How GOOD was Blaziken ACTUALLY? - History of Blaziken in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 3-6)

it probably comes as no surprise to most of you that we're continuing the Hoenn starter trail man it feels like only yesterday that we were doing the Gen 1 Pokemon and now you guys are covering all the staples from every gen our chicken friend here is a pretty dividing Pokemon though honestly based on your taste you've probably thought it was the coolest thing ever made or that it was supremely weird and really needed a haircut but what Blaziken is maybe most notable for is introducing the beloved slash hated fire fighting typing which we all thought was a perfect fit and super cool and first introduced but subsequently learn to load more than anything three generations later but did that typing let Blaziken succeed competitively let's find out how good was Blaziken actually and in this video we'll be covering these competitive formats it may not be completely obvious from looking at a pokemon that seems so built to tear things apart physically but Blaziken may have been designed to be a mixed attacker from the very start it has higher attacking stats than both of its starter Pokemon counterparts in both categories and fire and fighting sure wasn't bad typing when it came to ripping through enemy teams unfortunately for Blaziken they weren't exactly great types defensively either leaving it vulnerable to a threatening combo of powerful types with only a few good resistances blaziken's meddling speed and vulnerable typing meta had a hard time finding safe switches but took advantage of a select few amazing matchups liked Skarmory Blissey and heracross as this design intended the most Blaziken set was a mixed one taking advantage of its two strong steps with sky uppercut and your choice of a fire move Blaziken was one of the few pokemon in the game that could actually threaten the extremely powerful combo of scarm bliss hitting both for their least favorite type in the game on the weak side of the spectrum rockslide and focused punch with correct prediction gave it the ability to beat Salamence or suicune to common barriers to Blaziken success opening the path to swords dance its way to victory in reality this mix 3% was actually just one of the more physical variants of Blaziken being one of the few to not split attacking V's between its physical and special despite having both types of moves other notable physical sets included the prediction heavy choice band set which allowed Blaziken to lever it's a good type coverage and have a chance at beating bulky water types and its reversal set while reversal combined with indoor was a strategy on several Pokemon lazy can pull it up better than most due to the ability to threaten speciality without any investment especially when blaze was there boosting your power well this set lost hard to priority or things faster than Blaziken Pokemon that didn't fit those categories had a hard time dealing with it and after a select boost Blaziken was faster than every Pokemon except electrode and ninja in the oh you meta game of course Blaziken was perfectly suited to run a sub punch set as well and this is actually where you see more special attack investment since focus punch is so grossly strong it doesn't need as much backing it up substitute would be sure to focus a switching but again Blaziken strength was that it could hit on both sides of the spectrum usual flying types like Salomon see Gyarados would get demolished by the choice of hidden power ice or a Thunder punch while Fire Blast provided and has ever consistent threats of physical tanks like wheezing finally Blaziken could free up its moves to run both Thunder punch and hidden power ice if it wish by running a special attacking focus set still boosted by its signature sky uppercut then of course the issue became choosing hidden power ice or hidden power grass since without focused punch and a substitute to hide behind Swampert as you may have come to expect was a lingering threat again the theory behind this set was simple and similar to many of the other ones you hit both sides hard so you can always be a threat pretty straightforward the previously mentioned Salamence and Gyarados were the most powerful Blaziken threats with intimidate and a flying-type matchup that could one-hit ko Blaziken they simultaneously knew today and threatened it they had to always be afraid of thunder punch or hidden power ice but it wasn't that hard to scout what set Blaziken was using and with militant preview they could also get a safe switch in at least once a lot of the time salamence in particular was a hugely powerful counter as it was guaranteed to be faster than most Blaziken without a select boost so Blaziken would always need to predict Blaziken struggled mightily against the bulky water types that populated much of gen 3 overuse such a sweet ku Swampert Milotic Slowbro and even the less tanky starmie all of these pokemon could take hits from both steps easily and for most of them their defenses were simply too high for Thunder punch to do anything of use for once it was actually Swampert than frequently had to be afraid since hidden power grass exposed the gaping hole the others could potentially be dealt with via reversal or focus punch although the psychic typing US Army and Slowbro made them even more powerful counters the biggest threat to Blaziken though of course was any attacker that could exploit his typing it was rare to find a Pokemon in overuse that didn't carry one of earthquake surf psychic or hidden power flying so Blaziken had to be played carefully lest it run into something like that priority attackers are very fast Pokemon also beat it though it could always be a threat if it predicted but you didn't want to have to rely on prediction