How GOOD was Garchomp ACTUALLY? - History of Garchomp in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 4-6)

[Music] oh man i guess since we had our first gen 3 pokemon last episode with the patron pick you guys just had to vote in the comments for our first solo gen 4 pokemon huh although it feels weird to me that we're doing a solo gen 4 pokemon before we've even done the gen 2 or 3 starters and legendaries i mean hey you guys voted for it so i just make the vids and what a pokemon it is this week's episode will focus on the landshark pokemon garchomp oh boy i'm sure you guys have heard us mention this beast before and that's for good reason listen cynthia knew what she was doing when she had this as her strongest pokemon that's champion level material i remember struggling against this thing as a preteen because i didn't bring any ice attacks and i wasn't quite aware that the stats in the game actually mattered yet anyways we've got a lot to talk about so let's get right into it how good was guard chomp actually and as always this video will start with these competitive formats as always let's start out with the stats you already know gartrop is in that special tier of pseudo legendary pokemon meaning it's a three stager with a 600 base stat total and boy are those stats good in fact garchomp stats are incredibly similar to another pseudo legendary salamance both having devastatingly high attack stats and extremely good speeds though guard trump sacrifices a bit of firepower for just a tiny extra horsepower while solomons has a respectable special attacking stat as well gartron garners just a bit more bulk especially notable in the defense department gartron's typing is also one of its biggest benefits bear in mind that in pre-fairy days the only thing that resisted dragon types was steel types but what's gartrom's other typing ground of course meaning many steel types couldn't even stand up to garchomp and then those that could resist its dual stab assault or had enough defense to withstand fell victim to its move pool with firefang garchomp aid of any possible roadblocks on its path to destruction made all the more powerful by its access to sword stance after a single storzdance boost garchom was capable of two hit killing every single pokemon in the game let that sink in that's going to be important very important as if that wasn't enough gartrom had access to sandville simply the presence of a hepaldon or tyranitar both incredibly common gave gartrop an extra 20 percent evasion so even any would-be counters could just get unlucky and lose now remember that stat about garchomp 2 killing every pokemon here's the kicker many pseudo legendaries were balanced by their 4 times weakness to 1 typing and guard chomp is no different as with many of its fellow dragon pseudo legendaries it had a 4 times weakness to ice but with the yachts berry only one pokemon in the entire game could out speed it and one hit koi a choice banded jolly weevil since the definition of a counter in pokemon is something that can switch in take a hit and then beat the other pokemon garcho quite literally had no overused counters weavile got absolutely demolished by any attacks and other potential quote unquote counters starmie gengar and diox's speed all failed to one hit kale garchomp if it had a yacht berry also outrage would still kill them it was just earthquake they could survive if predicted properly garchomp would almost always get the setup and once it's set up nothing could win the 1v1 that's where those extra defenses made such a big difference this sword dance set was inarguably the most common and powerful set in overuse i'm going to spoil things a little bit but gartron actually got banned to ubers because of this set beating it required multiple pokemon 100 of the time frequently one to bait out the yachts berry and then another to kill chomp after it was locked into outrage if saved for the mid game with some of its checks were gone gartron would frequently auto win the game end game scenarios frequently came down to chomp vs chomp and then it was just who was lucky with a speed tie or a sandville dodge because of all these things gartron was deemed too powerful for overuse and it even thrived in ubers where sandville and its great matchups against the many dragon types and ubers gave it a birth as a potential sweeper and we're not done talking about gen 4 guard chomp yet though because as strong as the swordsman set was guard shot was too good to be running only one set many of these sets transfer over to ubers but we'll talk about the overused versions first the most notorious set outside swordsass was garchomp's substitute said the quote-unquote uncountable nature of garchomp meant it would very frequently get the setup with substitute swords dance and his choice of two attacks gartrop could rely on sandville to get a really devastating layer of boost up one miss for the opponent meant a ridiculous behemoth was staring you down so blackberry boosted it to choice scarf levels making its sweep pretty much unstoppable while bright powder increased the chances of taking out something in the opponent's plan to stop you or an additional boost if the substitute was kept up not even priority moves would foil this garchomp this set usually ran dragon claw also has to not potentially screw over its setup by being locked into outrage it was liable to be walled by skarmy or bronzong if running earthquake so firefangs sometimes filled the last spot this set for gold prediction for guaranteed boosts if waiting for setup wasn't your thing choice band gave garchom immediate killing power dragon claw outrage earthquake firefang and stone edge gave garchomp coverage on the entire metagame as other choice items choice scarf garchomp was obviously one of the best revenge killers in the game utilizing those same moves but with firefang frequently subbed out for its more threatening blast version finally the notorious chain chomp if you're watching our tyranitar video you'll remember that tyrande ball was a special attacking lure set designed to eliminate potential common switching enter special attacking guard trunk 80 base special attack wasn't much to work with but draco meteor was the reason the set worked this guard chomp typically was sword's dance against something that didn't threaten it not giving away the fact that meteors were about to rain down on the opponent because it didn't show its lower attacking powers then on the switch boom draco meter boosted by a life orb with earthquake and fire blast this guard chomp could also handle steel types and blissey if it switched in so what counters were there like i said not any by the actual definition of counter certain pokemon did a better job at beating it with prediction though suicune and slowbro have the bulk and attacking power to switch in and potentially heavily damage chong even one hit koiing it if it didn't have yachtsberry the aforementioned wii