Competitive Pokemon History - Garchomp Quiz

Answer: Swords Dance

The lack of Dragon Dance or any sort of priority was rather unfortunate, but the set was still very viable. After a Swords Dance, Garchomp could quite conceivably clean house. The fact that it could outboost Bulk Up Dialga and then destroy it with a +1 Earthquake bolstered its viability by quite a lot. Additionally, Garchomp's good Speed got the jump on many Dragons in the tier, which could be useful to land a finishing blow before Garchomp itself got destroyed.

Answer: 102

The only relevant Dragon types in the tier that outsped Garchomp where Latios and Latias. Garchomp could thus outspeed the likes of Palkia, Rayquaza, Dialga, both Giratina forms, Arceus-Dragon and Salamence, in order to strike with a super effective Outrage (or Earthquake in Dialga's case) and shoot for a likely OHKO before the Dragon type in question could respond likewise. Additionally, Latias and Latios players did not always maximize their Speed investment. If they did not, Garchomp would be able to get the jump on them and victimize them like it could the other aforementioned Dragon types. Garchomp's Speed was good enough to make it a genuinely great pick for fourth generation Ubers.

Answer: Sand Veil

Sand Force and Rush did not exist at the time, while Garchomp did not get Sand Stream. Sand Veil raises the evasion of a Pokémon by one stage when the weather is sandy. It doesn't directly aid Garchomp's offensive potential, but the ability to dodge would-be lethal attacks that normally have perfect accuracy quite clearly has some degree of merit. On a Substitute based set, Garchomp can occasionally take advantage of this to become offensively and defensively threatening. Fortunately, Tyranitar happens to have a great matchup against Pokémon that give Garchomp trouble, such as Lugia, Focus Blast-less Mewtwo, Latios and Latias. Tyranitar can also set Stealth Rock, so the partnership has more benefits to it than simply allowing Garchomp to make use of this ability.

Answer: Yes

Believe it or not, Garchomp actually had a rather tall list of counters despite how brilliant of a Pokémon it was. A Lugia with a lot of Speed investment can outspeed Garchomp and destroy it with Ice Beam. It also has titanic natural bulk, so it can pretty easily switch in as well. Skarmory and Bronzong happen to resist Garchomp's STAB attacks, as well as the Stone Edge it would frequently run just to try and dent Lugia's hide, so they can counter it as well. Mewtwo is bulky enough to take a single hit, also outspeeds Garchomp, and can easily bring it to its knees with an Ice Beam. Finally, Cresselia is immune to Earthquake, not weak to Stone Edge, can easily tank a couple of Outrages and, fittingly, defeat Garchomp with Ice Beam. Having a 4x weakness to the omnipresent Ice actually makes Garchomp very reasonable to counter, and also rather straightforward to check.

Answer: Rough Skin

Rough Skin causes a Pokémon making physical contact with Garchomp to lose 1/16th of their HP. Combined with a Rocky Helmet item, to make them lose another 1/6th of their HP, Garchomp could invest heavily in its physical bulk to deal with physical attackers lacking super effective moves very effectively.

It had access to Stealth Rock, Dragon Tail for phasing, could use Toxic to spread status, Fire Blast to deal with Steel type entry hazard setters, and it always came with Earthquake for decent general damage on most of the meta.

This Garchomp set was an excellent blanket check to a lot of the meta, while offering its team tons of utility, oftentimes by just existing and taking a physical hit. This Garchomp set competes only with Landorus-Therian for the title of best standard play legal Tank in franchise history, and its usage statistics reflect that distinction.

Answer: Zekrom

Kyurem-Black was a newcoming Dragon type, but Garchomp easily distinguished itself by simply having a much larger movepool than the starved Kyurem-B as well as being faster. Zekrom, on the other hand, threatened Lugia way more than Garchomp did, had superior Attacking stats and bulk, and notably throttled Skarmory, who pretty much countered Garchomp. Garchomp's only advantages over Zekrom were slightly higher Speed and access to Swords Dance.

However, Garchomp's bulk, while not at all bad, wasn't good by Ubers standards, making boosting with Swords Dance quite treacherous and normally not profitable enough with all the priority and Choice Scarf Pokémon running around the tier. Thus, Zekrom sapped up a lot of reason to actually use Garchomp.

Answer: It had much lower Speed

Garchomp's Speed declines from 102 to 92 when Mega Evolving. This is significant, as Mega Garchomp fails to outspeed countless prominent threats because of this drop off, and can easily be OHKOed by them when it otherwise would have done the OHKOing itself. Examples include Hydreigon, Kyurem-Black, Mega Gardevoir and both Mega Charizard variants.

Answer: 170

Combined with retaining access to Swords Dance, and Mega Garchomp's role on its team would be quite clear; wallbreak. Not many could do it quite like Mega Garchomp could. Because of its decent 120 in Special Attack, it could equip Fire Blast to roast Skarmory and Bronzong with, so they were no longer counters to it.

While it had issues against offensive teams due to its lowered Speed stat, Mega Garchomp was otherwise a fine Pokémon that exerted pressure against defense and balanced teams unlike most other Pokémon.

Answer: Sand Force

Sand Force gives a 1.3x damage boost to Ground, Rock and Steel type attacks. Mega Garchomp's Sand Force boosted Earthquakes were so obscenely strong that they could break through Pokémon who resisted them. Additionally, its Stone Edge covered Flying types which were immune to Earthquake, and this move conveniently also benefitted from Sand Force. With Mega Garchomp able to plow over the few Pokémon that could stop Excadrill from sweeping, and with Tyranitar aiding the pair by setting Stealth Rock and softening up teams with its sizable Attack stat as well, this trio put sand teams back on the map after they took a tremendous dip in viability during the sixth generation.

Answer: Rock

A Swords Dance boosted Continental Crush followed by a Stone Edge cleaved Skarmory into two, removing it as a counter to Garchomp without the need to run an otherwise useless Fire type move. It had other notable targets, such as Celesteela, Tapu Bulu, Tornadus-Therian, Zapdos and to an extent Clefable who were otherwise reliable at stopping Garchomp as well.