Competitive Pokemon History - Gengar Quiz

Answer: Utility wall

With entry hazards not yet existing, surprisingly, Gengar was best used as a utility wall in the first generation. Anybody who has ever used Gengar at anypoint from the second generation and onward but never participated in competitive first generation play will likely eye this answer with bewilderment. However, because the special attack and special defense stats were rolled into one Special stat, Gengar was actually quite tanky from the specially defensive side. It also held an incredibly key immunity to Normal moves, such as the deadly Hyper Beam, Body Slam and incredibly annoying Wrap. This meant that Gengar's best bet at being useful was to switch into Normal moves and certain Special attacks as points of entry, and start wearing down the foe with Night Shade, spamming Thunderbolt to keep Articuno and Starmie at bay, and most importantly, putting something out of commission with the low-distributed Hypnosis. Once Gengar was on low HP and was about to keel over, it could abuse its massive speed stat one last time and go out with a bang, utilizing Explosion for an extremely likely OHKO against something which did not resist it.

In this way, Gengar could be of use to teams of all archetypes- it offered plenty of leeway to make aggressive plays with it on offensive teams, while offering unique defensive synergy and utility for stall based teams.

However, there were problems in doing this that ultimately stopped Gengar from ruling the meta. For one, being weak to Psychic heavily deteriorated Gengar's use as an outright special sponge, as Psychic types like Alakazam and Starmie (who inconveniently happened to be two of few in the meta to outspeed Gengar) had easy 2HKOes on Gengar with their strong Psychics. Without running the somewhat suboptimal Mega Drain, Gengar was stopped cold by Rhydon and Golem, as they took nothing from Thunderbolt, easily survived Explosion with their massive Defense stats and resistances to the move, and only really feared being put to sleep by Hypnosis. They could easily take a hit (barring Hypnosis) and OHKO Gengar with an Earthquake. Finally, Gengar faced competition as a sleep inducer from Exeggutor, who was more reliable with its higher accuracy sleep move at the expense of being a lot slower, and Jynx, who was a lot more threatening offensively, but ludicrously more fragile.

As such, Gengar is a fine Pokémon in generation one who can offer offensive and defensive value.

Answer: Lack of usable STAB moves

Shadow Ball would have been a phenomenal move for Gengar to use, if it ran off of Gengar's significantly higher Special Attack stat, not its unusuably pathetic Attack stat. Still, Gengar poses a threat offensively with its high 130 Special Attack stat and 110 Speed stat, but its damage output when not hitting super effectively is somewhat disappointing, causing it to run into issues where it can't take out a foe quickly, allowing said foe to hit Gengar in its miserable defenses back hard.

Gengar ultimately ran a set of Thunderbolt/Ice Punch/Hypnosis/Explosion. It was a key check to bulky water Pokémon, such as Suicune, while not being passive in the face of Ground and Grass types like actual Electric type Pokémon could be. Combine this with the ability to put something out of commission using Hypnosis, then kamikaze into something with Explosion when it was at its last limb, and Gengar was still a potent offensive threat even without a STAB move.

Answer: Levitate

Levitate turned Gengar's weakness to Ground type attacks into an immunity. Where second generation Gengar often needed Ground types to be weakened before taking them out with Ice Punch, third generation Gengar no longer needed this, as it no longer feared being OHKOed by a retaliating Earthquake after chipping at it with a strong Ice Punch.

Considering third generation Gengar operated very similarly to the previous generation, only being more efficient with its very useful ability, and it should come as little surprise to see that Gengar just got better this generation.

Answer: Pain Split

While a move that simply heals the user might seem like an underwhelming option for a heavily offensive Pokémon with poor bulk at first, Gengar used Pain Split to deadly effect. With Pain Split, Gengar could run a Substitute based set that essentially nullified one of its weaknesses and heavily mitigated the other; Blissey walling it and Tyranitar/Scizor Pursuit trapping it, respectively. Blissey could not touch a Substituted Gengar, and Gengar could take advantage of Blissey's monstrous HP stat with Pain Split to get all of its HP back after using Substitute. With perfect neutral coverage between Shadow Ball and Focus Blast, Gengar had the room for the SplitSub strategy. Focus Blast's horrible accuracy can sometimes let Gengar down against Tyranitar, as it heavily relies on the move to overcome the second generation pseudo legendary.

However, if Gengar can get up a Substitute before Tyranitar comes in, it will have two deadly chances to smoke Tyranitar with the move. Scizor, too, is cleanly 2HKOed by the move, but unlike Tyranitar, it cannot OHKO a full health Gengar, meaning Gengar has three chances to land the move twice in order to win.

At a 75% hit rate, those are favorable odds. As this set could viably run Life Orb to retain its power, it had no hard counters in the tier, and unsurprisingly made Gengar into a top level threat for fourth generation standard play- a nightmare for both offensive and stall teams to deal with.

