Competitive Pokémon History - Arceus-Poison Quiz

Answer: Five

Rock, Ground, Ghost, and Poison itself resisted Poison, while Steel was completely immune to it. Steel types in particular were very common in Ubers, but the other four types all had prominent representatives as well. This meant that Arceus-Poison had a very difficult time building up offensive momentum, and it was generally quite offensively deficient without copious amounts of time afforded to it to boost with Calm Mind or Swords Dance.

Answer: Immunity to Toxic

The other three options are true, but did not particularly move the needle for Arceus-Poison's viability; Ground was an incredibly common presence in Ubers after all, and Mewtwo's omnipresence meant many teams could exploit Arceus-Poison's weakness to Psychic with a particularly deadly threat.

Being immune to Toxic meant Arceus-Poison was not at the mercy of being statuses by stall teams. It's Calm Mind sets also didn't mind being burnt by Will-o-Wisp and, while not ideal, could usually tolerate paralysis as well. This meant Arceus-Poison, unlike other formes of Arceus, could afford to run without Refresh and open up its offensive movepool for coverage options to hit the many threats that could handle its Judgments. Focus Blast was its most common option, hitting Poison-immune Steel types very hard. Ice Beam was also a good pick to hit common Ground types, and Shadow Ball could be chosen if Mewtwo was a monumental threat that Arceus-Poison couldn't afford to let it safely. Flamethrower was a safer anti-Steel movepool pick; it completely missed out on Heatran and didn't do enough to deter Dialga, but was more consistent at dealing with other Steel types, especially Scizor, Bronzong, Skarmory and Jirachi who were only neutral to Focus Blast.

Overall, Arceus-Poison's immunity to Toxic saved the day on its fourth generation Uber tier viability, allowing its Calm Mind sets to be quite threatening when they otherwise would've been wholly unviable.

Answer: Groudon

Groudon's offensive sets weren't 2HKOed by unboosted Ice Beam or OHKOed by Ice Beam after a single usage of Calm Mind, and a retaliating Earthquake would obliterate Arceus-Poison. Support variants could also, at worst, afford to Roar out an Arceus-Poison with enough boosts to otherwise sweep, and could also afford to outslug it as well.

Latias, Latios, Mewtwo, Arceus-Steel, Arceus-Ground and the rare Arceus-Psychic (as long as it had Judgment) also reliably dealt with Arceus-Poison. Being weak to such a large number of prominent threats, it's not hard to see why Arceus-Poison could be unappealing to the average team.

Answer: Automatically removing Toxic Spikes from its own side of the field

Arceus-Steel and Arceus-Flying may also be immune to Toxic Spikes, but neither of them can completely render the entry hazard a general non problem like Arceus-Poison can, absorbing the entry hazard as it switched into battle. This gave it unique utility on any team it found itself on. Due to the general rarity of Poison types in Ubers over the years, this niche has also usually gone fairly uncontested with only fifth generation Tentacruel posing competition as a defensive Poison type in this manner.

Answer: Perish Song

There were a bevy of Pokémon who could make effective users of the other three moves, but the Perish Song market, however niche and limited, was pretty much cornered by Arceus-Poison. It's great bulk and useful defensive typing meant it could use the move in conjunction with Recover to force the opponent's hand in switching their Pokémon out, allowing Arceus-Poison's trainer the opportunity to predict these switches and potentially net momentum off of predicting the exact switch in correctly.

In a dire situation, Arceus-Poison could also use this move to force a boosted sweeper on the opposing end to switch before they had the chance to actually complete their sweep, getting them to drop their boosts and enabling Arceus-Poison's team the chance to recover from the onslaught and prepare to deal with it again. Finally, in the event that the opponent was down to their last Pokémon, coming in and using Perish Song could essentially seal the deal on a victory, as they'd be unable to switch and would automatically lose the battle in three turns. Thus, the move had good utility and was a regular sight on support formes of Poison Arceus in the fifth generation.

Answer: Lugia

Arceus-Poison cannot legally be paired with another Arceus forme, rendering the Water type alternate incorrect. Heracross and Arceus-Poison both shared a deadly weakness to Psychic, that the immensely popular Mewtwo could exploit, which was undesired. Deoxys-Attack is not the best partner for Arceus-Poison simply because they fit on totally different team archetypes; the defensively starved DNA Pokémon and offensively challenged Arceus-Poison had awkward synergy together.

Arceus-Poison's relative passivity and great defensive presence made it a natural fit for stall teams, usually as their end game sweeper with Calm Mind. It's support sets also fit defensive teams quite well. Either way, Lugia was an amazing partner for Arceus-Poison. It could check Groudon and most Ground types in general very effectively, and could at least slow Mewtwo down, reliably checking non Taunt variants effectively. Lugia's Psychic/Flying typing gave it an immunity and a resistance to Arceus-Poison's two weaknesses, while Arceus-Poison's typing let it effortlessly switch into the many Toxics that Lugia frequently attracted. Lugia's ability to wall threats out is already amazing as is, but if Arceus-Poison is able to burn or poison the target ahead of time, Lugia can just switch in and immediately start spamming recovery options rather than have to take a turn afflicting the enemy with its own status, sealing their demise and making Lugia's life way easier. Thus, the two were an excellent defensive pairing in the fifth generation.

Answer: Amplified weaknesses with no beneficial trade off

Swords Dance sets naturally become very weak to burns via Will-o-Wisp and Scald, that the Calm Mind set is unbothered by. They also have much less in the manner of coverage options, really only being able to make use of Earthquake, Shadow Claw or the incredibly weak Brick Break to make up for Poison's many issues on offense.

The Calm Mind set can do much better, boasting coverage options in Focus Blast, Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Ice Beam and Shadow Ball, giving it more variety and stronger overall options. Finally, Swords Dance sets have roughly the same counters the Calm Mind set does, only unlike its specially offensive alternative, Swords Dance sets cannot deal with Ground-neutral Steel types at all, especially Skarmory, and also come up remarkably short against both formes of Giratina that the Calm Mind set can at least contend with, arguably even having the upper hand against. Thus, Swords Dance sets were ineffective in practice due to being outclassed by Calm Mind alternatives.

Answer: Xerneas

Either Calm Mind or Swords Dance sets could easily deal with Xerneas. Either variant could adequately take hits even after Xerneas had boosted with its signature move, Geomancy, and because Fairy was weak to Poison, Arceus-Poison's approach to the matchup became pretty straightforward.

Answer: Poor synergy with top tier Uber threats

Xerneas certainly wasn't going anywhere, which was good news for Arceus-Poison. However, pairing Arceus-Poison with the best threats the Uber meta had to offer was generally quite team constraining. Primal Groudon and Necrozma-DuskMane both shared Ground type weaknesses with it, while Xerneas and Arceus-Poison lacked offensive synergy together.

The popularity of fellow Poison type Mega Gengar was yet another Pokémon who did not really benefit from an allied Arceus-Poison. Because an Arceus forme is generally expected to patch up weaknesses rather than amplify them, this led to Arceus-Poison being quite unappealing to use.

Answer: Bulky offensive Pokémon in general

The key thing to note is that Poison is a seriously poor offensive typing, and even though Arceus-Poison can viably equip a coverage move at all times, such a move would lack STAB and be coming off an oft-uninvested, ho-hum Base 120 Special Attack stat. Thus, anything not weak to Poison and in good health could afford to switch in pretty safely, including a wide variety of bulky offensive Pokémon that could then heavily pressure Arceus-Poison and its team. Examples are far and wide, but extend to offensive Ground/Psychic types, Primal Kyogre, Yveltal, Ho-Oh, Mega Salamence, and more.