How GOOD was Tyranitar ACTUALLY? - History of Tyranitar in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 2-6)

Tyranitar! The Armor Pokemon! Is eating that much soil as a Larvitar enough for it to be a competitive monster? Join False Swipe Gaming in this brief overview of Tyranitar to find out!

Shout Outs to my new Writer!
Zane Bhansali aka Epengu

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.

Song Used:
See End of 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:

FULL RESEARCH SOURCES HERE:

Pokemon Japanese Battle Wiki:

Sprites From:

[lorenzorobertos]

“This is gonna be a long video” oh boy ! Time sure has changed a lot

[Hello-lbbm]

Now you look at it, Mega Tyranitar has some characteristics of all of its prevolutions. The armor of pupitar, the red chest of larvitar and Tyranitar as the body

[spartandumpster]

Stone Edge is one of those moves where, if I use it, I'll miss 4/5 times, but the opponent NPC never misses. Just like when you confuse an opponent, they'll hit themselves once, then snap out of it in 3 turns, but your Pokemon will beat itself to death in 5 turns.

[realmdarkness]

Remember when 13 minutes was considered a long video on this channel?
Laughs in Excadrill
*Future me* Comes back from the future and laughs in Landorus

[thespecht]

OML... the part where he said "Kids, eat your dirt" *really* caught me off guard and made me crack up.

[RtroRage]

I love how big this channel got I remember when the comments used to be like 20 per video now there are 2K and I think it's well earned

[vinorteza]

The greatest OU pokemon of all time, tapus and landorus be damned. Design-wise and competitive-wise, only garchomp comes close. Ttar is to OU what godzilla is to every kaiju, he is simply the king

[JohnnyNumber]

0:35: "This is gonna be a long one"

*Laughs in second Scizor video*

[voltingmaster]

R.I.P Tyranitar who’s now in RU as of Gen 9, Cause Of Death, Salty Minecraft Boi.

[jimmyfenix]

I've always loved this Godzilla of Pokemon, ever since he was introduced he has been the top rank in competitive. But what hurts about him is how poorly he's been shown in the anime. Pikachu kicked his ass for God's sake
I bet even Charizard would beat him in any given episode. I wish they could show more love towards the best beast

[andrestewart]

Good to see T-tar get some love! (also the definition of an OU mon LOL) also I just wanted to say I really appreciate the hard and detail put into these vids furthermore I'm really looking forward to the final part of Gen 1 battling explained!.

[VampyreBassist]

Remember when he complained 13 minutes was long?

Then we had HOW GOOD WAS MEWTWO ACTUALLY

[Grandflea]

Me when choice scarf was introduced: Gamefreak should make a choice item for accuracy too!
Tyranitar: Dynamic punch.
Me: Ok, I hope they never make that.

[shinkuoldrose]

The date is July 1th, 2020
In a meta where ghost types are everywhere, Excradril is one of the best pokemon in the tier, and a lot of mons getting cut because of Dexit




With the removal of pursuit, its mega, everything getting fighting type coverage
*Tyranitar fell into UU for the first time, and with that, oficially there is no 1-3 gen true OU Pokemon anymore*
End of recording, please press F to pay respect aftherwards...

[anthonybirkins]

My thoughts on Tyranitar in Gen 8 (buckle up it's a long analysis):

Losing Pursuit in Gen 8 is a pretty big deal because of these new Ghosts like Dragapult can run around without fearing being trapped. And we also know Gen 7 Ttar was one of the most threatening trappers in OU. However, by today, both Cinderace and Magearna were quickbanned, which also means it's only better news for Ttar.


Previously Ttar dropped to UU because of the limited mons and a lot of things carry Fighting moves, and Ttar's low Speed and a lot of weaknesses hurt a lot. A lot of hard hitters in OU also do their jobs better like Dragon Dance Dragonite and Swords Dance/Rock Polish Landorus. However it got revived because of Spectrier which was definitely annoying (yeah I had nightmares using my Ttar even with Rest).

However with new mons released (and old mons returning) and these bans, I have been having a field time with Ttar in OU and even in some Uber games. Here are the sets of Ttar I tried, with decent success up to 1500 rating.

Set 1: Dragon Dance Sweeper: (Life Orb, Jolly Nature)
1. Dragon Dance
2. Crunch/Lash Out
3. Stone Edge/Rock Blast
4. Fire Punch/Ice Punch

This set is hard to pull off but I was able to get the job done as a late game cleaner sometimes. It can kill many things with 1 DD up and coverages can OHKO birds, Ferrothorn, offensive Landorus with Lash Out. The attacks cover Psychics, Ghosts, Flyings, Steels and everything that doesn't resist, really.

