spammed contrary, he won less than 20% of the games altho that doesnt mean anything bc i didnt play anyone good. sub 1600 gang
aight heres the hl special HOW TO BEAT CONTRARY EZ. in this post i will be providing counterpoints to the points flint provided on why contrary is a problem. i will also be giving specific teams as examples to further my point. lets get into it gamers.
[Moves that can be used with Contrary] have expanded with the beginning of the new gen, specifically with Fleur Cannon. Coverage options can also be used, the most popular of them currently being the "MoldMoves", Photon, Sunsteel and Moongeist, but can also be used in conjunction with Power Trip and Priority.
this is true. contrary did improve in gen 7 with new moves and stuff. this point does little to illustrate why contrary is allegedly broken, though, and instead just argues for its viability.
Unaware can now be pierced through with the so called "MoldMoves", all of which together have decent coverage.
As from upside (1), the pool of Unaware users has been limited as the main mons that can tank the MoldMoves are defeated by +0 Contrary SE moves.
Because of these points, Unaware has seen decreased use this gen, meaning that this would fall into "preparing against one thing leads to a worse matchup against other threats"
in my opinion unaware has always been a super niche ability, at least since usum came out. it's a reactive thing that gives up momentum, which is fine on some stalls but bad on balances where you need to get this slow pokemon in and recover somehow. it is also, for the most part, pretty inefficient at checking offense outside of specific mons, including vs contrary. also, the fact that unaware can be unreliable vs contrary in itself means that when it is used, it's not exclusively to prepare for contrary.
[Spectral Thief can be used to turn the match around vs. Contrary], but it is not fair to expect to use Spectral Thief every single turn, and without Unaware, which as was discussed earlier is seeing decreased use, it is often difficult to bring in something with heightened offenses and then survive and use Spectral Thief. And your Spec Thief user has to also think about the play of facing Imposter right afterward. Contrary has the capability of providing "momentum" while staying in.
ok, let's consider some other moves the defensive mon might have:
- pivoting should work fine if you have any sort of revenge killer, which you really should on balance. even something like regenvest ogre can be brought in, eat a +2 hit, and retaliate.
- recover is honestly a pretty bad move to click vs mmy/scept/etc with unrevealed set. i'd only click it on a mon good in the matchup that can effectively wall them even factoring in contrary, like unaware ho oh vs unrevealed scept.
- defog should never be clicked vs an offensive mon that could potentially be a threat w contrary. you just dont do this.
- core enforcer/worryseed can work if u have a regenvest dude in the back to eat the +2 hit.
- topsy is a good move to click if youre scared of contrary but can handle other sets, or you know the set already. one of the better options.
if youre using a defensive mon without either pivoting or topsy and you're sick of losing to contrary as balance, just run paralysis like nuzzle or something on the set. it's not that hard and doesn't fall under leading to a worse matchup vs other threats, because all offensive sets hate paralysis so it ends up being really useful even outside of contrary.
[Fat mons with Destiny Bond/Haze(?)/Encore(???) can do a good job at handling Contrary], however see previous points on the expanded coverage of Contrary, and how it is unreasonable to expect being able to switch in and spam such moves, and also they can just switch out.
i dont know what this point is saying. the prank user cant come in and spam dbond? how? the mmy can just switch out like every other offensive threat when it faces a counter??? what is this
Shedinja doesn't work because they have Mold Breaker moves
i honestly really like the shed vs contrary matchup. going hard shed then hard imposter is an option vs like mray that does a great job at scouting for photon. scarf imposter + shed espeed for sash in general is already super good vs contrary without even factoring in shed's teammates. he might not hard counter but that doesn't really matter here.
MOLD BREAKER MOVES ARE THE REAL PROBLEM
irrelevant here
Imposter + Spectral Thief walls/RegenVest is matchup reliant and often unsustainable throughout a match
you can usually sense whether or not contrary is on a team from preview and play accordingly from there. imposter will put in work in every matchup outside of that dumb mray set that never does anything anyway. all imposter-proofers will take a significant amount from one of the contrary user's attacks except shed, who can be pressured by playing proactively with your hazard setters. ate users can be kept healthy and you can keep in mind what percentage they can revenge kill the contrary user from. (all contrary users are pretty weak to ate except like vcreate/ks mmy.) ill go into that in more detail here.
here are some example teams i have that dont lose to contrary, and the building process behind them.
https://pokepast.es/6d4fef2d36d232a1 bowser jr collab
original offensive core. ogre offers some defensive utility and can hurt mmy with knock, but in general both are really weak to contrary.
regenvest steela is added to imposter proof mray while taking on the scary specs ray and triage to some extent, and generates momentum by pivoting on stuff like giratina. it also loses to contrary.
scarf imposter is added to better take care of triage ray while providing insurance vs smash sweepers and contrary. it doesnt do a great job at directly switching in but can come in if steela lives a hit and uturns or something, or if steela comes in on a psycho boost and switches out on vcreate.
