Item Choice Scarf (Role in the Meta)

[LightningLuxray]

I'm surprised both Scarf Garchomp and Scarf Terrakion aren't mentioned in the OP. Honestly, they're probably the best Scarfers along with Lando-T now the Genesect is gone, as their high base Speed means they're great revenge killers. They both function similarly, though they do have their differences. Garchomp has a more spammable STAB in Outrage/Dragon Claw, while Terrakion has higher base Speed. Anyways, here are the sets.

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Naive / Jolly
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast / Dragon Claw
- Stone Edge

Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- X-Scissor

Both sets are pretty simple. Garchomp runs dual STABs, as they are near un-resisted. Fire Blast can hit Skarmory and Ferrothorn, though Dragon Claw can be used if your fear having to lock yourself into Outrage. Finally, Stone Edge is used to revenge kill Pokemon like Charizard Y, Volcarona, and Togekiss. A Naive nature is used with Fire Blast in order to make sure both attacks hit as hard as possible while also allowing Garchomp to be extremely fast. However, if Fire Blast isn't being used, a Jolly nature is preferred. Max Atk and max Speed allows Garchomp to be as fast and as powerful as possible.

Terrakion runs dual STABs as well, as they too are near un-resisted. Earthquake gives Terrakion a way to hit Aegislash, while X-Scissor is a more reliable way to hit Psychic-types. A Jolly nature with max Attack and max Speed is used to allow Terrakion to hit as hard as possible while also making him extremely speedy.

Anyways, these two Pokemon, in my opinion, are probably the two best Choice Scarf users atm (along with Lando-T.) Overall, while Choice Scarf may not be as helpful as it used to be with all the priority in OU, it can still be a great item when utilized correctly.

 

[Stoo]

imo adamant > jolly for scarfchomp, the only significant thing you outspeed with jolly is jolly max zard x after 1 DD, and max neutral scarf keldeo/terrak. the added power, on the other hand, gets you a whole bunch more revenge kills

 

[Sergeant Spooky]

imo adamant > jolly for scarfchomp, the only significant thing you outspeed with jolly is jolly max zard x after 1 DD

That's pretty significant IMO. I'd run Jolly specifically to revenge kill X-zard because he can be pretty hard to stop at +1.

 

[LightningLuxray]

imo adamant > jolly for scarfchomp, the only significant thing you outspeed with jolly is jolly max zard x after 1 DD, and max neutral scarf keldeo/terrak. the added power, on the other hand, gets you a whole bunch more revenge kills

I would give it a slash, but Mega Charizard X is one of the Pokemon ScarfChomp is supposed to revenge kill, meaning Naive/Jolly is almost always preferred.

 

[Stoo]

for sure, but if your team can handle zard x then adamant is far superior

 

[Mitchhhhhh]

for sure, but if your team can handle zard x then adamant is far superior

What can realistically survive a hit from +1 ZardX and OHKO it back though?

 

[Baharoth]

What can realistically survive a hit from +1 ZardX and OHKO it back though?

Hippowdon and Mandibuzz for example. Pretty much every wall can take a + 1 hit from ZardX koing back is another thing though. But with the Flareblitz Recoil its possible and even if its not quite enough, after the wall falls ZardX will be so weakened that every kind of priority will kill him.

 

[Mjolnir128]

As far as scarfs go, I've been getting a kick out of infernape. OHKOing greninja, gengar, alakazam, pinsir (obviously watch out for the quick attack), and such is really nice, though now that lucarionite and genesect are both gone, it's niche is noticeably smaller

Yes! Never get tired of seeing the HP of a Greninja lead drop to C.C. from Scarf-nape.

Until I get the occasional guy running a sashed Greninja for god knows what reason.

 

[Jojobobo]

I used Scarfed Togekiss and it was good, running Trick/Dazzling Gleam/Air Slash/Defog Timid 252 SAtk/252 Spe/4 HP. If you get rid of most of it's hard resists, a combination of hax and good speed can let you finish off a game (60% flinch ensures you take less damage in the first place- artificially making Togekiss more bulky) - I know I killed many a Charizard-Y with it which typically lack Roost and can be 3HKO'd. I ran Timid to outspeed Jolteon - who is never likely to be Scarfed in this gen - as Dazzling Gleam could hit him for good damage if he was weakened. Trick allows you to ruin special walls, and though it does compromise getting flinch hax end game it adds an extra dimension to Togekiss which is very nice. Defog was there just because, also if I used Trick it allowed me free set up removal if they switched and my team was SR weak, but it could easily be replaced with Thunder Wave for after you rid yourself of the Scarf, or more coverage.

