Countering Gyarados SF

Is Gyarados a Pokemon that can be stopped before it's set up?

  • Total voters
    41
3 Cyclone Energies/Call Energies and Mr. Mime is nothing but an easy prize for Gyarados.

dmaster out.
 
More description please?^^^


Gyarados can be shutdown quickly. Think about the Kingdra vs Gyrados matchups. Let's say Kingdra and Gyarados both get good starts. Kingdra will be up T2, Gyara will be up T3/T4. That means Kingdra already has a +1/+2 prize advantage on Gyarados. Gyarados can hit Kingdra, not for KO, then you hit Gyara for 60 and 20 to bench. They KO you, You Ko them, and it's pretty much a prize back and forth each turn, in which Kingdra ends up winning.

and if you can shutdown their trainers, they lose. They fold to Glistomb, Shuppent Donk, and dialga g, all can lock trainers and stall. I don't see why everyone hypes this deck. I have been donked by it before, but with such bad autolosses it seems impracticle
 
dmaster: Completely agree. Mr. Mime is not the best counter in my opinion. However, the list of Gyarados decks I've seen don't run too many Energy other than Call Energy and a few Water Energy. The Cyclone's actually a good choice. :p
 
Most decks should run Call for sure. Some varients play Luxray>Cyclone, but by the time they Luxray enough, they should have three Energies to sweep.

dmaster out.
 
Darkartisan said:
Gyarados can be shutdown quickly. Think about the Kingdra vs Gyrados matchups. Let's say Kingdra and Gyarados both get good starts. Kingdra will be up T2, Gyara will be up T3/T4. That means Kingdra already has a +1/+2 prize advantage on Gyarados. Gyarados can hit Kingdra, not for KO, then you hit Gyara for 60 and 20 to bench. They KO you, You Ko them, and it's pretty much a prize back and forth each turn, in which Kingdra ends up winning.
Click to expand...

Except Gyarados hits 90, Kingdra 60. Without pluspowers, Kingdra isnt going to OHKO Gyarados anytime soon. They both run SSU. Gyarados however has an easier time snacking on bench prizes. The match is in Gyarados's favor, and I can know ;)
 
Oh yeah. Absolutely: Gyarados > Kingdra.

To put it simply, the current metagame doesn't have too much to counter Gyarados. They have Spiritomb, (which can be OHKO'd by Tail Revenge), and some run Mr. Mime MT. (Which I said doesn't really help you and is situational.)

Devoluter's the greatest counter to Gyarados in my opinion. I'd love to see the next Worlds Champ use a 1-0-1 Omastar and just disrupt a Gyarados deck. Gyarados has serious potential.
 
Devoluter is NOT a counter. Want to know why?
Because it still costs an attack! Sure you may have KO'd that Gyarados, but Gyarados goes back to the hand so they don't have to fret about getting one from their deck, and they'll just rescue Magikarp and be on their merry way, smacking 90's your way. The ONLY way that Devoluter is handy is if they used Expert Belt to avoid a 2HKO, then Devoluter is suddenly awesome, but that's a one-time use only. If they as much suspect a Devoluter around they WILL keep their Expert Belt in their hands.
So you 2HKO Gyarados with Devoluter. Big whoop, Gyarados likely 2HKO's you as well - WITHOUT Devoluter.
 
Uh...settle down. The opponent more than likely discarded the two or three Magikarp they need to use Tail Revenge. It's unfortunate: now that the fourth is gone, no more Gyarados! What are they gonna do? Night Maintenance and bring back the Magikarp and stall for a turn? Too bad. Bring up a more powerful Pokemon and get ready to set up and PWN FTW.
 
uuuh. do you know how gyara works at all =P? poke rescue BTS get gyara back and start swinging.... they usually play 4 poke rescue and 2 TSD, so it's very usual that they get one of them.
 
Darkartisan said:
More description please?^^^


Gyarados can be shutdown quickly. Think about the Kingdra vs Gyrados matchups. Let's say Kingdra and Gyarados both get good starts. Kingdra will be up T2, Gyara will be up T3/T4. That means Kingdra already has a +1/+2 prize advantage on Gyarados. Gyarados can hit Kingdra, not for KO, then you hit Gyara for 60 and 20 to bench. They KO you, You Ko them, and it's pretty much a prize back and forth each turn, in which Kingdra ends up winning.

and if you can shutdown their trainers, they lose. They fold to Glistomb, Shuppent Donk, and dialga g, all can lock trainers and stall. I don't see why everyone hypes this deck. I have been donked by it before, but with such bad autolosses it seems impracticle
Click to expand...

