Don’t worry everyone, palafin is just busy saving paldea, he’ll be back later this season.

He's just stopping tinkaton from killing another corviknight he'll be back soon enough

Lmao

@@tomato325loo

He is a pokemon team member by day, disappearer by june.

@@tomato325lol

Don't worry he was just switched out for now. He'll come back out with better stats in a little bit

Mega palafin

*heheheha*

Urshifu >

This is the most beautiful thing I've ever read

I guess you could say he went from Hero to Zero

EPIC JOKES

This gave me a lil chuckle

frfr

boooooooooo

sadge :(

This Pokémon is an excellent example of the differences between singles and doubles. Palafin is really hard to use in doubles due to the faster pace and plethora of ways to punish it on the switch. Meanwhile, it's banned from Smogon OU because switching around is much easier, and flip turn gives it excellent positioning capability.

The removal of Pursuit in Gen 8-on also robbed Singles of a tool that could’ve majorly dented Palafin (especially with hazards up) before ever activating its ability.

There's also the fact that, since vgc is 4v4, it's harder to ensure you can activate zero-to-hero if you don't lead with palafin compared to if it were 6v6 doubles

smogon OU is stupid i wish people would stop bringing it up

@@grass_snake80 If you’ve any alternative formats for playing singles-format, I’m all ears.

Remember: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Palafin died a hero. What a beautiful and touching story. Thanks Wolfe

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the zero.

Meanwhile Palafin in Singles: Do you know how I got those scars?

Im so damn tired of seeing this quote every damn day

​@@strivfe8007Fall asleep rn

It's good to remember that palafin is still a VERY good mon. I feel like it's a similar enough issue to Dondozo- so many people knew how to play against it that you come in with an info disadvantage. Urshifu's addition makes its chances of a return in Reg D way lower, but honestly I think you can expect to always see a few palafin here and there.

Dozo can still sweep if your team doesn't have tools for it which you may or may not have

I feel like an important addition to remember when talking about palafin is that hero-palafin effectively has no ability. While thats not the worst thing in the world, Regigigas wishes it could have no ability, it does mean herofin has one less finger to thumb scales in battle with. Wolfey's pala-amoon-arca core kinda shows that in the other two having continuously reapplicable effects in regenerator healing and intimidate attack drops but after it transforms herofin now only has the pivot typing to add to the team

Palafin effectively has technician due to jet punch being 50% stronger aqua jet

Honestly I think Palafin will skyrocket once more once Incineroar returns. It's a far better pivot than Arcanine which can support Palafin and remove/check annoying grass types while Palafin can do good against opposing popular Incineroar. We'll just have to wait

Same, it'll also mean that Palafin can use Eject Pack to a better use due to more common intimidate. Although it's going to be hard for Palafin to outperform water types like Urshifu with unseen fist

100% gonna be happy if Incineroar comes back in the DLC but I dislike Palafin as a Pokémon. I'd love it to stay never used.

Reminds me of what happened to Durant in SWSH. Both were very meager in their own right, but thanks to gen 8's Dynamax and Palifin's Ability, they were both "play good, do good" Pokémon.

What happened to Durant I swsh?

​@@dannyphantom3591mold breaker durant was better

​@@dannyphantom3591 Hustle boosts attack but lowers accuracy. So, it's decent attack with Hustle made it threatening but inconsistent. However, in a meta without legendaries where Dynamax boosts the power of moves and ignores accuracy, Durant was a devastating threat that could easily sweep teams. It fell off pretty hard because if you just use Max Guard, or even just Mimikyu, it's pretty easy to counter. It's only really threatening if your opponent is like "Oh, the silly little ant, what's that thing gonna do?"

​@@ashblossomandjoyoussprung.9917thanks for the information! Never knew an ant could become so threatening! Durant also has access to truant of all abilities too... Mayne GameFreak knew they created a champ, durant finally got the attention it deserves, atleast in gen 8!❤

hey wolf, you’ve influenced me a lot to get into comp

how, he is terrible

Ignore the bait acc. Good luck xx

​​@@rivers175cap, world champ difference is real

Sameee!!!

@@rivers175 used Bait! It’s not very effective…

I like the beginning story, with Wolfe saying it’s going to be good, everyone sleeping on it, and Wolfe just going “no, TRUST ME!!” And then building its gold standard team

to anybody curious, the North American International Championships are currently happening, with both finalists decided, facing off tomorrow, and Palafin is on one of the finalists teams. there’s a good chance it takes home another international, claiming all three this season. it’s still absolutely a good pokemon, just not as dominant as it was around EUIC.

