Competitive Pokemon History - Giratina-O Quiz

Answer: Compatability issues with the game itself

Giratina-O was a newcomer to the fourth generation when "Pokémon Platinum" released. Unfortunately, "Pokémon Pearl" and "Pokémon Diamond" came out well before Platinum did. In Pearl and Diamond, Giratina-O simply does not exist. Only Giratina's Altered forme exists in those games. Rather than ban Pearl and Diamond players, the majority of online competitions opted to instead ban Giratina-O, as to afford more accessibility to the playerbase. Fortunately, in offline link battles, Giratina-O can be used and function even against a Pearl or Diamond player, so this did not hinder its status during in-person tournaments.

Answer: Levitate

Where fellow fourth generation cover legendaries Palkia and Dialga got saddled with the mostly useless Pressure, Giratina-O received Levitate. A nifty immunity to common, popular Ground moves only served to further amplify Giratina-O's great bulk by making it harder to meaningfully damage.

While this ability was "pretty good" in the fourth and fifth generations, it elevated itself to being "flat out amazing" in the sixth gen and onward due to the state of the overall meta in those two generations.

Answer: Giratina-O can never have the item removed

Knock Off, Trick, Switcheroo, Incinerate and any move in general which would remove, swap or destroy a Pokémon's held item will completely fail when used on Giratina-O. Griseous Orb is, in a sense, totally locked to it. This gives Giratina-O a nifty immunity to these moves, which can be heavily disruptive to some Pokémon in the game.

Unfortunately, it comes with the side effect of preventing Giratina-O from using any other item in the game, such as Leftovers, Life Orb or some Choice item to improve its Speed or offenses. If the player equips Giratina with any item other than the Griseous Orb, it will become Giratina-Altered and cannot return to its Origin forme until the Griseous Orb is returned. On a similar note, Giratina-A cannot hold a Griseous Orb, as doing so will cause it to turn in to Giratina-O.

Answer: Calm Mind

This set was a fairly awkward one at first glance. Most Pokémon attempting to be a stallbreaker need a form of recovery to supplement their ability to boost. Giratina-O has absolutely zero way to heal off HP, meaning any damage it takes would be permanent and would seem to make boosting enough to "break stall" impossible.

However, this set has a lot of unique traits that make it delightfully diabolical at destroying stall teams all over the fourth generation. An immunity to Fighting and Normal meant Giratina-O could set up all over Blissey and eventually overcome the pink blob, as it was incapable of ever hurting a Giratina-O that had used Substitute. Giratina-O's Ghost typing gave it an offensive advantage over the Psychic type Lugia, which helped it immensely in that matchup. Because Blissey and Lugia are generally a stall team's main line of defense against special attackers, this meant actually stopping Giratina-O once it got a Substitute up without losing a huge chunk of the player's team was just about impossible. With this huge chunk lost, an ally of Giratina-O's would have a much easier time setting up to win the game. Additionally, it wasn't out of the question that Giratina-O itself could bring the win home off the momentum it acquired.

Answer: It takes one turn to charge before use

On turn one, Giratina-O will vanish from the field and become invulnerable to direct damage. On turn two, anything that isn't a Normal type or a very bulky Steel or Dark type eats a ton of damage or, more commonly, gets flat out demolished. Charge moves generally don't have a good competitive history, but the sheer power of the move combined with how it can let Giratina-O be invulnerable for one turn can occasionally make it worth the while.

Answer: Ignore and then break Protect

Shadow Force's weaker counterpart, Phantom Force, is more widely accessible but can easily be blocked by Protect. If a Pokémon uses a protecting move on the turn Giratina-O would strike with Shadow Force, the protecting move will be ignored and Giratina-O will hit the target anyway, provided they aren't a Normal type.

In doubles, the protecting move would fail to function for the rest of the turn, meaning Giratina-O's partner could join Giratina-O in striking the target down as well.

Answer: Tank

One of the best Tanks in franchise history, Giratina-O had something for every team archetype conceivable. Chief atop the list was its ability to be an amazing Defogger, checking the best hazard setters in the game quite easily. Checking the king of the tier in Primal Groudon consistently was an incredible claim to make, which by itself gave Giratina-O merit on certain teams.