To add on, T1 Machamp is bad news for Gyra.
 
...and this is where Miasma Valley would come in. Put 2 damage counters, and you're already on your way to Devoluting a Gyarados. 10 more damage, and there you go.

Spiritomb would lock Pokemon Rescue.
 
So you're gonna run a deck with Spiritomb AND Miasma Valley JUST to counter Gyarados?

Well...

Enjoy your autolosses against the other decks in the format then.

And oh, what exactly is keeping them from playing Broken Time-Space? Which they play 4 of? Again, Devoluter is not a counter simply due to the fact that it still is a 2HKO, and 2HKOing Gyarados is not enough due to its insane comback power.

Uh...settle down. The opponent more than likely discarded the two or three Magikarp they need to use Tail Revenge. It's unfortunate: now that the fourth is gone, no more Gyarados! What are they gonna do? Night Maintenance and bring back the Magikarp and stall for a turn?
Click to expand...

Pokemon Rescue, TSD. How else do you think Gyarados is able to chug out a Gyara every turn? Learn how the deck works and then get back to me.
And oh, a good Gyara will play Luxray X, negating your Tomb as well.
 
For my deck, yes. :p Because they fit quite nicely, if I must say so myself. (Gallade 4 LV.X deck.)
 
CFOURCOLTSFAN said:
I run 2 Mime so usually I'm okay and while Luxray X is problem it does make the list kinda clunky especially since I'm going to be running DGX in my Gyara(for mime etc). So I can see your point, I run no basic in my deck, I might run a metal now but usually i run 4 call, 2 cyclone. Also considering a dark too.
Click to expand...
dgx makes gyara inconsistat.infy 4 x is 1 of the better techs imo
 
And for the record, the purpose of this thread was to come up with counters to Gyarados. Not bash every one we come up with.

Infernape 4 LV.X would be where a Devoluter or Omastar MD could come in handy. Actually, even Infernape 4 could work just as well. Use Split Bomb a couple of times, then drop the Omastar. Then again, you have Intimidating Roar where your opponent might have to switch out a lone Gyarados to a draw engine.
 
Sorry i had to type that from my sisters mobile,so another counter for gyara is honchkrow SV,just restore the magi's and dark palm them using dusknoir.Or use dusknoir SF to use night spin with expert belt.(2hko's gyara without EB)
And i meant Infy 4 X as a tech IN gyara not against....
 
I'm not trying to bash anyone or anything, I'm just giving my opinion on how I plan to deal with these counters as I'll be playing this for cities.
1.) Devoluter LA.
Yup. Devoluter. It's simple. It requires no Energy. And you can make a 130 HP Pokemon drop to 30 HP in one turn. Not only this, but if your opponent threw all his Magikarp into the discard pile, how is Gyarados going to attack? That's right. He can't.
Obviously I'll recover as if it was killed by regular damage, but they Gyarados is back in my hand. This would be a major threat if it wasn't stopped by Unown G, Gyarados wasn't generally 2-shot anyway and De-evoluter ends your turn and I'll just evolve again.

2.) Omastar MD.
I love this card. It's a universal Devoluter, and you can kiss Gyarados good-bye. It's quick, and it works just like Devoluter. Your opponent is less than likely playing any SP Pokemon in his or her Gyarados deck, so that ruins the possibility of a Power Spray. You're set with Omastar MD.
Correct me if I'm really wrong but I think that it doesn't de-evolve the active so you'd need to set up a stage 2 that suddenly becomes useless and get a Warp Point on the same turn all for one KO.

