Why did Everyone Stop Using this Broken Pokemon?

Paradox Pokémon were the new subcategory of Pokémon released in scarlet and violet they have base stats comparable to legendaries and even have the ability to boost those stats further under specific field conditions or you know just bypass actually embracing a coherent strategy and give it a singular held item to get the exact same benefit but as many of us expected when generation 9 first launched the entire first year of scarlet and violet was dominated by these Paradox Pokémon there was even one in part particular who was especially dominant no no no this video is not about you flutter man stop forcing yourself into everything you already force yourself onto 80% of our teams no this video is all about the fall of iron hands but what happened it felt like just yesterday when iron hands was winning major tournaments left and right and was even on half of all teams at the world championships but as soon as 2023 turned to 2024 as if Y2K was just lying in wait for a couple decades to come ruin our mechanized companions iron hands just disappeared completely competitive players all at once suddenly decided that it just wasn't good anymore and stopped using it well in order to really understand what happened as well as if the future harama even has a future moving forward we need to talk talk about what it was that made Iron hands so dominant in the first place but first it's time to enter my millionaire Arc cuz if you're like me you enjoy tactical games with interesting Champions and intense PVE and PVP content well let me tell you about an amazing game that has all this and more raid Shadow Legends raid is celebrating the arrival of spring and toyia with a special spring hunt miname find hidden items around the Mistwood and once complete you can win anything from in game loot like Legendary Champions or skill TOS to even real life prizes like a free gaming console or gift cards simply download raid using my link head to Spring hunt. plarium.com enter your raid ID and start searching for those hidden items raid is also celebrating their 5-year anniversary with their first ever Community weeks a 6- we long event where players can be rewarded with the legendary champion chronicler adelin just by plugging in for 7 days between April 11th and July 8th so come join me by downloading raid from the QR code on screen or from the link in the description below just by joining you'll get a starter pack with epic Champion Tay and when you reach level 25 you'll get another starter pack that includes epic Rector drath but these three starter packs are only available if you download raid using my links after downloading use the promo code spring hunt4 to get silver and more my my favorite Champion is bigan so if you need some big hammer energy come find me under the name Ray Rizzo join my clan delete U please and we'll be Legends together so click the link in the description and I'll see you on the battlefield Paradox Pokémon were first released into competitive play on February 1st 2023 this format referred to as regulation B allowed players to use only Pokémon native to Pala excluding Legend Pokémon so no Treasures of Ruin and no kidon and moriden this meant that the Paradox Pokémon who all boasted high stat totals will become some of the strongest Pokemon in the entire game as their competition was all well statistically speaking a lot weaker but the thing about base stats in Pokémon is they aren't all created equal it's all about how those base stats are distributed let's compare two different fighting type Paradox Pokémon iron hands has a base stat total of 570 where iron Valiant has a base stat total of 590 20 points higher however iron Valiant is complete garbage and is almost nowhere to be seen in competitive play on the other hand or iron hands after only one year it's just outside the top 10 all time in earnings one for its trainers it's already won more money than Pokémon like Garchomp Cresselia and Thundurus who have been Main stays of the competitive scene for over a decade which is crazy but basically there's a limited number of resources when it comes to training your Pokémon unlike the first two generations you can't max out all of your six stats you have to carefully choose which stats to train and how much training you want to invest in each of your stats this means that Pokemon are for the most part forced to choose whether they want to be a special attacker or a physical one as trying to do both will require way too high of an investment and it's going to spread your limited resources Way Too Thin so back to iron Valiant it has extremely high physical and special attack which unfortunately means one of those High base stats is going to go to waste This Is Why Us competitive players will look a lot more closely at a Pokemon's effective base stat total which is basically a sum of the Pokémon's actually important stats iron hands with a base attack stat of 140 and a base special attack stat of 50 is pretty clearly meant to be a physical attacker so only a measly 50 based stat points will go to waste iron Valiant though will have to forgo a massive 120 or 130 base stat points so its effective base stats are actually pretty terrible and we haven't even gotten to the speed stat yet slow Pokemon have always had success in competitive play like amongus gastrodon and incinerar so a low speed stat isn't necessarily even that bad unlike every other stat speed is much more binary either you're faster than the opponents or you're slower it doesn't matter by how much so if you're a really slow Pokemon you'd almost rather have an even lower base speed stat if it meant that your other stats were higher in exchange because how much of a difference is it really if you're a base 5 speed or a base thir speed chuckle and amongus aren't outspeeding anything anyway so that 25 Point difference would be better served in one of your other more useful stats and sometimes that low speed can even be an advantage thanks to the move trick room which completely flips the turn order making the slowest Pokemon move first sorry guys but while we're talking about amongus in a video about hands I have to ask are those little Pokeball Shield like things actually amongus is tiny little hands or are his hands holding the Pokeball shield and we don't actually know what his hands look like let me know in the comments what you think anyway this is all to say that iron hands is just a