Competitive Pokemon History - Seviper Quiz

Answer: Seviper had terrible Speed

Arbok wasn't turning any heads in standard play either, so at least Seviper wasn't an inferior snake.

Seviper's movepool was actually amazing, well beyond its time for granting Seviper a set of options that would even make Mewtwo a bit jealous.

Additionally, its mixed offenses were very good, with 100 in both Attack and special Attack, the former slightly trailing Zangoose's 115 score, and the latter vastly outclassing its bitter rival.

So why then, was Seviper useless in standard play?

Unfortunately, none of the above advantages matter when 4/5ths of the meta can outspeed and OHKO you before you can move. Seviper's bulk, like Zangoose, was bad, but at least Zangoose had a Base 90 Speed that could occasionally let it land a hit against something relevant first before getting wrecked in response. Seviper's Speed is a poor Base 65, meaning everything relevant on offense except for Tyranitar outspeeds it. Even Metagross outspeeds Seviper. With its poor bulk and Speed, Seviper would be invalidated by anything which wasn't a heavily defensive team. Unfortunately, there were other Pokemon who could succeed against those builds and not be deadweight against anything remotely offensive, rendering Seviper useless.

Answer: Unpredictability

Seviper's excellent mixed offenses and incredibly wide movepool meant that the opponent would immediately have to be on the defensive as it came in, because it had many different options it could use to blast apart physical and special walls alike.

On the physical side, Sludge Bomb, Earthquake, Double-Edge, Iron Tail, and Hidden Power Ghost were Seviper's viable options. Even if you didn't want to make use of Seviper's good Special Attack and wanted a fully physical set, there was still room for unpredictability. Switching in a Relicanth initially seems like a good idea, until the Seviper user correctly predicts this and destroys Relicanth with a couple Earthquakes. Likewise, Chimecho would get blown apart by a couple of Hidden Power Ghosts. A specially defensive Flareon coming in will get pushed aside by strong STAB Sludge Bombs.

On the specially offensive side, Seviper could run Flamethrower, Giga Drain, Crunch, Hidden Power Psychic, and Hidden Power Water. Again, you can't find any Pokemon who can consistently switch in on this. Steel types get mauled by Flamethrower, Rock and Ground types who resist Poison simply get beaten down by Giga Drain (which even heals Seviper in the process), Chimecho is again beaten up by Crunch, while Haunter can't handle Hidden Power Psychic, nor can Flareon, Magcargo or Lairon take on Hidden Power Water.

Considering Seviper's terrible bulk, it became optimal to try and mix physical and specially offensive moves, running natures such as Naughty or Rash, which did not detract Seviper's offenses but incurred a minor reduction to its bulk. This meant it could not be reliably walled, and was thus, a top tier wallbreaker in third generation NU.

Answer: Shed Skin

Shed Skin gives the user a 33% chance every turn to automatically remove harmful status. This ability was actually quite okay on Seviper, making it a decent switch in to defensive Grass types, as it could take a Stun Spore or Sleep Powder and fall back on Shed Skin to eventually relieve it of the status.

Answer: Switcheroo

Switcheroo allows Seviper to force a trade of held items between itself and the target. When equipped with a Choice item, generally Specs or Scarf, Seviper could force the opposing Pokemon to lock themselves in to a single move for the rest of the game, which would often be incredibly detrimental.

As defensive Pokemon need to have good longevity on the field, making use of all their options, having to switch out every time they want to use a new move was immensely crippling and was practically the same as straight up removing them from the match, giving Seviper even more utility against defensive teams.

This move granted Seviper a major boon, letting it emerge from the depths of NeverUsed and slithering up to viability in fourth generation UnderUsed.

Answer: No

Seviper's great mixed offenses meant it could theoretically be running just the right move to deter would-be counters.

Rhyperior and Donphan can't switch in on Giga Drain or Aqua Tail and prevail, though they could come in on any other move.

Registeel can indeed survive a few super effective Flamethrowers, but has more difficulty dealing with Earthquake and, unlike other Seviper checks, can't actually KO Seviper too quickly due to its own lacking offenses.

Bulky Psychic types, like Uxie, Mesprit and Slowbro, can come in on any move other than Crunch and win very easily.

However, each of these sentences highlight a particular move that Seviper could use to stop these Pokemon from countering it, by definition. Because nothing else came closer than the aforementioned options, Seviper did not have any counters, though offensive teams could quite easily check it.

Answer: Power Creep

Power creep is an informal term, where the standard of what is considered 'good' rising, causing what was good before the standards rose to suddenly become obsolete. Seviper was an under-the-radar victim of power creep. There were never any illusions that it would pan out in standard play, but the fact that many fourth generation standard play staples themselves fell out of favor in the ensuing generation meant that they would drop to UU and become super stars there. This caused fourth generation UU staples to drop to NU likewise, and so on, so forth.

With numerous UU staples dropping to NU, many of Seviper's old checks re-emerged, only now, there were new kids on the block, both from generations past and newcomers, around every corner who heavily threatened it. Tauros, Ludicolo, Swellow, Musharna, Sawk and Samurott are a small list of Pokemon who either heavily threatened Seviper, stole away its niche, or both.

Seviper's snake friend Arbok suffered similarly, though even Arbok got some new goodies that made it worth using. Seviper sadly did not, and though it wasn't at all outclassed by Arbok, if you were thinking you'd want to use a snake Pokemon for your fifth generation NU team, you'd want to consider Arbok first most of the time. Or Serperior.

Answer: Infiltrator

Infiltrator enables the user to ignore Substitutes as well as automatically bypass Reflect and Light Screen. For a slow mixed attacker, you'd think this ability might have been more impactful on Seviper like it was on most other Pokemon who held the ability. Sadly, dual screens was a non-existent strategy in fifth generation NU, and of the Pokemon who semi-commonly used Substitute, like Braviary, Tauros or Serperior, they tended to fare decently against Seviper even if it could ignore their Substitute. Thus, Shed Skin was still generally Seviper's preferred ability, as being able to absorb Spore or Thunder Wave was about the only thing it had over its otherwise superior competition.

Answer: Clefairy

Clefairy only ran Moonblast for an offensive move. Even with Seviper's poor bulk, Clefairy's offenses were even worse, and Seviper resisted this move. Clefairy commonly ran Thunder Wave to deter Pokemon from taking advantage of its passivity, but Seviper's Shed Skin would just about always render that a non problem. Thus, Seviper could switch in and immediately threaten an OHKO with Sludge Wave, forcing Clefairy to switch out or get obliterated and granting Seviper's team a lot of momentum. Seviper was actually problematic to switch in to, as it had the moveset to hit many stall staples hard, so Clefairy's team would immediately be in a bit of a bind upon a Seviper sighting.

Answer: Untiered

Seviper could no longer even make the cut for the lowest tier in the game. The introduction of Z-Moves meant that a mixed wallbreaker was nowhere near as desirable as it once was, since particularly strong physical or special wallbreakers could equip a Z-crystal to try and overcome their respective walling checks. Seviper's inabiliy to function against offensives teams meant it was outclassed or rendered ineffective at whatever it could try and pull off, thus representing the lowest of lows it would experience.

Answer: Yes

Any hope of Seviper making a comeback and becoming viable again somewhere was put on hold, and life support, by its inability to immediately enter Galar. Fortunately, as misery loves company, Seviper can at least enjoy the fact that its hated enemy, Zangoose, suffered the same fate.