How GOOD was Palkia ACTUALLY? - History of Palkia in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 4-7)

now to no one's surprise following Dialga we have Palkia the master of space has been a fan favorite since it debuted as the mascot of Pokemon pearl and it was everywhere in 4th gen it played a pivotal role in the game's climax as well as pokemon platinum it was on the art of pokémon battle revolution and it had a role as a boss in pokemon mystery dungeon 2 though sadly wasn't primal like its counterpart dialga they also appeared in a few Pokemon movies of course usually with the other dragons anyways today we'll examine if Paul Kiev ripped through the competitive Pokemon continuum like it did space and dimensions and thus we asked how good was Paul Kia actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats the first thing that stands out about Palkia are it's astounding offensive capabilities starting with its stats then moving on to its stabs water and Dragon together which are only resisted by Empoleon and shedinja the former not being used in ubers and the latter being niche as well as destroyed by fire blasts Tokyo could even use the lustrous orb to boost the stabs further and of course its water moves were also further boosted by the ever-present Kyogre strain and speaking of ogre the second thing that stands out about Palkia is its quadruple water resistance this gives it the distinction of being one of the few Pokemon able to withstand to fully power drain boosted water spouts from choice specs Kyogre this was an important role to have on a team and Palkia often found itself on the sixth lot of teams in order to cover the whole especially as it made for a fine revenge killer with a choice scarf set which mode threw offense and didn't mind either of uber zazz two main weather's as it could switch from hydro pump and thunder to fire blasts depending on which weather was up the scarf set wasn't much of a wall breaker though and it was a wall breaker that Palkia truly got to show its strength it generally used the set of spatial rend hydro pump fire blasts and thunder to rip through the opposition's defenses when unencumbered by the restrictions of a choice item almost nothing was safe regardless of whether the two exceptions being lugia in the Sun and Blissey the former was not only rudder reliant and stealth rock weak but also overall path enough to be abused by pokies teammates and for the latter Palkia also had a solid base 120 attack stat and could switch hydropump for aqua tail with boost from rain and lustrous orb even Blissey got absolutely slammed one thing that set Palkia apart from other wall breakers and ubers was it's rather unique 100 base speed this allowed it to slice through other offence as well Uber's is known for its crowded base 90 tier with grout on Kyogre dialga and Giratina origin all hanging out there and one of Rayquaza distinct advantages is that against the jump on them with its base 95 Palkia beats the 90s in addition to Ray his in conjunction with its Kyogre stopping abilities meant it could shred through defensive teams while maintaining effectiveness against offense which was a rare quality this great offense matchup extended to potential difficulties revenge killing it it was a dragon-type not weak to ice which was notable against Mewtwo and scar Kyogre and if Palkia chose to run the hub on Barry it would cover its only weakness allowing it to take various dragon attacks like dragon pulses from the laddies outrageous from Garchomp Draco meteors from Dialga and Giratina origin and of course spatial rents from opposing pulchio pokeo of course had other sets like choice specs as the shear strength was simply stunning with rain Hydra probe to hit Kaling Blissey and it also made an excellent trick rumor alongside dialga but it was mostly known for either using scarf speed to hold its team together or ditching it for freedom on its for attacks to rip the other team apart countering Kyogre offense with vicious offence of its own was Paul Kia's trademark and it did incredibly well in Gen 4 ubers then in VGC 2010 one could bring up to four restricted Pokemon on a team with two brought to battle and Paul Keough was often one of them Palkia had a fantastic set of attributes it destroyed Kyogre it packed trick room it wasn't weak to ice just like Dialga and could run fire moves for obama snow and unlike Dialga it wasn't weak to earthquake and close combat it only had one weakness and dragon wish it could and often did patch with a bond berry and with its great bulk it was quite tough to immediately bring down from what little document of Gen 4 VGC exists Palkia was quite popular appearing in a lot of notable matches throughout the season and of course at Worlds it was used three times in the top eight including Ryan chambers who reached 8th Allen chambers who reached 7th and Yasuhito GE who took the runner-up spot so as you can see Paul Keough was a great pokemon in the meta game and as such saw usage on the biggest stage the introduction of generation 5 saw quite a change in surrounding most notably Arceus forums and Ferrothorn among quite a few others what didn't change was pokeo its scarfin wallbreakers sets return functioning the same way they did in the generation prior on both Sun and rain teams however this time around Paul Kia's wall breaker set rose to greater prominence within the metagame to the extent that a common complaint was that it was uncountable for the otherwise strong defensive teams that