How GOOD was Krookodile ACTUALLY? - History of Krookodile in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 5-7)

[Music] next up we have crocodile this sunglasses wearing crocodile is known for its shady dealings out in the back alleys of Castel iya city and has been in the waste management business since gen-5 today we're going to examine if it's underworld success translated to the competitive scene and so we ask how good was crocodile actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats oh you was beyond crocodiles reach in its debut generation well it was a perfectly decent pokemon in its own right with its typing stats and loophole as well as an excellent ability it just didn't match up well against the behemoths of oh you all the rain and Dragons and fighters overwhelmed it easily as did Ferrothorn and opposing ground-type who also performed its defensive role better it does drop to you you and there it was able to find legitimate use with choice scarf as it had one of the best abilities for such a set Moxie which boosted its attack upon one of the opposing Pokemon fainting allowing krookodile to clean up weakened teams with ease it also had the universally excellent weapons of stab pursuit and earthquake and tact resilience thanks to its stealth rock resistance however it didn't become a tear staple again it just didn't match up well against the metagame whose teams were generally too bulky and too full of fighting types for crook to reliably threaten them it also couldn't really run any non scarf set either in a bid for more power as that would decrease its usefulness even more being outrun and overwhelmed by common offensive staples that it could normally check with scarf such as Mew and raikou heracross was generally preferred as a Moxie choice scarf user thanks to its stronger attacks that and higher powered stab combination there's an argument to be made that crocodile was somewhat overlooked though for example a supporting stealth rock set that made use of intimidate and taunt almost surely would have been solid especially after the hail ban however with the scarf set it was most known to run it was generally outclassed but unfortunately we're gonna never drop to ru where it undoubtedly would have been a top tier Pokemon though it possibly would have been too good so who knows overall krookodile debut generation of singles was initially promising but overall marred by its flaws while it was Moxie that defined krookodile in its debut two singles it was its other ability one benefiting its title as the intimidation Pokemon that gave it relevance to VGC krookodile was one of only two Gen 5 Pokemon in all of black and white to receive intimidate with the other one being Scotland scraf teased hidden ability wasn't released yet krookodile is obviously miles ahead of Scotland in nearly every regard except for bulk and it's grounded dark typing's were incredibly useful for the 2011 meta stab earthquake is obviously a huge threat if paired with a pokémon that can dodge it and crunch was invaluable against the myriad ghosts and psychic types that could pop up in the format such a Chandelure Jellison and got to tell corker now provided incredible role compression with the combination of a rock resist stab earthquake and crunch and intimidate krookodile was especially potent when paired with tornadoes and thunderous the genies were incredible Pokemon in their own right obviously but they also easily hovered over crocodiles earthquake tornado says prankster tale 1 was an especially good move for krookodile considering crocodiles good but not great speed tier and thunderous could pull off the good old dis quick combo for idols of spread damage krookodile also had the distinct niche of being one of two Pokemon to carry betta the other being whimsicott beat up unjustified choice scarfed Iraqi on saw play early on in the season but it was whimsicott that was used for its speed to boost Iraqi until unreal level it was VGC veteran Eren trailer who realized crocodiles potential for the combo though he wasn't a veteran at the time Aaron used the pairing at his first ever tournament San Jose Regional seniors taking advantage of the surprise factors potency in the best of one format to bring home the gold in the beginning to an illustrious VGC career then crooked owls biggest success came at Worlds where it had three placings in the top eight Daniel Nolan finished fifth while the Italian duel of france escapar Dini and Matteo genie brought a team with scrappy and Ravelry Haxorus as well as a whopping three Pokemon that could dodge crocodiles earthquake tornadoes thunderous and Electra's matteo and francesco made the interesting call to opt for a thunder boat over discharge knowing that the bulk of their team didn't care about earthquake but that if crooked out died the potential damage and of discharge on their own Pokemon could make a difference and opponents would likely fear the discharge anyways when they saw krookodile this strategy paid off with Francesco finishing 7th and Leitao making it all the way to the finals before falling to Rey Rizal in his second consecutive championship so not bad for crocodile's debut unfortunately 2011 is where krookodile gen5 greatness ground to a halt the expansion to the national dex in 2012 reintroduced a bevy of Pokemon that surpassed it in its roles came on top and Salomon's were better Intimidators Garchomp and gastro Don performed better as ground types and while crocodiles dark-type was nice especially with Cresselia in the mix it certainly wasn't enough to justify using it over Tyranitar or hi dragons as such krookodile saw next to no play in 2012 except for Lev Willy who won the Crestwood Missouri regionals but other than that regional win no other notable placements in 2012 were