It could spread status with the useful Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave, slam the afflicted target with a boosted Hex, it could revenge kill weakened threats with Shadow Sneak or phase a deadly foe out of the game with a strong Dragon Tail. Giratina-O was a top tier threat in sixth generation Ubers despite its utter lack of recovery and low Speed, as it boasted top level offensive utility that made it useful on just about any teambuild.

Answer: Yveltal

Giratina-O's deadly movepool full of status moves and strong attacks deterred Xerneas, Klefki and even Arceus-Fairy from switching in. If Xerneas switched in as Giratina-O charged a Shadow Force, it would take so much damage that a follow-up priority Shadow Sneak would remove it from play about 70% of the time, despite the latter's weak base power.

Klefki and Giratina-O had a very annoying relationship with one another; as soon as this confrontation was made, both players needed to be prepared to either switch out or expect that their side of the conflict was going to get hit by an annoying status effect. For Klefki, Giratina's Will-O-Wisp cut off its only form of recovery, heavily neutered its offensive firepower while turning it into easily setup fodder, and would let Giratina-O claim victory in the one-on-one via boosted Hexs. All was not good for Giratina-O, however, especially if Klefki carried Toxic instead of Thunder Wave. Toxic would ruin Giratina-O's ability to tank hits for long. Even if both sides stayed in the fight and Giratina-O eventually won, it would be so thoroughly weakened that it would essentially be a free KO for whatever teammate replaced Klefki on the field next. Clearly, Klefki did not 'counter' Giratina-O if it couldn't even beat it in the one-on-one.

Arceus-Fairy could deal with, and counter, a Will-O-Wisp Giratina-O, but a Giratina-O with Thunder Wave instead would present some problems. With Thunder Wave, Giratina-O would then be able to move first and slam Arceus-Fairy with boosted Hexs that it would be hard-pressed to adequately tank. If the Giratina-O user got lucky and Arceus-Fairy missed a couple turns due to being fully paralyzed, Giratina-O could quite conceivably prevail.

Meanwhile, Yveltal resisted Hex, was not terribly hindered by Thunder Wave in this specific matchup because of that, and its Specially Offensive sets shrugged off Will-O-Wisp. It also resisted Shadow Force, which was quite key. Once in, it could immediately OHKO Giratina-O with a strong Dark Aura-boosted, potentially Choice Specs-boosted, Dark Pulse. It could also defeat Giratina-O with a couple of Foul Plays off the support set, while said set could use Taunt to stop Giratina-O from using its own support options. Yveltal was a top five Pokémon in the tier, so this was a problem.

Answer: Zygarde-Complete

Tapu Lele and Tapu Fini were fortunately unviable for Ubers as a whole, but they would have more than likely been disadvantageous matchups for Giratina-O if they were common sights for the tier. Magearna itself was also a tough matchup with its signature move Fleur Cannon, a super effective Fairy type nuke, while also being very bulky and resilient to Giratina-O's attacks.

Zygarde-C is an extremely bulky threat with overall defenses rivalling that of Multiscale Lugia, with a resistance to Stealth Rock rather than the latter's weakness. However, Giratina-O needed to only take aim and drop a super effective Draco Meteor on the bulky behemoth to remove it from existence, especially if it hadn't transformed into its Complete forme yet at the time of the attack. With many common teammates of Giratina-O's struggling to break Zygarde-C down, it was refreshing to know that they could simply defer to the Renegade Pokémon to do the deed.

Answer: Xerneas

Xerneas laid the beat down on other Dragons and Dark types which troubled Giratina-O, could use its Geomancy set to clean up teams that Giratina-O had weakened, or could aid Giratina-O in breaking teams down with its strong Choice Specs set. In return, Giratina-O easily checked Lugia, Aegislash, Mega Scizor, Ferrothorn, the newcomer Necrozma-DuskMane and, of course, Primal Groudon all by itself, which were Xerneas' biggest checks and stops to it sweeping a team. Giratina-O could also reliably keep the field clear of entry hazards, affording Xerneas a safe entry onto the field. Finally, Giratina-O could spread paralysis with Thunder Wave or neuter physical threats with Will-O-Wisp, which would make setting up Geomancy with Xerneas much, much easier with the opposing team being more hard-pressed to stop it than without Giratina-O's support. Thus, the two were a bread and butter combo in the seventh generation, checking virtually the whole meta together.