The History of F.E.A.R. - Pokémon’s Oldest Cheese

there's an Infamous strategy in all of Pokemon that makes new players cower in fear they are left absolutely dumbfounded and who wouldn't after all how could their team of level 100 box art legendaries be destroyed by a level one Pokemon well to answer that we need to know the history of this strategy that is basically as old as modern competitive Pokemon why do new players cower in fear well in this video you'll find out that means I'm stupid [Music] in fact we have a head start because the name of this strategy is fear wait what what's fear and why would Rattata and later Aaron be the poster children for it as opposed to their evolutions well to explain what fear is we need to go back to Gen 4 for a second but before we start protect yourself from the scary level one Pokemon thanks to this video sponsor surf shark vtn surf shark is a virtual private Network app and browser extension that allows you to place your computer or phone virtually in any country as if you're actually there 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more content you can click the link in the description below or use my promo code false swipe and get surfsharkvpn for 83 off and three extra months for free in 2007 shortly after the North American release of diamond and pearl a YouTuber named Maryland shocked the world when his level one Rattata defeated a level 100 Napoleon how is this possible well the Rattata held a focus stash meaning it survived any one hit as long as it was at full HP Endeavor makes the target's HP the same as the users so long as the users is lower thus in this case it brought empoleon's HP down to one finally quick attack ensures even a level 1 Rattata will go first and even the weakest attack will do a minimum of 1 HP the notoriety of Rattata of all things being able to beat seemingly anything one-on-one perfectly epitomize the seemingly endless strategic possibilities competitive Pokemon offered that's where the name fear comes from it's an acronym that stands for evil Annoying rodents after Rattata the family-friendly version is focus sash Endeavor quick attack Rattata but it doesn't quite capture the same frustration of not being able to kale a level one Pokemon other Pokemon have gone on to utilize the fear strategy which are decidedly not rodents but the acronym has remained applicable to all of them in honor of the Pokemon which kick-started the whole craze the s's of the fear strategy whether it's Rattata Aaron or anything else it's to turn the fact that the user is one hit kailed by everything into a tool for grabbing chaos though Rattata brought the strategy to the competitive world's attention the truly defining method of using the strategy came in the form of hail and the clefable line's Magic Guard ability Magic Guard was an enormous advantage over Rattata as it ensured their sashes would not be broken by Stealth Rock or weather conditions the clefable line didn't pack priority but that's what the hell they were paired with was for to finish off the Pokemon they brought down to one HP by using all three of clefable Clefairy and cleffa they would score three Chaos on the opponent in this fashion in conjunction with an early explosion kale from a Pokemon like azov or Metagross this would weakened the opposing team to the point where another teammate like Machamp mamaswine Jirachi and scarf heat ran or what have you would clean up even the hail setting Obama snow was a solid end game Pokemon when generation 5 rolled around the fierce strategy took on a new dimension sturdy was buffed to act as a built-in Focus sash thereby freeing up the item slot sturdy was also superb because unlike Focus stash it could be used multiple times once sash was used it was gone even if the user managed to heal back up to full HP however sturdy would work over and over endlessly if the user managed to heal back to full here's where Aaron came in holding shell Bell as his item shell Bell heals its user base on the damage it does however it's generally a terrible item because the damage it heals isn't anywhere near enough to make its use worthwhile definitely not reliably anyway that is unless you have a level 1 Pokemon using Endeavor against a level 100 Pokemon thus a level 100 Pokemon would bring Aaron down to one HP Aaron would Endeavor the level 100 Pokemon and in doing so would recover all of its HP thus it'd be able to do this over and over of course Endeavor only brings the opponent down to one HP but just like the clefable line in Gen 4 or Aaron would use weather damage to finish off its targets at one HP this time it was Sandstorm eventually Aaron was replaced or sometimes even paired up with level 2 probopass level 2 instead of one since it needed to level up to evolve from nose pass which functioned perfectly the same except they used pain split instead of endeavor this allowed it to defeat ghost type's immune to Endeavor since pain split would also always bring a level 2 promo pass back to full HP the need for Shell Bell was erased and Provo pass could use leftovers which in conjunction would protect would negate Stealth Rock and thus ensure Provo pass could still execute his strategy even if its team couldn't keep rocks off this brand of fierce spam was a million times more irritating than that of generation 4. at least against the focus sashers you would take them down with you however in the right match-up Aaron and Provo pass