found or submitted however 2012 was nothing compared to 2013 for Crooked House prospects it was 2013 and black and white - that introduced the king of VGC and Kerr canals worst nemesis Landorus theory simply put there's almost zero reason to use crocodile over Landorus who brings crocodiles intimidate and ground typing with the addition of far more attack of fighting type resistance and a ground immunity sure Lando is four times weak to ice and has one less point in speed look do I really have to justify how good landers is to you guys you already know while crocodile didn't appreciate the six generations introduction and subsequent influx of ferry types at all it absolutely loved the knock off power buff as well as steel no longer resisting dark oh you was once more beyond at scope but it reached new heights in you you becoming a solid legitimate part of the meta game it had a multitude of top-tier sets as choice ban was nearly impossible to wall safely especially since knock off ensured nothing switching into it would have leftovers recovery or in gliders case it's precious Evo light krookodile had plenty of opportunity to wreak havoc thanks to its useful electric immunity bulk that let it take a hit or two and a good speed tier that got the jump on much of the meta game it was a defining meta game force and a consistent threat krookodile old choice scarf set also came back this time much improved by making use of the dark and knockoff bus to match up significantly better against the metagame than in the previous generation it was more easily able to target top threats such as heliolisk and mega Aerodactyl finally krookodile was an excellent stealth rock user that provided important team utility without easing up on offensive pressure in fact in some ways it pressured the opponent's defenses even more thanks to tot preventing the use of recovery moves as well as allowing krookodile to maintain its rocks by stuffing any attempts to de fog it still hit quite hard thanks to its great natural attack set as well as either dread plate or earth plate and was particularly irritating against the popular usually tough to break stall teams overall krookodile was an excellent pokemon in Gen 6 uu with several effective sets the choice banner in particular impacting the landscape of the tier and just about every battle it appeared in 2014's limited format freed krookodile from the tyranny of Landorus team and while the addition of fairy types wasn't great for krookodile it very much appreciated being able to hit steel types in neutrally however not all of its competition was gone Garchomp was still by far the more common ground type and it had even stiffer competition as an Intimidator in addition to salamence and the rare Gyarados mega Mawile prevalence meant that regular malwa could often serve as its team's Intimidator what this meant was that krookodile once more was mostly out of favour in the meta nevertheless a select few players saw success with krookodile ino Schumann's shakaar managed to take second at the virginia regionals using choice scarf krookodile on a rein team ino CH could use krookodile and talonflame as cleaners or as his leads using chestnuts taught to shut down defensive strategies and his rancor to soften up opponents his crocodile's mu set of rockslide earthquake crunch and stone edge is pretty much what you'd expect from scarf krookodile rock type attacks in particular were very important for handling talonflame and Charizard krookodile only saw two other notable placements in the season Japanese player aru placed top four at the beeboo offline battle road Gloria qualifier following in OSHA's lead with a scarf krookodile of his own finally while krookodile wasn't able to put up any particularly incredible results for the rest of the season Toby Mullins was able to make top six before at US Nationals using it on a team that fully invested in hitting hard and fast in the end however krookodile just couldn't cut it compared to the competition in 2014 2015 wasn't much better for krookodile either with only two players gave and crooked out any notable accomplishments to its name Josh Krieger finishing 10th at the Oregon regionals with you guessed it choice scarf krookodile Josh made use of all razzes new move tutors additions to trick his krookodile out with the upgrades of knockoff and super power keeping stone edge over rockslide the reason for this was actually complex crocodile was jolly trading power for the chance to outspeed its nemesis Landorus and remove the item from any potential scarf variant so hey I guess that one point of speed mattered in the end the only other player who used krookodile to any success was Ryota oats Abel whose name you might recognize more on that later Ryota absolutely loves krookodile and used his own krookodile rein team to place top four at the Japanese nationals the idea behind crocodile in rain is that its potency as a scarf user helps eliminate threats to the setup while it's ground typing is valuable in baiting out electric-types and working well with Zapdos one of reigns stalwarts we oughta took the exact same team the world's where he had a 25th place finish and was the only representative of krookodile at the tournament and of course I probably don't need to tell you that crocodile was bad in 2016 but it was too slow not strong enough and not good enough of an Intimidator you get the picture before we get into crooked owls generation 7 uu adventures because let's be real we knew it was going back there we must mention that it finally had a roll in oh you while normally outclassed by choice scarfed Tyranitar it was able to successfully out speed and pursuit trap mega Alakazam thus giving it genuine use as Mega Alakazam was an absolute terror this opened up new possibilities for balance