Battle Stadium Singles blog — Palafin, Dolphin Man (Season 1; Series 1)
Before getting to the meat of the matter, my first impressions about the new ranked singles format, after around 300 games played on console across two accounts, are as follows:
First, and much to everyone's relief, I'm sure, generation 9 ranked singles on console seems like a vast improvement over SWSH despite Series 1 not even employing the full roster of pokemon available in the vanilla version of Scarlet/Violet.
Unfortunately, with how finicky the generational gimmick mechanic is yet again, I just do not see this generation surpassing generation 7 in terms of fun and team variety—and that's saying something when what I claim to be the zenith of BSS, USUM, was back when we didn't yet have ruleset rotations to freshen things up every few months.
Be that as it may, the current state of the game, with its three bulky Unaware pokemon (Skeledirge and Dodonzo, with Clodsire as distant third) making most stat-boosting styles outside Stored Power stuff (Power Trip suffers from a lack of viable users) more or less moot, and with its lack of enough potent special attackers, will be ameliorated with the release of the Paradox pokemon and the Ruinous Quartet in what I hope and assume is the near future.
Now, finally, as for the team below, I desperately wanted to crack things open with Vivillon, but Gholdengo, Garganacl, Infiltrator Dragapult, and the aforementioned Unaware trio essentially rule out any such notion. To add insult to injury, Torch Song, being a sound-move, even goes through Substitute. A most unfortunate fate indeed for a once-venerable win condition.
So, with Vivillon mode off the table, my offering for this entry consists of another unconventional win condition—Palafin.
A great deal of the credit for everything below goes to mujukgb and his efforts with Palafin stuff, which provided the inspiration for both mixed Dragapult, and for using offensive Tyranitar as a flimsy check for Hydreigon instead of something more solid but passive, namely Umbreon.
Turn one Ice Punch punish.
The elusive turn one defensive Fire Spin + Encore crippler Dragonite. Even if it caught a Flip Turn into Corviknight, it had no way to play around U-turn.
For some idea of the power level here: Tera-Water Wave Crash easily oneshots defensively uninvested Dragapult; Jet Punch twoshots, making even resisted switch-ins not feasible.
Without one of three resisting Tera-types (Grass, Water, Dragon), Corviknight gets blown up just like everything else.
(252+ Atk Choice Band Tera-Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 184-218 (89.7 - 106.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO).
The world is a better place with Fissure Dondozo in it.
Guillotine Kingambit, on the other hand, I could live without.
Magnet Pull Magnezone, you say? Well, Tera-Dragon sure would have been good here, I have to admit.
Minimum Speed Corviknight hits super-effectively against Roost. In all honesty, the only realistic scenario in which -Speed 0 IV should win the mirror like this is if it is sitting on enough Iron Defense boosts prior to the standard (Pressure + Taunt) Corviknight being inserted. Or if they somehow don't run Taunt.
To be clear, Water Absorb is generally worse than Unaware on Clodsire.
The hardest possible Palafin all-in out there involves setting rain with Pelipper (Eject Button, Focus Sash, even Damp Rock). You sometimes see this with Swift Swim Floatzel, too.
Shoe's on the other foot now, laddie!
The umpteenth Meowscarada lead. If it's U-turn, as here, it gets the momentum against Corviknight switching in—the worst possible outcome. In fact, Meowscarada can be so predictable that one could easily counter-lead Corviknight into it, but Palafin tends to need its transformation condition to be met unless something very out of the ordinary is going on with the opposing six.
Minimum Speed Corviknight underspeeds Hippowdon, making it impossible to Yawn loop.
The most tempting games to lead Dragapult are Pawmot games because of just how free Pawmot is against Palafin-Corviknight.
One of the more popular early rental teams around, sakku_poke's slow Tera-Electric Baxcalibur. By the end of the season, Tera-Electric could safely be said to have been the standard on Baxcalibur.
Two kaijumons meet on the field of battle to decide the fate of...some ladder points.
Gengar's Encore + Destiny Bond Focus Sash set has received some attention among my peers, but my view is that Choice Specs is just better, and it looks like CasinoGengar is still around, too.
Focus Blasted.