I’d compare palafin to something like a slightly better slaking. Good stats with a great movepool but held back by its ability. Granted the swap out isn’t as bad as truant, but it’s so cumbersome to set up sometimes where it’d be better to use a different water type, like iron bundle or the new to reg d urshifu.

Spot on

The ability is nowhere near as much of a drawback as Slaking. Palafin has been banned in singles because "switching out" is nowhere near as much of a drawback, in fact it's a positive.

​@royalgelly8948 where talking more about vgc, where switching is much more dangerous than in singles.

@@royalgelly8948 granted that’s singles, where switching is a lot more common. This is vgc

Granted 1 turn which you do nothing is even more of a liability to slaking because everyone and their mother runs protect.

One idea is to use eject pack/button this negates the use of flip turn, this is especially useful against intimidate users such as guarados

Then you won't have any item, which is not always acceptable

All it takes is someone thinking outside the box. Maybe one day Palafin will return to save the day when people need him the most.

You need to switch 2 times to get its hero form that's all there is to it, so it won't be likely to see palafin getting attention as much as its used to be

Palafin is easily my favorite gen 9 Pokémon, simply because it’s an adorable dolphin Pokémon that is also beefy as heck. The fact that it had such a strong competitive start is phenomenal news to me, even if it is phasing out of the meta

It could have been interesting making zero palafin somewhat usable (bulkier and faster) and switching between forms everytime it had to switch

This is similar to Spamton's backstory He was unsuccessful at first (like Palafin wasn't used during the first days of SV comp), then became popular because he met a person who helped him (like you started using Palafin and it became popular), then suddenly everything went wrong (people stopped using Palafin for some reason). By comparing these two, we can assume Palafin is gonna return (maybe when the DLC gets released) and he will be "BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER"

Im suprised no one's using Tsareena since her ability Queenly Majesty doesnt allow any prioty moves to be used to be a counter against Palafin

There are better mons for that job

me swapping my tsareena in to block grassy glide and save palafin

Armor Tail Farigiraf was used a little iirc

Tsareena is not a good pokemon, fine, but not got good Having to run her JUST to counter palafin is not a good strat. There are better pokemon that block priority and have better usage like Indeedee with the tools of being a good support pokemon with follow me, helping hand, heal pulse and possible trick room setter

Tsareena was fantastic pre-HOME, but she definitely struggles with how severe the post-HOME power creep has been. There's too many strong flying types running around now and tons of good grass types fighting for that team slot.

This is the kind of stuff I was looking forward to with this meta game. You'd think that giving people access to overpowered Mons with any Mono Type they want would make things stale. But no. While a META surfaces at times, it also introduced a lot of innovation to combat it. And Gen 9 is close to perfect for this, imho.

Playing in nationals and uploading content. This guy is everywhere

Imagine he recorded it all backstage during nationals

He's at 9-2 rn hopefully he doesn't lose anymore 🙏🏻

10-2 as of now!

​@@Johten10-2 last I saw+

@@Johteni think he’s out now sadly

Between Magikarp evolving into Gyarydos, Feebas into Milotic (to a lesser degree), Wimpod into Golisopod, Wishiwashy having it's school form, and Palafin's Zero to Hero, Gamefreak really seems to have a thing for making the strongest form changing (including evolution) "normal" Pokemon of their generations. Kinda wild that it seems to almost always be the water type, kinda like how pseudo legendaries are almost always dragons or dragon-like in the case of Tyranitaur, Metagross being the only outlier, if I'm not mistaken (in a gen that also had a pseudo-legendary dragon)

Yeah

Tinkaton almost had that pseudo vibe to her. If only her base stats reflected this, I could see her Attack stat get significantly higher, so she isn't quite as reliant on her signature Gigaton Hammer.

Palafin reminds me a lot of Norman's Slaking in Nuzlockes. It is very dangerous to face, but you know what is coming, and you can ruin Slaking's day by predicting it.

unfortunately i think palafin coming back is very unlikely, Basculegion-M is a better choice for rain teams (we finally have a swift swim user that isn't mediocre) and outside of rain teams, Palafin has very stiff competition from Urshifu Rapid Strike.

It makes sense why they don’t use paladin because the vgc is mostly or all about doubles which means zero to hero becomes more of a liability because switching out a Pokémon into hero form can make other mons vulnerable verses singles where you only have to worry about one mon at a time.

The way I prepped my Portland VGC team to be super defensive against Palafin and then only battled against 1 out of all 9 battles 😭

6:16 I love when Wolfey does this, best brag possible. Just like with "only once a player won with a Perish Song team before". Truly world champ difference

Zero to Hero is basically the flip coin to Wishiwashi's Schooling, with a hint of Battle Bond. It comes to show that abilities that change the form of pokémon usually bring weird things to the table.