and defensive teams now krookodile didn't become a dominating öyou force or anything but crooks stall as it was referred to was a legitimate tourney worthy style of the team as for the tier below you krookodile completed his journey and finally became one of the uu meta games best Pokemon off the strength of its scarf set which was better than ever because of how hard it dominated the dangerous newcomer latias even latias his ability to weaken knock off what the use of Z crystals didn't stop krookodile as it could simply slot crunch into its last moose and be prepared for every situation it could generally still get by without stone edge against mega Aerodactyl crunch was also crucial in maximizing crooks ability to deal with nasty plot variants of Celebi who came equipped with Z crystals as well scarf crocodile was generally a great Pokemon to have on any team because it naturally checked so much of the meta game in addition to the after mentioned Pokemon it provided its team with a great answer to many dangerous threats such as star me Gengar Nile eagle and Megaman metrics significantly contributing to a team's defensive integrity while helping out on offense thanks to the ever useful knock off and it's leftovers removal crippling even fairy-type walls like Sylvia and Togekiss and Prix Marina since it was more of a support Pokemon than a late-game sweeper it used intimidate as its ability which allowed it to provide some form of recourse against just about every physical attacker and even those it wasn't technically a check to itself such as fighting types Scizor and mimic you scarf crocodile was consistently incredibly useful on just about every kind of team imaginable and was one of you used best most defining Pokemon it shaped much of the tier it was the primary reason that Infernape and Lucario often ran vacuum wave as well as the sole reason latias occasionally ran adrenaline or scarf krookodile was a huge huge deal however krookodile was not solely beholdin to runnin scarf its stealth Roxette made a return this time with a few terrific tricks up its sleeves as always it's taut was a great aunt Ida fog weapon and alongside knockoff infuriated saltines however this time around krookodile was even better against offense thanks to some of the new items gen 7 had brought eeeh Papa Bear gave it terrific natural recovery letting it soak attacks with intimidate more consistently and often expanding the amount of utility krookodile brought to its team in addition to lighting a check pokemon like dual blade more safely yo papa bear was also highly useful in extended games where crocodile needed to set stealth rock up multiple times in the face of the opponents the fogger on the other hand it could become more of an offensive threat with ground dmz powering up its earthquakes into the terrifying tremors of tectonic rage which allowed it to blast through key unsuspecting targets and Cesare Kreme arena and Meg Agron it also allowed krookodile to safely absorb knock-offs such as those coming from opposing krookodile krookodile had other great options for the slot - leftovers was a consistent choice rocky helmet allowed it to rack up chip and even focus ash worked for superfast offense teams it spoke to its strengths as a pokemon that it could run so many items and run them all well overall krookodile was one of the best most meta game defining pokemon in Gen 7uu 2017 meant the return of another limited format a roll of the dice for crocodile's chances a tree emerging into VGC prominence of course the dice were slightly loaded the fact that dark types were no longer affected by prankster was a significant enough buff to be mentioned in the end though it was mostly due to circumstance that krookodile found itself in the spotlight once again while Garchomp was still out there giving it a run for its money as the format's best ground-type the absence of Landorus therian mega Mawile and hitmontop net krookodile was in the running as a viable Intimidator again however that doesn't mean it was the best Intimidator in the format that title went to Arcanine the only one of the viable Intimidators that packed a neat fairy-type resistance to handle all the top who's running around Salomon sand crocodile in fact both had to contend with a faery weakness while Gyarados is limited move pool and weakness the top of Coco held it back krookodile also absolutely hated seeing top abbulu who heavily nerfed its earthquake but krookodile was still worth using firstly for its excellent roll compression having a ground type to play around topo Coco was almost mandatory the prominence of celestina also meant it was frequently easy to fire off earthquakes with little worried about your side of the field if you wanted to avoid earthquake spread altogether many krookodile players outfitted it with a ground EMC allowing it to fire off a one time tectonic rage capable of decimating defensive opponents speaking of defensive opponents krookodile may have struggled to break through celestial ax but it also had access to time allowing it to sometimes shut down the wall what's more krookodile was worth using if you just wanted a second Intimidator on your team no one said you couldn't use both arcanine and krookodile as such krookodile actually saw quite a bit of use throughout the 2017 season enough that we're going to be limiting the spoken results here to only top two or two that significantly shook up the meta the first player to show the power of double intimidate with krookodile was Nico Davide cognitive who used both intimidate Pokemon to play second at the first ever European International Championship Nico actually used a focus sash krookodile ensuring he could keep it alive to intimidate another day paving the way for his psyche Neum Z taboo Lele to blow through