Can Slow Start be traced, and used in a viable strategy?

Question

Can slow start be traced? Ive been seeing lots of Mega Alakazam recently in doubles and would love to mess up their speed so my Mewtwo can some in Shadow ball like a god.

If my Regigigas's slow start is traceable would it be viable use to troll opponents (such as mega alakazams and give them slow start)??

Comments

A far fetched situation. I  just want to imagine the look in the other persons face when they realize they got played by the worst ability in Pokémon.

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Okay. I just tried this and it worked really well. Its very, very situational but I sent out Regigigas when someone else sent out mega alakazam and it traced slow start. I then used thunder wave + knock off and goodbye Alakazam...

So it can work, its just very very situational. At least slow start can be used for something...

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Yes, but I wouldn't recommend using Regigigas for this strategy. It's almost completely useless if the opponent doesn't have Mega Alakazam, and since you mentioned doubles, even if they do, and they bring it out while Regigigas is active, it still only has a 50% chance of Tracing Slow Start. You *can* use it in this way, but you shouldn't; it's too situational.

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This question has already been asked. https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/323321/

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They're different questions, they just don't have very good titles. I'll change them a bit.

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That's super, *super* situational, though, which effectively only works on a handful of Pokemon with Trace. It can also potentially backfire in an infinitely more situational case: Say there's a Gardevoir that traces Slow Start, but it uses Skill Swap to send Slow Start to your Mewtwo, and then it Mega Evolves next turn. I don't think a scenario like that would ever unironically happen, and there are arguably better ways to mess up opponents with a bad ability. (Durant gets access to Entrainment to pass Truant to opponents)

So yes, Slow Start can be used, but being viable? I'm a little more iffy on that. You're better off with other means of speed control like Tailwind and Me First to directly help your entire team, instead of running a dead slot to take on only three potential species of Pokemon, those being Mega Alakazam, Porygon2, and Gardevoir, assuming they run Trace for the latter two.

Answer 1

It looks like the consensus is that it technically works but is not viable. I'll point out that mega Alakazam by itself is already not viable, mostly because it's outclassed by Mewtwo, so there are many easier ways to counter it without using slow start.