made up most of the meta Evo Lite Chauncey was bulky enough to withstand even aqua tails boosted by the lustrous orb and rain but Chauncey just got completely destroyed by the ever-present Ferrothorn meaning it wasn't that common nor was it too threatening on the few occasions it did show up of course Palkia still tore offense apart with new base 90 victims in Reshiram and Zekrom but it specialized in absolutely slaughtering defense of course rain or shine Arceus forms were fighting against other pokemons trickle meteors but they did not enjoy hydro pump in the rain and Arceus grass in the Sun got blowtorch by fire blast not to mention that even in rain Arceus grass wouldn't appreciate thunder paralysis for later in the game and was forced to recover if hazards were up allowing one of polkas teammates to switch in for free black and white to brought some interesting changes genesect became the most common scar fur which scarf Palkia enjoyed as it got the jump on it while breaker Palkia became even better against offense with the addition of the base 95 speed karim white who contributed to the rise of Archaea steel especially the fence of Kyogre to pokemon uh Turley shredded by paulk its horde defense up harder than ever by using dragon tail and in conjunction what has a support it easily weakened Arceus forms to the point of not being able to switch in allowing Palkia to claim a kill before potentially repeating the process again this also harassed Chauncey even more as well as lugia and ho-oh in the Sun Arceus couldn't set up calm Minds in front of it either Palkia even sometimes you sleep talk to really dominate offense taking away one of their best weapons in dark rise Dark Void Palkia ended the generation by almost never running scarf anymore it was simply too threatening to office and stall alike went unrestricted by choice any top Gen 5 uber player knows that it is probably the most dangerous pokemon in the entire tier and that's considering all 17 Arceus forms now I'm to Gen 6 the issue jennife Aries was a huge blow to pokeo as they stopped its dragon onslaught and threatened it hard in return also rain was no longer permanent so it couldn't threaten them with vicious hydro pumps however the sole dual @e twins weren't released and specs Kyogre was dominating the tier so Palkia still saw quite a lot of use adopting a specially defensive set that could also handle yveltal and mega Mewtwo y quite well it ran toxic to punish defensive defog Arceus and thunder way to ensure that xerneas couldn't use it as setup fodder while generally being difficult to ko Palkia had an important place in the meta game but then omega ruby and alpha sapphire came around and the power creep got worse Rowden was now a Kyogre counter the sole dual adi twins were released and they could deal with primal Groudon as well as chrono Kyogre while not being affected by klefki spikes suddenly Palkia had major competition in its Kyogre countering nish and the competition was better in that role while also giving Palkia a hard time in response to primal Groudon primal Kyogre even started using physical sets with earthquake off its new base 150 attack something Palkia absolutely could not handle more than once on top of that mega salamence raised the general speed and power level even higher and Palkia struggled to keep up with teams full of threats it couldn't handle like xerneas Mega Man's primal Groudon the ladee twins and many more sadly Palkia was no longer fast strong or bulky enough to have a real niche and it faded from meaningful use in the meta game in VGC 2016 the year of the unrestricted pokemon Palkia was unfortunately not that good while it did handle primal Kyogre decently it got utterly dumpster by xerneas primal Groudon smacked it and blocked his hydro problems with desolate land and mega rayquaza bowled over it as did other fast strong unrestricted pokemon like mega salamence and mega Gengar it was immensely difficult to justify slot for Palkia especially given how unbelievably strong and effective his restricted competition was it saw a few spots of usage but only a few these trainers who so bravely use polka in 2016 and i apologize if i butcher any of your names we're Vishal who reached 4th at the Singapore regionals William Basilio who reached 6 at the pregancy old regionals Ivan yepez who reached 7 at the Columbia regionals Zi Zhang who reached 6 at the Taiwan regionals and SB who reached 27 at the South Korean nationals this lack of usage reflected polkas lack of viability in the metagame and it's just weird how so many powerful Pokemon with high base stat total can be borderline unusable sometimes but that's just the game we play now on to Gen 7 Palkia received some hype at the start of generation 7 since it had the move heel block which when powered up by psyche MZ would not only prevent the opponent from healing but also double Palkia special attack this seemed like a superb stall braking tactic but it failed to make much of an impact on the meta game as a whole it didn't have much of a defensive niche outside of countering Kyogre which was done better by other pokemon and its ability to log Rick wasn't anything special then in ultra Sun and Moon the krasna dusk main became a big part of the meta game and Palkia steel resistance began to pay dividends as it was one of the few pokemon that could absorb sun steel strike and breakthrough it as well as not being stopped by sell a steel ax and this basically meant that it finally had something else to do besides