to be useful with a smidgen more speed it's likely Blaziken could have been a top threat but that glaring weakness meant it was hard to use and found itself in borderline for much of its existence the physical special split was nothing but a boon to Blaziken who garnered multiple options to threaten on both sides with different typing the most notable additions being flare blitz superpower and vacuum wave giving him more killing power and some priority al-bait weak priority if it needed Blaziken also benefit from the addition of choice scarf and life orb items was perfectly complemented it's varied attacking style the mix-up of which item it was using was a powerful one and it's not hard to deduce it sets from its move pole the mixed attacker loved life orb and swapped out sky uppercut for super power alongside his trusty Fire Blast while the rest of the set could be customized between your choice of hidden power and vacuum wave or Stone Edge another upgrade to blazing his moveset this set actually now bent more towards the special side as super power replicated the power of focus punch from the last generation without as harsh with drawback removing the need for physical investment of course Blaziken still had his choice get it of physical sense the choice band set remained as powerful as ever leveled up by stab flare blitz of physical Thunder punch super power or low kick and stone edged sword stance had similar upgrades because of life warp and seriously that physical Thunder punch was so nice finally while reversal fell out of favor due to the increased amount of priority moves introduced in Gen 4 please it can still had its speed boosting sets available with the agility and its standard two snaps fire blasts of super power Blaziken could become a potent sweeping threat while patching up its middling speed and choice scarf turn Blaziken into a powerful revenge killers which is a rare thing so on paper this all sounds great for Blaziken right good mix attacker gets a bunch of new assets and has the physical special split to play with yeah and Blaziken may have seen some use except that it was totally outclassed by infernal Infernape proved that speed really is one of the most important stats in the game it was a top-tier lead an attacker and overuse and the thing that got it there was the twenty eight speed boost compared to Blaziken even though its defenses and attacking stats were all slightly worse sure Infernape had some fun other option and its toolkit like fake-out stealth right and close combat but by and large this is a case of how much speed matters that extra six or sixteen a special attack or attack doesn't matter if you're dying before you can use it even without Infernape it's likely Blaziken would have remained in under use and gen 480 speed really just wasn't cutting it for an attacker especially when you might have to invest less in to speed because you were running a mixed set so Blaziken solve that to be its downfall again under you shows us what it could have been where it was an incredible wall breaker with its amazing stats until black and white to play z can't continue to live an Infernus shadow as the lesser fire fighting starter although it at least wasn't as bad as in boar who was even slower so Blaziken did its thing in under use attempts to make it work and overused did happen but then fizzled out it needed agility to sweep and even then it wasn't powerful enough with mixed investment to sweep and without agility it couldn't wall break because it was too slow it was almost entirely the same and attempts to make it work and overused were frequently as a stall breaker where it didn't have to face the same level of threat using hidden power ice fire blasts high jump kick and either protect or stone edge then it got speed boost for a tiny tiny bit Blaziken wasn't overused after all ninjas had speed boost and it's only useless as a weird baton passer so what's the big deal well the stats on ninja sucked for one thing it also doesn't have mix attacking stats and access to some of the most powerful stab in the game it did have Swords Dance but man it was not the same Swords Dance Blaziken was doing I'll tell you that with just one free turn Blaziken could double its attack and fix its speed problem then protect another turn and suddenly you were agility and Swords Dance Blaziken and there the game was over don't forget that this was in weather wars in the Sun Blaziken with to hit KO Johnson and Slowbro its biggest quote-unquote counters with flare blitz its who hit killed everything high jump kick and Stone Edge formed the other points of a terrifying court the actual best counter to Blaziken may have been our old friend Quagsire who negated blaziken's boosts took its attacks and beat it straight up in a beautifully unexpected counter matchup azumarill and Conkeldurr also did work but it didn't matter this Blaziken was incredibly strong having an easier time at getting set up than any other pokemon and abandoning its mix history for raw attacking power and thus Blaziken made history by becoming the first starter ever to be banned to ubers where it still function as a pretty damn good sweeper low kick became the fighting move of choice to exploit the heavy beasties of the tier and for relative safety you didn't want a high jump kick yourself to death but that Sun boosted flare blitz was still as terrifying as always plays you can't establish yourself as one of the heaviest hitters in the tier always paired with growl dumb and able to overcome even its destructive power it's only true counter was Giratina who could usually live through a flare blitz and then face it out other than that a variety of bulky pokemons such as Cresselia lugia and Arceus could handle it but they likely needed rain as such Kyogre while not a true