Competitive Pokemon History - Darkrai Quiz

Answer: Put the opposing Pokemon to sleep

Dark Void had an 80% accuracy, which was far higher than other sleep inducing moves in Sleep Powder and Hypnosis, and only trailed the extremely low distributed Spore. Darkrai's ability to incapacitate a threat in front of it meant it had an easy avenue with which to threaten a sweep, making it a deadly Pokémon to deal with.

Answer: Damages the opposing Pokemon every turn if they're asleep

This ability had perfect synergy with Dark Void, dealing chip damage to the target that could put them in KO range of a follow-up attack by Darkrai by itself. Its use was sadly nullified if the opponent switched their sleeping Pokémon out of battle, but the good news is that doing so to hinder Bad Dreams has the benefit of giving Darkrai a completely free turn.

It can use this turn to boost its stats, double-switch into something that can better handle what its user thinks is coming in to face it, or simply slam the incoming Pokémon with a strong attack.

Answer: Nasty Plot

Instantly doubling Darkrai's intimidating Special Attack stat made Nasty Plot's utility pretty clear to see. Darkrai's ability to easily attain at least a single free turn made boosting with the move fairly simple as well.

Answer: Yes

Heracross became Uber viable in the fourth generation almost solely because it could fairly easily pull this feat off. Heracross would frequently run Sleep Talk, so it could effortlessly switch in to Dark Void and continue to act. Doing so would also activate its Guts ability, giving it a nice power boost. With a Choice Scarf, it could then outspeed Darkrai and demolish it with a super effective, Guts boosted Megahorn or Close Combat. Heracross conveniently also resisted Dark Pulse and Focus Blast, the only two attacking moves Darkrai pretty much ever ran.

Heracross was the only truly consistent Darkrai counter, but there were others who could pull off the feat in reasonable situations. Any Darkrai set that ever left home without Focus Blast was a mere bump in the road for Tyranitar, who resisted Dark Pulse and had excellent specially defensive capabilities thanks to its sand. Even if Darkrai boosted with Nasty Plot three times, maximizing its Special Attack stat, it could then still only 3HKO Tyranitar with Dark Pulse, meaning T Tar would essentially have five turns to deal with Darkrai, which it could do painfully easily.

Scizor was also a big problem for Darkrai sets, though it struggled to switch in and win if Stealth Rock was on its side of the field unless Darkrai did not have Nasty Plot or Focus Blast.

Arceus-Fighting can easily counter Darkrai if the Sleep Clause has been activated, preventing Darkrai from putting it to sleep.

Finally, for a brief period of time, Darkrai was viewed as uncounterable (before Heracross was discovered to pull this off) and this had players bringing Primeape of all Pokémon to Ubers fights. Primeape resists Dark Pulse, but notably is immune to Dark Void due to its ability in Vital Spirit. With a Choice Scarf, it could outspeed and destroy Darkrai with Close Combat, or U-Turn to gather momentum off of whatever the Darkrai user switched in to try and absorb Close Combat with.

Answer: Trick

Darkrai's main issues to this point were dealing with Pokémon that had Sleep Talk to absorb its Dark Void, and speedier Pokémon with Choice Scarves of their own. Thus, its Trick-or-Treat set aimed to patch these issues up. With a Choice Scarf of its own, only Choice Scarf Mewtwo was capable of outspeeding Darkrai, and that particular variant of Mewtwo was rather rare.

This made Darkrai more resilient to revenge killing attempts from Pokémon who lacked priority moves. On this set, Darkrai ran the move Trick, which is what really gave this set wings. Tricking away a Choice Scarf onto a Sleep Talker, like Ho-Oh or Kyogre, could potentially cripple them.

It also harassed defensive answers to Darkrai, like Blissey, by locking them into one useless move and forcing them to switch.

Answer: A giveaway event

A shiny Darkrai was one of the event giveaways during the lifespan of the fifth generation. In receiving Darkrai this way, it arrives to the trainer with a moveset of Dark Pulse, Nasty Plot, Roar of Time and Spacial Rend. Roar of Time is a terrible move, and should be disregarded, but Spacial Rend has some degree of potential if the player wants Darkrai to be able to better handle (ironically) Palkia itself or perhaps Reshiram, Kyurem's forms or another Dragon type of some kind.

Answer: Focus Blast was no longer usable on Darkrai

A flurry of changes entering the sixth generation changed the overall gameplan for Darkrai significantly. Steel types no longer resisted Dark Pulse, which in itself made Focus Blast undesirable. However, the new Fairy typing hit Dark types super effectively, while also resisting Dark itself, so Darkrai needed coverage against them. Focus Blast was resisted by Fairy, making it even less desirable and unusable. Sludge Bomb hit Fairies super effectively, and it also had perfect accuracy, becoming Darkrai's new coverage move of choice alongside Dark Pulse.

Answer: Klefki

Klefki resisted Dark Pulse, was immune to Sludge Bomb, and had good bulk to easily switch into Darkrai with. Once in, it could render Darkrai useless with a priority Thunder Wave, or slam it a couple times with super effective Play Roughs while Darkrai would struggle to do much back to it.

Answer: Dark Void got nerfed significantly

Dark Void's accuracy of 80% was shaky, but it was far better than most sleep moves and is predominantly what made Darkrai so threatening up until the seventh generation. Darkrai needed a free turn to boost with Nasty Plot to really turn up the heat, and Dark Void gave it this free turn quite reliably.

However, things came crashing down in the seventh generation when Dark Void's shaky 80% accuracy was crushed all the way down to an unusable 50% accuracy. Darkrai had access to Hypnosis, a move that now essentially outclassed its signature move due to simply having 60% accuracy. With it no longer being able to reliably get the free turn it needed, Darkrai was now just about totally outclassed as an offensive Dark type by the far more immediately powerful Yveltal, and its sweeping set was now rather mediocre.

Answer: No

Darkrai's nerf it suffered to Dark Void proved to be far too much for it to handle. The value of its statbuild, while not totally useless, had declined significantly since its inception. Its Base 135 Special Attack was plainly regular and uninspiring for a Pokémon with such terrible defensive stats. Nasty Plot rectified this in theory, but in practice, Darkrai had too much trouble finding opportunities to set up with this move to be as threatening as it needed to be. Additionally, Darkrai suffered with major consistency issues.

Its best set now needed to run Hypnosis instead of Dark Void. If Hypnosis' 60% accuracy came through for the user, Darkrai could get a free turn and could become quite threatening. If, however, the odds were not in the player's favor, Darkrai and its poor bulk would be basically dead in the water. Simply put, there are far more consistent sweeping options that can get the job done, and because a Darkrai with no Nasty Plot is totally outclassed by Yveltal, there was really no reason to use it in seventh generation Ubers. An unfortunate turn of events for a Pokémon which made such an impact on the competitive scene beforehand.