I'd like to say that Trick with a Choice Item in general is very effective, particularly Scarf as few pokemon want it with so much priority flying around. Most teams in this gen seem to favour versatility over the sheer speed and power of a Scarf, Specs or a Band; so Trick can really hamper the opposition. My team which I made recently revolved around Trick usage in order to provide set up opportunities, and although it definitely needs tweaking I peaked at 1584 which I thought was respectable considering I had little overall synergy and many shared weaknesses. The beauty of it was that even if I did trick an item onto the opposition, I was still faster or stronger than the opponent in most cases, despite being limited to only one move.

I think Scarf Gothitelle also deserves a mention - if you predict a switch into a utility pokemon (e.g. Ferrothorn) and switch in Gothitelle at the right moment then you're guaranteed a free turn as they can't switch until you switch out, either that or you have a definite KO. I liked to weaken the Scarf recipient down to barely any health, then swap in my set up user - which really amounts to two easy KOs despite Gothitelle now being dead weight for the most part.

 

[Mitchhhhhh]

Hippowdon and Mandibuzz for example. Pretty much every wall can take a + 1 hit from ZardX koing back is another thing though. But with the Flareblitz Recoil its possible and even if its not quite enough, after the wall falls ZardX will be so weakened that every kind of priority will kill him.

Mandi gets 2HKO'd by FB/Outrage after SR without boost though, Hippo fair enough but that's pretty much it, and Hippo's are often SpD these days to wall ZardY.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Yes! Never get tired of seeing the HP of a Greninja lead drop to C.C. from Scarf-nape.

Until I get the occasional guy running a sashed Greninja for god knows what reason.

Sashes suck so hard. Anyway, I kinda have amend that statement. Without genesect, scarfnape's only claim to fame is greninja killing, and no smart greninja will stay in on a potential Mach punch.

 

[NotBruceWayne]

The shift to bulky offense and abundance of priority in the tier are definitely valid points. I also never recognized that pattern about most Scarfers being immune to Twave. I also think that the introduction of the Fairy typing is also a reason why Scarf has declined and why it will continue to decline. Being a fairly defensive type, it stops Scarfchomp and Hydreigon from nuking stuff with Outrage and Draco Meteor respectively. And as mentioned in the previous posts, Terrakion is also stopped from throwing CCs blindly. Scarfers used to be late game cleaners, now, late game sweeping is usually left to priority, Megas and Megas with priority (looking at you Pinsir).

I do agree that in the lower tiers Scarf would still be really relevant. Scarf Heracross and Scarf Darmanitan are pretty common UU threats.

 

[Mike Legend]

The only time I've consistently used a Choice Scarf mon in XY OU was during the Lucario and Genesect period. Scarf Chandelure was able to counter a lot of that metagame. Chandelure is a fairly good switch-in to Genesect, and with Scarf is able to revenge Lucario no matter what. It has Trick to prevent from being a liability against Stall teams that were beginning to become prevalent. It also has access to Infilitrator and Haze, which completely ruined the Baton Pass teams that were pretty common on the ladder. Shadow Ball was often good at cleaning up weakened teams too.

Since then I haven't run a Choice Scarf on any team. There are just so many ways to check threats without being locked into a fairly weak attack. In DPP Choice Scarf was a lot better because there was no team preview, and a Choice Scarf Flygon or Jirachi or something allowed you to check a wide variety of boosting threats. Now, team preview allows you to play around these issues more consistently, and most of these boosting sweepers are weak to common priority, or have fairly common hard stops (Dragons and Fairy types for example). To top it off, there are two very solid Unaware mons that currently see use in OU and priority Thunder Wave from Thundurus or 120 BP Priority from Talonflame, the latter 2 finding use on most good offensive teams.

As of now, it seems the main reason to use a Choice Scarf would be to give a powerful mon that finds itself below the 101-111 speed tier an opportunity to clean up late game with a solid STAB typing, or because your team has problems with the 101-111 speed mons.

 

[Srn]

I think the role of scarfers has shifted from that of mainly revenge killing to more of a "it's nice to outspeed everything unboosted so let's throw powerful attacks around" type of role. The purpose of scarf in gen 5 was to revenge kill, but I think now it should only be used on a powerful pokemon, like garchomp, to clean up teams with powerful moves. Basically, abuse power instead of speed, but still equip a choice scarf.
Because of this change in purpose, I believe most scarfers oughta have modest/adamant/whatever instead of timid/jolly/whatever.
That said, I'll bring up a pretty decent one:

Landorus (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
- Superpower

Admittedly a little tough to differentiate from scarf lando-t, but with sand force his attack power can be a lot higher and he can hit pretty hard. Jolly, in this case, actually should be used, despite my previous argument, because without it you're outsped by jolly scarf exca and +1 Mega zard-x, two important things you should be killing. I've used him before, and he gets the job done well.