"AC" Dragon Dance Dragapult about to go to town on hard stall. Note the Tera-Dark on Calm Mind Blissey to play around Stored Power/Psyshock.
Flip Turn into Corviknight on turn one Shell Smash, defensive Tera-Water to tank a probable Tera-Fire (beats Corviknight, Gholdengo, and Tera-Steel Dragons) or Icicle Spear on turn two, but it's a Life Orb special (mixed?) attacker and it crits with Hydro Pump. Utterly bonkers!
When the opposing six includes both Dondozo and Clodsire, Palafin might be better off on the bench.
This is where I left things on the last day of the season (TN "Paska Peli"). In SWSH, the cut-off for 2K Elo at the end of season 1 was #1167, so that was something I hoped to land again with around 10 more hours of play to go in the season.
Is it the real haru, or merely a cheap facsimile? One thing I do know is that lotusyi's main account this season has been TN "getter". Like the ladder maniac of SWSH, "GETTER"? What does it all mean?
1) Team overview
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/435b17a38bc35c8e
Rental: KT90QF (Obsoleted upon rotation of ruleset to Series 2 in February 2023)
In short, the playstyle of the main mode here (Palafin-Corviknight) consists of slow pivoting in Palafin through U-turn Corviknight, or a straight up switch, utilizing Palafin's formidable native bulk as a resource. This remains largely true whenever Palafin stands a chance of outright smashing through the opposing trio, or, what's more likely, setting up a Jet Punchable endgame. And where Dondozo (and Toxapex) or telegraphed Grass/Water-Tera defensive pokemon stand in the way, Dragapult or Gholdengo can be employed to pick up the slack.
Palafin
Palafin-Hero @ Choice Band
Ability: Zero to Hero
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 116 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Jet Punch
- Flip Turn
- Wave Crash
- Ice Punch
Zero-to-Hero amounts to essentially ceding turn one. And in a format as potentially short and aggressive as BSS, this is a massive momentum drain. It stands to reason, then, that the reward for doing so has to be huge. And Palafin-Hero can indeed find its way into the victory screen—with a little help.
Once online, the main weapon is Tera-Water Choice Band Jet Punch. Although not quite packing the punch Dracovish's Fishious Rend did, Jet Punch does not have to contend with opposing defensive Dynamax bulk, and is more than enough to clean up most bruised opponents, ignoring opposing Speed tiers, offering a playstyle sui generis.
Against slower and bulkier targets, the name of the game is brute-forcing through defensive bulk with Wave Crash: fully physically defensive Corviknight without a resisting Tera-type is over 35% to straight up get 1HKO'd from full, with things like 252 HP Azumarill taking around 75% minimum.
For offensive coverage, Jet Punch and Wave Crash are the two key moves, with the pivot move Flip Turn also a natural fit despite being the least clicked of the STAB-moves in my experience. Although Palafin has access to Close Combat, which is its best move against Rotom-W and Magnezone, I have opted for Ice Punch in the last slot.
This is has to do with punishing one of the best ways of abusing Palafin's weak turn one—offensive boosting. In this regard, the main targets for Ice Punch are Dragon Dance Dragonite and Swords Dance or hazard-setter Garchomp. Leading against Dragonite is made even more consistent by Palafin's bulk even prior to transformation allowing it to tank +252 Att Tera-Normal Choice Band Extreme Speed from full, if need be. Ice Punch is also notable for catching the occasional Water Absorb Clodsire, putting damage on Gastrodon, or a defensive Tera-Dragon.
The EVs herein seek to simply maximize offensive power, with Jolly Breloom's 134 as the chief benchmark for Speed (135), with Adamant Dragonite's 132 max also letting Palafin go first against any move other than Extreme Speed, which has +2 priority.
It should be noted that full Speed investment with Choice Band is also perfectly playable, boasting a Jet Punch faster than Mimikyu's Shadow Sneak, and natively outspeeding both Baxcalibur and Hydreigon—Choice Specs Hydreigon being one of the most potent special attacking threats in Series 1.
Corviknight
Corviknight @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Mirror Armor
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
- Roost
- U-turn
The Speed tier here is for underspeeding opposing standard Corviknight and Hippowdon with U-turn. The most notable downside of this is having to be slower than Azumarill and Kingambit, which makes repeated switches into them difficult due to a slow Roost.