The question is Wolfe... Will you be using Palafin in the next tournament?

Palafin didnt fall off, he just switched out so he could come back in hero form

Something tells me the return of regieleki is going to be real impactful of palafin

If someone found a way to make Zero form Palafin good and just have the Hero form as an added bonus they could probably do well with it

But palafin has nothing going for it other than Hero's big boy stats. It has no special ability, its moveset is quite limited and mostly just attacking moves.

@@frosthammer917 Imagine if they gave it pure power as its hidden ability

@@superzockertvyt9630 That would just be stupid broken. Funny but stupid broken. Palafin would have less bulk but the attack power equivalent to a base 190 atk mon off the bat.(so significantly more than hero Palafin)

Stories like these seem to be surprisingly common across generation nine, both in Smogon singles and VGC. I'm a singles player, so I'll use an example from the OverUsed tier. At the start of the generation Roaring Moon was one of the most oppressive Pokémon in the format, to the point where it was being considered for being banned to Ubers, but as the metagame developed, it began to fall out of favour very quickly. By the time Pokémon Home was rolling out, Roaring Moon was already rapidly dropping in usage, and it's currently sitting near the bottom of the tier. It's still generally viewed as a very powerful Pokémon, but the metagame has adapted to the point where it's no longer oppressive.

I love how thoroughly you explain exactly what makes each thing good or bad

I feel like the strat with Palafin would be to try & get the most out of its Zero form. It’s not a bad Mon in its Zero state by any means IMO.

I was never interested in competitive Pokemon but he presents it so good i want to try it myself. Good Work!

Fast forward to this man winning worlds this year with palafin

In my opinion, Palafin will become too strong for competitive play one day. It's only a matter of time before it gains a new move or tech to punish counters.

semi-unrelated but in Legends Arceus, Wave Crash was built similary to other priority moves, being a little bit stronger as well. However it had a recoil drawback. Wave crash was basically Jet Punch but with 33% recoil. Imagine if Gamefreak distributed Wave Crash as a 60 BP aqua jet with recoil

Kinda hard to see Palafin having a come back after Urshifu Rapid Strike legalization in the format. Surging strikes is just too much to ignore, especially with rain, mystic water, and a high attack stat

In a turn based game, one move is all it takes to lose. So getting palafin on the field is very risky and sometimes just not worth it. So yes although it's strong, one turn can make it not worth it.

I was always skeptical of how good Palafin would be. You become predictable with in in team preview. You have to go 1 vs 2 on turn 1 and there’s not a lot of turns to be waisting time switching out.

Being unpredictable is overrated. Everyone knows what Amoongus and Chi yu do, but what they do is excellent anyway.

Looks like it is really good so the meta developed to counter it and with dlc more counter options became commonplace so it lost its foothold in the meta

it's probably better for single battles right? where switching out is a more common thing to spend a turn on than in vgc. switching out is common in vgc too, though usually you have to make it a lot more purposeful since you've only got 2 pokemon not on the field instead of 5. if you switch palafin out, you might expect to have the thing that switches into its place to be doubled up on by attacks from both of your opponent's pokemon, whereas in single battles it's fairly likely that your opponent is just also gonna switch out. lmao.

I love using palafin in singles with 6 Pokémon I like to use glimmora to set up and get ko then send in palafin and decide whether to switch or finish off with jet punch then use palafin later after switching to hero mode as my sweeper I just started playing but it’s been somewhat successful

I watched the whole video and I still didn't really understand what happened. I understand counters started to become more popular, but for such a drastic disappearance, I would have expected something equally drastic to have changed in the meta

He doesn't really "identify" anything as a root cause in the video, but he suggests it might have to do with the rise of Gyarados, which itself performs really well against Palafin teams (he cites the water+fire coverage and taunt as reasons). This created a new team structure that not only beat Palafin, but also beat Dondozo and is beaten by Amoonguss, meaning that the Dondozo teams that Palafin teams succeed against are also fading whereas Amoonguss, one of Palafin's big counters, is spiking in usage. So in total, the rise of Gyarados decreased the chance of seeing Palafin's good matchups while making Palafin's bad matchups more prevalent.