Answer: Yes

Gengar held a lot of positive traits for fourth generation Ubers. Its immunity to Extremespeed was probably at the top of the list, letting it equip Focus Blast to revenge kill ExtremeKiller Arceus and Bulk Up Dialga, the best threats in Ubers bar none, by cleanly OHKOing the former after Stealth Rock and dealing north of 70% damage to the latter with the move. With Icy Wind, Gengar also administered this treatment to Rayquaza, who was also at a loss at staving off Gengar's revenge kill attempt, unable to swat it away with Extremespeed. Explosion was also a clean OHKO on Blissey, defensive Ho-Oh and Kyogre after Stealth Rock, and Shadow Ball rounded off the set for great damage against neutral targets.

Despite the monstrous threats lurking in the Uber tier, Gengar easily fit in and caused havoc just as it had in standard play.

Answer: Bulky Will-O-Wisp + Substitute set

Despite the fact they would amplify Gengar's power to terrifying levels, Choiced items were generally suboptimal; locking Gengar into one of its moves often left it susceptible to something that could handle that one specific move. Locking it into Shadow Ball meant Tyranitar and Scizor would make short work of it, Pursuit trapping it into oblivion. Metagross earned a free switch in on Sludge Bomb and did largely the same thing. Because revenge killing was nothing new, it was Gengar's shiny new toy of a bulky WispSub strategy. While Gengar would seem ill suited for a bulky set due to its awful defenses, its high speed and great defensive typing/ability actually let this set be a menace to deal with. After maxing out its speed and HP EVs, Gengar still had the raw power to threaten offensive teams, and its Substitutes now had a lot more bulk behind them, making it harder for defensive teams to break. Once behind a Substitute, Gengar would begin to spread Will-O-Wisp, softening up the opposing team and rendering them much more passive if its target was a physically offensive threat. This set baited in Tyranitar, Scizor and Metagross and left them mostly impotent due to being burned, while evading their Pursuit trapping efforts thanks to its bulky Substitute.

Overall, this set, while sometimes tricky to use, could open up huge holes for Gengar's teammates to sweep. With Tyranitar's power and ability to take hits being greatly neutered, Volcarona could now set up on something else and eventually brush Tyranitar aside, as Tyranitar could now no longer even come close to OHKOing even offensive Volcarona with Stone Edge when burned, and Volcarona 2HKOed in return with Bug Buzz that had been boosted by a single Quiver Dance. With Tyranitar unable to stop Volcarona, Volcarona would pretty much just delete the opposing team and end the game then and there, thanks to Gengar's efforts.

Answer: Shadow Tag

Shadow Tag prevents the opponent from switching their Pokémon out, except for when said Pokémon has the Shed Shell item or uses moves which allow them to switch out, such as U-Turn or Baton Pass. Given this, Mega Gengar can come in on, say, Skarmory, take advantage of Skarmory's poor special defense, prevent it from fleeing for the far bulkier Blissey, and take it out. Doing this would allow a physical attacker to rip down the opposing team with ease, now that their best means of stopping said attacker was taken out. Because Gengar's typing let it switch in on passive Pokémon easily, it was by far the best offensive stallbreaker in the game, and its sky high Special Attack (170) and Speed (130) ensured it would be able to deal with offensive threats as well, combined with the massive movepool that had let it enjoy success in its base forme for years.

Answer: Cursed Body

Cursed Body gives Gengar a 30% chance at automatically disabling a physical attack that hits it. Given Gengar's awful physical bulk, this ability almost never saw practical use, and it notably returned Gengar to being weak to Ground type attacks. This ability change was actually enough for Gengar's base form to fall to the UnderUsed tier, though it was still perfectly viable for standard play.

In UU, Gengar pulled mostly the same tricks it had performed for years, and was an overall good Pokémon for the tier.

Answer: Taunt + Destiny Bond

Taunt forces the target to only use moves which deal direct damage, while Destiny Bond allows Mega Gengar to automatically KO something if it KOed Mega Gengar with a direct damage dealing move. Because Shadow Tag prevents the target from switching out, if Mega Gengar Taunts the target, it can force them to KO Mega Gengar, which, after using Destiny Bond, would essentially be forcing the target to KO themselves in the process. Mega Gengar's high Base 130 speed let it outspeed most of the meta, meaning the counterplay to this strategy was extremely limited, and with some clever play, the Mega Gengar user could forcibly remove a huge threat, like Primal Groudon, from play. Of course, because of said limited counterplay and the impact of this set, it was generally touted as cheap, and many clamored for the combo to be banned from play.

It never did receive a suspect test, much less an actual ban, however.

Answer: Traps the target and prevents them from switching

In order to use G-Max Terror, Gengar only needs to Gigantomax and be using an offensive Ghost type move, such as Shadow Ball. Because Pursuit was removed from the game, if the opponent attempted to absorb the blow with something like Tyranitar, Tyranitar would be forced to stay in while Gengar could freely switch in to a Tyranitar check, such as Conkeldurr or Machamp, preventing the Tyranitar from predicting this switch and double-switching into a Pokémon who could check the aforementioned Fighting types. Overall, the newly found access to Nasty Plot and this exclusive move gave Gengar a lot more firepower to work with. With no more Blissey to show up to stop it, and no more worrying of being Pursuit trapped, Gengar could freely toss aside its old Substitute sets if it desired to employ a more directly-offensive moveset that, predictably, threatens the entirety of the meta.