It should be noted that Taunt often exists on regular U-turn sets, but here, everything is sacrificed for Palafin momentum. Not having a fast Roost or Taunt also makes Pressure worse than Mirror Armor.
Tera Water was chosen as the defensive Tera-type in order to check Fire Punch Dragonite (both Dragon Dance and Choice Band sets), and various Tera-Fire users like Garchomp and Azumarill. Things like boosted Icicle Spear Baxcalibur/Cloyster can also be made survivable even for a bruised Corviknight with Tera-Water. In a vacuum, however, Normal and Dragon are likely the superior defensive Tera-types for Corviknight.
Dragapult
Dragapult @ Life Orb
Ability: Infiltrator
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Naive Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Dragon Darts
- Dragon Dance
Now, I'm not about to pretend a spread of 252 Attack / 252 Special Attack ("AC" in Japanese nomenclature) is ever going to be considered palatable in polite society. However, I did mention at the outset that one of the distinctive features of Series 1 is poor access to special attackers.
So when you combine that with the fact that Dragapult's sets in this format are hard enough to predict as is, and that it can live hits it has no business living by changing its typing, this is what you get: just about the greediest possible mixed attacker set imaginable.
This Dragapult hits a respectable Speed tier one above Base 110's real +252 Speed stat of 178 without any real investment; it carries offensive coverage for most of that which gives Palafin a particularly hard time (Dondozo, Toxapex, physical walls with Grass/Water Tera-typing); and, again, seeks to get away with all this by compensating for its lack of Speed-investment against otherwise existential threats like opposing Dragapult, Meowscarada, and Choice Scarf Hydreigon/Gholdengo with Tera-Electric.
Clear Body tends to be preferred on conventional physical sets employing Dragon Dance, but I've found Infiltrator to be more useful overall. Likewise, Shadow Ball could easily be replaced with Fire Blast/Flamethrower, which would directly punish Kingambit and the Tera-Steel Dragons (Hydreigon).
For anyone experimenting with similar sets employing Dragon Dance, Tera-Fighting with Tera Blast also seems like an interesting option, allowing Dragapult to effortlessly oneshot Kingambit and the Steel Dragons while resisting Sucker Punch.
Gholdengo
Gholdengo @ Air Balloon
Ability: Good as Gold
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Make It Rain
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
Gholdengo's main targets are Breloom and Amoonguss, but it also devastates Annihilape, which preys on passive pokemon such as Corviknight and Clodsire with its bulky Taunt + Bulk Up sets.
Dragapult openers, among the most obnoxious things to play around right now, are ideally made somewhat less frequent by Gholdengo's very existence, because it can telegraph Choice Scarf, and takes advantage of the fact that physical Dragapult's only decent Ghost STAB comes in the form of Phantom Force.
Regarding the choice of Tera-Fairy here, it lets Gholdengo trade into Meowscarada and Hydreigon, turning Sucker Punch (Kingambit/Meowscarada) into a resisted move, and making its bulky Recover slightly easier to click.
With Air Balloon, Tera-Fairy makes opening Nasty Plot into an opposing Garchomp lead (Stealth Rock + Dragon Tail or Choice Band) about as attractive as it is with Substitute / Nasty Plot Rotom-W. Air Balloon also seeks to get an opening against Dragonite not carrying the right coverage, or locked into an immuned move (Extreme Speed, Earthquake). Baxcalibur's combination of Earthquake and Ice-moves is also resisted on the first hit, letting Gholdengo get moves off in most cases (Nasty Plot against slow variants with Assault Vest; or, immediately try to trade into fast offensive variants).
With Tera-Fairy, Dazzling Gleam sounds like a good option over Steel-STAB here, but even +2 Tera-Fairy boosted, it fails to 2HKO HP-invested Assault Vest variants of Kingambit, and I feel is thus best left to Choice Specs sets.
Another coverage option is Psyshock, which seems like it would carve out a neat niche for this set in taking apart hard stall featuring Chansey/Blissey. However, the SpDeffy pink blobs are well-advised to opt for Tera-Dark to prevail over Stored Power strategies, making an already situational move potentially even more situational.
