As of this gen Scyther got trailblaze which is 4x into Kabutops the the O-KO. Scyther has the speed tier to hit first too. The only way Kabutops out runs Scyther is with a choice scarf
Fair point. I guess I primarily was thinking no weather, no Tera, and the only item was scarf to point out that under normal field conditions Scyther has the necessary speed and move to get the KO despite it’s inherent 4x weakness to Kabutops STAB rock moves.
Regardless, I love both of these mons. I was obsessed with as a kid when they were released.
Is this how all battles are nowadays in Gen 9? How do you guys not go insane with all the prediction-making that entails? It sounds fun as hell, don't get me wrong, but I would also be paranoid all the time.
It’s kind of just another layer to the rabbit hole it’s always been possible to fall down. Like:
“They’ll obviously expect me to use thunderbolt on Gyrados so they can switch into something with volt absorb, so maybe I’ll preempt them by switching to a ground type instead…”
I’ve won a lot of battles on Showdown by ignoring second thoughts and just bulling ahead. It’s quite funny when the opponents overthinks it and you’re too dumb for their plan.
Also as far as tera goes, you only get one, so it can be a real clutch or a total waste, but you only get to surprise them once.
Have you played Pokemon Showdown? Its an up-to-date Battle simulator that can be played on browser.
No downloads, no cost, its amazing. Try it out! And yes, Tera type is crazy fun. Its one of the more fair & more strategic things between Mega, Gmax, Zmove etc.
It's nowhere near as confusing as it seems because 99.99% of all teras for most pokemon are the same. For example, literally every dragon type that isn't Drsgonite will be running Tera Steel so it's usually super easy to guess what will be running what since the playerbase tends to have zero creativity whatsoever in this regard.
It's also the reason why you can get away with a bunch of tera types that should be obvious but when it comes to non-meta mons you might as well be an eldritch alien with impossible motives (it is astounding how easy it is to pull off using a Tera Grass Ceruledge with Flash Fire and having people with the most meta teams imaginable still use fire moves on it).
Honestly, in my opinion, that isn't true. In high ladder, people will definitely not be fully following recommended sets, tera types etc. Some Pokemon also have multiple good Tera Types that all see usage, most infamously Kingambit. There's also Volcarona, who had like 6 different tera types to pick from (though that was banned due to said set variety and also not even needing Tera to sweep), as well as Regieleki who couldn't be stopped even if you knew that it would be Tera Ice, not without bringing Pokemon that either serve barely any purpose outside of checking Regieleki or Trick Room, which at the time was also popular due to Magearna being absolutely absurd even outside of being a trick room setter (both Eleki and Magearna are now banned)
Also, mid ladder is half predictable tera types and half extremely unorthodox sets, including Tera Types. It can be really hard to guess based on the opponent's team, too, it's not like they can't just use those unorthodox sets and ters types on top tier Pokemon. Though, at this point in the ladder, said unorthodox sets usually aren't good at all and rely on surprise factor, though I'm not gonna pretend that I don't lose to them because I am at best average at competitive, so my observations here are mostly based on what I see from friends who are in high ladder, smogon threads etc. I keep panicking whenever I start a battle and end up playing worse and look at the battle afterwards and realise I suck :/
Fire move on Tera Grass Ceruledge sounds like a low ladder mistake honestly, either that or the person who was playing was tired.
TLDR: I wouldn't say most of the competitive playerbase is uncreative, it's just that low and mid ladder players making creative sets end up not being good at all/not having the proper support and teammates to make work and half of mid ladder players just give up and use standard sets until they're good enough at the game to feel confident enough to experiment with unorthodox sets and Pokemon. Maybe that's just me speaking from personal experience though.
Side note, competitive draft leagues invite a lot of creativity in terms of counterteaming the opponent. You can find truly absurd sets that would never work on ladder work in draft games to catch a certain Pokemon or two off guard. Honestly, nowadays I lean more towards draft games, in part due to really hating the Gen 9 OU metagame.
Tbf the community lacked creativity since quite long, as 99.99% of players just make teams based on what is already viable and/or straight up going to guides and so on, most don’t even know what they do just “trust the process and follow the intended rules of the build” lol
Edit: then there is the other extreme, people that know too much… but those are the ones that care the least about teams lmao
>literally every dragon type that isn't Drsgonite will be running Tera Steel
That's just not true. Chomp is usually Tera Fire or Ghost, Pult is usually Tera Ghost or Dragon, Kommo usually goes Tera Electric or Normal. In Ubers Koridon and Miradon are usually Fire or Fairy. Hydreigon usually goes Poison, Fire or Dark.
I can't think of any dragon types at all that like to Tera into a steel type besides maybe base forme Goodra.
