Competitive Pokemon History - Jirachi Quiz

Answer: Hard countering the special walls in the tier

Say hello to the best stallbreaker in the tier bar none. The only special attacker in the game capable of switching straight in to Blissey, Snorlax and Regice with impunity, and boosting against them until kingdom come. The secret behind being able to do this stemmed from Jirachi's movepool and Steel typing.

The former gave Jirachi numerous goodies to slaughter these specially defensive assailants, with nifty tricks like Wish, Substitute, Fire Punch, Hidden Power Grass, Thunderbolt and, of course, Calm Mind.

The latter granted Jirachi a key immunity to Blissey's Toxic, resistance to Snorlax's normal type moves, and resistance to Regice's Ice type moves and Explosion. Jirachi was incredibly hard for stall teams to consistently deal with as a result, carving out a fine niche as unquestionably a member of the top ten best Pokemon in third generation standard play.

Answer: Serene Grace

Serence Grace doubles the chances of a move's secondary effects happening. Thunder has a 60% paralysis chance, Ice Beam has a 20% freeze rate and, of course, Body Slam gets a 60% paralysis chance as well. In fact, every relevant attacking move Jirachi can use except for Hidden Power Grass benefits off of Serene Grace, making it a very consistently useful ability.

Answer: Yes

Jirachi had some incredibly key traits that made it into an excellent Pokemon even in the daunting Uber tier. Its great movepool and ability let it both utilize Kyogre's rain, offensively and defensively, while also wielding Ice Punch to make Groudon think twice about switching in to remove said rain.

Here, it actually pulled off mostly the same stuff it did in standard play, just with a different approach move-wise: it dropped Psychic and Fire Punch for Thunder and Ice Punch, to cover more Uber-relevant threats. Resistances to Dragon, Steel, Normal and Flying in tandem with an immunity to Toxic made Jirachi's defensive typing check out quite decently.

Answer: Superachi

Superachi's premise was simple; drop Wish, making it less effective against stall teams, but add on a coverage move with the intent of baiting something in and KOing it. A Tyranitar user who saw you use Psychic and Hidden Power Fire probably assumes you can't touch their Tyranitar, so they'll be in for quite the surprise when you bust out Grass Knot as a surprise coverage move and beat T-Tar down with it. Plays like this were a bit risky, dropping Jirachi's recovery option, but had the potential to open up windows to sweep with when they would otherwise have been cut short by sturdy defensive answers.

As such, Superachi became Jirachi's most formidable set in the fourth generation, keeping it as a deadly threat in both standard play and Ubers.

Answer: Iron Head had a strong chance to flinch the opponent, preventing them from doing anything

With Serene Grace, Jirachi's Iron Head has a 60% chance to flinch the target. If paired with Body Slam, which has a 60% chance to paralyze the target, or Thunder Wave, Jirachi could pull maneuvers not unlike Generation 1's Fire Spin and Wrap-choking antics. When paralyzed, a Pokemon has a 30% chance to be rendered unable to move. This means that Jirachi could very reliably Iron Head a paralyzed target straight to death, as they would have a 90% chance to be unable to do anything in response. Alternatively, Jirachi could equip a Choice Scarf, outspeeding everything in the meta in exchange for trading away 1/3rd of that 90% immoblization rate, to be able to flinch speedier targets than Jirachi without having to first take a turn to paralyze them.

Jirachi is viewed as the "Godfather of Hax" because of antics like these, born in the fourth generation when it got access to Iron Head.

Answer: No

There were a couple Pokemon who came close, but would either lose to a specialized Jirachi moveset, coverage move, or were vulnerable to getting flinched to death. Heatran boasted a 4x resistance to Iron Head, and could cleanly 2HKO Jirachi with Magma Storm or Fire Blast. Should Heatran hit Jirachi with Magma Storm before getting paralyzed, Jirachi would be KOed by Magma Storm's per-turn 12% damage before KOing Heatran with Iron Head + paralysis spam, while being unable to switch out and escape its doom due to Magma Storm's trapping effects. Still, Heatran will lose if Jirachi has Hidden Power Ground, meaning that in theory, the Jirachi user could predict the Heatran switch in and prevent it from countering Jirachi with this move.

Anything other than Heatran is simply prone to getting flinched to death, or vulnerable to some other more common coverage move. Thus, Jirachi is uncounterable in the fourth generation.

Answer: Zekrom

The other three options could be taken out by being flinched to death. Zekrom, however, cannot be paralyzed. Jirachi's only viable sets for Ubers were defensive, support oriented sets which did not run speed investment. Thus, Zekrom also outsped Jirachi and could not be flinched at all. Jirachi's weak offenses by Uber standards were easy for the cover legendary to switch into, and it could then effortlessly bash Jirachi to pieces with a couple of mighty Bolt Strikes. Jirachi's Wish + Protect could allow it to hold the line for a small while, but here's where this matchup gets to be quite ironic; after a small while, Bolt Strike's 20% paralysis chance will eventually kick in, and if Jirachi misses a single turn due to paralysis, it's done for. Of course, as Jirachi will be able to do nothing other than spam Wish to survive, it is not challenging Zekrom's Bolt Strike spam, meaning that this will eventually, inevitably happen. Thus, Zekrom was the the incarnation of Karma for Jirachi and its faithful users in fifth generation Ubers.

Answer: Nine

Jirachi is immune to Poison, boasts a 4x resistance to Psychic, and additionally resists Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ice, Normal, Rock and Steel. Its good natural bulk lets it take neutral hits reasonably well, while its resistance profile is pretty impressive. This allowed Jirachi to viably take on a supporting, defensive role in Ubers for many, many years.

Answer: Gliscor

Jirachi countered the other three options on this question by virtue of a typing advantage and above average bulk to easily take their hits.

Gliscor's Poison Heal ability and tendency to run a Toxic Orb to take advantage of this meant that Jirachi could not paralyze it. Additionally, Gliscor was very physically bulky with a Base 125 Defense, and with Poison Heal healing it for 12.5% of its HP every turn combined with Gliscor's access to Roost, it could afford to get flinched a couple times by Jirachi's weak Iron Heads. It could reply by Knocking Off Jirachi's leftovers, setting up Swords Dance easily, or simply slamming Jirachi with a few Earthquakes to easily defeat it.

Answer: No

Jirachi would initially get left behind. However, it would make a triumphant return upon the release of "Pokemon Home", a new Nintendo Switch app which also opened up the National Pokedex in "Pokemon Sword & Shield" a bit, with Jirachi being a part of the National Pokedex expansion.