were effectively unkillable you could throw an army of the strongest Pokemon around at them like Latios caldeo Thunder hysterian Volcarona Dragonite and yet you would never actually KO them you'd bring them down to one HP they'd Endeavor and KLU with sand while healing back up to full rinse and repeat until you found yourself not just losing a Pokemon but getting swept by a level 1 or level 2 Pokemon Beyond Aaron and Provo pass there was another brand of fear abuse in generation 5. this one more in the vein of the clefable line teams of generation 4. it was hail and Magic Guard abuse once again except this time the Magic Guard Pokemon were the reuniclist line Solosis and Duo Shin function just the same except they also set up trick room which made it even easier for its teammate to clean up at the end of the battle the universe was also particularly excellent in this role because it was itself a phenomenal trick room sweeper and thus gave the team more depth and threat potential overall sadly generation 5 was the last time fear was a household name Generation 6 removing permanent weather from the game was a cataclysmic death blow to the strategy and led to its complete disappearance of course there were many other Pokemon that could fit the bill for fear abuse in some way shape or form whether it was fear itself or setting up to enable fear somehow but these Pokemon such as sock Magnemite and cottony were generally less reliable which was not something you wanted considering how risky fear was to begin with fear did attempt to make a comeback in Generation 7 with toga to Mario as its sturdy Endeavor shell Bell tactics would be followed up with spiky Shield which both guarded it against physical attacks and did the finishing point of damage necessary against the target it had brought to one HP on the previous turn if it thought the opponent was wise to the possibility of spiky Shield it would finish him off with toxic instead and if the opponent switched out it would still have left them at one HP and would be able to Endeavor the Pokemon that has switched into it as well of course this was overtly specific which is why toganamar wasn't nearly as notable or you use nearly as much as his fear abusing predecessors however if we're going to talk about reliability in regards to fear of course Target tomorrow was unreliable as a fear user so was every fear user in the history of competitive Pokemon it's one of the most unreliable strategies you could use there is a reason it has just about never been seen in serious competitive play it's not just a gimmick it's a gimmick that even the most experimental Innovation hungry players won't touch there is just about no skill involved in using fear as whether it works or not is pretty much contingent on Team Matchup ala Baton Pass however unlike Baton Pass most teams were well equipped to take on fear strategies it was incredibly easy to disrupt it if you knew what was coming it was extremely unlikely you would catch anyone remotely competent off guard with fear and since they wouldn't be caught off guard it'd be dependent on whether or not they had the tools to deal with it which most well-built teams did without even trying regardless of which specific fear strategy they were facing like what you asked well let's start with the one who started it all Generation 4 rich Tata it's ruined by stealth drug and the ever-present sandstorm furthermore it has no way to hurt ghost types additionally Pokemon with leftovers will beat it as well sure it could bring Skarmory down to one HP but then it gets its round of lefties and it's out of Crick attack range well what about clefable line hail well that relied on maintaining hail number one not easy when Tyranitar is so common number two they still can't hit Ghost types number three if they face a Pokemon that can shut them down with sleep they're toast they are useless if they run into anything that isn't affected by hail like Mana swine or opposing Obama snow and clefable even if all three of clefable Clefairy and clefa execute the strategy successfully they still aren't anywhere near guaranteed to set up an end game whereas teammates can win this same issue plagues the generation 5 reuniclist line variant of this strategy except maintaining hail is even more difficult since if you're not competing with Tyranitar San you're competing with politoed's Reign oh and there was also the fact that the Magic Guard which made ryunoclass a staple of the strategy also made it one of the best Pokemon around and it completely stifled the hole affected by hail thing as for Aaron and Provo pass they similarly struggled with reuniclist but it went beyond that and even Beyond struggling against the prominence of Politoed Reign their entire strategy relies on finishing opposing Pokemon off with Sandstorm which is about the least reliable approach ever in the metagame still dominated with sand immune Pokemon Tyranitar Pharaoh Thor and heat ran glyce score Landorus extra guard shot tarachion Skarmory gastrodon magnazone mamas line Jirachi Sizzler Fortress Yeah have fun being literally incapable of koing these sure bringing them down to one HP was nice and all but you could also do that with actual good Pokemon that could also actually finish the job I didn't have to walk on the eggshells to switch in safely under perfect conditions in the first place Shira Provo pass could out heal stealth drug and regain sturdy with leftovers