Competitive Pokemon History - Latios + Latias Quiz

Answer: Ubers

Thanks to their signature item, Soul Dew, the Latis were obviously far too strong to be legal in standard play. Even without Soul Dew, their high base stats and expansive movepools likely would have had them banned from standard play anyway.

Answer: Raise their Special Attack and Special Defense by one stage

With Soul Dew, Latios and Latias would reach Special Attack numbers of 591 and 525, respectively, the moment they entered play, assuming optimal EVs, IVs and nature. As a point of reference, this means they have more Special Attack than behemoths such as Mewtwo and Deoxys-A, while being bulkier on the Specially Defensive side than either as well.

This solidified their positioning as deadly threats in the Uber tier, able to come in and immediately threaten the opponent.

Answer: Latios had higher Special Attack

With Soul Dew, optimal IVs, EVs and nature, Latios' Special Attack is 66 points higher than Latias. On the flip side, Latias is a bit bulkier than Latios, but not by such a significant margin that Latias can survive important attacks that Latios couldn't. Meanwhile, 66 points in Special Attack is huge, enabling Latios to offensively deal with threats a lot easier than Latias can.

Other than Latios having better offenses vs Latias' higher defenses, the Eon twins were the exact same, boasting the same speed and movepools as one another.

Answer: Blissey and Tyranitar

Blissey's massive Specially Defensive capabilities allowed it to wall the Eon twins, even with Soul Dew. It could slap them with Toxic and simply stall them to their demise. Tyranitar, on the other hand, countered the Eon twins both offensively and defensively; it could switch in, take any two hits, and destroy them with a Crunch in retaliation. Worse yet, Tyranitar could use Pursuit to ensure that the Eon twins couldn't switch out, preventing them from trying to overcome Tyranitar with a hit-n-run strategy. This meant that anyone looking to build their team around one of the Latis had to come with a countermeasure to Blissey, and had to have a way of scouting for and eliminating Tyranitar before allowing one of the Latis to take the field.

While Scizor seems like it could work as a counter, it simply cannot switch in on Hidden Power Fire and takes a lot of damage from Calm Mind boosted Thunder. However, if it gets in safely, it can also Pursuit them and reliably take them out, though it usually cannot afford to directly switch in, thus making it unreliable at countering them. The same can mostly be said for Dialga, only replacing HP Fire and Thunder with Dragon Pulse or Draco Meteor.

Answer: Levitate

Levitate grants the user an immunity to Ground type attacks. This enabled the Latis to check Groudon very effectively. In general, immunities are always nice to have, making this ability quite useful for the Eon twins.

Answer: Soul Dew got banned to Ubers by itself

No longer were the Latis themselves found to be overpowering for standard play. Soul Dew elevates them into that echelon, but a simpler solution was to ban Soul Dew by itself and allow the Latis to roam around in standard play with a different item of choice.

As fairly generic special attackers, both Latis generally made use of Choice Specs or Scarves, while Latias was also a nice wielder of Leftovers to complement its good bulk, with Latios similarly using Life Orb to supplement its offenses.

Answer: Memento and Healing Wish

Memento immediately KOs the user, but in exchange, lowers the opposing Pokemon's Attack and Special Attack by two stages. The use for this would be for when Latios reaches really low health, as it can heavily cripple the opponent, bring in a set up sweeper who will benefit from the opposing Pokemon's passivity, and ideally use this momentum to win the game.

Meanwhile, Latias got Healing Wish. Healing Wish, like Memento, KOs the user immediately. In exchange, it brings in a teammate, heals them to full HP, and relieves them of any status effects they may have had beforehand, such as Poison or Burn. This is also a nice offensive tool; the end game sweeper can now have a mid-game presence, as any damage or status they take while wallbreaking for themselves in the middle of the game can easily be rectified through use of Healing Wish.

Both moves are nifty tools for offensive teams to use. As Latios is a better fit on these types of teams, Memento ended up being the weapon of choice more often than not. However, Latias was still decently viable on these teambuilds, as some very particular builds appreciated Healing Wish more, and were willing to sacrifice a bit of firepower to get this specific move.

Answer: Base Eon twins with Life Orb or Choice Specs were stronger than their Mega Evolutions

With Life Orb or Choice Specs, either Eon twin will actually hit harder than if they were to be Mega Evolved. Because there are Pokemon who become dramatically better with Mega Evolutions, such as Charizard and Venusaur, it was less desirable to use this on Pokemon who scarcely, if even at all, benefited from the new mechanic.

In particular, base Latios and Latias were viable in Ubers with Soul Dew, while their Mega Evolutions were pitifully useless in the tier. If you thought Life Orb or Choice Specs making them stronger than their Megas makes their Megas not worth using, Soul Dew would like to have a word with you.

Answer: Boosts the power of the Eon twins' Dragon and Psychic moves

While on paper, this still makes Soul Dew seem useful, in practice, it is now completely outclassed by Life Orb while not being worth using over Choice Specs. It does absolutely nothing for any of the Eon twins' non-STAB coverage moves, while not giving an appreciable enough boost to their STAB moves to be seriously worth using.

Answer: A bulky entry hazard remover with unique properties

The Eon twins have always made for good Groudon checks, but the fact that they were no longer Uber viable after the Soul Dew nerf made this trait a lot less useful. Indeed, it took quite some time for Mega Latias' talents in the seventh generation to be discovered.

On paper, using Mega Latias prevents you from using other amazing Megas, such as Salamence or Gengar, which makes Mega Latias seem like more trouble than it's worth. However, the fact that Mega Latias could become a bulky Defogger which could check Primal Groudon opens up the user to do as they please with an Arceus form. The role of a Defogger which checks Primal Groudon usually goes to Arceus, so with Mega Latias holding down this role, the player is free to use their Arceus in a different way; as a Stealth Rock setter, stallbreaker, or perhaps as a sweeper. This gave Mega Latias a nice niche that no other Mega could hold down, making it useful in Ubers once again.