vile starman gengar could do okay but weren't true counters really it was yachtsbury and the fact that sandstorm would almost always be up that made chomp so strong pokemon that could switch into it like cursely or celebi couldn't kill it and took damage from sandstorm outrage was just such a devastatingly powerful move that it virtually eliminated other pokemon's chances to do anything frequently the plan was just to lock chump in the outrage and then send in your revenge killer but if you're dealing with a different set that could even fail like we vow losing to the scarf set all in all gartron was one of the best pokemon in the game and certainly an overused in gen 4 it's banned to ubers marked a huge shift at smogen as it was the only second non-legendary pokemon to ever be banned after wobba fed and wobba fett was a different type of pokemon but with shadow tag in his counter move gartrom changed competitive pokemon definitively all that pokemon transferred over quite nicely into vgc where gartron could play extremely straightforward and rely on its power and great ability to carry it through although there wasn't much room for sword stance setup a 130 attack stab earthquake is something any team needed to fear paired with zapdos for the famous disc quake combo gartron became one of the staples of the vgc 2009 meta game dragon club was always run over outrage because he can't choose outraged target and doubles and past that guard shot had protect rockslide and crunch or even its own sandstorm to choose from it saw a lot of success winning phoenix regionals under makari and taking the dallas regionals on the team of alaka and by the time worlds rolled around reign would have become the dominant playstyle in fact making up three of the top four teams but don't get us wrong gartron was a big part of the 2009 meta game although it didn't fare as well in 2010 where the ubers that dominated the game outclassed it without setup it really couldn't contend gartrom actually spent a good deal of gen 5 banned from overuse but it was mostly because of one thing sandville that massive 20 evasion boost enabled garchomp to potentially straight up beat counters and checks if the opponent was unlucky and given what rampant destruction guard shot could enact if there were no counters that could end the game but in october 2012 something huge happened guard trump got a new ability rough skin from dreamworld the smoking council unbanned gartra from ubers but banned sandvale and snowcloak the hale version of the ability under the new evasion clause from that moment gartron was once again allowed to run in overuse the metagame had changed in its absence but it was still a powerful threat that signature yacht swords dance set was still terrifying and much the same incarnation with the only differences being a shift to fireblast or aquatale instead of firefame likewise sub select made a very strong threat all but guaranteed only vulnerable to revenge killers and skarmory and bronzong likewise choice sets whether scarfed or banded fulfilled the same roles as a great revenge killer and immediate kaiju level threat but garchar's 102 base speed previously incredible was now just above average kelviel tarakion ladies and more were new additions to the overused metagame that outsped garcha ladios and ladies were the most noteworthy new members of overuse their ability to run past guard chop and one hit ko with a draco meter was a primary reason that it wasn't as dominant it was also why the yachts very set wasn't the most common chomp around anymore it finally had things that could beat it instead garsham actually fell into using a move distinctly opposed to its nature as fast as strong sweeper stealth rock with a good bulk and immediately offensive threat gartrop made usual stealth rock counters extremely afraid to switch in zatu and espeon dared not to come in on garchomp making the rocks all but guaranteed from their outrageous earthquake still formed the potent core they always had and fireblast could handle those pesky skarmories and bronzongs for offensive teams looking for a stealth rock support garchon fit the raw arguably better than anything outside of landorus therian and it could still even source dance in this role to become the same powerhouse as always has been although it meant forsaking some coverage stealthrock also made appearances in garchon's mix set which never really had much use of swords dance anyways and in a new tank set the tank seems antithetical to garchomp rough skin and rocky helmet let it rack up a ton of residual damage and with dragon tail stealth rock and toxic it could potentially force the opponent into a hellish situation 30 percent damage to physical attackers every time they hit overall garchomp didn't change that much the biggest changes were the addition of stealth rock and the potential appearance of dual trap to break sashes or sucks it was still a nigh uncountable pokemon because of its sheer strength and versatility but there were significantly more things capable of checking and revenge killing it as always skarmy and bronzong did good provided they avoided fireblast steel types like heatran jarashi sizzle or ferrothorn and fortress would win out if they locked garchomp into outrage but lost outright to his other moves landorus t and gliscor avoided super-effective damage but still had to be wary of the new raw power behind outrage although landers tease intimidate and defenses did let it do well against gartron's it was those that could outspeed and kill it that were the best solution aladio's coming in on a predicted earthquake would swiftly end garchon's hopes and could beat its scarf sets with their own other scarf dragons like hydraegon salamence and cure in black were the most powerful revenge killers bypassing yachtsbury which stimmed potential ice shard users like manuswan status was one of the strongest guard chomp stoppers as paralysis are burned from the likes of road and washburn not good for its sweeping chances all in all each set had solutions but gartron was the same monstrous landshark it always had been just with a good amount of less hacks involved partnered with another dragon or magna zone to remove his checks it was fully capable of routing teams on its own it even still made appearances in ubers after it moved down their overuse because of how good it was there while gartron couldn't compete in vgc 2011 because it was unova decks only it most certainly made its mark in vgc 2012 in fact it won a world championship under the best to ever do it ray rizzle who won his third worlds using guard shop race gartra was actually a little bit different from the norm he used a bond berry and a high special defense to resist graco meteor spam from some of the most popular pokemon in the meta ladies and hey dragon the move set however was standard after surviving a draco dragon clock could one hit ko back and substitute make guard shot potentially game ending as