Competitive Pokemon History - Zapdos Quiz

Answer: Rhydon and Golem

Mewtwo and Mew were both banned from standard play, removing them as options. Electrode was a genuinely poor choice for standard play, and while Jolteon was not, neither of them could reliably defeat Zapdos one-on-one in the long haul, as Zapdos could take a hit from either, paralyze them with Thunder Wave, and then switch to a teammate who would benefit immensely from the pair being essentially rendered useless via paralysis. Exeggutor and Lapras failed to beat Zapdos at all, as Zapdos would tear Exeggutor apart with Drill Peck, and would blast through Lapras with its terrifying Thunderbolt.

Rhydon and Golem, on the other hand, had nothing to fear from Zapdos and could endlessly switch into it risk-free. As Rock/Ground types, they took no damage from Thunderbolt and took pathetic damage from Drill Peck thanks to their massive Defense stats and resistance to the move. They didn't care if Zapdos used Agility as they came in, and they were both immune to Thunder Wave, making them 100% full counters to Zapdos. This meant that any player looking to build a team around Zapdos absolutely had to account for Rhydon and Golem.

Answer: Raikou

Pikachu, Ampharos and Magneton weren't completely hopeless, per se, but they were nowhere close to as good as Zapdos was. It was the Legendary Beast Raikou who stole some of Zapdos' thunder (pun intended) and emerged as an alternate amazing Electric type. However, Zapdos had many different uses over Raikou which arguably made it the better of the two. For one, Zapdos' Flying typing gave it a critical immunity to Earthquake (which destroyed Raikou by comparison), it gave Zapdos resistances to Bug, Fighting and Grass, and allowed Zapdos to better deal with Grass types than Raikou could by a considerable margin thanks to STAB Drill Peck. That said, Raikou was only neutral to Ice and Rock, which hit Zapdos super effectively, and Raikou's access to Roar allowed it to phaze setup sweepers and force opponents to take entry hazard damage, meaning Raikou fit better with teams which sought to abuse Spikes.

It is worth noting that Zapdos and Raikou were also quite functional working together on the same team as one another due to the fact that both were genuinely stellar Pokemon for the tier.

Answer: 85 in Defense

Because the power level of standard play was pretty low, an 85 in defense was actually pretty good for the time. This was especially the case when you consider that only Rock could hit Zapdos super effectively on the physical side, and the only Pokemon who could threaten Zapdos in that regard were Pokemon like Tyranitar or Rhydon who obviously had the ability to do so.

In other words, Zapdos' counterplay was predictable and could be played around quite easily.

Answer: Catching it in "Pokemon: XD Gale of Darkness"

When encountering the final boss of "Pokemon: XD Gale of Darkness", the player is given the opportunity to catch Zapdos. If successful, upon purifying Shadow Zapdos, one of its exclusive moves learned will be Baton Pass. While this move wasn't 100% necessary to have for Zapdos to be viable, it did give Zapdos some depth and unpredictability that let it throw opponents off. Zapdos could utilize Baton Pass and Agility to give dangerous threats such as Metagross or Tyranitar a speed boost to complement their excellent power.

It also gave Zapdos value as a pivot, capable of taking a hit and Baton Passing to a teammate to get them onto the field safely.

Answer: No

The Pokemon who could handle Zapdos' attacks, such as Steelix and Blissey, were too passive to reliably take it down, and were at risk of being PP stalled by Zapdos' Rest/Sleep Talk set, thanks to its Pressure ability. Those who could threaten Zapdos were, in turn, threatened by Zapdos, and thus had difficulty switching in and coming out on top. Regice and Tyranitar come close, though Zapdos can potentially 2HKO them with Thunder after Spikes or comparable chip damage, making them shaky switch ins. Because there isn't a Pokemon who can reliably switch in and defeat Zapdos, it has no true counters.

