A Wild Silvally Appears – Claims First in Japan’s Battle Road Gloria

The Battle Road Gloria

Image courtesy of amalgame.jp

During the weekend of March 18th-19th, Japanese Trainers came together to compete in an epic tournament. The Battle Road Gloria provided spectators lots of excitement, along with a few surprises. Most notable of which is Silvally appearing on the first place team.

Trainer KOOTA managed to devastate opponents left and right, handily taking home first. Swapping between a tricky Mimikyu/Silvally lead and a more aggressive Tapu Koko/Garchomp. This strategy left many of his challengers unable to adapt, and eventually they would crumble one by one.

Just Who is Silvally?

Image courtesy of Game Freak

Seeing Silvally on a first place VGC team just fills me with so much joy. Being introduced with Pokémon Sun and Moon, Silvally has been ripe with controversy. Everything from its stats to its move pool have been targets of attack, and now it has proven itself.

Silvally is basically a clone of the God Pokémon Arceus. However, unlike Arceus, its base stats are a model 95/95/95/95/95/95. Combine that with a somewhat mediocre move pool and it is easy to see why Silvally has been shunned by the community.

What it lacks in specialization, it makes up for in mystery. Much high level Pokémon play revolves around reading your opponent and predicting their moves. Silvally can prove to be tricky to read, causing your opponent many headaches during the course of a battle.

There are a couple of factors that make Silvally especially hard to predict. First is the fact it can change its type by holding an item. Want a steel type? Make him hold a Steel Memory, same goes for the other 17 types, other than normal. Silvally is normal by default, and therefore can run a normal type by holding any item other than a memory.

Image courtesy of serebii.net

Second, its access to a narrow, but varied move pool. While many critique Silvally for its lack of access to some of the more powerful physical attacking moves, what it does have is variety. As such, a trainer can build their Silvally in a plethora of viable ways. No matter if they want a physical attacker, special attacker, or support.

Silvally’s First Place Performance

On KOOTA’s team, Silvally played a very specific role. Serving as a pivot/suicide scout, it was not always present; but when it was, its presence was felt.

Here is the build, though I am unsure of how it was EV trained:

Silvally @ Choice Scarf
Ability: RKS System
Level: 50
Jolly Nature
– Parting Shot
– Explosion
– Rock Slide
– Flamethrower

Choice Scarf  – Means that Silvally is a normal type, giving the already powerful Explosion STAB damage.

Parting Shot – Gives a means to pivot out of a bad position, while at the same time lowering the targets attack and special attack as well as letting Silvally swap out.

Explosion – Sacrifices Silvally to deal massive damage to all Pokémon on the field. Ghost is immune, so work great next to Mimikyu.

Rock Slide – Abuses Choice Scarf speed boost in order to attempt a flinch-lock.

Flamethrower – Acts as a powerful special attack to check prominent threats, such as Kartana.

In practice, Silvally was a pleasure to watch. KOOTA would generally send it out on turn one alongside Mimikyu. Then, based on his opponents’ Pokémon, he would either Parting Shot to a better matchup, or launch an attack while Mimikyu set up Trick Room.

The Silvally/Mimikyu pair was especially deadly due to Mimikyu’s ghost type immunity to Explosion. Because of this, Silvally was free to blow up the opposing team on turn one if they were not prepared.

In a Top 8 game, KOOTA pulled this strategy off, using Explosion to KO both Ninetails-Alola and Tapu Koko on turn one. This left his own Mimikyu unscratched to set up Trick Room, finally sending out his Gigilith to replace the fallen Silvally.

The strategy was brilliant, to say the least.

A Future for Silvally

While certainly fantastic seeing Silvally take a spot on the winners podium, I doubt it will achieve any kind of critical success during the remaining VGC season. Too much stigma has formed around this Pokémon, and not enough is known about its potential.

Maybe this can be the first step for Silvally onto the MainStage of Competitive Pokémon. I would love nothing more than for this new demigod to prove all the naysayers wrong. KOOTA demonstrated that, in the hands of a capable Trainer, Silvally certainly can perform.

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