Shadow Calyrex is powerful, due to high speed and Special attack, but it dies to Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch.
commented 28 minutes ago by ■Primal●Shadow■
You should better check it for yourself. Calyrex-Shadow is too broken, not of Sp.Atk and stats though. It's broken because of As One. Whenever you tell that he dies too easily, don't forget that everything has it own counters and checks. Did you know that Zacian-Crowned deals more than 90% to Mega Rayquaza with Behemoth Blade? And only 4 EV Atk invested Life Orb Yveltal does 70% to Mega Rayquaza? Does it mean it is unviable? For sucker punch, we do have Substitute, and for Shadow Sneak, Max Mindstorm does exist. It totally screws stall, getting Nasty Plot + Substitute along with Psyshock for Special walls makes it a monster. Whenever people see Calyrex-S, they are very cautious to not waste Yveltal or things for countering it, hence it is a sweeping machine after a boost. After a boost, it can OHKO the likes of Mega Rayquaza, Zacian-Crowned, Xerneas, Primal Groudon, etc etc. Having priority is very important to beat it, but Sucker Punch is unreliable, due to +1 Max Starfall (Draining Kiss) OHKOing Yveltal (uninvested), and Substitute-ing to avoid Sucker Punch. Of course, it can't be denied that Marshadow does check Calyrex, but it has its own partner for Marshadow and Yveltal, (Arceus Fairy). Sadly, due to Arceus not existing in Gen 8 AG, it undermines its usability, but we're talking about Nat Dex AG, where you have Calyrex's own good partners. While Marshadow does the OHKO with Shadow Sneak, Calyrex is unreliable, due to folks running Choice Scarf (for Ditto), Focus Sash, etc. apart from the standard Life Orb set, which makes it one of the most threatening wall breakers. (I don't use it though)
Plus it has access to moves that can take care of dark-type Pokemon, such as Draining Kiss or Pollen Puff (though, I wouldn't suggest them),
The fact isn't actually true. Don't forget, +1 Max Starfall OHKOes Yveltal, and Pollen Puff with Buginium Z takes care of Arceus-Dark.
But why is it good in Natdex AG? Does it wall or check common threats or something? It's only used 0.04% of the time for a reason
I'm pretty sure they aren't updated. Even the Nat Dex AG rankings aren't updated as of now, since they are focusing on Gen 8 AG.
Edit: I want to add something a fellow Nat Dex AG player posted.
An extremely important difference between galar dex and national dex ag is that national dex ag still has arceus formes, all of which are bulky enough to take a +0 not super effective astral. The fact darkceus exists means that yveltal is not required to play defensive roles nearly as much, though darkceus's lack of access to sucker punch and Calyrex's access to Pollen Puff kinda makes the matchup a bit more tense. Pollen Puff is only slightly weaker against Yveltal so Calyrex isn't losing very much in dropping it unless it dynamaxes.
Darkceus also makes Trick Calyrex a lot worse, which probably goes a bit to hurt the viability of specs sets.
Something else to consider is the fact that Calyrex, on paper at least, is an excellent Z-move user. Z-Move sets should be ran with substitute to take advantage of the fact that Z-Moves don't break your substitute, otherwise you're better off dynamaxing. Doing this also makes calyrex much less dependent on dynamax to sweep and lets it "waste" dynamax in more cases.
Ghostium Z lets it get some OHKOs that it wouldn't get otherwise without dynamaxing or running specs. Z-Astral hits slightly harder than LO Max Phantasm.
OHKO at +0 on 252 HP/0 SpD Pdon and guarenteed OHKO on all Pdon variants at +1
+2 OHKOes all pogre variants, all dmax necrozma-dm (max/max+ falls guarenteed after sr)
+0 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Never-Ending Nightmare (190 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 330-388 (101.2 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Fairium Z lets it access the same power move that dynamax would give without breaking your substitute, which can make matchups where you'd have to dynamax to beat yveltal or darkceus a lot safer for you and prevents punishing, though the fact remains that it still isn't very powerful.
Buginium Z at +2 OHKOes all mega Tyranitar variants at full HP. It also swats dynamax darkceus that is not specifically invested in special defense, while specially defensive ones that do dynamax are KOed by Pollen Puff the turn after. It also isn't much weaker against Yveltal, though the recovery potential of Draining Kiss is another factor to consider.
+2 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Savage Spin-Out (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar-Mega in Sand: 386-456 (95.5 - 112.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Savage Spin-Out (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 390-460 (87.8 - 103.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Savage Spin-Out (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dynamax Arceus-Dark: 578-682 (65 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Pollen Puff vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dynamax Arceus-Dark: 298-352 (33.5 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Combo -> 98.5-116.3%
+1 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Savage Spin-Out (175 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Yveltal: 347-409 (88.2 - 104%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
Compare to this: +1 252 SpA Calyrex-Shadow Twinkle Tackle / Max Starfall (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Yveltal: 396-468 (100.7 - 119%)