Set 2: Rock Polish cleaner: (Life Orb/Weakness Policy, Adamant/Jolly Nature)
1. RP
2. Crunch
3. Stone Edge/Rock Blast
4. Fire Punch/Ice Punch/Earthquake

For Rock Polish (RP) that's a big surprise for non-scarf "glass cannons" like Tapu Lele, Barraskewda, Tornadus-T. However I tend to run Jolly with RP and max speed to be as fast as possible. The EV spreads can help Ttar outspeed even +1 mons with max speed (Scarf), like the speed tiers of Rillaboom With proper coverages Ttar can still hit many mons that either switch in or get outsped by RP. Getting hit by U-turns and low base power super effective moves activate Weakness Policy and +2 Attack Ttar is something you should be scared of.

I have also tried the Special Attacking moves on Ttar with Weakness Policy and max Special Attack but it's not really worth it because of Ttar's mediocre SA, aside from killing Garchomp, Hippowdon, Landorus-T with Ice Beam and some other very niche options. Mixed moves don't do that well either because easier to be walled by stuff like Ferrothorn or do not hit things hard enough. Life Orb and Adamant kick Ttar's Atk to another level, but I prefer Weakness Policy to still tank some hits later on.

Set 3: Wallbreaker: (Choice Band/Life Orb, Adamant with some Speed and HP investments)
1. Crunch
2. Stone Edge
3. Fire Punch
4. Ice Punch

This is my best set because it basically hits the whole tier at least neutrally depending on what mons switch in. Life Orb can help deal with Aegislash if it thinks Ttar is locked into Crunch. This set is basically just like the previous gens, nothing too special. Great for sand teams with Excadrill, as always.

Set 4: Sash Lead: (Focus Sash, Adamant)
1. Counter
2. Stealth Rocks
3. Crunch
4. Ice Beam

Not my favorite set but it can immediately murder a physical Fighting threat like Urshifu if it goes for a Fighting move right away. Other than that this set acts as a lure for other Rocks setters like Lando-T and Garchomp. Quite hard to use for me.

Set 5: Support: (Leftovers, Careful)
1. Stealth Rocks
2. Ice Beam
3. Rock Tomb
4. Thunder Wave/Toxic/Roar

Just a regular support set, I guess. Setting up Rocks, baiting stuff with Ice Beam, Roar to avoid being set up on, T-wave is just T-wave doing its thing, or Toxic which I find a decent move to hit walls. Leftovers helps Ttar a lot as well.

Overall as of now I think Ttar is doing very well and should remain OU if nothing big happens. Ttar can do the following in OU, in my opinion:
1. It can check a lot of things still, like Dragapult, Tapu Koko, choice-locked Tapu Lele to either set up, land a blow or a support move to cripple mons that switch in.
2. Also set up sand and is a good sand supporter like before.
3. Base 134 Attack with items like Choice Band and Life Orb and Adamant can really do damage. Rock and Dark typing is great offensively. It is also the only Rock type in the tier that is OU, though :/.
4. Defensively it can sponge medium special hits and more if invested. Mostly neutral hits or low base attack super effective moves. Ttar also has useful resistances in Flying, Fire, Ghost, Poison and an immunity to Psychic.

Overall, Ttar is definitely not as stellar as the previous gens with all the new threats, but it's possible to play around with certain sets and correct strategies. It now requires quite a bit more team support to be able to "sweep" with +1 Speed (which is still slower than quite a few things) or prior chip damage to deliver final blows on its own.

Fighting and Fairies are the most annoying and I can't really afford to run a Steel-type move just for stuff like Clefable and miss out on other things. Fighting moves or strong super effective hits are also bad, as are the case for other mons with super effective hits, so building around Ttar is a bit harder now. Ttar is not bad by any means since I've used it for several gens in competitive play. With so many moves it has and so many things it can hit I think using them at the right time and banking on its special bulk briefly can make some differences after it comes in via Volt-turn for example.

I also heard some players also experiment with Assault Vest or items like the boots, have yet to try them since I don't really like these. But, these are my experiences in gen 8 and I hope to see more of these sets in use in the future. Have a good day, people!

[SpinEnjoyer]

Tyranitar is in UU boys, Can we get some F's in the chat

[Grandflea]

Tyranitar: 6'07"
Me: a bit smaller than I expected, but not as surprising as Nidoking
Mega Tyranitar: 8'02"
Me: Yeah that makes more sense.

[ededdedison]

9:29

*Tyranitar was used in 5 out of the 8 games! very popular pokemon!*

Cresselia : Am I a joke to you?

[Grandflea]

A pokemon which has been in OU every single generation since it was added in gen 2.
That's definitely the mark of a great pokemon.

[omegaslash]

Anyone here after T-Tar is sent to UU?
Edit: T-Tar is back into OU again. Not gonna go back and update if it ever falls back until the metagame is complete for SwSh