Focus Blast is interesting against Kingambit, but will fail to outrace Calm Mind Chansey/Blissey. This has left me to conclude that a boosted Make It Rain is just more consistent burst damage than any of the tech moves listed here can make up for.
The real Speed stat of 136 is an attempt to ensure Gholdengo gets its Nasty Plot boosted attacks off by creeping past Jolly Breloom's 134 and the things seeking to outspeed it by one (135) in what is among the more crowded Speed tiers for bulkier attackers right now.
Tyranitar
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Dragon Dance
- Taunt
Tyranitar's main role is to regain momentum against opposing Hydreigon, but it also works as an out against passive play with Taunt + Dragon Dance, and with its Tera-Ghost, Tyranitar can set up on opposing Corviknight, and play around Breloom. Defensively, Tyranitar lives even a +1 super-effective Tera-Fairy/Water Volcarona hit, providing a check there in games where Palafin itself is benched.
The EVs are admittedly unoptimized here: even at +1, +252 Speed Tyranitar only hits a real Speed stat of 186, where the nearest somewhat important benchmark to beat would be the 178 of the Base 110s mentioned above, and I certainly wouldn't recommend going below a boosted tier of 173 (Pawmot 172, Garchomp 171).
On the upside, the relatively high unboosted Speed (124) is useful for Tyranitar when elected to contest physically defensive Rotom-W (106), also beating out Adamant Breloom (122), thereby contesting many of the things that have chosen Adamant Breloom as their benchmark for Speed, as well.
Regarding Hydreigon, however, moving small amounts of stats to defensive bulk will not meaningfully move the numbers against either the Choice Scarf (which Tyranitar checks), or, more importantly, against the Choice Specs set, the latter of which essentially needs Tyranitar to be a max bulk Assault Vest set for repeated switches into Draco Meteor.
Leftovers increases longevity in good Tyranitar games, where Taunt is a factor, but switching to Lum Berry would play more towards Dragon Dance, and free up Leftovers for Clodsire, which is strictly speaking superior to Black Sludge there due to the Terastallize mechanic.
Lastly, in terms of offensive coverage, Earthquake is a good option over Crunch, letting Tyranitar threaten Magnezone with the clean 1HKO, but stands to be played around by defensive Tera-Flying, and is Levitate-immuned by Rotom and Hydreigon.
Clodsire
Clodsire @ Black Sludge
Ability: Water Absorb
Level: 50
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Yawn
- Toxic
- Recover
- Earthquake
The goal here is to avoid the Palafin opener from being abused by Volt Switch from Rotom-W (Volt Switch + Hydro Pump) and Magnezone, the latter representing a double threat to Palafin because of a possible Sturdy and a probable Tera-Grass/Water.
Another defensive niche for physically defensive Clodsire worth mentioning, however flimsy, is opposing Pawmot, which is an opener otherwise impossible for Palafin-Corviknight to overcome.
But when you factor in that leading Dragapult is a possible solution to most of the problems introduced above, it should come as no surprise that Clodsire was least elected pokemon in my games by a fair margin.
Indeed, of the things I could envision in this slot instead of Clodsire, Tera-Fairy Gengar (Focus Sash/Choice Specs), Meowscarada (Choice Scarf), or even Lucario (Focus Sash/Choice Specs) come to mind immediately, with Garchomp (bulky Sitrus Berry set), Magnezone (Assault Vest), Kingambit, Rotom-Mow, Gastrodon, and Amoonguss among some of possible bulkier options.
Be that as it may, regarding Clodsire, Stealth Rock is very much a sensible option over Toxic, a major target for which is Dodonzo—and even there, Toxic relies on dodging certain sets like Substitute and Rest, and if it isn't already, Rest is the standard everyone should be playing against.
Earthquake is not strictly speaking necessary either, Clodsire also having access to Body Press. This leaves Clodsire unable to hit Gholdengo, and does nothing to contest Substitute + Nasty Plot Rotom (Tera-Fairy), however.
In any case, I've found Stealth Rock to just be harder to click overall because of the momentum drain of a Palafin opener, whereas Toxic also lets Clodsire actually damage the Rotom it defensively walls, and attrition through various defensive pokemon that have switched their Tera-type to resist Palafin's Wave Crash.