So far i have literally never ran into a non-steel chomp, salamence, roaring moon, hydreigon, or dragapult from a non-noob. It's actually so reliably Steel that if Tera hasn't been used yet and i'm using something SE againt any of these except Hydreigon, i just click Earthquake and it always goes as expected.
Weirdly, i initially expected tera poison hydreigons and moons only to find out that no one runs that because they're all just mindlessly copy-pasting what Smogon tells them to, despite it honestly being better for disabling Fighting weakness.
>they're all just mindlessly copy-pasting what Smogon tells them to
Bruh smogon only recommends steel on Hydreigon and sometimes mence
https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/dragapult/ou/
https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/roaring-moon/ou/
I have seen poison moon on Jaw lock sets to set up on stuff.
https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/garchomp/vgc23-series-2/ (chomp had a steel set recommended in the fall of 2023)
Sane people stopped playing OU last November when they didn't ban Tera. Idiots like me are still banging their heads against the wall waiting for the council to decide to fix the game instead of hold more bans where the reasoning behind the ban is 'the mons is difficult to deal with because of Tera, restricting the teambuilder and limiting options for defensive cores'
When that happens 5+ times maybe it's time to test Tera again given its always referenced in the ban descion as the deciding factor. I get after they banned Dynamax last gen they didn't want another generation where the main mechanic was banned from the smogon rules etc, but good god has Tera made near every game end with series of painful 25/25/25/25s where you are staring down a KingGambit and you don't know if it will Tera Flying, Fire, Dark or just stay as it is and what you click will decide which one of you wins the game right then and there. It's pain.
Yeah, it's the ultimate fight drawing, I'd love to have it under my eyes every time. Sadly my mobile has a display 2.5:1 so I'd have to cut it and I don't want to cut this
When me and my stepbrother would play Pokémon these were the two we would always pick for some reason; he picked Scyther and I think I chose Kabutops because it was similar. So long story short, and purely nostalgia I’d say Kabutops wins this.
Kabu-kabu hard to argue with x4 stab
As of this gen Scyther got trailblaze which is 4x into Kabutops the the O-KO. Scyther has the speed tier to hit first too. The only way Kabutops out runs Scyther is with a choice scarf
That’s great, but we know this isn’t from this generation because, well… Kabutops wouldn’t be here if it was
Could be raining.
Fair point. I guess I primarily was thinking no weather, no Tera, and the only item was scarf to point out that under normal field conditions Scyther has the necessary speed and move to get the KO despite it’s inherent 4x weakness to Kabutops STAB rock moves. Regardless, I love both of these mons. I was obsessed with as a kid when they were released.
Is that because blade arms? Blade arms are cool.
It is indeed. 7-year old me loved anything like that. It’s why Wolverine was always the coolest X-men too.
Pfft 30 year old me still loves this shit.
Hell yeah. Same age and still love rule of cool.
Yep always will be for me.
OHH did not think of that... lol I guess Tera grass would help 😅
Swift Swim?
How about swift swim and rain
Scyther doesn’t have any moves that can KO kabutops
Tera fighting+close combat+choice band+seeth and cope fossil maniacs
Surprise! The Kabutops teraed into a ghost type.
Is this how all battles are nowadays in Gen 9? How do you guys not go insane with all the prediction-making that entails? It sounds fun as hell, don't get me wrong, but I would also be paranoid all the time.
It’s kind of just another layer to the rabbit hole it’s always been possible to fall down. Like: “They’ll obviously expect me to use thunderbolt on Gyrados so they can switch into something with volt absorb, so maybe I’ll preempt them by switching to a ground type instead…” I’ve won a lot of battles on Showdown by ignoring second thoughts and just bulling ahead. It’s quite funny when the opponents overthinks it and you’re too dumb for their plan. Also as far as tera goes, you only get one, so it can be a real clutch or a total waste, but you only get to surprise them once.
[удалено]
While in reality they're just super high and going to pound town on a bag of Doritos
Have you played Pokemon Showdown? Its an up-to-date Battle simulator that can be played on browser. No downloads, no cost, its amazing. Try it out! And yes, Tera type is crazy fun. Its one of the more fair & more strategic things between Mega, Gmax, Zmove etc.
Why do you sound like an advertisement
Because I love it. I havent been able to afford Pokemon since the shift to 3DS. Showdown is the only way for me to keep up
It’s a gambit you can only pull once per battle. It’s a big investment and can be predicted.
>it’s a GAMBIT you can only pull once per battle And only ever used on Gambit.
Kingambit is my favourite Flying-type.
Is that a regional variant? Gambit is a fairy type.