3.) Spiritomb PA.
Actually, this really isn't a counter. This is a follow-up card to Devoluter or Omastar MD. This locks your opponent from playing Night Maintenance in an attempt to bring any Magikarp or Gyarados back, or Super Scooping his Gyarados before you play the Devoluter.
This seems to be one of the reasons some people aren't playing Gyarados. I'll admit this hurts but only from decks that can truly abuse it (Uxie/Gliscor). Other decks that use it for setup don't keep it active every turn so the game proceeds normally after they're done setting up (the only Trainer I truly need is Pokemon Rescue and that's only after you're KOing me. I won't need Poke Turns to KO a Spiritomb. My list is also running a Palmer and I might make it two if I start seeing a lot of Spiritomb abuse decks. I can Sableye the Palmer, which gives you a prize but can Gliscor and Uxie KO 2 Gyarados before I get rid of their Spiritombs (and yes I'm running another 1-card counter for Gliscor lock).

4.) Skarmory FB SV.
Wow. I thought this card was terrible. But looking deeper, Skarmory FB can hold his own against Gyarados. Unfortunately, it's not very good late game: your opponent is set up, and he's probably done playing Magikarp so Silver Feather isn't very helpful. Early game, Skarmory FB is perfect. He drops two damage counters on every Basic Pokemon your opponent plays, leaving a Magikarp with 10 HP. Now, just do 10 more damage, and Devolute.
~Thanks to #1weavile with the counter.
Uh whut? Lol. No offense but this is the worst Gyarados counter I've ever seen. First of all, if I was going to lay a Magikarp down on the bench at all it would be because I was KO'd the previous turn. And Silver Feather only does 20 damage, so the chances of that are very unlikely considering I also have Super Scoop Up. Even if I were to be KO'd, I'd have to be the world's worst Gyarados player if I didn't evolve and free retreat my Crobat that turn to KO the Skarmory. If you ran Miasma I'd just drop my BTS counter. The only counter if Metagross and Skarmory but Skarmory still has to KO the Gyarados and that wouldn't be half good against anything else.

5.) Miasma Valley PT.
One of the better counters against Gyarados. If you play Miasma Valley from the get-go, you start layering down damage on your opponent's Benched Pokemon like there's no tomorrow. All the more damage to Devolute and KO. However, Miasma Valley PT is easily countered with a BTS in a Gyarados deck.
~Thanks to #1weavile with the counter.
You play Miasma and I play BTS when I need to lay anything down without getting damaged. I also generally have a bench of one evolved Pokemon for draw 1/3 games, the rest of the time my bench is basics. I'll just Unown G my Gyarados and then counter stadium when that gets KO'd.

6.) Mr. Mime MT.
Although this guy sits and stalls, he can prevent Gyarados from abusing you with Tail Revenge, he makes sure that your opponent uses the four to six Energy most Gyarados decks run. ...that's about as good as it's gonna get with Mr. Mime.
~Thanks to half the PokeBeach community with the counter.
You'd have to be up on prizes because generally decks with Mime don't seem to have Psychic Energy. Or you'd be Uxie/Gliscor. I'm also running eight energy in my list, three of which are Cyclone Energy. I can just give up a prize as I attach an energy. Then I Cyclone for a prize and take some damage then I attach the 3rd energy and KO. This seems to work 85% of the time I play Mime decks.
Click to expand...

I also think some other half-counters could be Uxie and Gliscor because they can abuse Mime and Spiritomb, two cards that Gyarados doesn't really like. However, if I can recover a Gyarados 1-2 times these decks seem to lose. Also there's Tangrowth because no matter how hard you try it's almost impossible to one-shot that thing. However, it can't really one-shot you either and you can heal all their damage off and you're faster.
 
Just to catch them off guard a Giratina (Broken Space Blow) tech in a deck would kill it and send it to the Lost Zone this would only work with a Gardevoir varient though.
 
You're right with the Omastar. It's Benched Evolved Pokemon, so a Warp Point would be necessary. Looks like I lose this debate, Unown G still reigns. X| Completely forgot about that guy when posting this thread.

What other counters are out there, other than Spiritomb, that would be useful against Gyarados (because none of the other ideas seem to work)? :|
 
Well you can STALL it for a while with Mr. Mime - but its not a full stop counter. In fact, nothing is because even the toughest Grass types get 2-shotted by him.
However, Gyarados does tend to enjoy a large bench. There lies a possibility for Warp Point/Dusknoir to work their magic. For the same reason, Flytrap and any other switching attacks can mess with Gyarados a bit, forcing it to waste its SSU's on its techs/discard support.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top