How GOOD was Shedinja ACTUALLY? - History of Shedinja in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 3-7)

Shedinja is this week’s Pokemon for our competitive history series! Join False Swipe Gaming in this brief overview of Shedinja in competitive Pokemon!

The Official False Swipe Gaming Twitter:

0:00 - Intro
0:51 - ADV/Gen 3
3:08 - DPP/Gen 4
5:42 - Gen 4 VGC
7:25 - BW/Gen 5
8:08 - XY/Gen 6
8:40 - SM/Gen 7
9:24 - Gen 7 VGC
11:19 - Outro

Directed by Kellen

Edited By CDK

VFX Intro By
Ryan Gonzales

Written By
Kevin aka BKC

Sound Designed by
Ryan Gonzales

Game Capture Artist:
Jago

FULL RESEARCH SOURCES HERE:

DISCLAIMERS ON FORMATS COVERED:
Notice I said POPULAR formats, meaning a format where there is a significant amount of people who compete in it for tournaments and so on and so forth. Now Popular does not mean official even though two of the formats I will be covering were official formats being Japan Nintendo Cup and VGC, but it is an indicator of what a good portion of competitive players thought was “optimal” at the time. Also sometimes the Pokemon Battle Historia doesn't provide enough information to talk about certain Pokemon so I add Smogon analysis to make sense of it. This is pretty rare though.

To the people asking why I don't cover Smogon Singles for Gens 1 and 2: It wouldn't really be a history video if I covered those because online Smogon gen 1 meta to my knowledge wasn't actually played until late 2000s. I wanted to cover tournaments/competitive battling that was actually played during the early years of Pokemon (late 90s).

To the people asking why I cover Smogon at all for singles: To my knowledge, Smogon was the most popular format for Gens 3-5 and held a number of tournaments throughout the years. As for Gen 6, I am not covering Battle Spot Singles because there is more information and explanations about sets being used relative to their own meta on Smogon. In other words, there are few written analyses about Battle Spot Pokemon besides the Top tiers and I would like to avoid theorycrafting because it may have a hint of bias (though I theorycraft if I REALLY couldn't find information on a certain Pokemon). The keyword here is explanations. Though I did find statistics of most Pokemon used and most moves used, there wasn't really any explanations on why. Also the few Pokemon I did find analysis of for Top Tier Battle Spot Singles had very similar move sets to the Smogon OU sets anyway.

For the record, I do not care what rules or formats people play their battles by nor am I saying these formats are the only formats that should be played. The way you play Pokemon is between you and your opponent and I will not fault you for using evasion or whatever, I just like examining popular tournament formats.

Songs Used (List of ALL Songs used for this series. Some may or may not make it into the video):

My Twitter:

Resources and Historical References

Smogon University:

Maikiri

Aaron Cybertron Zheng:

Pokeaim

Pokemon Battle Historia:

Nintendo Cup 2000 Team Construction:

Nintendo Cup 2000 Tier List:

Pokemon Japanese Battle Wiki:

Sprites From:

[meatshield_]

I like the Idea that a discarded exoskeleton can shrug off potentially world-ending attacks.

[CanadianChrist]

Shedinjas second highest stat is defense, let that sink in

[horricule]

Shedinja's a gimmick, but i'll be damned if it ain't one of the most entertaining gimmicks out there.

[omgidkwhatimdoing]

that feel when your so bad that you can only be used in uber.

wait.

[sonny_njr]

Shedinja doesn’t like sand. It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like NU. There everything is soft, and smooth.

[yihuixu]

Thanks for mentioning me! In fact, I obtained almost 400 CP with it within moon series, which included 3th place in Mexico City Special Event and 24th place in Collinsville Regionals.

[howlingarmadillo]

I can respect any pokemon whose viability is determined entirely by how good your reads are.

[ZorotheGallade]

"Shedinja, you just can't cut it either in OU or in UU."
"Then I'll go to UBERS."
"Wait, it doesn't work that wa-"
"U B E R S"

[TheLateMrBones]

Still annoyed how Shedinja doesn’t have 1 for Def and SpDef. Would give it more stats for attacking and speed

[mmmapplesauce]

>1 HP
>45 Defense
>30 Special
Ok thanks nintendo

[johnbailey]

Mega rayquaza: *Life orb Draco meteor*
Shedinja: You sure you belong in AG?
Charmander: *Ember*
Shedinja: OH GOD NO

[ulrichbrodowsky]

"PU? No, that's far to tough for me. I'll stay in UBER, where I belong."
- quote Shedinja

[pepeknight]

Shoutouts to the guy who reached top 1 in SM OU using Stall with Safety Goggles Shedinja.

Also Jinx got Jinxed LUL.

[SMAXZO]

*Legendaries appear and terrorizing a town*
Shedinja: Can't touch this!

[Cheefoo]

Shedinja is definitely my favorite pokemon. I fondly remember grinding on my friend's secret base team with him way back in Ruby, because he didn't have anything that could kill it. Then he altered his team to give some of his pokemon anti-Shedinja moves so then I had to alter my strategies to deal with them too. Probably the first time my 10-year-old brain started thinking about pokemon strategically on that level. Thanks Shedinja.

[pofsk]

I believe one of the most notorius top ladder defining team in ORAS OU was built based on the trio "Dugtrio, Mega Sableye, Shedinja" that relied on Sableye to control hazards, Dugtrio to trap things like Tyrannitar, and Shedinja to wall. (and talonflame, seismitoad, togekiss or other variants of teammates) The team was spammed so much that this is actually the first thing that came to mind when speaking of Shedinja competitvely. Later on though, Mega Sableye got banned several days before Sun Moon arrived, and Dugtrio got retroactively banned as well last year.

[urlocallazerbird]

Shedinja is the literal Embodiment of "Imagine actually needing Defense and Sp.Defense Lmao"

[Essex]

I have a weakness for Pokemon with great strength but weird weaknesses. Shedinja, Slaking and Wishiwashi are my favorites.

[goldenhydreigon]

Who would win?

A Pokemon who brought enough rain to create oceans.
Or
Literally an old cicada skin

[dznutskong]

I feel like it should have been mentioned that Shedinja Stall was perfectly viable back when Arena Trap was allowed in OU.