Competitive Pokémon History - Reshiram Quiz

Answer: Groudon

The other three options represent terrible pairings for Reshiram. Kyogre's Drizzle-induced rain neuters Reshiram's offenses rather than strengthens them. Abomasnow and Tyranitar do not provide power boosts with their weather setting abilities, instead causing Reshiram to take damage at the end of every turn as a result.

Groudon's sun, however, made Reshiram's Blue Flares have devastating power. Under the sun and with a Choice Specs boost, Reshiram can guarantee 2HKOs on everything except for Kyogre. This includes bulky behemoths such as Lugia, Blissey, Chansey, Giratina and more. With its ability to further assist Reshiram's offenses with Stealth Rock support, Groudon was an absolutely compulsory partner for Reshiram, the existence of Groudon is the only reason Reshiram was viable at all, much less as deadly as it ended up being.

Answer: Kyogre

Ho-Oh counters a Reshiram set which does not have Stone Edge. However, Stone Edge has a roughly 50% chance to OHKO Ho-Oh from full health, meaning Reshiram prevails if it has this move.

Tyranitar is in a similar position to Ho-Oh, countering Reshiram if it does not have Focus Blast. Focus Blast off of Choice Specs or Life Orb Reshiram will OHKO after Stealth Rock in the case of the latter, or straight up full HP for the former.

Kyogre, however, doesn't have to care about any particular move Reshiram might have. As it switches in, Kyogre ruins Reshiram's Blue Flares by drowning them with its permanent rain. It has the bulk to easily take a Draco Meteor if need be, where it can either return fire with rain boosted Hydro Pumps, setup with Calm Mind, or simply wall Reshiram and whittle it down with repeated Scalds. As such, Reshiram cannot deal with Kyogre at all and needs a teammate or two who can handle it.

Answer: Ignore the opposing Pokémon's ability

Turboblaze is basically a Mold Breaker clone, functioning in the same way. This wasn't always particularly useful, but it did have some useful, niche applications. Being able to ignore Lugia's Multiscale makes Reshiram threaten it far more than the average wallbreaker.

While rare, Heatran also cannot use Flash Fire to make itself immune to Reshiram's Blue Flares, as Turboblaze trumps Flash Fire. In future generations, Reshiram could ignore the Sturdy ability on the likes of Skarmory, Forretress and Shuckle and OHKO them with its powerful attacks.

Answer: 150

Falling just short of Mewtwo's 154, Reshiram is nowhere near as fast as Mewtwo was and didn't have any particular advantages to compensate. Reshiram was also far short of Kyurem-W's 170, causing it to be mostly outclassed as a wallbreaker were it not for the existence of Groudon to rectify that.

Answer: No

It's almost as if someone at Nintendo had a vendetta against Reshiram, because seemingly every major change made coming over from the fifth generation slammed it with major nerf after major nerf.

Primal Groudon sprung to the forefront of the meta, leaving its base form behind. This was horrible news for Reshiram, as Desolate Land wears off as Primal Groudon leaves the field, preventing it from handing sunny weather off to Reshiram as it had in the fifth generation. Moreover, Primal Groudon was another wallbreaker whose power greatly outclassed Reshiram, having vastly superior bulk to boot as well.

The Fairy typing became popular in Ubers, and Reshiram had major difficulties dealing with Fairies as well. This was despite the fact Reshiram was one of two Dragons to not be weak to Fairy thanks to its Fire typing. It's a shame that the other Dragon, Dialga, was vastly superior at dealing with Fairies compared to Reshiram.

With power creep inbound, Reshiram was outgunned as a wallbreaker by a large list of threats, it couldn't patch this up like it could in the fifth generation, and it had bad matchups against virtually every high level Uber threat in the tier. As a result, at no point was using Reshiram on a sixth generation Ubers team ever a good idea unless the user wanted to make a joke team of sorts and wasn't interested in winning.

Answer: 130

Blue Flare shares the same base power as Overheat while lacking the nasty downside of halving the user's Special Attack after use. It's drawback is a shaky 85% accuracy, but the raw power more than makes up for that. In possession of the strongest Fire type move in the game made Reshiram at least not a total joke in sixth generation Ubers, as it could reliably at least deal with anything weak to Fire.

Answer: Grassinium-Z

Grassinium-Z meshed with Solar Beam gave Reshiram a one time, one turn 180 base power Bloom Doom. This gave Reshiram an 87% chance to OHKO offensive Primal Kyogre from full health, while the defensive set would be KOed by a combination of Bloom Doom + Draco Meteor.

This removed Primal Kyogre as a sure fire counter like it had been the previous two generations which, in a nutshell, was pretty nice.

Answer: 90

Speed tying with Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre while being nowhere close to as bulky as them and failing to outgun them offensively was quite troubling. Reshiram's iffy defensive typing, iffy bulk and iffy Speed fitfully made it an iffy at best Pokémon as a whole in seventh generation Ubers.

Answer: Zacian-Crowned

Zacian-C was an overwhelming Pokémon who tore apart entire teams very easily with its astronomical base stats, flawless ability and excellent typing. Reshiram is definitely not a counter to Zacian-C, but it can take a hit and annihilate it with a super effective Blue Flare in return. Claiming to check Zacian-C is more than can be said about the incredible majority of Ubers threats, giving Reshiram a solid niche.

Answer: Dynamax

The three incorrect answers had already failed to return to Galar in the first place.

Reshiram was an amazing Dynamax user, gaining much improved bulk, an even stronger Fire type attack that could also give itself precious sun support, and a new drawback free Dragon move as well. Unfortunately, Dynamax as a whole was found to be overbearing in Ubers, and the mechanic as a whole was banned from competitive player shortly into the eighth generation. When this and Zacian-C were banned, there was now no reason to use Reshiram anymore, causing it to once again fall to obscurity.