Competitive Pokemon History - Registeel Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In its debut generation, Registeel is sadly useless. Its bulk is great, at a solid 80/150/150, but it suffers from one major issue that makes it unusable in third generation standard play. What is this?

Answer: It is immensely passive

Registeel's bulk is great, but bulk alone is insufficient. Its low 75/75 offenses and bad offensive typing makes it very easy to switch into. It has nothing with which to threaten Substitute or Rest + Sleep Talk users, making the former into a near hard counter, and the latter into an outright hard counter. Registeel's inability to threaten the majority of the meta undermines its great bulk, rendering it unviable in the tier.

2. As a Steel type, Registeel's great defensive typing is useful on other Pokemon, like Skarmory and Metagross, in enabling them to check big players in the meta. Registeel is many notches below them overall, but it can still use its bulk and typing to check some important Pokemon. Which of the following is an example?

Answer: Aerodactyl

With Rock Slide or Hidden Power Steel, Registeel can take on Aerodactyl, a deadly wallbreaker and sweeper whose Earthquake fails to 2HKO Registeel.

Unfortunately, Registeel suffers from some ugly losses to other top tier threats. It loses to Tyranitar, Salamence and Gyarados. From a typing standpoint, this should not happen. Alas, Registeel's passivity makes it unreliable at taking them on. To be clear, Registeel does not necessarily lose to Tyranitar all the time depending on its moveset, but the matchup tends to favor Tyranitar. The same can be said about Salamence, though usage of Substitute heavily tilts the matchup into Salamence's favor. Finally, Gyarados frequently runs Substitute itself. Salamence and Gyarados (as well as Substitute variants of Tyranitar) also happen to completely invalidate Rest + Sleep Talk versions of Registeel, since they can put up Substitutes in its face and protect themselves from its Toxic. RestTalk Registeel often ran Earthquake, which would threaten Tyranitar, but fail to do anything at all to Salamence and Gyarados.

3. Like its fellow legendary titans, Registeel had the same ability that they did. What ability was this?

Answer: Clear Body

Clear Body renders Registeel immune to stat drops imposed by the opposing unit. Really, this only saw consistent use in the face of Intimidate users, namely Gyarados and Salamence. Because Registeel was passive enough to begin with, this was not the most helpful of abilities.

4. Registeel, stuck in the ugly confines of UnderUsed's banned list in the third generation, was finally allowed in UU for the fourth generation. This did wonders for it and finally allowed it to shine in this particular metagame. Its big movepool granted it one interesting option to defeat some other high tier Pokemon, such as Mismagius, Alakazam and Rotom. It would not be a move you'd think would be a great idea for Registeel to run, but it became a staple on its moveset. What move was this?

Answer: Shadow Claw

Registeel's resistance to Ghost was key in a metagame where Ghost types dominated. Access to Shadow Claw was a very weird blessing for Registeel to best make use of this attribute. The move allowed Registeel to easily check Mismagius, Rotom and Alakazam.

These three were some of the best Pokemon in the meta, and the fact that Registeel could easily defeat them with this move elevated its viability considerably. Registeel's great movepool gave it access to Stealth Rock to support its team, Toxic to spread status, and Seismic Toss to enable it to deal consistent damage to anything which wasn't a Ghost type- falling back on Shadow Claw to cover that particular shortcoming. Because of this, Registeel went from zero to hero thanks to its tier based demotion.

5. Interestingly enough, Registeel became viable in fourth generation Ubers of all places. Here, its great defensive typing and great bulk afforded it numerous resistances which let it fill in a great defensive role for the tier. How many resistances does Registeel have in this generation?

Answer: Twelve

Registeel, by virtue of its mono-Steel typing, resists Bug, Dark, Dragon, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ice, Normal, Psychic, Rock, Steel, and makes it immune to Poison. In particular, resistances to Dark, Dragon, Flying, Ghost and Ice were important in tandem with its great bulk. Access to Explosion rectified its passivity, enabling it to OHKO most Pokemon who weren't notably bulky or had a resistance to the move. What made this set viable, compared to Registeel's unimpressive third generation Ubers bid, was Registeel's ability to do all of this while offering helpful Stealth Rock support for its team.

This made Registeel into an Uber defensive stalwart which notably posed a big threat offensively and could support its team, making it a viable pick for the tier.

6. Fifth generation Registeel ran into a little bit of trouble, in the form of a hard counter in the UnderUsed tier. As a counter is defined as a Pokemon who can reliably switch in and defeat the target, which Pokemon of the following filled this niche?

Answer: Rhyperior

Darmanitan could not switch in to a Registeel with Earthquake. Victini also did not benefit switching in to either Shadow Claw or Earthquake. Xatu could switch in and defeat Shadow Claw-less Registeel, in particular not being threatened in the slightest by a Registeel without Shadow Claw. However, Registeel's common usage of this move made this an unreliable measure.

Rhyperior, on the other hand, preferred Registeel with the more common Shadow Claw. Even if Registeel had Earthquake, Rhyperior's great physical bulk and Solid Rock ability enabled it to shrug off an Earthquake or two, while its own strong, STAB Earthquakes would send Registeel packing.

7. Sixth generation Registeel would be granted a new Hidden Ability for consideration. What ability was this?

Answer: Light Metal

Light Metal halves the user's weight. While this seems useless, there are moves such as Low Kick and Grass Knot whose base power is determined by the target's weight, meaning Light Metal effectively halves their base power. Still, Low Kick was a rare sight in lower tiers, while Registeel already resisted and took little damage from Grass Knot anyway. Clear Body was hardly essential, and one could viably opt for Light Metal if they expected to be facing a Low Kick user for some reason, but the ability itself wasn't terribly impactful.

8. Once again, the state of Registeel's new tier, sixth generation RarelyUsed, caused it to reach deep into its movepool for a very quirky option: Thunderbolt. This move seems useless, until one realizes it can be used to allow Registeel to check an extremely prominent threat in the meta. What threat was this?

Answer: Braviary

Thunderbolt would make the Rhyperior matchup even more oppressive, as now Registeel really couldn't hit Rhyperior for meaningful damage. The move also failed to seriously threaten Alomomola or Slowking, due to Registeel's low Base 75 Special Attack. However, the move was strong enough to stop Substitute + Bulk Up Braviary from defeating Registeel one-on-one, which was crucial due to Braviary's top tier status, and its ability to comfortably defeat stall teams otherwise.

9. Registeel would probably have remained UnderUsed by usage statistics in the sixth generation, but the prevalence of a new threat stole away its spotlight. What threat was this?

Answer: Mega Aggron

Mega Aggron had more overall bulk and had far better offenses. Registeel was not totally outclassed, since it could hold Leftovers and not take up a team's Mega slot, but Mega Aggron ended up seeing far more usage due to its more appreciable advantages.

10. Seventh generation Registeel dug into its enigmatic movepool again and unearthed another interesting option: Protect. Protect could do a good deal of things for Registeel. Which of the following is one of them?

Answer: Heavily mitigate an incoming Z-Move

As a Pokemon with a large amount of bulk but no reliable recovery, Registeel is a natural target for acts of brute force- namely Z-Moves. To take advantage of this distinction, Registeel could run Protect to punish hasty plays. Protect also allowed Registeel to scout out opposing Choiced Pokemon as well as gain a free turn of Leftovers recovery.

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 - Registeel Quiz

It is time to steel yourselves, as we have reached the last of the legendary titans, Registeel! See if you can forge your way through this quiz on its competitive history, from generations 3-7!

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