Competitive Pokemon History - Lugia Trivia Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In its debut generation, Lugia flaunted its massive, unbridled defenses to turn itself into a monster in the Uber tier, capable of using its unbreakable bulk to deadly effect. What were Lugia's HP, Defense, and Special Defense stats respectively?

Answer: 106/130/154

Lugia was near invincible on both sides, with good HP, incredibly high Defense and absurdly high Special Defense. Because of this, even STAB super effective attacks would often fail to 2HKO, especially if they were specially offensive. Lugia's immunity to Spikes also meant it couldn't be whittled into 2HKO range with the entry hazard.

2. Lugia was the embodiment of "the best offense is a good defense" in its debut generation, utilizing an excellent Curse based sweeping set based around its signature move, Aeroblast. With a high base 100 power, it even packed a nifty secondary effect that could bail Lugia out when in a bind. What was this secondary effect?

Answer: Increased critical hit rate

Because critical hits ignore Defense boosts, Lugia often had the upper hand when engaging in Curse wars with Pokemon such as Snorlax, Ho-Oh and even Mewtwo. Its downfall was a meager 8 PP, which meant Lugia did have to be conservative when using it. Still, it was extremely strong and gave way to Lugia making a nice impact in its debut generation.

3. A counter is defined as a Pokemon who can reliably switch in and defeat its target. Lugia, despite being arguably the second best Pokemon in the whole game, did have two assailants who met this criteria. Who were they?

Answer: Zapdos and Skarmory

Lugia's standard set consisted of Curse/Recover/Aeroblast/Earthquake. While it could sometimes run something other than Earthquake, doing so would deteriorate the overall effectiveness of the set and cause Lugia to miss out on hitting important Flying type resistant threats. Because of this, Zapdos and Skarmory would be able to counter Lugia at any stage of the game. Both resisted Aeroblast and boasted immunities to Earthquake. Zapdos could 3HKO with Thunderbolt or shoot for a 2HKO with Thunder, while Skarmory could boost with Curse alongside Lugia, phaze it out with Whirlwind, or even just cripple it with Toxic and stall it out since Lugia never ran Rest to get rid of status.

Because of this, both of these Pokemon, common threats in the tier, hard countered Lugia. It is likely that they were the sole reason Lugia wasn't quite the hands-down best Pokemon in the game, since Mew (generally considered to be the best), Mewtwo (heavily competes with Lugia for the title of 2nd best), Celebi and Ho-Oh did not have counters themselves, they only had checks.

4. In the third generation, Lugia acquired a new ability- one shared amongst the majority of its fellow legendary Pokemon. What was this ability?

Answer: Pressure

Considering Multiscale didn't yet exist, Pressure was the correct choice. Lugia was one of the better abusers of the ability, considering its titanic bulk and access to instant healing in Recover.

5. In the fourth generation, Lugia gained new competition for its role as a wall, with the newcoming Giratina-Altered. Lugia had many advantages over Giratina, but Giratina itself had one huge advantage that made it worth considering. What was this advantage?

Answer: Giratina-A was not weak to Stealth Rock like Lugia was

Giratina-A's Ghost/Dragon typing was a mixed bag. Being weak to Dragon, Ice Dark and Ghost were huge no-gos, though being immune to Normal and Fighting was nice. Still, Lugia's Psychic/Flying typing was usually better, since being immune to Ground and not being weak to Dragon made Lugia deal with numerous prominent threats better than Giratina did, such as Rayquaza, Garchomp, Palkia and Groudon. Finally, while Giratina-A could somewhat check Lugia, they often reached stalemates when facing one another, since they were both extremely bulky, but lacked the offensive power to actually threaten each other.

Still, Giratina-A's neutrality to Stealth Rock was incredibly important. This made it easier for it to switch in to things it was supposed to check, such as the feared Extreme Killer Arceus and Groudon. Lugia, by comparison, lost two times the health Giratina-A did when entering the field with Stealth Rock in play, which could make it troublesome to consistently check what Lugia was supposed to.