oh wait spikes went up and that's that that was just one of approximately a million other things that could ruin the strategy oh you got skull burn so much for the eternally replenishing sturdy oh substitute blocks pain split oh sub and protect easily burned through endeavor's measly 8pp the list goes on and on as if you needed anything beyond being invalidated by every sand immune Pokemon in the tier as such you didn't use fear if you were at all serious about winning if the matchup wasn't incredibly unreasonably favorable you would be out of luck there would be nothing you could do about it it's the complete opposite of a play intensive strategy most players don't want to have the game taken out of their hands like this now while the fear strategy doesn't hold any sort of serious competitive Merit let us appreciate the magic of why it exists in the first place it beautifully illustrates and perhaps the most outrageously maximalist manner possible the innate possibility for Creative strategies that draws so many of us to competitive Pokemon after all if a level 1 Pokemon can beat a level 100 Pokemon anything's possible and while you might not use fear itself you very well might take this mindset and Infuse its can-do inventive approach into different strategies and you might just beat a Napoleon Ripple Rattata and that's the end of the fear section of this video but we actually have a bonus section for you you see this month's Patriot pick was almost won by Aaron and lost by one vote to cryogenal so we basically use Aaron as the runner-up as an excuse to talk about its most infamous strategy but it does have one tier it appears where it actually is viable in that tier that tier being DPP little cup Aaron was completely unimpressive throughout most of generation 4 little cup until heart gold and soul Silva rolled around and gifted it the perfect blessing in head smash which utterly destroyed any little cup Pokemon that didn't resist it even the incredibly bulky glider and mud slash and did so without incurring head smashes usually whopping 50 recoil rate thanks to Aaron's rock head ability now Aaron couldn't just freely go around spamming the move its weakness late in typing in conjunction with subpar special defense and speed stats made sure of that in fact the fact that it couldn't go one-on-one with the majority of the tier and that his weak points were so readily exploitable by the metagame's best most common Pokemon was what prevented it from being broken destroying the tier utterly and going the way of Scyther however this isn't to say Aaron was a victim of the rampartos theorem where its flaws were so great it found itself unable to utilize its enormous power unable to find a niche it had to be played carefully but the rewards were among the greatest available in all of little cup Aaron could fix the issue of its speed with rock polish all Anita was a free turn to set up and this wasn't difficult to find now yes its typing had many significant weaknesses as ground fighting and water are all bad ones to have but it also had many valuable resistances in little cut the most valuable among these were its quadruple resists normal and flying as well as its resistance to ice it could leverage these perfectly against Pokemon like talo or scarfers like Snover or chinchou locked into ice moves to grab its Rock polish alternatively it could grab one on a predicted switch against the aforementioned Munchlax which would run from it in Terror and once it got its speed boost and can no longer be Revenge killed by most pokemon which would check it otherwise Aaron was one of the most terrifying lights out sweepers in the tier with neither scarfers nor priority like Hound door Sucker Punch capable of stopping it if you didn't have bronzor or the priority of vacuum wave crogunk in the back it was quite likely that Aaron would just crush your entire team when you no longer had the tool about speeding it provided head smash didn't miss anyway furthermore bronzor and Kroger were both easily removed by Aaron's favorite partner why not given its difficulty of use though so Aaron was the epitome of high-risk High reward however even if it didn't sweep it could still reliably inflict huge damage and almost certainly grab one KO on the opponent by virtue of its incredible trait of switching into the stab of and proceeding to force out the best Pokemon in the tier much less but after Generation 4 each new little cup Mega game was hostile to Aaron to the point of becoming completely inhospitable for it what would Pokemon like Pharisee and mienfu running around everywhere so unfortunately we don't have any more sections to make an actual how good was Aaron actually video however as we discussed earlier that wasn't the last of Aaron to be seen in competitive Pokemon that would be in generation 5 OU of all places where it used the fear strategy 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 the fear strategy have you ever been cheesed by it before be honest whatever it is let me know in the comments also thank you so much to our patrons for continuing support of our videos and thank thank you to everyone else watching as well [Music] and follow my currently social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 764,712

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, FEAR, Rattata, Mewtwo, Lv 1 Rattata, Lv 100 Mewtwo

Id: P8mHW3b_9w8

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023