 

[WebBowser]

I think the role of scarfers has shifted from that of mainly revenge killing to more of a "it's nice to outspeed everything unboosted so let's throw powerful attacks around" type of role. The purpose of scarf in gen 5 was to revenge kill, but I think now it should only be used on a powerful pokemon, like garchomp, to clean up teams with powerful moves. Basically, abuse power instead of speed, but still equip a choice scarf.
Because of this change in purpose, I believe most scarfers oughta have modest/adamant/whatever instead of timid/jolly/whatever.
That said, I'll bring up a pretty decent one:

Landorus (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
- Superpower

Admittedly a little tough to differentiate from scarf lando-t, but with sand force his attack power can be a lot higher and he can hit pretty hard. Jolly, in this case, actually should be used, despite my previous argument, because without it you're outsped by jolly scarf exca and +1 Mega zard-x, two important things you should be killing. I've used him before, and he gets the job done well.

Lando-T has intimidate, making swap ins a tad easier. I would never run this without Sandstorm support at the absolute least, and even then it's iffy.

 

[NotBruceWayne]

Has anyone mentioned Sticky Web yet? It renders Scarf useless as well.

 

[WebBowser]

Has anyone mentioned Sticky Web yet? It renders Scarf useless as well.

I wouldn't say useless, first off, it doesn't affect flying or levitate mons like lati twins, lando, and rapter, all popular scarfers. Two, scarf negates sticky web, which can be significant if you can't swap in a defogger right then and there.

 

[nmitchell890]

What do people think of Bisharp as a Choice Scarf user? Yes I know it gets Sucker Punch but how reliable is Sucker Punch really? Donning a Choice Scarf makes it more reliable as a revenge killer while causing mischief with Knock Off and Pursuit as well. With a Choice Scarf, it can switch into any STAB move Lati@s might use and trap it with Pursuit without having to worry about coverage moves and Sucker Punch mindgames, screwing over Defog with Defiant in the process. Stone Edge is there as an answer to Mega-Pinsir and Talonflame, two of the best pokemon in OU at the moment, along with both Mega-Charizard forms assuming X is unboosted.

Bisharp @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Pursuit
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

This is similar to Choice Scarf Tyranitar but Bisharp has the advantage of outspeeding the relevant threats without requiring a Jolly nature, allowing it to use Adamant and gain a higher attack stat, along with Knock Off being a much better move than Crunch. Bisharp has Defiant to screw over Defog users and Intimidate from Landorus-T and Gyarados. Finally, Bisharp has a better defensive typing for taking on things like Bullet Punch. Thoughts?

 

[s_aman]

What do people think of Bisharp as a Choice Scarf user? Yes I know it gets Sucker Punch but how reliable is Sucker Punch really? Donning a Choice Scarf makes it more reliable as a revenge killer while causing mischief with Knock Off and Pursuit as well. With a Choice Scarf, it can switch into any STAB move Lati@s might use and trap it with Pursuit without having to worry about coverage moves and Sucker Punch mindgames, screwing over Defog with Defiant in the process. Stone Edge is there as an answer to Mega-Pinsir and Talonflame, two of the best pokemon in OU at the moment, along with both Mega-Charizard forms assuming X is unboosted.

Bisharp @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature ( Atk, -SAtk)
- Pursuit
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

This is similar to Choice Scarf Tyranitar but Bisharp has the advantage of outspeeding the relevant threats without requiring a Jolly nature, allowing it to use Adamant and gain a higher attack stat, along with Knock Off being a much better move than Crunch. Bisharp has Defiant to screw over Defog users and Intimidate from Landorus-T and Gyarados. Finally, Bisharp has a better defensive typing for taking on things like Bullet Punch. Thoughts?

I have used this and although it proved to be good at pursuit trapping latis and gengar it could not reliably sweep even after the defiant boost which is one of the main reasons bisharp is used in ou.

 

[WebBowser]

I mean, it's not like OU has any shortage of viable setup sweepers. I think it's perfectly fine to use Bisharp in this manner, esp with the number of folks expecting sucker punch. Scarf Bisharp actually has a pretty neat niche as a more offensive pursuit trapper.

I guess the real question is, why not use Weavile, whose almost just as fast, can afford to run band, arguably better dual STAB, and hits pretty much just as hard without even taking a mega slot?(not implying that bisharp does either, but I see a ton of posts of the "why use mon X when mega mon Y does the same thing but better?" flavour and it annoys me)

 

[Chou Toshio]

Scarf Bisharp sounds cool-- I'd definitely rather use it than Weavile.

