Funbot28
Banned deucer.
I'm a dirty dog bitch
QC: avocado / phantom / teachable
GP: frenzyplant / The Dutch Plumberjack
[OVERVIEW]
Zygarde-10% is a premium cleaner in the RU metagame mainly thanks to its great STAB coverage and its high Speed. It also has access to one of the best attacking moves in the game in Thousand Arrows, which provides it great neutral coverage alone. Zygarde-10% also possesses other threatening options such as Extreme Speed, enabling it to threaten faster threats such as Swellow and Choice Scarf Gardevoir and making it much harder to properly revenge kill. However, its Attack stat can often leave much to be desired, as it fails to 2HKO many defensive targets such as Porygon2, Umbreon, and Gligar without a considerable amount of chip damage. Zygarde-10% also is quite frail, often being restricted to sustaining hits from resisted attacks only. This is further problematic when considering its 4x weakness to Ice-type attacks, leaving it vulnerable to priority moves such as Ice Shard from Mega Abomasnow and Sneasel. Zygarde-10% must also compete with Flygon for a teamslot, since the two share a typing and Attack stat. While Zygarde-10% is faster and has access to Thousand Arrows, Flygon's better bulk, access to Levitate, and ability to run utility options such as Roost and Defog mean that it can generally be placed on more teams compared to Zygarde-10%.
[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Thousand Arrows
move 2: Outrage
move 3: Extreme Speed
move 4: Toxic
item: Choice Band
ability: Aura Break
nature: Jolly
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
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Thousand Arrows is Zygarde-10%'s most spammable move, hitting the wide majority of the tier for at least neutral damage due to the move's ability to bypass Flying-type and Levitate Pokemon's immunity to Ground. Outrage is a great secondary STAB option that enables Zygarde-10% to deal more damage versus threats that resist its Ground-type attacks such as Chesnaught, Mega Abomasnow, Araquanid, and Shaymin. However, it comes with the cost of locking Zygarde-10% into the move, which can leave it prone to being revenge killed by priority moves in Ice Shard and Extreme Speed coming from threats like Mega Abomasnow and opposing Zygarde-10% or strong attacks from faster threats such as Choice Scarf Gardevoir and Swellow. Extreme Speed is a useful attacking(space)option, letting Zygarde-10% target faster threats such as Salazzle and Choice Scarf Gardevoir in an attempt to prevent itself from being revenge killed. Toxic acts as an effective utility option, crippling common defensive threats that otherwise can safely switch into Zygarde-10% repeatedly such as Porygon2, Chesnaught, non-Immunity Gligar, and Cresselia.
Set Details
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A Choice Band enhances Zygarde-10%'s power, turning it into a devastating cleaner able to clean up weakened teams quite efficiently. Maximum EVs in both Attack and Speed with a Jolly nature maximize Zygarde-10%'s potency as an offensive threat. An Adamant nature can also be run to enable Zygarde-10% to 2HKO certain defensive threats such as Porygon2 and Chesnaught after entry hazard damage. However, this leaves Zygarde-10% outsped by more offensive threats like Durant, Zoroark, and Espeon.
Usage Tips
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Zygarde-10% should be spamming Thousand Arrows throughout the majority of the game, thanks to the move's capability of targeting a variety of threats in the tier for a considerable amount of damage Zygarde-10% can use its other moves to target threats that can switch into its Ground-type STAB attack. For example, Outrage can be used to hit incoming Grass- and Bug-types, likely letting Zygarde-10% 2HKO them after entry hazard damage. Extreme Speed is best utilized in targeting faster threats or priority users that have been weakened such as Salazzle, Linoone, and Choice Scarf Flygon. Meanwhile, Toxic can be utilized to cripple incoming walls that can avoid the 2HKO from either of Zygarde-10%'s STAB attacks such as Cresselia and non-Immunity Gligar. However, Zygarde-10% must be mindful as to which coverage move it decides to lock itself into, since any can leave it prone to being taken advantage of by either offensive or defensive checks.
Team Options
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Zygarde-10% is best paired on teams with entry hazard stacking support, since the chip damage can enable it to circumvent most of its defensive checks after they repeatedly switch in. Great examples of entry hazard setters include Nidoqueen, Froslass, Chesnaught, and Registeel, with the former two providing Zygarde-10% more offensive support while the latter two examples help grant Zygarde-10% a defensive backbone. Steel-types such as Bronzong, Escavalier, and Doublade are great teammates for Zygarde-10%, since they are able to switch into both Ice- and Fairy-type attacks, while Zygarde-10% can threaten Fire-types such as Moltres and Rotom-H in return. Other wallbreakers such as Decidueye, Mega Abomasnow, and Pangoro can also help Zygarde-10% break down checks such as Porygon2, Umbreon, and Chesnaught, while Zygarde-10% can provide wallbreaking support in weakening the aforementioned partners' checks such as Registeel, Doublade, and Toxicroak. Mega Abomasnow synergizes with Zygarde-10% especially well, since Zygarde-10% can break through its checks in Rotom-H and Bronzong, while Mega Abomasnow deals with threats such as Gligar and Chesnaught.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
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A Dragon Dance set with Life Orb can be utilized, turning Zygarde-10% into an effective sweeper because it can muscle through more defensive teams. However, the set is largely eclipsed by the Choice Band set due to its incapability of dishing out consistently high damage. Flygon can generally pull off a Dragon Dance set way better than Zygarde-10% can as well, since the former's extra bulk, immunity to Ground-type attacks, (AC) and access to Iron Tail offer it more opportunities to set up and sweep. A Coil set with Dragonium Z is also possible to run, enabling Zygarde-10% to set up against certain defensive threats such as Gligar and Chesnaught thanks to the Defense boosts. However, this set still faces the same set of struggles as the Dragon Dance set, mainly facing stiff competition from Flygon and being more easy for faster threats to revenge kill. Zygarde-10% does not possess many more options besides what has been already mentioned, (AC) since it has a pretty scarce movepool with only a handful of noteworthy options.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Grass-types**: Grass-types such as Chesnaught, Shaymin, Mega Abomasnow, Dhelmise, and Virizion are all able to switch into Thousand Arrows and threaten Zygarde-10% out with their own STAB attacks. However, besides Chesnaught, Zygarde-10% is able to at least 2HKO every aforementioned threat with Outrage and can use Toxic to poison switch-ins that Outrage cannot handle. Be mindful that threats such as Mega Abomasnow can still revenge kill Zygarde-10% with Ice Shard, however, if it is indeed locked into Outrage.
**Defensive Walls**: Bulky defensive walls such as Umbreon, Gligar, Cresselia, and Porygon2 are all able to avoid the 2HKO from any of Zygarde-10%'s attacks with the appropriate investment and can proceed to either deal significant damage to Zygarde-10% with their coverage options or cripple it with status moves. However, Zygarde-10% can circumvent these defensive answers with entry hazard support or utility options such as Toxic.
**Faster Offensive Threats**: Offensive threats such as Salazzle, Choice Scarf Flygon, and Choice Scarf Zoroark can all revenge kill Zygarde-10% after coming in safely. However, they all must be wary of Extreme Speed.
**Priority Moves**: Due to Zygarde-10%'s lacking defensive stats, it can be threatened by priority moves coming from threats such as Mega Abomasnow, Mega Glalie, Comfey, Linoone, and Doublade. However, Zygarde-10% can still revenge kill all these threats bar Comfey and Doublade with its own priority option if they have been weakened enough.
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