Answer: Roost

Roost was a direct upgrade from Rest/Sleep Talk, as it allowed Zapdos to have instant recovery without forcing itself to fall asleep and be somewhat useless for two turns. Additionally, this freed up a moveslot Zapdos could fill with another good option, such as U-Turn for pivoting, Heat Wave for Grass types and to spread burns, or Toxic to spread status.

It also had utility in letting Zapdos further abuse its Pressure ability. Stone Edge only has 8 PP, which is reduced to 4 when using the move against Zapdos, and Roosting against a slower opponent meant Zapdos dropped its Flying typing briefly, only taking neutral damage from Stone Edge. Against an opponent such as Tyranitar, if in a dire situation, Zapdos could use this as a way of trying to stall Tyranitar out. Be careful, as shedding its Flying typing also left Zapdos prone to being hit by Ground type attacks, which would be super effective in this situation.

Answer: A specially defensive set

With Primal Groudon not existing (not that Zapdos would've been a check to it anyway) and Zapdos not being able to remove entry hazards yet, those two options were automatically wrong. Zapdos could Toxic stall in theory, but in practice, the power level in 5th Generation OverUsed is well documented to have been absolutely, ridiculously sky high, meaning that Toxic stall wasn't something Zapdos' iffy 90/85/90 bulk was quite capable of. However, Zapdos functioned as an excellent countermeasure to the ubiquitous rain teams that scourged the tier. Zapdos could use its workable special defense to take a hit, utilize a 100% accurate and powerful Thunder, and remove Water types like Qwilfish and Kabutops from play. Roost gave it the longevity to play for the long haul, allowing it to switch into Politoed and pressure it and its teammates, facilitating the eventual removal of Politoed and the rain which these teams relied so heavily upon.

Predictably, Zapdos itself was also a contributing member on some rain teams. Here, it made use of the new Volt Switch to allow a teammate such as Kingdra to come in safely to start nuking the opposing team. It could also run Heat Wave to counter Ferrothorn, a Pokemon who otherwise plagued rain teams. Zapdos could employ the use of Hidden Power Ice to check Hippowdon, to stop it from constantly removing the rain in favor of the sand. It could thwart Hippowdon's sand-setting efforts somewhat similarly to how it could deal with Politoed in the counter-rain measures.

Answer: Defog

Defog now cleared the field of entry hazards, and few Pokemon could use it quite as effectively as Zapdos. It dominated Skarmory, beat Ferrothorn with Heat Wave, beat Garchomp with Hidden Power Ice, and could outlast Chansey in the long haul thanks to Pressure.

It had next to no Pokemon that could keep Stealth Rock up against it, making it a prime choice for balanced and stall teams for an entry hazard remover. The only problems it had were being weak to Stealth Rock, causing issues if it tried to Defog in front of a particularly strong Pokemon. On stall teams, this wasn't much of an issue, as they had the defensive backbone to make up for this incredibly minor shortcoming.

Answer: Roost + 3 Attacks

Any Choiced sets Zapdos could try and run would be strictly outclassed by Thundurus and not really worth running. While it might not seem like it on paper, Roost + 3 Attacks Zapdos has tons of utility in the tier. It single handedly stands in the way of offensive teams, easily checking major threats such as Landorus-T, Garchomp, Celesteela, Mega Scizor and more.

The set is simple; Discharge, Heat Wave, Hidden Power Ice and Roost allows Zapdos to hit pretty much everything for super effective damage, easily checking the things which fall under the criteria.

It was somewhat passive against foes such as Tyranitar, Heatran and Kyurem-B, making them natural checks to the set. That said, if there weren't countermeasures to some Pokemon, even the finest ones, they would be banned to the Uber tier, meaning that having a handful of Pokemon who could defeat this set one-on-one hardly detracted from its otherwise incredible utility.

Answer: Good overall stats

Thanks to its good overall stats, Zapdos has never really been 'bad' at doing anything. Over time, stronger offensive Electric types eventually usurped its offensive role in the meta, but its good bulk easily let Zapdos stand out from them alongside its good utility movepool. Having good speed for a utility Pokemon has helped immensely, while having good bulk for an offensive Pokemon also helped out a lot.