the opponent's team in Singapore Nicola song used the same court for of arcanine topple a Laker canal and sell Estella to play second at the Singapore special event with Krueger doll being the baton pass recipient of the extreme evil boosted Eevee on his team krookodile would then use power trip after receiving +2 in all stats from the Evo boost Arcanine krookodile continued to see good success with Melvin Kay using it to weaken opponents for his circuitry and winning the Kuala Lumpur special event however it wasn't always necessary to pair krookodile with arcanine it was easily capable of being a team soul Intimidator that was proved by none other than the old crocodile advocate in no shekhar who placed second at the san jose regionals using crocodile alongside cortana to remove bulky water types in OSHA's ground EMG crocodile also carried snarl allowing it to be even more of a team supporter he knows rounded out his team with a trick room squad of a lowland Marowak porygon to top Afeni and iraq win it in Europe Rob Acker show also used the version of that team swapping out taboo Feeney for its electric counterpart to win the Dutch open variants of this team kept popping up as krookodile was great with marowak in particular as marowak dealt with South Stila removing crocodiles biggest obstacle to success leading up to Worlds Eevee teams also continued to see great success with manual Massaro placing second at the Treviso special event and these trainers on-screen placing very high with crocodile Eevee teams all of these teams added friend guard Clefairy into the mix which was able to help redirect damage and lessen damage done to Eevee and whatever pokemon had passed - well Krueger dolls biggest appearance came from a familiar name who had devoted himself to it already years ago Ryota Oats able the Japanese krookodile player took the crocodile all the way to a world championship reel to use a slightly bulky ground iam krookodile choosing taught over a rock-type move to handle opposing Stella Stella or trick room Ryota steam was full of great texts such as whimsicott pranksters zine nature power that switch type depending on whether he brought top Ruffini or cocoa and his marowak's brick brick vital in handling strategies like the unloadin ninetails circuitry he faced in finals we also had an incredibly dramatic path to the trophy going through a match that ran the full clock and had to go to time in the semi-finals and while krookodile didn't show up in the finals it was still a key piece of his journey there and while realto was able to return home with a world championship finally under his belt crocodiles work wasn't done yet crocodiles pulse world's career was surprisingly enough defined by its place on extreme evil boost teams well more accurately one extreme evil boost team displayed on screen placed very well piloted by Jeremy Rodriguez and so krookodile ended 2017 in glory a world championship and one of the stars of one of the most talked-about teams of the year of course all good things must come to an end and in crocodiles case those ends came from places to both old and new Landers returned to the format in 2018 putting heavy pressure on crocodiles Anish as a ground type Intimidator as if that wasn't enough in sinner or began its reign of terror as the format's best putting pressure on crocodiles other news as a dark-type Intimidator krookodile saw very limited usage throughout the season with its only footnotes being a sixth place at the peru special event credit of jose Benavides and travis boris 30th place at the NAIC with scarf stopping tantrum and 2019 wasn't much better no crocodile repeated the trend of having a few okay results JC overall used it to place third at the Korean League finals while Aaron Perez made top 64 at the NAIC using it as a double Intimidator alongside in center or is no surprise that krookodile left the limelight it's a Pokemon with many many good traits for VGC that also just happened to belong to many other Pokemon as well with krookodile not being included in the gallery decks it hasn't gotten a chance to exploit another limited format and with Landorus guaranteed to be returning it's unlikely it will but it can hold on to that shining moment in 2017 as the signature pokemon of the world champion so not a bad way to peek if you ask me and that's it so how good was krookodile actually well it's been a uu lifer well it was alright in black white it was elevated to one of the tiers best most defining Pokemon in the subsequent two generations making excellent use of the newly buffed naka it also finally managed to eke out a small niche in the seventh generation of oh you as for VGC it's been an abundant threat for the years where Landorus wasn't present at least and it's loads of notable placements during the regional dex ears are proof of that if and when it returns to generation 8 it will have unfortunately lost pursuit but knockoff is better than ever with the lack of Megas and z chrysalis to absorb it so krookodile will likely find solid use once more hopefully thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to fall swipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and in the comments I want to know what do you think about competitive krookodile how would you buff it what would you give it to have over Landers key besides one point of speed whatever it is let me know in the comments also thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well [Applause] and follow my career on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 562,538

Keywords: Pokemon, Krookodile, Sandile, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Omega Ruby, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming

Id: OzD8YvMVsqc

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020