False Swipe Gaming
is a YouTube channel that analyzes video game characters and how well they performed in competitive play. Narrated by the creator Kellen, the videos discuss a character's performance in multiple games, not just one. The channel primarily focuses on Pokémon and their history in Smogon and sometimes VGC, but some Super Smash Bros. videos have also been produced. The channel uploads at least one video a week.
How GOOD were False Swipe Gaming's Tropes ACTUALLY?:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Canonically dumb-as-bricks Quagsire is a lame Pokémon on paper, and relegated to the lower tiers. But its breakdown characterizes it as not having the mental capacity to care about tiers, competition, or things seen as impossible. It's seen play in just about every tier in most generations, and boasts feats like checking Kyogre in Ubers or countering Speed Boost Blaziken. Eventually, a video around a theorem of Pokemon with low stats who ended up being competent in higher tiers was released, named (what else?) the "Quagsire Theorem", which made mention of some of Quagsire's more recent successes to boot, including being arguably the best answer to Sword/Shield Zacian-Crowned, who was listed (alongside its "Hero of Many Battles" form) as #1 on the "Most Broken Pokemon of all Time" listnote .Kellen: It sort of seems like Quagsire just goes where he wants and then the meta has to deal with him one way or another.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Pops up now and then in some of the videos, such as Butterfree, Seaking, and Ledian, for flavor.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The "Rampardos Theorem" that is frequently discussed is a demonstration of this trope, as many Pokemon are described as having monstrous, unstoppable power on paper, but in practice range from merely average (such as Porygon-Z or Xurkitree) or downright useless (such as Slaking or the titular Rampardos) for one reason or another. Not even the Ubers Tier are immune to this effect; Reshiram boasts the unresistednote STAB combo of Dragon/Fire, and can 2-hit KO just about anything in Gen 5. However, its inability to switch in safely, vulnerability to entry hazards, and middling speed (which only got worse over the generations) rendered it impractical to use. And when Kyurem-White was released and did everything Reshiram did but better, Reshiram was rendered unviable.
- On the other end came a video on The "Bastiodon Theorem", which is the polar flipside of the "Rampardos Theorem" (and rather fittingly, is named for the other of the Gen 4 fossils), where defensive Pokémon with nice defensive qualities are held back by crippling traits, and in practice range from downright useless (such as Wigglytuff, whose high HP is let down by poor defenses and a bad defensive typing and the inability to do damage, the titular Bastiodon, whose stellar defenses are let down by a horrible defensive typing and inability to do damage, and Avalugg, whose stellar defense, good HP and access to Recover are ruined due to its pure Ice-typing), to niche due to traits unrelated to their defenses (Such as Shuckle, who would otherwise be an even purer version of the "Bastiodon Theorem" than Bastiodon itself, but its access to Sticky Web in Gen 6 gave it a clear niche as a suicide lead).
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The Dunsparce video is initially built up as a video about Mewtwo, with all the fear and hype it deserves...until Kellen gets interrupted at the last second, being told he has to cover Dunsparce instead. He spends the whole video being annoyed at that.
- In Furret's video, Kellen says that in Gen 7, the hitherto unviable Furret rose to OU and became a top threat... but quickly reveals it was a joke, and it actually was untiered.
(Furret charges a Breakneck Blitz towards Tapu Bulu) ...It blew everyone's minds when Furret naturally rose from PU to OU, completely dominating the metagame. Its Normal STAB was unresisted by every Tapu as well as Toxapex, and thus it sliced through the metagame with (...which Tapu Bulu survives, responding by one-shotting Furret) just kidding. It fell to Untiered for the third time in three generations. But did you believe us, even for a second? You know you did. - Blessed with Suck: It tends to be treated this way when a Pokémon is powerful enough to become so overwhelming in it's original tier that it has to be banned from it, only for it to prove incapable of competing in any tier above it, resulting in it not being used at all. Though in a few cases where this happened to Pokémon that were otherwise complete non-entities in competitive battling, it's seen as a bright side that the Pokémon at least managed to accomplish something noteworthy this way.
- Hitmonchan became prey to its own Popularity Power in Gen 5, where its usage landed it in the RU tier, where it was completely outshined by better Fighting-type options, with it being pointed out that it would've been much more capable if it had been used a little less and allowed to drop to NU.