it could cause mass damage with earthquake protect was a vgc staple paired with hydrega on the two ring destruction on the enemy team with their spread moves a more standard gartron was seen on 8th placer jinpe yamamoto who ran the commonplace max attack and speed evies along with rockslide but with focus sash instead of yachtsbury or dragongen but fifth placer sagen park who has a history of innovating used rough-skinned lifeform guardshop of all things for his high placing this speaks to the variety gartrom could use in its many different sets one of the hallmarks of its iteration in 2013 it only had one top eight appearance at world seven on the team of lebrox in fact that was gartron's only top 48 appearance this was due to the fact of the advent of landorus therian who pretty much provided everything gartron did fast strong earthquakes and bulk while also bringing intimidate two pretty big obvious changes we needed to talk about on gen 6 are fairy type and gartron's mega evolution fairy typing actually wasn't as bad for gartrop as one might think while fairy types of course made great counters to guard chomp the fact that fairy is completely immune to dragon meant that a fairy type switching in fact didn't lock guard chime into outrage like a steel type would and guard trump's earthquake could still eliminate weakened fairies or mess them up big time with proper prediction this was a huge change for sure one we'll talk about more in the counter section but as far as move sets went it mostly meant that gartron didn't run yachbery anymore as for the mega evolution garchomp's attack went to positively astounding levels once mega evolved and the additional 20 defense and 10th special defense didn't hurt either in sand that earthquake was absolutely monstrous thanks to sanford but all that paled in comparison to the loss of 10 points in speed 10 speed that let garchome outrun a huge amount of base 100 threats like salamance both mega charizards mega gardevar and mega metachan swordstead's mega gartron was an overkill pokemon that was used mostly to break through defensive teams in other situations rough skin was more valuable and that speed certainly made the difference it's a good sign of restraint on gamefreak's side that they didn't give gartron more tools throughout the generation the only real changes to sets were the ubiquity of life orb on swords dance variants now that yachtsbury has been phased out other than that it was business as usual source sense earthquake outrage and some fire and rock type coverage moves and as always that was enough to make garchomp a top tier threat with a new generation came a few new counters though on the side of things that could outspeed mega manetrick mega deontay and ice punch mega metagross could all stop non-choice variants in their tracks and mega metagross even beat the scarf ones due to its bulk mega sizor and mega slobo took on roles on the defensive counter side though they had to be wary of an already boosted gartron or in scissors case that pesky fireblast the biggest counters were the aforementioned fairy types specifically azumarill clefable sylveon and mega alteria however even those could lose subversion that always had a boost up that is except for unaware clefable who was well unaware of the monstrous attacking side it was facing down azure was noteworthy for its ability to tank an earthquake and then retaliate with a play rough to take out gartron but perhaps the best fairy type counter was togekiss who utterly walled any guard shot without rock type coverage taking on a very tight version of the role skarmy and bronzong played but by this point i think you guys understand regular gartron was still great overused 100 luckily for gartron it was native to the kalos decks meaning vgc 2014 which was called stacks only eliminated its genie competition while it still had a large number of checks and counters like scarf mega gardevar salamance and heidregan to worry about gartrop made sure everyone knew it was one of the top dogs or land sharks again with its combination of earthquake and rock style for spread moves and the always reliable dragon cloth that hit opposing dragons its main change was that it usually ran rough skin now as tyrannosaur was a bit less prevalent gartron was used on both final teams of worlds 2014. that includes the team of winner sage and park who if you'll remember used the pachirisu that shocked the world to win the trophy in fact it was pachirisu and garchomp who formed the winning duel as pachi recently enabled garchomp to wreak havoc without the fear of getting knocked out by opposing draco meters how's that for an unlikely couple but gartron was not nearly as surprising as pachirisu in fact six of the top eight teams at worlds that year used garchomp and finals in every division junior to masters had a garchomp on both sides in fact garchon was the most used pokemon at worlds with 29 of the top 60 players packing it only one mega though gartron also was on the teams of the winners of the uk nationals german nationals third at u.s nationals you get the picture an amazing year for garchon perhaps one of the biggest reasons it did so well was that it outspent mega kangaskhan who was banned from singles but a dominant force in vgc take that mega kang gartrop doesn't even need a mega evolution to beat you but to be fair you lose speed when you make it evolve and that's it so how good was gartrom actually in a word amazing very few non-legendary pokemon can claim to have been overused every gen since release although to be fair gar chomp started at 4 but but yeah guard trap is one of the only pokemon that was even higher than overused at some point there are very few pokemon that could be argued to have been game defining as garchomp although i could think of a few in gen 3. one of the first non-legendaries to be banned one of the reasons for the implementation of invasion clause winner of multiple vgc champions being used a lot having really high uses in bgc 2017 to either team with or take out topo coco it was even runner-up last year and this gets even more dramatic when you realize that the version of guardrain overuse is the one without its best ability with sandvale with sandville it's disgusting and unlike some pokemon who were banned to ubers and then faltered there gartrop could even run with the best pokemon in the game gartromp is bar none one of the best pokemon ever released in the game and certainly one of the best non-legendaries a fitting choice for our first ever gen 4 pokemon thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to all of you as well as always if you liked the video want to see more be sure to subscribe to falsewide gaming for weekly pokemon content and of course as i always say comment on what pokemon you want to see next follow my crew on these social media platforms that's all i got see you next week everyone [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 2,192,491