Gyarados/Iron Hands/Chi Yu all have excellent matchups against Palafin teams while also being more consistent and in control

He doesn't know but speculated on four factors played a role: 1) Counters to Palafin teams (such a Gyaradoa) became more common, 2) Good matchups for Palafin (namely Dodonzo) became less common, 3) People got better at exploiting Palafin's drawbacks (utilizing the obvious switch out), and 4) Other pokemon (particularly Azumarill) were explored replacing Palafin by giving up some power in exchange for smaller weaknesses. All that makes perfect sense although the rapidity of its decline is surprising.

Could u do more videos about pokemons like this please?? Like the rise and fall of other pokemon throughout générations, doesnt need to be this one spegifically (incineroar, landorus T)

Kind of what I thought, people found a way to beat it and that's what I love about this game, sure we don't get nerfs but we got a lot of people thinking of great ways to beat a team, that's what I think happened. Another Idea I had was, new pokemon got allowed in to VGC which then opened the door to, not better teams but different teams that no one had seen and didn't know how to deal with, It's a good pokemon high risk high reward, but now we got a lot of new pokemon because of home and everyone is playing with them for now. I'm sure palafin will come back sooner or later... just wait for the whale that brings the rain to show up....

When regulation D releases, wolfe is going to use heatran with cresselia, thundurus and harvest arboliva:)

“A player at Orlando changed the entire meta with a new Palafin team. That player was me.” Biggest “I’m him” moment fr

I love this competitive usage statistic videos, very interesting stuff!

And the sad thing is that it'll never be seen again this generation, thanks to Urshifu-RS arriving with Regulation D. You've also got Basculegion, Gyarados and Azumarill will still be pretty significant to check Urshifu and god knows what DLC will bring.

Man palafin is such a cool idea i wish it was still viable

I wish it has a better design.

Same

@@niello5944 wym better design?

@@niello5944 what more could you possibly want out of a superhero dolphin?😭 its cute in its zero form and looks like superman in its hero form i think the design is good

its a pokemon that megaevolves by switching out without an item restriction. its as centralizing as Mega Rayquaza since its just baby Mega Rayquaza but with the only upside being that you have to burn at least 2 rounds on Palafin to make it useful at all.

Ironically the main problem with Palafin is that it's a lot more balanced than anybody thought. Sure on paper the Hero stats seem amazing and Jet Punch seems broken, but he's actually not that fast and not that bulky and only his single target moves. After going through the pain of setting it up all it can do is target one enemy and hope to OHKO it, while needing to hope it itself doesn't get OHKO'd. Most Palafins die from targeting the wrong pokemon while Protect and Ally Switch put them at a great disadvantage while the rest of their team is half-dead from the set up.

I know it would’ve gained more weakness, but I don’t know why it didn’t turn into a fighting type when it transformed. Like that just makes sense

If you're here, you probably already know, but Palafin made NAIC finals yesterday.. tune in later today to see the good ol' fashioned battle of good vs evil: Hero Palafin vs. 2 vessels of ruin.. is our hero gonna make it?! 😂

6:17 Wolfey out here singlehandedly transforming the metagame 😂

Palafin is pretty GOATed by this point in the season, so it's pretty natural people now have teams built to punish it

Palafin's time just isn't here yet. It's when the OU king menace himself that is Lando-T returns, where Palafin will swooce in and save the day truly for all of us.

I dunno. Nothing makes me smile more than when I use Shed Tail with my Dragonite, then proceed to Shed Tail AGAIN with my Palafin after he Forme changes. So many rage quits.

It was petty. But it also makes me feel terrible for thardus to think how much he suffered. The fight with him sounded agonizing and I'm not even sure if just existing was painful for him(it?) Whatever mutated to become strong enough to create some kind of field to lift rocks of that size must have had some kind of awareness. Granted how does a bunch of rocks cry out in pain in the first place. I wonder if it was a colony of organisms much like the man o war

Love the vids Wolfe keep up the good work

I definitely don’t play competitive but I’ve discovered that Tera water houndstone with fluffy counter pretty well palafin and urshifu and I’m proud of dat 😂

Good to see ya Wolfey. I’m kind of glad there is less Palafin around.

I love to leed Dondozo and Palafin, switching Palafin for free to Tatsugiri and rampaging with Dondozo while having a broken finisher in the back, Hero Palafin :D

1:00 What about Zygarde's Power construct? It doesn't work the same, but it is similar. Unless you're only counting abilities in SV. (I don't know if Power construct Zygarde is in SV)

I liked the video I'd like to see more content of this nature from you

But imagine if you could swap out Arcanine for Incineroar.

