Competitive Pokemon History - Rayquaza Quiz

Answer: An offensive check to a myriad of important Psychic types in the tier

Rayquaza's best and most used set by far was a Choice Band set which was based around Hidden Power Bug, of all things. This seems amusing at first, but the numbers behind it back up its viability in this capacity. With a Choice Band boost, it cleanly destroys Latias, Latios, Exeggutor, the Deoxys formes except for Defense, 2HKOes the Defense forme, Mewtwo, Wobbuffet and Mew. Rayquaza also frequently ran Rock Slide to take out Lugia, as well as have helpful auxiliary coverage against Ho-Oh. Extremespeed was the third move of choice to give Rayquaza revenge killing utility, in particular being able to pick off faster threats before getting demolished by Ice Beam or some Dragon move. Finally, the last moveslot was dedicated to the user's choice of Overheat or Earthquake. Overheat destroyed Steel types, Skarmory in particular, while Earthquake was a lot more threatening, retained coverage against most Steel types, but missed out on Skarmory.

The set definitely gave a useful enough niche to make Rayquaza a deadly threat for the tier. It wasn't as fire-n-forget as Rayquaza would be in later generations, but as it was a Choice Band set, it wasn't terribly far off.

Answer: Air Lock

Air Lock completely nullifies the effects of any weather while Rayquaza is on the field. There is no way to counteract this ability, apart from getting Rayquaza off the field. No matter what, weather will fail to function. This is the case even if something with a weather setting ability, like Kyogre, Groudon or Tyranitar, switches in to Rayquaza.

The game will report that their respective weathers are in effect, but they will be mere aesthetics, and their structural effects will fail to function. Swift Swim sweepers, like Kingdra and Ludicolo, will be slower than Rayquaza even in the rain, and are thus susceptible to being revenge killed by it in the middle of a sweep. Likewise, if Rayquaza switches in on Exeggutor as it uses Solar Beam in the sun, Exeggutor will fail to use the move in one turn, allowing Rayquaza to essentially trap and remove it with Hidden Power Bug.

This ability gave Rayquaza tons of utility, protecting its team from being run over by these Pokemon.

Answer: 95

At base 95 Speed, Rayquaza is faster than Kyogre and Groudon, though it is notably slower than Salamence, Latios, Latias and Mewtwo, enabling them to revenge kill Rayquaza in some cases. Still, it's fast enough to do its job, even if it isn't winning any races.

Answer: Draco Meteor

Outrage and Dragon Claw are far better on physically based sets. Draco Meteor's drawback of halving Rayquaza's Special Attack means little when it can simply turn to its unhindered physically offensive moves to finish off the target with. On the other hand, Dragon Claw's power was somewhat lacking, and Outrage had the nasty side effect of locking Rayquaza in to the move for 2-3 turns, then saddling it with confusion afterward - making it easy pickings to be revenge killed.

The other three moves this set ran were frequently Fire Blast to hit Steel types, Extremespeed and Brick Break. Outrage could be considered over Brick Break, as the combo of Draco Meteor and Outrage would defeat Lugia after Stealth Rock damage, though the aforementioned drawbacks made this a risky strategy.

Answer: No

Rayquaza's massive attacking stats on both ends assure that it cannot be reliably walled. Physical walls can get blasted by its specially offensive moves, and likewise for special walls. Offensive Pokemon sure don't want to switch in and get beaten up by an incredibly powerful attack. You might think that, say, Mewtwo could counter it, since it can survive a move, then outspeed and OHKO Rayquaza with Ice Beam, but you'd be wrong - Rayquaza can Extremespeed it for the KO. Because of this, Rayquaza simply cannot be countered, as it is far too powerful and has far too wide of a movepool.

It can be easily checked, however, due to its massive susceptibility to Ice Beam, tendency to get worn down by Life Orb and Stealth Rock, merely average bulk, and iffy Speed.

