After dominating tournament after tournament and building a huge reputation for itself in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Palafin suddenly dropped from the top of the VGC world recently. This isn’t the only time a Pokémon has gone from quite good to stinking bad in competitive play, but something about Palafin’s situation is quite unique.
In a July 4 Reddit thread, Pokémon players discussed other times when really strong ‘mons lost their viability in competitive play.
An overwhelming amount of players mentioned Gengar losing its Levitate ability (really, its Ground immunity) starting with Generation VII’s release.
Other honorable mentions were Talonflame, whose Gale Wings ability was heavily nerfed after one generation, and Darkrai, whose saw a huge accuracy cut for its signature move, Dark Void.
The common factor here is these Pokémon were all nerfed through intentional changes in their abilities or moves between titles. Dondozo even got punished in the middle of the Gen IX metagame after an update no longer allowed the giant fish to gain stat boosts when Order Up hit into Protect.
Palafin’s fall, on the other hand, had nothing to do with nerfs.
Having claimed two of the last three international titles (Oceania Internationals and Europe Internationals) and a handful of regional titles throughout the 2023 VGC season, every player saw the dolphin hero as one of the biggest threats in the meta. For a time, seasoned veterans thought Palafin was unstoppable and weren’t sure how to counter it. By the time Portland Regionals rolled around in May, however, the dolphin saw a sudden, significant drop in usage. And since then, it hasn’t fully recovered.
As Pokémon Champion Wolfe Glick discussed in his “What Happened to Palafin?” video, Palafin’s fall from grace had to do with how players adapted and shifted the meta out of the dolphin hero’s favor.
The rise of fellow Water-type Gyarados was particularly impactful because it naturally resists Palafin’s Water attacks and has access to Intimidate to lower their opponent’s attack stat. Similarly, players began using the Water Tera Type more defensively on their teams to weaken the blow of Palafin’s strongest attacks.
To top it off, Palafin hit its peak and came crashing down within the span of a few months all while the Regulation C ruleset was active. That meant it didn’t have any format change to blame for its downfall. It simply couldn’t keep up with the new techs and strategies players were cooking up, and it quickly lost its momentum.
Palafin wasn’t completely dead, though. Even though most players had moved on from using it, the dolphin actually made it to the finals at the North America International Championships this past weekend.
It fell just shy of claiming all three international titles this year, but perhaps this is a sign it may still make a splash in August at the World Championships.
