longer viable in standard play, and was niche at best in the UnderUsed tier, a tier in which it was banned from for being too powerful in the generation prior. One of Gallade's biggest deficiencies was beginning to catch up to it, that being its atrocious physical bulk. What was Gallade's Defense stat?

Answer: 65

Combined with a lackluster 80 HP, and Gallade was actually deceptively frail on the physical side. Being a Fighting type that cannot reliably defeat the 4x weak Tyranitar one-on-one was all that needed to happen for Gallade to fall out of favor in standard play, as there were plenty of Fighting types which could achieve that, all of which were ultimately superior to Gallade.

6. Gallade was blessed with a Mega Evolution in the sixth generation. One of the flashy new upgrades it received, in conjunction with a meaty Attack boost, was its underrated but even more impactful Speed boost. What is Mega Gallade's Speed stat?

Answer: 110

110 enabled Mega Gallade to speed-tie with Gengar, Mega Diancie and the Lati twins, while now outspeeding Terrakion, Garchomp, Landorus-T and many, many more crucial targets. Its new Base 165 Attack stat enabled it to put that newfound advantage to good use, as it soared back into standard play viability once again.

7. Mega Gallade receives another interesting ability when Mega Evolving. What ability is this?

Answer: Inner Focus

In the sixth generation, Inner Focus rendered the user immune to being flinched. In the eighth generation, it also granted the user immunity to the Intimidate ability. While not super, super useful on Mega Gallade, it had its niche uses such as allowing Mega Gallade to put an end to a Mega Lopunny's Fake Out rampage by threatening to tear it apart with a Close Combat if it dared stay in to do so to Mega Gallade.

8. In spite of its new goodies, Mega Gallade often played second fiddle to another deadly Mega Evolved, Psychic/Fighting type, who was simply a lot stronger than it was. Who was this?

Answer: Mega Medicham

Mega Medicham's Pure Power ability let it hit far, far harder than Mega Gallade could. Simply put, this was enough to enable Mega Medicham to experience much more use than Mega Gallade did. Mega Gallade's higher Speed let it be more useful to certain teams, but Mega Medicham's immediate, immense power was more generally useful.

9. Gallade would return in the eighth generation, being immediately ready for use in the Galar region as the generation was released. What usage based tier did it inhabit here?

Answer: NeverUsed

While it did drop to NU, Gallade did have a niche in RU as the tier's strongest Fighting type wallbreaker. With its wide movepool, Gallade still could not be reliably walled. However, its low Speed and physical bulk made it a rather awkward fit for most non-hyper offensive builds, which resulted in its usage declining enough for it to fall to NU.

There, the dynamic is largely the same for Gallade, and it became an excellent Pokemon for the tier.

10. Gallade has had to sit and watch as it fellow Ralts' third stage evolution, Gardevoir, has been consistently higher tiered and overall more viable than Gallade over the years. Why has Gardevoir been the superior choice for a Ralts evolution up through the eighth generation?

Answer: Gardevoir has had less competition for its niche

Gardevoir received a secondary Fairy typing in the sixth generation. The role of an immensely strong, specially offensive Fairy type sees much less competition than a physically offensive Fighting type. Right from moment one, Gallade experienced severe competition from other Fighting types, enough competition to severely hinder its overall usage statistics in each generation. Meanwhile, Gardevoir simply hasn't had to deal with that.

Source: Author cavalier87

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor kyleisalive before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Competitive Pokemon History - Gallade Quiz

The alternate to Gardevoir, we now have Gallade receiving a competitive history quiz! Let's see how sharp you are on deducing said history stemming from generations 4-8!

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