Rip Palafin, look how they massacred my boy ❤️

Basically the meta became revolved around palafin, making a team only good if it can counter palafin, so usage ceased, so im guessing the moment the meta forgets about palafin and goes back to regular teams, palafin will make a comeback

tryed palafin on a rain team with full offensive and choice band, and besides some bad matchups or unlucky moment, it still oerforms well, but i can see the hard part of using him (being switching him 1st turn) that left me with to belive that he can work "in a competitive way" only by pumping him with rain and choice band

Odd you didnt mention that since Pursuit wasn't in the game anymore, that also meant you couldnt punish Palafin switching out as easily.

Funny idea, just have your whole team holding eject buttons. That way ur constantly switching. Can’t be punished for bad positioning if even you don’t know how your positioning will be. Lol

Who would have thought that a fire, water, grass core would have been great with palafin /s

We just need to wait for people to realize how good palafin + coalossal is. I love the team so much

Lead palafin + coalosal (max defense). Flip turn with your scarf palafin into coalosal, switch into a telepathy pokemon/ ghost type. Explosion or tera ground earthquake from coalosal, which now is max speed. Go back into palafin. Now its a 3v2 or 4v2 situation with an activated palafin on turn 2

​@@Momo_pstat4bo1 strat

I wonder if klefki will get used a lot since it gets access to prankster, light screen, reflect, thunder wave and trick room.

Grimmsnarl does most of that while being immune to prankster taunt and being able to do decent damage

Palafin is currently pretty busy in France dealing with a lot of grunts but is expected to come back soon in Ubers

i hope this is gonna stay true but palifin is the closest we'll ever get to a slaking type pokemon not having a drawback ability

Well, he's definitely very powerful but i feel like it doesn't have the best coverage out there necessarily. It's interesting

I still use palafin with floatzel and pelipper. Its honestly just so broken when either paladin or floatzel is tera water, choice band or scarf, swift swim, and wave crash. I've had choice band Tera water with swift swim with wave crash ohko amoonguss lol

Its kind of funny seeing everyone drop the team and Raghav Malaviya piloting a very standard looking Palafin balance team to the finals of NAIC in a good position for tomorrows final. A team that looks like it came straight from regulation B, no ruinous on it at all. Could be the end of the story is Palafin on top after all for the end of regulation C. A fantastic showing regardless, it shocks me how quick people were to write it off, though it comes in stronger in a meta that wrote it off and isnt as prepped around beating it. Reg D is another matter though, cant imagine palafin holds up quite so well there, starts are fast and Urshifu is likely taking its place as the physical water sweeper.

It’s a very strong Pokémon but having to build a team to support a gimmick is probably the biggest reason it’s dropped off. People are going different routes with the increase in popularity of other Pokémon and just cannot justify a place on the team for it.

I see a highly well produced wolfy video i like

I thought palafin was bad when i saw it, im surlrised that it saw so much success especially in doubles

have you not seen its stats

can't wait for the training arc where they double their BST and become the best pokemon ever

Zero to Hero kinda works like Battle Bond used to, with different conditions. It's an in battle forme change that hugely boosts stats.

Yeah, except that Gren ws good enough in its base form to warrant use

@@andreescalona8902 No it wasn’t, gren probably had like 3 top 8s at most during gen 6 and that’s being generous

​@@GravityIsFallingIt wasn't amazing but it has decent stats and is pretty fast. Infinitely better than say, base form palafin

@@JakeFish5058 Gren is bad, really bad It’s stats are awful for VGC, where bulk matters a lot, shit look at flutter mane, it’s most common set is literally physically defensive

so, to be clear, Palafin is still a very good Pokemon, but it really struggles in the current meta game

I loved using palafin on my adventure

I recently started using eject pack palafin paired with murkrow and tailwind close combat turn one

Because he’s the hero Paldea deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

The day this gets uploaded, Palafin actually makes it to the NAIC finals…timing is impeccable

I actually wish the these VGC regional competition didn't happen only in USA or Canada. I want to participate in them too 😢

Where you live

@@GravityIsFalling India

BRUH never mind palafin! Your streamed VGC match was a friggin MASTERCLASS lol what a game

Palafin switched from saving paldea to saving Pokemon off the coast of the island I live on, don’t worry he’ll be back soon from the coast of my island to destroying enemies in paldea.

I thought it was banned in tournaments due to its ability being OP but seeing this video made it clear

Banned in singles

I feel like palafin will find a way to have a good performance at worlds…

I think with urshifu and basculegion released in Regulation D palafin will fall down more but we can't say for sure.

I feel like its high risk high reward, palafin did what heros supposed to do fight for others then letting the rest shine

Brambleghast will be so good in reg D due the genie storms being everywhere it good match up in to urshifu rapid and more

Does anyone know how Resurrect interacts with Palafin passive? Will he come back as Hero?