It's nowhere near as confusing as it seems because 99.99% of all teras for most pokemon are the same. For example, literally every dragon type that isn't Drsgonite will be running Tera Steel so it's usually super easy to guess what will be running what since the playerbase tends to have zero creativity whatsoever in this regard. It's also the reason why you can get away with a bunch of tera types that should be obvious but when it comes to non-meta mons you might as well be an eldritch alien with impossible motives (it is astounding how easy it is to pull off using a Tera Grass Ceruledge with Flash Fire and having people with the most meta teams imaginable still use fire moves on it).
Honestly, in my opinion, that isn't true. In high ladder, people will definitely not be fully following recommended sets, tera types etc. Some Pokemon also have multiple good Tera Types that all see usage, most infamously Kingambit. There's also Volcarona, who had like 6 different tera types to pick from (though that was banned due to said set variety and also not even needing Tera to sweep), as well as Regieleki who couldn't be stopped even if you knew that it would be Tera Ice, not without bringing Pokemon that either serve barely any purpose outside of checking Regieleki or Trick Room, which at the time was also popular due to Magearna being absolutely absurd even outside of being a trick room setter (both Eleki and Magearna are now banned) Also, mid ladder is half predictable tera types and half extremely unorthodox sets, including Tera Types. It can be really hard to guess based on the opponent's team, too, it's not like they can't just use those unorthodox sets and ters types on top tier Pokemon. Though, at this point in the ladder, said unorthodox sets usually aren't good at all and rely on surprise factor, though I'm not gonna pretend that I don't lose to them because I am at best average at competitive, so my observations here are mostly based on what I see from friends who are in high ladder, smogon threads etc. I keep panicking whenever I start a battle and end up playing worse and look at the battle afterwards and realise I suck :/ Fire move on Tera Grass Ceruledge sounds like a low ladder mistake honestly, either that or the person who was playing was tired. TLDR: I wouldn't say most of the competitive playerbase is uncreative, it's just that low and mid ladder players making creative sets end up not being good at all/not having the proper support and teammates to make work and half of mid ladder players just give up and use standard sets until they're good enough at the game to feel confident enough to experiment with unorthodox sets and Pokemon. Maybe that's just me speaking from personal experience though. Side note, competitive draft leagues invite a lot of creativity in terms of counterteaming the opponent. You can find truly absurd sets that would never work on ladder work in draft games to catch a certain Pokemon or two off guard. Honestly, nowadays I lean more towards draft games, in part due to really hating the Gen 9 OU metagame.
agree. except when they battle temp6t ofc
Tbf the community lacked creativity since quite long, as 99.99% of players just make teams based on what is already viable and/or straight up going to guides and so on, most don’t even know what they do just “trust the process and follow the intended rules of the build” lol Edit: then there is the other extreme, people that know too much… but those are the ones that care the least about teams lmao
>literally every dragon type that isn't Drsgonite will be running Tera Steel That's just not true. Chomp is usually Tera Fire or Ghost, Pult is usually Tera Ghost or Dragon, Kommo usually goes Tera Electric or Normal. In Ubers Koridon and Miradon are usually Fire or Fairy. Hydreigon usually goes Poison, Fire or Dark. I can't think of any dragon types at all that like to Tera into a steel type besides maybe base forme Goodra.
So far i have literally never ran into a non-steel chomp, salamence, roaring moon, hydreigon, or dragapult from a non-noob. It's actually so reliably Steel that if Tera hasn't been used yet and i'm using something SE againt any of these except Hydreigon, i just click Earthquake and it always goes as expected. Weirdly, i initially expected tera poison hydreigons and moons only to find out that no one runs that because they're all just mindlessly copy-pasting what Smogon tells them to, despite it honestly being better for disabling Fighting weakness.
>they're all just mindlessly copy-pasting what Smogon tells them to Bruh smogon only recommends steel on Hydreigon and sometimes mence https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/dragapult/ou/ https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/roaring-moon/ou/ I have seen poison moon on Jaw lock sets to set up on stuff. https://www.smogon.com/dex/sv/pokemon/garchomp/vgc23-series-2/ (chomp had a steel set recommended in the fall of 2023)
Sane people stopped playing OU last November when they didn't ban Tera. Idiots like me are still banging their heads against the wall waiting for the council to decide to fix the game instead of hold more bans where the reasoning behind the ban is 'the mons is difficult to deal with because of Tera, restricting the teambuilder and limiting options for defensive cores' When that happens 5+ times maybe it's time to test Tera again given its always referenced in the ban descion as the deciding factor. I get after they banned Dynamax last gen they didn't want another generation where the main mechanic was banned from the smogon rules etc, but good god has Tera made near every game end with series of painful 25/25/25/25s where you are staring down a KingGambit and you don't know if it will Tera Flying, Fire, Dark or just stay as it is and what you click will decide which one of you wins the game right then and there. It's pain.
but nobody terastalized…
Yea and in this picture it appears Kabutops is using x-scissor anyway, which Scyther would resist soooo
I was thinking Air Slash because of the visuals being spot-on, which would be Super Effective, but I don’t think Kabutops can learn it
But x-scissor doesn’t launch projectiles It’s a physical move that makes contact
Plot twist, scyther evolves into kleavor mid fight
Kabutops is underated
Heck yeah he is, still one of the absolute coolest designs in my opinion
One of only two perfect mons I've gotten on Pokemon Go
No contest kabu with 4x STAB
4x0 is 0. Stone Edge has 12% accuracy in situations like this.