gigantic ball of stats with a nearly perfect stat distribution as well it has massive HP and attack High physical defense with the only downside being its mediocre special defense and speed and like I mentioned the low speed doesn't matter that much since he can take hits really well and it can even be a benefit whenever trick room gets set up players can also easily make up for their Pokémon's low special defense with a simple held item the assault vest all of this adds up to iron hands being insanely tanky while also capable of dealing massive damage thanks to an attack stat higher than even powerful legendaries like solo kiden and hoo but a Pokemon stats are just one piece of the puzzle that determines whether it's actually good or not a Pokémon's type as well as the moves it learns are just as important in the case of iron hands electric fighting isn't an amazing typing by any means but it's also not horrible perhaps even more importantly though is its uniqueness anytime you have a Pokemon that can differentiate itself from the hundreds of other options it will automatically have some value electric fighting is only shared by Pont and well have you seen that thing stats laid out next to iron hands but in a format where Palin iron bundle and Tera flying roaring moon were running rampant and the second best electric type available was pomot what else are competitive players supposed to do they're going to use iron hands iron hands also has a pretty good move pool for a Pokemon that so far doesn't seem to have any drawbacks fake out is one of the best supportive moves in the game immobilizing an opponent's Pokemon for an entire turn volt switch can help switch in a frailer more offensive Pokemon safely thanks to iron hand's low speed as well as recycle the ability for it to use fake out again heavy slam when hit koes the most common Pokemon in the game drain punch synergizes really well with how tanky iron hands naturally is keeping it alive even longer and wild charge is a powerful electric type Move whose drawback and recoil damage is actually much less of a drawback for a Pokemon like iron hands thanks to its high base HP you see unlike a move like supercell slam the recoil damage from Wild charge is calculated based off how much damage it does to the opponent rather than anything related to its own HP stat so if wild charge one hit KO a standard iron bundle wild charge will deal 33 damage to iron hands in Recoil but because iron hands based stats are distributed the way they are with its massive HP stat that 33 damage equates to barely more than 10% of its health bar for comparison's sake a stand Pont using the same wild charge would lose over 20% of its health bar in Recoil damage this is why recoil moves like wild charge wave crash and flare Blitz work especially well on high HP Pokémon like iron hands and Dondo up as well as on Pokemon who frequently hold berries to gain more HP like incinerar and Arcanine now you may have noticed that I only listed damaging moves so it shows just how good assault best is on iron hands cuz the big drawback limiting you to only damaging moves isn't even a big problem for it but while assault bestest iron hands had the most success last year it actually also saw success without it in order to use stat boosting moves like swords dance and belly drum to try and sweep unprepared opponents so now we've covered how Iron hands has an amazing distribution of stats a solid and diverse move pool that really suits it and a unique typing giving it a good matchup into many of the common metagame threats with no other good electric types in the format to compete with it for a slot on your team then what was it about 2024 that caused competitive players to all at once just stop using it well first let's actually address what I mean when I say it fell off cuz I could be talking about how it went from being on half of all teams to just 25% of all teams which is still really good right wrong I'm talking about how in the previous seven major tournaments it was on only two out of a total of 56 top eight teams at the largest of those tournaments the Charlotte Regional which was the biggest tournament ever by the way there was only one iron hands total in the entire top 64 and at the most recent tournament at the time of me recording this video in utre only two iron hands even managed to qualify for day too so that's what I mean when I say it fell off it's drastic so there are a few different reasons as to why it suddenly fell off this hard the first answer is the introduction of older and stronger Pokémon and I'm not referencing the treasures of Ruin being added in regulation C cuz releasing three incredibly strong dark types just made Iron hands even more necessary on competitive players teams now look I know what you're thinking cuz people always come up to me with tears in their eyes they asked me Ray sir sir sir look at World's 2023 iron hands was on 50% of all teams this regulation D was a format where they added broken Pokemon like U and landras if that didn't power creep iron hands out of competitive relevance than what possibly could have well you're right U an extremely broken Pokemon that should have never been released should have served as competition for a fighting type slot on 's team and landras who has a phenomenal matchup against iron hands should have intimidated players into leaving their iron hands behind but they didn't players realized that simply using them all together alongside the already dominant flutter main was most optimal iron hands had a phenomenal matchup against both ersu forms thanks to its typing and high HP and defense but it also had phenomenal Synergy with both ersu forms as well since the normal defense against fake out is to just protect with both of your Pokémon on the Turn fake out becomes active which of course U doesn't care about yeah this Pokemon was a pretty big mistake and as for landeras it was commonly holding a choice scarf with Terra flying Terra Blast so if Lander is Choice locked into stomping tantrum against iron hands then iron hands could defensively terize into a grass type to resist it and of course the counter plate to that is for landeras to terize into a flying type in order to use teror blast but if it becomes a flying type in the face of iron hands then it's also at risk of being ko'ed the first DLC the teal mask didn't even slow down iron hands dominance in regulation e either neither ogron nor blood moon or