Ultimately, Lugia's better defensive typing and instant healing in Roost usually made it more effective than Giratina. However, the two could easily be run in tandem, using their great longevity and bulk to check most of the meta.

6. Lugia was blessed by the fifth generation Dream World, which bestowed upon it a jaw dropping new ability. What was it?

Answer: Multiscale

Multiscale halved the damage of moves which dealt direct damage if Lugia was at full health. This meant that Lugia was basically impossible to OHKO, even with excessively boosted, STAB super effective attacks. This meant any attempt to brute force one's way through Lugia would only have a fraction of a chance if the Pokemon was Zekrom or Kyurem-W, since their abilities ignored Multiscale and they could slam Lugia was obscenely powerful, STAB super effective attacks.

Overall, Lugia became even more unkillable than it had previously been. The existence of Lugia on a trainer's team meant the opponent's sweeping efforts would always be cut down, unless they were down to their last Pokemon and couldn't be phazed. Even then, unless they were a Steel (or rare Poison) type, they were prone to Lugia Toxicing them and just spamming Roost until the Toxic damage ended the game.

7. As the power levels of the Uber tier began to rise entering the sixth generation, Lugia encountered one minor problem that ever so slightly cut into its viability. What was this?

Answer: Its one dimensional nature causing it to only fit stall teams

Lugia's base 90/90 attacking stats were entirely insufficient for any sort of offensive role by Uber standards. Up until the sixth generation, Lugia had been sort of viable with a bulky Calm Mind set, though the buff to Soul Dew now made Latias and Latios far better with that type of set, while Mewtwo and various Arceus forms could also generally do it better. Because of this, Lugia could simply take its still-unmatched bulk and perform as a wall as always. Still, its attacking stats were poor, and it was a momentum sap, meaning it was a poor fit for faster paced offensive teams, as Lugia would frequently cede momentum to the opponent given its inability to generate its own offenses. Lugia was still essentially guaranteed to contribute heavily to stall teams, but that would be about it.

8. In the seventh generation, Lugia gained a new hard counter, something it hadn't had to deal with since the second generation. Who was it?

Answer: Necrozma-DuskMane

Necrozma-DM, as a Steel type, was immune to Toxic and resisted any relevant attacking move Lugia could flail at it with. It also had great bulk and access to instant healing, meaning it could sit in front of Lugia and its nonexistent offenses all day and do whatever it wanted. Sunsteel Strike would ignore Multiscale, meaning Lugia could have trouble adequately walling it at times. Support variants of Necrozma-DM could effortlessly set Stealth Rock or even cripple Lugia with Toxic, fearing nothing in retaliation.

9. Up until the seventh generation, Lugia's defensive sets typically ran Ice Beam as a lone attacking move to check Dragon types with. While running this move was still a possibility, Lugia would now begin to sometimes run Psychic to check certain other prominent threats. Which of the following is an example of such a threat?

Answer: Mega Gengar

Psychic could ward off a trapping attempt from Mega Gengar, 2HKOing it or potentially OHKOing it on the switch if it attempted to come in while in its base forme. It also did decent damage to Toxapex, Mega Lucario and Marshadow, while Lugia could still take on Dragons via its massive bulk and resilience to their attacks. Ice Beam could still be run to more reliably and efficiently take out Mega Salamence and Rayquaza, however.

10. Lugia's viability plummeted in the eighth generation, as the value of its massive stats collapsed completely. Why was this?

Answer: Lugia was removed from the game entirely

It is quite difficult to wall major threats in the meta when you don't exist in the first place. Such is life for the second generation cover legendary, along with about 450 other Pokemon.

Source: Author cavalier87

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor kyleisalive before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Competitive Pokemon History - Lugia Quiz

Now we have the mascot of "Pokemon Silver", Lugia! See how much you know about the formal ruler of the sea in the competitive scene, stemming from generations 2-8!

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>