Competitive Pokémon History - Tornadus I & T Quiz

Answer: Prankster

Prankster gives all status and utility moves a +1 priority. Defiant was usually preferred on Tornadus-I due to it generally taking on a fairly typical offensive role. Prankster, however, was a good idea on specially offensive Tornadus-I sets, as they tended to want to setup Rain Dance to help supplement its Hurricanes, and Prankster facilitated that effort nicely.

In later gens, Prankster would become the preferred ability even on physically attacking sets, though Defiant was also nice for deterring efforts to use Defog.

Answer: Regenerator

Regenerator allows the user to heal for 33% of their maximum HP automatically whenever they switch out of play. This was really good on Tornadus-T, as it synergized perfect with its movepool and its very good Speed stat. It made it into a quality stallbreaker in fifth generation Ubers, able to use Taunt, its wide coverage movepool, excellent speed and Regenerator to keep itself healthy, break down bulky threats, and deny them the ability to heal themselves.

As such, Tornadus-T had just the right tools to succeed in fifth generation Ubers.

Answer: 111

111 allowed Tornadus to ever so barely guarantee that it could outspeed the Lati Twins, Gengar, Garchomp and Salamence. This stat would be very important in later gens as well, given that a 110 for Speed was very common amongst prominent offensive Pokémon.

Answer: 121

A 121 was very important for Tornadus-T, both in fifth generation Ubers and in future gens of standard play. In Ubers, a 121 is a single point higher than the formal God of Pokémon, Arceus, ensuring Tornadus-T could outspeed it. A Mewtwo which did not max its Speed out, while rare, would also be outsped by Tornadus-T- this was also the case for Shaymin-S and Darkrai.

These were some big names that it would be hugely important to have Tornadus-T move before, giving it an excellent niche in Ubers.

Answer: Mega Aerodactyl

Mega Aerodactyl had the typing and bulk to reliably survive any one hit, whereupon it could then outspeed and destroy Tornadus-I with a super effective STAB Stone Edge. While Mega Beedrill would get destroyed by super effective Flying STAB from Tornadus-I and thus couldn't switch into it, it too outsped Tornadus-I and could revenge kill it if slightly weakened with an Adaptability boosted STAB Poison Jab.

Answer: Zapdos

Chansey and Blissey could only pull this off if Tornadus-T did not have Superpower, Taunt or Knock Off. This is wishful thinking, though, because there is frankly zero reason to put together a Tornadus-T set that doesn't have at least one, often multiple of the aforementioned moves.

Zapdos, meanwhile, was an incredibly sturdy answer to Tornadus-T. It resisted Flying, the Fighting type move of choice Tornadus-T often carried, could take a Knock Off if need be and could easily eliminate Tornadus-T with a couple super effective Electric type attacks of some kind. As such, it would be a good idea to pack an answer or two to Zapdos on one's team- as Zapdos itself was a top level threat, this was often the case even if the user did not want to bring Tornadus-T onto their team, so at least team building didn't really change as a result.

Answer: Bulk Up

Prankster causes Bulk Up to be a +1 priority move, meaning Tornadus-I could actually use it defensively, to better take an incoming physically offensive attack.

Bulk Up would often go with Acrobatics, which would be complemented by the Rest/Sleep Talk pairing and given no item to power up Acrobatics. Prankster gives priority to both Rest and Sleep Talk, letting Tornadus-I have +1 priority to heal itself to full, while gaining +1 priority for the two turns thereafter.

This set had absolutely zero answers in RU- not even any checks much less counters. Tornadus-I would pretty much just delete defensive teams, as they could do nothing but flail pathetically at it as it boosted to +6 and just mowed them down. With its excellent Speed stat, it was also overbearing for offensive teams to handle as well. As a result, it was banned to UU, where this set was still solid but not unbeatable by any means.

Answer: Flyinium-Z

Hurricane turned into one-time Supersonic Skystrike is excellent for two reasons. For one, the already strong Hurricane becomes even stronger. More importantly, though, is that Supersonic Skystrike is perfectly accurate, temporarily patching up Hurricane's rough 70% accuracy and giving Tornadus-I something it can use to reliably dish out some big damage. With its ability to barely outspeed most offensive Pokémon, this meant Tornadus-T could reliably use this nuke and typically KO something in the process, making it a great wallbreaker.

Answer: Defog

Defog paired with Regenerator made the set quite good, as Regenerator would heal damage taken from Stealth Rock completely, reducing the pressure on Tornadus-T somewhat. With Tornadus-T's variable movepool and good offenses, it became a nice source of entry hazard removal for balance and offensive teams, able to maintain momentum while offering this utility.

Answer: Nasty Plot

Nasty Plot along with Taunt meant that, unless you had a Zapdos handy, beating these Pokémon defensively was impossible. With their excellent Speed stats, wide movepools, good abilities and Nasty Plot to become nucleic very quickly, this helped both Tornadus forms greatly.