legendary fc 0 atks cress is the fire resist for blaziken and vcreate mmy. steela lives unboosted overheat well enough already. topsy means its not setup bait so this mon ends up handling contrary quite well especially considering uturn steela (which comes in if u drop their spa). i hate needing defog on literally all teams.
prank guzzlord is needed to not lose to drum and gar. as far as opposing setup is concerned its not really needed for anything else (steela uturn into imposter can handle most of the goons on offense) so dbond can safely be run here. if they dont have drum or gar, which are both extremely obvious at preview, you can just dbond the contrary away and go to imposter if you get killed on the switch by fleur cannon. not that hard.
this team can overall blanket check contrary pretty easily despite how weak the offensive core is to it thanks to the use of cress, regenvest, prank dbond, and scarf imposter. losing to it is pretty unlikely unless they outplay in which case they deserve to win anyway lol
but what if you dont have imposter?
https://pokepast.es/0ac72279d586c629 third strike
offensive mon + imposter proofer. seeds is used on audino to be less passive vs imposter and does a great job making sure it lives 2 hits from contrary in a 1v1. kee berry is also great for this. the core overall does pretty well vs contrary considering that arceus lives 1 from everyone except mmx then proceeds to kill w +3 boomburst.
needed this boy to not lose to ray and diancie. nuzzles contrary but doesnt beat it 1v1 and loses to superpower.
gira is a good choice since i needed a fighting resist and fairies are already covered by the don. he takes on mmx decently and can 1v1 all contrary variants thanks to core + sap living +2 fleur.
dialga covers most sleep users decently while providing a non passive mon which is nice. also blocks hazards from common passive dudes (ph mmx is already covered well by gira while bastiodon counters diancie). it loses to contrary but can live 1 hit from everyone except mmx and hit back with core.
dumb meme set that cant check or come in on contrary but can win if its already boosted. its meant to get initiative vs more passive teams.
this team overall handles contrary super well. although on paper nothing switches into contrary, in practice contrary tends to have a pretty annoying time getting started up as well, and without photon/sunsteel they're limited to 1 kill by audino even assuming they can set up.
but what if you don't have unaware?
https://pokepast.es/90dad8a095aef710 soup time
initial offensive core with an imposter proofer for diancie. fun fact, revdance arceus actually still works so the set is still imposter proof. diancie provides a good revenge killer for contrary, arceus can live a hit but cant hope to switch in without getting overwhelmed, while mmx is a liability here.
prank glare xern is added, partially as an imposter proofer for mmx and partially as an offense killer in general. it cant switch into contrary without dying the next turn but can almost guarantee a glare, and contrary can't come in while xern is in at all-- although it can 2hko, the xern player can just glare, sack something that does nothing in the matchup, then revenge kill with ease.
bounce jelly + regenvest guzzlord core is added, handles gar, pdon, ph mmx all those guys. they do pretty poorly against contrary in general although jelly counters contrary mmx and isnt setup bait thanks to worry seed (which isnt specifically for contrary by any means) while guzzlord can live non lo fleur from mmy and retaliate by getting them in range of diancie.
now you might be wondering "sl42 how does this team even beat contrary at all". think of it like this: there are 2 types of contrary teams, the ladder kid offense and the tryhard balance with some kinda imposter proofer. your counterplay can adjust based on the matchup.
vs offense, xern is your key mon to keep alive because he beats offense. in this scenario, you have 2 ways around contrary. first of all, you can try to have xern in and force them to go to the contrary mon somehow, then glare him and switch out to kill while preserving xern and the stuff you actually need. if keeping xern in isn't an option because of a specific mon, then your play is to chip the contrary mon into range of diancie espeed. this can be done by anyone except for jellicent (which has worry seed anyway) and mmx locked into psycho boost (lol).
vs balance, xern will probably not be that necessary. its good as a safe imposter proofer for mmx, but even if it does die, the team doesn't just lose to imposter mmx (for example, guzzlord is a reasonably safe switchin because he lives 1, and diancie can check as well). because of this, you can typically play pretty aggressively with xern vs contrary, even switching it directly in and just clicking glare. contrary balance is really ineffective at pressuring xern even if they get the switch right because of all the things they have to not lose to in the building stage.
overall, i dont think contrary is something that significantly limits building balance, because a team that loses to contrary is typically going to get overwhelmed by faster teams anyway. if you're using imposter, that's already a mon that does super well if you give it any sort of support at all, and if you're not using it and still lose to aggressive builds with 6 slots, that's kind of on you.
if you guys want to convince me otherwise, i want more proof. strong teams that see consistent success on ladder, games where the opponent did everything right and still couldn't beat the contrary user, teams you built that seem to work fine against everything except contrary. or at least give me some counterarguments on here or discord. thanks for reading guys.