Keywords: Garchomp, Pokemon, Cynthia, Cynthia's Garchomp, Mega Garchomp, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Sun, Pokemon Moon, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Gible, Gabite, Pokken Tournament, Smogon, VGC, Competitive Pokemon, False Swipe Gaming

Id: thhNPdyOqOo

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Much longer than normal videos so here's a TL;DR

Busted in Gen 4 and Gen 5 originally (Gen 5 was because of Sand Veil), not as busted but still amazing in Gen 6.

[u/MrSunga]

When an AI wrecks you in the main game (Cynthia), you know this land shark will literally eat you alive in competitive when you don't see it coming.

[u/OceanGale]

You know this thing's incredible when 3 generations covered 17 minutes of content.

[u/FakeTakiInoue]

The first non-legendary Pokémon Smogon ever banned to Ubers because it was too good (as opposed to Wobbuffet, who was banned because only its ability was too good). It's also the only Pokémon that's outright better than its own Mega, and not just because it has a free item slot.

Garchomp is a beast, even if Landorus ^FUCKING Therian has robbed it of most of its viability.

[u/[deleted]]

Garchomp walks into a 4th gen bar.

There was no counter.

[u/SatansRightHandChan]

Hes a land shark dragon that can fly at mach speeds.

[u/Scrubswarm]

going into the video I knew garchomp was going to be the destroyer of worlds and all it did was reinforce my beliefs

[u/6poon_slayer9]

Damn I didn't realize it was such a fucking monster

[u/mvrkd]

And this is why Garchomp will always be my favorite of all time.