saluna were enough to make players send their iron hands to the scrap heat but the second DLC the Indigo disc was what changed everything for iron regulation F The Return of the King see incinerar was a very similar but better Pokémon who also despite what you might think when looking at the typ matchup actually has a very favorable matchup into iron hands they're both bulky supportive Pokémon with fake out who can also do some big damage if left alone for too long incinerar is just faster has intimidate Harding shot is a much better version of volt switch and after an intimidate and a faster parting shot from an opposing incinerar iron hands just sits there doing absolutely nothing but there was one more Pokémon responsible for iron hands demise raging bolt another electric type who's a big ball of well distributed stats who became the new go-to electric type for competitive players only this one resists fire water and grass which are all really important types in competitive play and it doesn't even care about intimidate either due to being a special attacker sure it doesn't get fake out but it gets a strong increased priority move in Thunderclap instead as well as other good supportive moves like Electro web to control the speed of the battle and snarl to keep opponent special attackers in check but things don't stop there it's finally time to talk about the biggest thing that has always held iron hands back from greatness in the earlier regulations it could Thrive despite this drawback but as more and more older broken Pokémon get added back into the game it becomes really difficult for a Pokemon who essentially has no ability to compete amongst them you see the top Pokemon are all defined by their abilities grassy surge unseen mistake frankster ogron's eight combined different abilities the list goes on and on and unlike harsh sunlight which can easily be set up to boost the stats of the past Paradox Pokémon by powerful prankster users like Tornadus and whimsicott as well as the drought wielding toal electric terrain isn't as easy to set up nor as valuable for players who want grassy terrain well reloom is an exceptionally strong Pokemon but if you want to immediately set up electric terrain you have to use whatever the heck this thing is called seriously have you ever seen one of these in competitive play and if you did go to the trouble of manually setting up electric terrain with something like Thundurus You're simply better off using raging bolt who despite being a past Paradox Pokémon can actually take better advantage of the terrain thanks to its signature Rising voltage but what about booster energy well booster energy is great when boosting special attack or speed but why not for physical attackers who want to boost their attack well the reason it's kind of mediocre for them is that a single intimidate completely shuts you down and when you switch out to remove the attack drop you also lose lose your booster energy and if an intimidate Pokemon is sent out at the same time as your booster energy Pokemon intimidate will always activate first dropping your physical attack and then booster energy will boost whatever your next highest stat is Which is far from ideal which leads me to the main question I have in this video what is it that can make iron hands good again is it being slept on or is its future really this Bleak well I do do think there is some potential still there in its humongous hands the first thing we can look at is its held item a salvest is a phenomenal held item for it we've already gone over that when the metagame features strong special attackers like flutter man and landras incarnate who threatened to KO it that makes assault vest even more appealing but here's the thing with incinerar as popular as it is and as much of a problem for iron hands as it is and with a lot flutter mans opting to boost their speed with booster energy and embracing a more supportive role instead of using its held item to support the team by just koing the opponent's Pokemon iron hands might be able to get away with replacing the assault vest in the current metag game in favor of the clear amulet which completely flips the incinerar matchup to be in favor of iron hands if you can ensure a good matchup into Choice spec Waterman and landras incarnate then clear amulet iron hands can definitely work and if you can time your defensive talization at the right moment you can survive a hit from both anyway and pick up a one hit KO in return with heavy slam or ice punch iron hands still has the same good matchups that it used to into ersu chanp pal and Tornadus as well amongus also fell out of the top 12 most used Pokémon entirely in day two of the latest major tournament in utre and amongus has always been a a very annoying Pokémon to go up against with iron hands lastly is the one major move that separates iron hands from raging bolt fake out I think for teams employing a trick room strategy a clear amulet iron hands with fake out to ensure a trick room setup and close combat to threaten a oneit k. on incinerar is a major differentiator that sets it apart from raging bolt in a closed team Sheet environment like the online Global challenges the mirr threat of fake out from Iron hands can be leveraged into baiting protects out of the opponent while you go ahead and set up a free belly drum instead these are a few of the scenarios where I think iron hands can actually have a bit of a comeback in regulation F and speaking of the future there are only a few weeks left before we enter regulation G and with moridan on the horizon to bring an instant electric terrain is this what iron hands needs to get back to the podium at Worlds 2024 only time will tell but before you go don't forget to download Rage Shadow legends from the link in the description below and I'll see you on the battlefield

Channel: Ray Rizzo

Views: 82,748

Keywords: Pokemon, VGC, Video, Game, Championship, Battle, Spot, World, Champ, Champion, National, Regional, Wifi, Wi-Fi, Guide, Analysis, Ladder, Live, Sweep, Ray, Rizzo, Wolfe, Wolfey, Glick, Serebii, Smogon, Cybertron, Aaron, Zheng, Verlisify, Alex, Ogloza, Shadypenguin, Shadypenguinn, aDrive, Worlds, Anaheim, Shofu, Japan, Sword, Shield, Scarlet, Violet, competitive, 2022, 2023, 22, 23, VGC22, VGC23, VGC 2022, VGC 2023, VGC 22, VGC 23, facts, anime, ash, starter, type, attack, tera, terastallize, terastal

Id: faqohILIZiA

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024