counter was certainly one of the keys to handling Blaziken so Blaziken team frequently featured Blaziken Groudon and Kyogre counter ubers also features some of the strongest priority in the game so pokemon like Arceus and Rick wise ax could exploit Blaziken slow defenses but they still couldn't easily switch in on hits even in uber x' Blaziken was a beast to behold and while blaziken's ability was incredible it was far less useful in VGC now don't get me wrong all blaziken's that were in VGC were still speed boost and the strategy was to use protect get a boost and then hit hard with flare blitz sky uppercut high jump kick rockslide shadow claw whatever but without the leeway of 1vs1 matchups to set up in blaziken's now middling attacks started to show you were essentially just running a fast fire fighting attacker who had to protect no matter what and those weaknesses the surf and earthquakes certainly didn't help in BGC plays it can actually solve very little VGC play in Gen 5 especially compared to Infernape whose mock punch an encore made it more useful now here's where you expect Blaziken to suddenly become the best pokémon in the game come on it's got speed boosts already now you give it an extra 40 attack and 20 speed and you make it look cooler in actuality mega Blaziken solve virtually zero play at all in singles because Blaziken wasn't ubers from the very beginning of gen 6 and what you were really coming to Blaziken for was the speed boost and those extra 10 defenses were useless in ubers the 20 speed was by and large useless as well since Blaziken was always getting a boost anyways the extra base only allowed it to outspeed a handful of threats it didn't already such as deoxys attack and mega Blaziken was actually quote-unquote weaker than a regular Blaziken with the life work so actually Blaziken didn't change much at all it was still in uber in his regular form still pulling speed boost shenanigans with about the same moves and that was all it did it did switch the high jump kick over a low kick as the extra power even against supremely heavy Pokemon was notable this extra power led Blaziken to it KO primal Groudon notably although low kick could do the same after rocks or with good luck but the biggest nerf - Blaziken was that Sun no longer lasted forever desolate land only lasts till Groudon is switched out and you definitely weren't running a he truck and keeping it unprimed thus its Flair bliss was nowhere near as terrifying and it lost a lot of the explosive power it had as such many Pokemon who had verged on countering Blaziken did so quite easily now Giratina literally didn't care about Blaziken at all without Flair bliss and shoved it aside with dragon tail lugia was similar while be odd knockoff annoyed it lugia was so disgustingly bulky that even stone edge only did about a quarter of its HP in addition intimidate users certain Arceus forms mega diancie the laddies priority and especially entry hazards all deter Blaziken with flare blitz at life orb Blaziken was taking recoil anyways so it didn't appreciate more residual damage as such Blaziken found itself as the ugly duckling of uber even after being a huge threat in the last generation especially with so many more physical threats like primal Groudon and mega salamence although there were also its best friends as they could beat each other's checks but Blaziken have fallen out of the Sun and for those of you hoping for a mega Blaziken in doubles ya no luck there either really again life-form mix mega Blaziken less useful than you'd think since speed boosts the main reason for using Blaziken was always there Blaziken suffered from the same problems they had before in VGC 2012 but it had a better meta matchup this time around doing well against Metagross Landorus t Kangaskhan and Taraki on VGC 2015 blaziken's tended to go mix running overheat and super power protect for the speed boost and hidden power ice for Kalos on Dragon types and Landorus pretty standard stuff Blaziken saw modest use throughout the season with a few notable placings tenth that Oregon regionals under Josh Krieger third in Florida under William Collins first in Colombia with Juan gnar Knight that US Nationals thanks to the Aaron Leber's Bosh I'm so sorry if I pronounced that wrong and as we mentioned last week 28th on air and Cybertron Zhang's team at Worlds the only mega Blaziken that were seen popped up in Europe where they actually had a good amount of success Gilberto Karachi took second in Italian regionals and Jamie Miller 11th that German nationals it's safe to assume these blaziken's did about the same thing as regular blaziken's but overall still kind of quiet for Blaziken and BGC and on that lukewarm ending that's it so how good was Blaziken actually it's probably the best starter pokemon of all time for now I feel like Game Freak must have thought oh poor Blaziken was supposed to be sort of fast looking and we made it slow I know let's give it speed boost talk about overkill blaziken's a monster now and that's without its mega evolution who as an individual Pokemon is amazing but is it even used because Blaziken can do everything already without mega evolving however fortunately for mega Blaziken I think these days in Sun and Moon mega Blaziken is more standard since you know power creep so train yours up and get ready to infuriate your friends thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video you want to see more be sure to subscribe to false wipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and of course as I always say comment on what pokemon you want to see next also thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to everyone watching as well and follow my cure on these social media platforms yada yada yada and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music]