- This happened to an even greater extent to Ambipom, who suffered this fate in multiple generations.
- Catchphrase:
- Before going over a Pokémon's history in competitive play, the narrator will ask, "How good was [name of the the Pokémon] actually?"
- Also, whenever a Pokémon gets shafted in the competitive scene, he'll usually open a segment with "Unfortunately". Later episodes roll with this, and it later turns into a Running Gag for Kellen to try to avoid using the word "Unfortunately".
- Christmas Episode: Delibird took the spotlight for 2018's season greetings, where Kellen goes over its Christmas journey of learning to love thy neighbors (because otherwise the video would be nothing but talking about how bad Delibird was, and how it got worse and worse).
- Crippling Overspecialization: Electrode had the highest Speed of any Pokémon until Ninjask was created, and remains one of the fastest to this day, but at the cost of mediocre offenses, even worse defenses, and absolutely miserable type coverage. At times this has helped it, such as in Gen 4, when it ended up being indispensable support for Rain Dance teams in UU, and its niche was noteworthy enough that it got a mention in a video titled the "The Deoxys Theorem". Less so at other times, such as Gen 5, where it saw very little usage even down in NU since the likes of Zebstrika and Electabuzz were much better offensively and were themselves already faster than pretty much anything worth outspeeding in the tier, rendering Electrode's higher Speed pointless.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- The video on Linoone mentions that performing a Belly Drum sweep with Linoone was usually extremely difficult, but worth the effort if successfully pulled off.
- The video discussing the FEAR strategy goes on a brief tangent discussing Aron's note performance in Little Cup, noting its Head Smash, boosted by STAB and with Rock Head nullifying the attack's usual recoil, is so obscenely powerful that Aron's glaring weaknesses making it tricky - albeit not impossible - to get it on the field and actually use it was the only thing preventing it from getting immediately banned.
- Whenever Game Freak tries to create a Difficult, but Awesome Pokémon, they tend to go overboard on the "difficult" part, and end up rendering the final result useless, as shown in the Slaking and Regigigas episodes, both of which frame their subject Pokémon as Joke Characters. The exception to the rule was Archeops, who had a lot of success in lower tiers despite having such an ability.
- The Dreaded:
- The beginning of the Mewtwo video is framed like this, with Kellen trying to push it out of his mind and ignore it while it slowly finds holes in his mental defenses, frightening in its inevitable arrival...until it just wins the comment votes, so he had to talk about it. And talk he did...note
- Also of note is Landorus, who, to date, has the longest video on the channel, at a full 75 minutes. The writer, Zane, even goes on a rant about Landorus as the section for Landorus' VGC performances in Gen 5 starts, to the point where Kellen gets a bit intimidated by it and considers putting it off, only for Zane to cut in:Zane: I've been writing for this channel for over six years at this point, and I don't think there's a single Pokémon whose name I've had to type out more than this thing here. In fact, here's a little bit of first-hand evidence. My False Swipe folder in Google Docs has over a hundred documents. This is all of my notes, ramblings, research and the scripts for almost everything I have ever written for this channel (give or take a little bit of file mismanagement). I opened every single doc I have ever written, and merged them into one huge giga document. Then I searched for Landorus, or "Lando", or "Landie" or whatever. I ended up with 313 instances of this thing's name showing up. For comparison, I searched "Pika", and even with two entire videos dedicated to Pikachu's viability in two separate franchises, that only clocked in at 306 appearances. Oh, and that's without this script. This is by far the most research I have ever compiled on one Pokémon in the channel's history. You thought our new Charizard video was long? Yeah, that only had 120 links in the research. I took notes on 331 different links for this single video. My notes alone are a separate doc that is 76 pages, for just VGC. For years I have dreaded this day, but it is finally here, so I hope you have a glass of water ready, Kellen, because this one's gonna do a number on your voice. The reckoning is here.
Kellen: Uh, are you sure we should do this? Maybe we could put Lando off for another-
Zane: Really?! After I wrote all that we're just gonna "Nope! Not right now, maybe another-" NO. You are dealing with this. There is no turning back.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The original Charizard video—the very first one produced—was the only video to outright skip Pokémon generations.
- Earlier videos that covered Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Gold and Silver analyzed the Nintendo Cup format. Later videos no longer mention Nintendo Cup.