Finally, I should mention that Tera-Grass here is merely an attempt at living a few certain hits to get off a Yawn in order to reverse opposing offensive momentum. As this only really relates to Flower Trick and Earthquake (Garchomp, Dragonite, Tera-Ground Baxcalibur), other options may full well provide more mileage. And lastly, Sitrus Berry over Black Sludge is also a perfectly viable option that can potentially turn some incoming physical 2HKOs into 3HKOs.
2) Usage notes
Aside from the momentum drain of a Palafin opener, another major downside with Palafin is its tendency to be a bit of a Tera-hog, that is, it requires Tera-Water to get up to the really bursty damage numbers, especially against targets that resist Water.
Yet another potential issue regards the decision-making as turn one Dragapult, especially in Dragapult mirrors. These, undeniably, contain an element of sheer randomness that transcends the realm of playaroundability or mere mindgames. Simply put, when clicking Tera-Electric on turn one in a Dragapult mirror, you really do need to get a positive trade to not be behind.
2.1 Usual team compositions
Palafin-Corviknight-
Gholdengo-
Dragapult-
2.2 VS team select screen
I don't think a useful taxonomy of team archetypes really exists for Series 1, so I will limit myself to covering a few specific openers and the Palafin team select screen game in general. And if this results in the emergence of at least a somewhat useful heuristic for identifying bad Palafin games, well, that would be just fine by me.
Palafin vs. Dragapult
- Dragapult is the worst opposing lead to hit because its sets are so unpredictable.
- Try to force yourself to spend a few extra seconds trying to suss out what an opposing lead Dragapult could be before locking in a Palafin lead.
- Look for Hydreigon, Volcarona, and other special attackers on the opposing six to help rule out a special attacker set, making Corviknight a decent switch. And if it's likely a special attacker, Tyranitar does the job.
- Straight up counter-leading Dragapult with Gholdengo or Tyranitar works.
Palafin vs. Dondozo in the back
- Wave Crash only does 30% to physically defensive Dondozo, but Palafin can still be elected because Gholdengo and Dragapult can use it as set-up bait, depending on its exact set, and Flip Turning into either one against a Dondozo switching is something to potentially play for.
- This also applies to Toxapex, but because Toxapex only really exists on hard stall, being appropriately greedy by opening Nasty Plot or Dragon Dance is usually the way to go there.
Palafin vs. Rotom-W/Magnezone
- Clodsire seems like a sensible choice to prevent Volt Switch momentum, but greedy learned corner-cutting is recommended.
- Tyranitar is a passable switch into Rotom-W.
- Unlike Rotom-W, which can run Assault Vest, Leftovers, Choice Specs, and Sitrus Berry in addition to Choice Scarf, Magnezone should always be slower than Palafin on turn one.
Palafin vs. Pawmot
- Pawmot is not really representative of the metagame at large, but needs to be addressed because of how decisively it beats a Palafin-Corviknight opener.
- Look to lead Dragapult (beats both Focus Sash and Life Orb) with the knowledge that they are likely Tera-Electric because of how Double Shock works. This makes even a greedy Tera-Electric into Dragon Dance a possibility, getting rid of Dragapult's weakness to Ice Punch.
- A more passive option is Palafin-Clodsire.
- Palafin-Hero obviously oneshots Pawmot with Jet Punch, but getting there is the problem.
3) In conclusion
For the team write-up of the final month of Series 1, February 2023, I still want to try to revisit the idea of the most streamlined, flowcharty build out there: dedicated Baton Pass. I envision this taking the form of Espathrapass with Espeon and a Scope Lens Focus Energy physical attacker. I make no promises I am able to come up with anything presentable in this vein, however.
As for the the next entry on the blog, it should be an overview of various useful BSS-resources, with an eye on tools for laddering again. This should be out towards the second half of the month, once I have a better idea of who we can expect to cover what for generation 9 ranked singles. Ideally, this should include sites that do a better job at presenting the HOME Battle Data backend than the official app, but who knows what "early 2023" ends up meaning.
- Tox
SW-0021-9848-8999