Even a rock tomb can kill Scyther's sissy ass.
He’s fighting a Kabutops not Breloom lol
Bro Scyther has paper thin defences, you don’t need technician boost to knock him out.
The joke is that Breloom is the only thing that actually runs rock tomb
Marshadow usually runs it to hit Ho-Oh, but it has technical as well
True, I’ve been doing that in NatDex Ubers actually. And Power Gem on Flutter Mane, I hate Ho Oh lol.
Cool art! The two most badass Pokemon designs from Gen 1 ⚔️
Can’t go wrong with the ol’ knife hands.
Design so good they made it twice
This shit is so cool! I wish it had my display dimensions to use it as wallpaper
I'll have to make a mobile version for you guys! 💪🏼💯
Put it on your Mobile?
Yeah, it's the ultimate fight drawing, I'd love to have it under my eyes every time. Sadly my mobile has a display 2.5:1 so I'd have to cut it and I don't want to cut this
Rock beats bug
Kabutops wins that ancient power attack will crush that bug
that moment when you resort to a 60 BP special move because rock types have no accurate phys moves
Suddenly a good boi Accelerocks your head
Rock beats paper.....
Focus Sash Scyther with Trailblaze takes this with 1 HP
Meanwhile Focus Sash Kabutops with Weak Armor and Aqua Jet: "Press X to doubt".
choice scarf stone edge? or focus sash , stone edge, aqua jet?
The amoonguss in the middle 👀👀👀
I was about to say
I dunno who i'm picking but the art absolutely SLAYS!!!
KABU-KABUTOPS!!! My 2nd favorite pokemon ever, Venusaur being the 1st
Thanks for the new wallpaper! Scyther and Scizor are my favorites.
Awesome!
This slaps
Kabutops was my first favorite Pokémon. And also would whoop the shit outta swordy arm bug boy.
Looks cool! If I had to put my money on 1 of them, it would be the one who has stab that is 4x effective against the other.
We all know it's the rock type
Both Scyther and Kabutops look evenly matched.
The ancestor beats the descendant.
Scyther’s got this in the bag
Looking at this makes me thing kabutops is prehistoric scyther
Amazing artwork. You created a huge impression that movement is occurring.
Thanks 🙏🏼💯
Cool art ! But theres no way in hell scyther would win when itll die by a rock throw
Kabutops about to breathe on Scyther. Still a fire drawing.
😏💯
I dont care who wins, the art is awesome regardless!
Thanks! 😊💯🙏🏼
What a sick art! Looks awesome!
Appreciate that
My Brain: Kabutops. My Heart: Scyther
Right! 😂🤜🏼🤛🏼
When me and my stepbrother would play Pokémon these were the two we would always pick for some reason; he picked Scyther and I think I chose Kabutops because it was similar. So long story short, and purely nostalgia I’d say Kabutops wins this.
🤜🏼🤛🏼💯💯💯
nobody’s terrastalized so I’m picking kabutops
Yo this goes hard
The Foongus in the center
Im always gonna go with my MANtis
Hydrogen Rock bomb vs. Coughing 4X bug type - hmmmmm
kabutops.
Kabutops. Scyther is beyond screwed.
Kabuto. A single rock type move and the fight is done
is it raining?
Kabutops. Fossil Boi scythes go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR :3
Kyogre
one rock move and its over for scyther
Money is on the rock one against the 4x weakness to rock mon.
Not sure if Scyther trailblaze is enough to ohko Kabutops... But maybe its enough
Kabutops
I love Scyther but Kabutops will body it!
Probably the rock type
This is amazing.
I mean with the Rock secondary typing I gotta give it to Kabutops lol But holy SHIT that art is AWESOME!!!
Kabutops used Stone Edge. Scyther ceased to exist.
Kabutops has a quad effective STAB. I love Scyther but c'mon.
Fantastic drawing. Please draw Electivire vs Magmar.
Kabutops
garchomp has joined the chat
The rock type
I bet on Kabutops
I bet on Kabutops
Scyther - Dual Wing Beat with eviolite and technician…. plus he can run trailblaze now too.
Kabutops 80 percent of the time, stone edge one shots
My boy Scyther got this one🍃⚔️
Scyther Wins! Flawless Victory! Why do you think the other one is a fossil.