Answer: V-Create

V-Create is the physically offensive Fire type move of the century, boasting a ridiculous 180 base power and good 95% accuracy. It has the drawback of lowering the user's Speed and both Defenses by one stage after use, but that drawback isn't too detrimental for a wallbreaker who will probably still outspeed most walls even after the drop.

This meant Skarmory was not safe against physical Rayquaza, even those lacking Overheat, since they could just destroy it with a Choice Band or Life Orb boosted V-Create.

Answer: To avoid giving away its moveset

V-Create Rayquaza can only be obtained through an event which forces Rayquaza to be shiny. If you see a non-shiny Rayquaza on the battlefield, you can be sure it does not have V-Create, and can automatically act on that information. Even if you did not want to run V-Create on Rayquaza for some reason, bringing a shiny one to battle initially forces your opponent to at least respect the possibility that you have V-Create, keeping them honest.

Answer: The first Pokemon to get banned from Ubers

Mega Rayquaza has absurdly high base 180 Attack and Special Attack. Its base 115 Speed is amazing, and its 105/100/100 bulk is nearly the same exact bulk that Tyranitar has, and without all of the crippling type weaknesses T-Tar has. With its new ability, Mega Rayquaza has no weaknesses on the Flying side- it is neutral to Rock and resistant to Electric, for example, and is only 2x weak to Ice, Dragon and Fairy. To put it simply, it was stupidly overpowered, even by the Uber tier's massive standards. It was so obviously overpowered from the get-go. However, the thought that something should actually be banned from Ubers was ridiculous at first, and was probably the only thing that allowed Mega Rayquaza to remain in the tier for two months following its release.

The banning of Mega Rayquaza created the "Anything Goes" tier, a joke of a meta where no rules apply, such as the Species or Sleep Clauses. This was the only tier where Mega Rayquaza's power was even slightly reasonable.

Answer: Lugia

Out of all the Uber-viable Pokemon, Lugia was literally the only one which could reliably survive a Swords Dance boosted attack from Mega Rayquaza. Skarmory would get obliterated by V-Create and everything else died to Dragon Ascent or Earthquake. That said, Lugia was way too passive to do anything meaningful back, and could only Whirlwind Mega Rayquaza out to remove its Swords Dance boosts.

Pretending for a moment that Lugia could keep that act up all game long, this was not even close to making Mega Rayquaza reasonable enough to remain in Ubers. For one, Lugia can only check Mega Rayquaza once, maybe twice. Anybody with half a brain would recognize that Lugia was the only thing standing between Mega Rayquaza and just ending the game with a sweep... So why not just bring five teammates with good matchups against Lugia and correct that immediately? That would mean Lugia would be heavily damaged, taking a boosted attack from Mega Rayquaza, while doing nothing by simply removing it from the field in return. Lugia would, at best, be heavily pressured and likely forced to switch against, say, Yveltal or Darkrai, and at worst, straight up flattened by them, enabling Mega Rayquaza to just come in later and finish its business.

Even if Lugia was a fail-safe check, or even if it could somehow outright counter Mega Rayquaza, it only fits on stall teams, meaning offensive teams are still at a loss for dealing with it. This would stagnate the meta, forcing everyone to either use a stall team with Lugia, or just straight up lose to anyone (and frankly, everyone) with Mega Rayquaza. During the first two months of sixth generation Ubers (post ORAS) when Mega Rayquaza was allowed, some players hilariously tried using Lugia on their offensive teams. But there were obvious problems with this - Lugia does absolutely nothing for these teams apart from check Mega Rayquaza once or twice, and is total dead weight otherwise. This heavily depreciated the quality of these teams until Mega Rayquaza was mercifully banned from the tier.

Answer: Lowers Rayquaza's Defense and Special Defense by one stage

The fact that this move did not lower any of Rayquaza's attacking stats, combined with the fact that it was a Flying type move, and had great coverage for the tier, made it very spammable. It was the ultimate fire-n-forget move, as it had perfect accuracy and was seldom resisted across the tier.