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 1,353,635

Keywords: Blaziken, Torchic, Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Pokemon Black, White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Sun, Pokemon Moon, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Competitive Pokemon, VGC, Smogon, False Swipe Gaming

Id: MU_eG95K-Tg

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Sun May 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/lil-Kidney]

Ah yes kickass KFC, my favorite starter

[u/Bardock_RD]

Blaziken got even better this year in VGC, with Firium Z it's able to gain those brilliant speed boosts and hit extra hard where it couldn't previous years. I managed to get top 32 with it at the Oceania international championships, winning $500US.

[u/elfinhilon10]

Gen 5 and beyond:

B R O K E N.

[u/large_snowbear]

Speed Boost best thing to happen to it.

Still salty other two didn't get much...

[u/DrPumpkinz]

I really want the next video to be Gastrodon, just like how Quagsire cut into the Johto starters.

[u/AcceptableCockroach]

Still don't get who at the GF got the idea of made a "bulky" slow pokemon like Emboar and give him such an horrible defensive typing.

[u/ItchyPlatypus]

Summary of what I think this video will be about:

Gen 3-4: Meh

Gen 5 onwards: Terrifyingly OP

Doubles: Meh it has a niche.

[u/[deleted]]

Blaziken is much more manageable in Doubles as there's speed control such as Tailwind, Trick Room and formerly Thunder Wave preventing it from running too wild there, even in Doubles UU. Additionally, Protect being near omnipresent means that High Jump Kick is a risky option, so it usually uses Superpower or Low Kick instead.

So yeah, Speed Boost Blaziken clearly isn't for single format in mind. But if there's one last thing I want to talk about, Mega Blaziken is now a better pick over its regular counterpart in Gen 7 ubers thanks to the speed order changes done to Mega Evolution. It would now uses 100 speed upon mega evolving rather than relying on 80 speed before.

[u/mada100letsplays]

Best starter of all time!