Bisharp's typing lends it huge advantages over weavile-- namely resistances that actually allow it to switch in, better resistances to PRIORITY (it resists Brave Bird and ExtremeSpeed in addition to Ice Shard, Sucker Punch, and Shadow Sneak), and lacks an SR weakness (it even has an SR resist!)

Plus, Defiant is still epic.

The only thing that Scarf Bisharp is wanting is U-Turn, but Pursuit and good coverage attacks are more than enough of a Draw. I think I'd really like to try this out...

 

[Srn]

The only problem I feel like I have is that this guy won't be "revenging" things, and he won't be a wallbreaker either, some type of surprise offensive utility is what I imagine. A jolly bisharp without an item boosting its power is considerably weaker than you would think, and I'm mainly concerned that you would have to run adamant to hit hard but then miss out on some speed tiers that you would hit with jolly.
Basically, I think it might be a little risky to sacrifice the power that nature and item gives Bisharp for some extra speed that might not come in handy because you're not hitting hard enough.

 

[Myzozoa]

Hmm well a long time ago, in the 4th gen, I had some very strong thoughts on choice scarf, mainly that I think it's one of the worst commonly used items because it gives free turns without increasing your power the way specs and band do. At that time I used priority moves on things like Scizor and Lucario instead of choice scarf. I also used moves like rain dance and rock polish that would allow me to outspeed any choice scarf pokemon.

In Gen 5, using a choice scarf became much safer because of team preview (you can see what could set-up on you) and at the same time the metagame is very offensive so choice scarf can work. To top it all off, scarf water+rain and better scarf pokemon (moxie mence, chomp, terrakion) than in gen 4. So in gen 5, I think choice scarf is a key role that most teams will dedicate a pokemon to. In fact, the choice scarfers of gen 5 are sooo much better than in gen 4: better distribution of trick, pursuit users visible in team preview (helps scarf latias and Latios), better u-turn users (and uturn is a better move in gen 5), moxie, weather boosts, huge attack stats from things like kyu-b and terrakion.


Now in Gen6, I can't say that I like using choice scarf pokemon, I have tried some, but most of my teams don't bother. For one thing, stall is much more common, and most viable scarf pokemon are dead weight against stall, exceptions being things such as Scarf Tar and trick users (tho trick is worse now). In addition, there are much better ways of revenge killing and checking fast threats: prankster twave from thund, talon flame, deoxys-s, bulky mega pokemon, more viable bulky priority users, kings shield, viable unaware pkmn, swift swim/sand rush. A lot of my offensive teams just use np+twave thundurus and 2 priority move users, it's all I need to feel safe. I don't see that much choice scarf pokemon on my opponents' teams either. It isn't worth it to me because there are more really good set-up pokemon in gen 6 that you can't allow to get free-turns and you have to be able to break stall too.

 

[Mitchhhhhh]

The only problem I feel like I have is that this guy won't be "revenging" things, and he won't be a wallbreaker either, some type of surprise offensive utility is what I imagine. A jolly bisharp without an item boosting its power is considerably weaker than you would think, and I'm mainly concerned that you would have to run adamant to hit hard but then miss out on some speed tiers that you would hit with jolly.
Basically, I think it might be a little risky to sacrifice the power that nature and item gives Bisharp for some extra speed that might not come in handy because you're not hitting hard enough.

Why would he have to be Jolly, you'll still outspeed anything up to positive 113 base and neutral 129 base with Adamant which is essentially everything unboosted except Greninja, Alakazam and a few other, mostly irrelevant mons and even Jolly won't let you outspeed base 130s.

 

[rachet67]

I was running the standard defog Latios on my main OU team, but was finding that I was extremely Charzard-X and Dragonite weak, as I had no scarfers that could out-speed them after the boost, and was relying on Gyrados to switch in and out of dragon dances. I recently have been using a pretty nice compromise with a scarf latios defog set:

Latios @Choice Scarf
252 SpA/ 4 SpD/ 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Trait: Levitate
-Draco Meteor
-Defog
-Psyshock
-Trick

I found that Latios almost always had to switch out after using defog on the normal set anyways, so this wasn't sacrificing much momentum. Like I intended, it serves as a great Charzard-X and Dragonite check, especially since most people don't predict Scarf on Latios anymore. Trick allows it to get rid of the scarf fairly easy against teams that lack these set up sweepers and cripples many common Latios counters, such as Chansey, Sylveon, SpD Heatran and to some degree Aegislash and Azumarill.

The sets somewhat situational, but seeing as they're aren't that many Charzard-X checks and even less good defoggers, it definitely can fill gaps in some teams.