Competitive Pokemon History - Shaymin-S Quiz

Answer: 127

Base 127 was absolutely brilliant at the time, getting the jump on standard play staples such as Starmie, Salamence and Garchomp until they also got banned, Gengar and Dugtrio. In Ubers, this trait was even more useful, outspeeding immensely prominent figures such as Darkrai, all formes of Arceus, Mewtwo sets that did not maximize their speed (which was semi-rare, unfortunately) and the fourth generation cover legendaries of Palkia, Dialga and Giratina's formes. Simply put, one of the first things the average player will think of when spotting a Shaymin-S on the opposing team will probably be either "Good thing I have a healthy Mewtwo, or I'd be done for" or "Uh oh, I'm in trouble!"

Answer: Shaymin-S' ability grants it this buff

Shaymin-S' ability Serene Grace doubles the odds of a secondary effect on a move used happening. Seed Flare regularly has a 40% chance to halve the Special Defense of a struck target, and because of Serene Grace, that chance becomes an 80%. Therefore, switching in to Shaymin-S was always extremely risky since it was highly likely your switch-in would get softened significantly by Seed Flare.

Answer: Air Slash

Air Slash has a 30% chance to flinch the target if the user moves first, which was almost always happening in this case due to Shaymin-S' massive Speed stat. Thanks to Serene Grace, that chance becomes a 60%. If the target is paralyzed and gets struck by Shaymin-S' Air Slash on the same turn, there is a 90% chance the target will be unable to move at all. Due to Shaymin-S' respectable Special Attack stat, a paralyzed Pokémon of any kind was basically dead in the water against it, as it was highly unlikely they would actually get to move before straight up getting flinched to death with a few Air Slashes.

Answer: Mewtwo and Ho-Oh

Mewtwo was one of few Pokémon who actually naturally outsped Shaymin-S. Its bulk was decent enough to take any one hit from Shaymin-S as it switched in, where it could then obliterate Shaymin-S with a 4x super effective Ice Beam if it dared stay in to try fighting the generation one fan favorite. Ho-Oh was one of few slower Pokémon that could actually cope with a Shaymin-S attempting to flinch it to death. Ho-Oh's Special Defense is enormous, and it can shrug off repeated Air Slashes very easily.

It has a 4x resistance to Seed Flare, meaning the move will barely tickle Ho-Oh and allow more room for a counter attack when it isn't being flinched by Air Slash. Even if Ho-Oh got flinched a handful of times in a row, Regenerator would let it switch out to regain most of the damage it took, while it could come right back in to try again. If it ever got even one turn to move, it could obliterate Shaymin-S with Sacred Fire or Brave Bird.

As Shaymin-S just about always ran a Life Orb, an item which cuts into its own HP in exchange for amplifying its power, Ho-Oh could also simply stall Shaymin-S out until Life Orb eventually KOed it, provided Stealth Rock was not on Ho-Oh's side of the field. Thus, anybody looking to make serious use of Shaymin-S had to account for these two threats somewhere on their team.

Answer: Growth

While it did have access to Swords Dance, a physically offensive Shaymin-S was laughably pathetic in Ubers, only a good idea to use on total joke teams where the idea is to get your opponent to laugh at you. This is due to the fact that such a set would have to relinquish Seed Flare and Air Slash, which make up the only real reasons to use Shaymin-S at all, in exchange for terrible physical attacking options like Seed Bomb, Zen Headbutt and Return. Shaymin-S' below average Base 103 Attack stat was also not turning any heads.

Growth is a lowly distributed move that has its effects augmented in sunny weather. In sunny weather, it is basically a Grass type version of using both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot at the same time, though Shaymin would only take advantage of the Special Attack boosts. With its good offenses, great Speed, and great Special Attacks, this set was a good sweeping set that had the flexibility of overcoming its checks via flinching them to death with stronger Air Slashes.

Answer: Groudon

Due to the Species Clause, it is illegal to run Shaymin-S in tandem with its regular forme. Its regular forme was unviable in Ubers anyway, so this didn't exactly crush any dreams of anybody trying to actually win a game. Groudon's sunny weather augmented Shaymin-S' Growth, enabling it to boost Shaymin-S' offenses by an extra stage due to the weather.

This extra stage made Growth a fierce boosting move, when it otherwise would have been pretty mediocre. Groudon's ability to destroy special walls, defeat Ho-Oh with Stone Edge, set Stealth Rock to further support a sweep and easily switch in to Rock type moves aimed at Shaymin-S made the partnership even more beneficial.

Answer: Lugia and Mega Gengar

Mega Gengar, despite being quite frail, can switch in, take any one hit, use Shadow Tag to stop Shaymin-S from switching out, outspeed it, and destroy it with an extremely strong, STAB, super effective Sludge Wave. Lugia's newfound access to Multiscale, combined with the state of the meta virtually forcing it to always run Ice Beam, meant it could now counter Shaymin-S more effectively and reliably than it previously could.

These threats were on very polarizing builds; the former was a staple on offensive teams, the latter on defensive ones.

As balanced teams in Ubers had Ho-Oh to easily deal with Shaymin-S, this meant that it was incredibly common that the opposing team would have some easy way to deal with Shaymin-S between one of these three. Mewtwo also didn't go anywhere either, and it got even better with its Y forme that could capably counter it rather easily.

Answer: It had no discernible niche for the tier

Shaymin-S "meta" became about as braindead as could be; spam Air Slash to try to flinch something to death, and if it's too bulky or outspeeds Shaymin-S, switch out. Unfortunately, such a simple dynamic often failed in practice, and even if it could succeed, Shaymin-S was never going to sweep with this dynamic, and its below-average power made wallbreaking a bit above its pay grade as well.

As its horrible bulk meant any decently intelligent trainer would scoff at the notion of using it as a wall, there just became no real reason to use Shaymin-S.

It wasn't necessary a terrible overall Pokémon, but it just didn't do anything specific that was splashable and usable on the average team.

Answer: Healing Wish

If Shaymin-S ever was granted access to the three incorrect options for this question, its viability would have surged, and it would have once again become a genuinely decent Pokémon. Still, Healing Wish gives a legitimate reason to actually use Shaymin-S, which was pretty good considering its condition otherwise.

Healing Wish would allow Shaymin-S to sacrifice itself so it could bring a teammate in, cleaned of status and healed to full HP. There were better Healing Wish users, but Shaymin-S' ability to occasionally win unfavorable matchups by flinching the target to death was unique to itself as a Healing Wish user. Thus, it was still not particularly good, but it was at least usable as an accessory on offensive teams.

Answer: No

This was quite unfortunate, as the two cover legendaries of the eighth generation in Zacian and Zamazenta are Fighting types, easily flinched to death by super effective Air Slashes. Shaymin-S would more than likely have become a prominent Uber figure until the rest of the National Pokedex returned because of this.