check primal Kyogre and what these returns it could potentially blow some notable holes in the opponent's team because it wasn't that easy the wall it became quite the stall breaker when that style of play rose in popularity which stealth rock up lugia 's multiscale wouldnt be active and lugia would struggle to switch in while Palkia would absolutely destroy Blissey with a life orb focus punch also being weak to xerneas wasn't as big a deal anymore with primal Groudon and dust main reliably anchoring Palkia steam + xerneas didn't want to switch into a life orb hydro pump and a primal Groudon looking to soak one up would be crushed by spacial rim Palkia was more relegated to wall breaking duty though it could no longer mow through offense like nobody's business anymore with fiends like marshall and na ganado running around as such it wasn't as dominant against much of the meta game as one would prefer from what consistent pokemon and thus it was a niche pick however it did once again have Anish and was used by several strong trainers who made use of its underrated unique set of talents to get an edge over their opponents top was making the meta game even more Fairy focused meant Palkia was even worse than before taboo bulu and taboo fini completely walled both its tabs as they all hit Palkia incredibly hard and top Afeni even weakened the power of pokey espatial rent with misty terrain also journey is still existed and Palkia had a ton of competition as a restricted pokemon it usually didn't offer enough to a team to justify it on the bright side though utterly crushed the incredibly common in center our and Paul Kia's powerful fire moves roasted the multitude of grass types in the tier which allowed it to fire off powerful hydro pumps sometimes boosted by rain with a life orb attached it hit a lot of the metagame incredibly hard however this bright side was quite dim when compared to its seemingly endless downsides ferries were just too strong and as a result it's only notable usage in the Sun series was Louise gali Ana's second place at the merida mexico regionals well done to Louise for making pokey work but it still wasn't as good as the other Pokemon but then in the moon series it got the opportunity to upgrade hydro pump into hydro vortex with water e MZ which allowed it to legitimately threaten xerneas which was utterly huge Kaling some Groudon even in the Sun was nothing to sneeze at either however its other issues remained and they were still plentiful but in the moon series we found a lot more information on it in general so we can surmise that it at least got better from the Sun series but as a result of its issues it was only used twice to reach fifth by Benji Wang at Brampton Canada regionals and Gabriel Cedeno to reach third at the Q dad Panama regionals again well done to them but Palkia was still kind of bad and its lack of usage proved it then in the ultra series what little semblance of an itch Palkia had completely disappeared from the metagame primal Groudon was overwhelming both itself and it's an ability to more easily support xerneas who was now more dangerous than ever Ultra and the Cosmo udderly decimated it and Palkia had to compete with both primal Kyogre and mega rayquaza for the water and dragon spots on the teams both Pokemon as well as mega salamence as another dragon were far better than pokeo overall and primal Kyogre paired well with mega Rayquaza so the water and Dragons flat was both covered so much like the previous years again it was hard to justify restricted slots of pokeo and as a result we did not find any notable usage in the ultra series yet and that's it so how good was Paul Kia actually well in his first two generations it was loud it as both a counter to King Kyogre and as a fierce offensive weapon that utterly dismantled stall while using its unusually high speed by uber standards to run over offence the arrival of fairies in the subsequent generation was a huge blow as was the vicious power creep and the loss of the permanent whether it abused so well as a result its viability plunged though it did see a slight resurgence in the latter half of generation 7 VGC told a similar story though it redeemed itself less Sun and Moon then it did in singles overall Palkia was an amazing example of how fairies and power creep changed the game going from utterly dominant to having its viability slashed quite quickly however for the trainer with their wits about them Palkia has got the tools to make anyone regret sleeping on it thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to fall swag gaming from our weekly Pokemon content and for the comments I want to know what do you think about competitive polka how would you make it better are you as surprised as I am that it's not as viable as dialga overall because I sure was whatever it is let me know in the comments and thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of the videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well and follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music]

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 653,190

Keywords: Pokemon Pearl, Palkia, Diamond, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Ultra Sun, Ultra Mon, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, dialga, giratina, pearl, palkia, platinum

Id: Rc0j-kmlgCc

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 11 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Zero_Millennium]

Finally the pink space lizard gets to shine.