- Earlier videos in general were a lot more brief with surface-level analysis, and didn't cover much of non-OU Smogon tiers nor delve much into metagame shifts that changed a Pokémon's standing within a Gen over time. As such, early videos about even the most competitively successful Pokémon would barely stretch more than ten minutes, whereas a modern FSG video about them can be over an hour long. This has led to old videos gradually getting remade to not only cover the new Gens since the video's release, but to also go much more indepth on the Pokémon's performance in older Gens; the difference between an old FSG video and a modern FSG video is night and day.
- From Bad to Worse: A frequent theme in videos covering Pokémon that are less privy to Popularity Power is that when they start dropping in usability, they tend to drop fast and not recover, as Game Freak will rarely bother to make any effort to improve such Pokémon, causing them to fall behind as new and more powerful Pokémon are created, and as luckier mons get stat boosts, new abilities, new moves, and Mega Evolutions to help them keep up. These Pokémon will often go from falling to low tiers, to becoming less and less useful even in these tiers, before finally becoming "untiered", the point where players no longer bother trying to find a viable use for them in competitive play.
- Halloween Episode: False Swipe Gaming has done four of these where they analyze the viability of spooky looking Ghost-type Pokémon on the actual date. Specifically, they analyzed Misdreavus and it's evolution Mismagius in 2018, Haunter in 2020, Gastly in 2021, and Aegislash in 2023. Though not on the exact date, 2022 had an episode based on Cofagrigus and Runerigus, which seems to follow the format, including using the special background reserved for Halloween episodes.
- I Always Wanted to Say That: When BKC introduces Skarmory in its remake video he says "Unfortunately, Skarmory wasn't very good in its debut generation." He then clarifies that Skarmory was actually great in its debut generation, and just wanted to say the series' catchphrase.
- Joke Character: Some obvious examples have been the subject of episodes before, which has been showcased in a number of different ways:
- Some Pokémon like Delibird and Luvdisc have had their episodes be holiday-themed, discussing the Pokémon in relation to that holiday rather than making entire videos that can simply be summed up as "It's useless and always has been".
- Ledian got a full-on joke episode detailing a fictional reign of terror as an unstoppable beast on the battlefield whose overwhelming power would only eventually be put to a stop by Dunsparce, accompanied by footage of it knocking out some of the most competitively notorious Pokémon, before it's pointed out that Ledian's actual battle performance is as far from that as it's possible to be.
- As more such Pokémon would get their own episodes, the more simple yet effective method of changing the usual series tagline to "How BAD was [name of Pokémon] actually?" has come to be used.
- Furret, a forgettable Com Mon who never got anything notable or useful in the entire history of Pokémon, stands out even among these, getting the dubious honor of having its episode be titled "How UNFORTUNATE was Furret actually?"
- Funnily enough, for Furret's next official appearance after this video in the DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it did finally get something. That is, the move Tidy Up, which effectively combines the effects of Dragon Dance and Defog, and was previously exclusive to Maushold.
- Maractus, a Pokémon who has never been viable in any tier, was another Pokémon that received a joke video talking about how, after Gen 5, Game Freak attempted to delete it from the game but failing leading to it allowing Rayquaza to Mega Evolve and getting it banned to AG, to wrecking Game Freak itself, before having them nerfing it to unviability in response.
- Wynaut's video was in equal parts about its bizarre competitive history (it was in both Little Cup and Ubers in Gen IV) and about its quest to spread its philosophy to higher beings, much to their annoyance - until it was forced to share a tier with literal babies who wouldn't understand its wisdom and began to question life.
- Kryptonite Is Everywhere:
- In a number of cases, Pokémon would end up being incapable of competing in higher tiers not through any fault of their own, but because Pokémon that were especially good at countering them just happened to be extremely popular in that tier.
- In "Why Items Are Close to Everything - The Giratina Theorem", it's brought up that, when Heavy-Duty Boots were first introduced, they became so common, even on Pokémon that weren't especially vulnerable to entry hazards, that players increasingly chose to forgo entry hazards altogether.
- Lethal Joke Character: Analyzes such Pokémon in "Why High Stats Aren't Everything - The Quagsire Theorem," and highlights how a good ability and movepool can overcome underwhelming stats. Naturally, the titular Quagsire is acknowleged for its ability to become a stopping point for stall-breakers, walling off even Extreme Speed Arceus and Zacian-Crowned."Turns out being the god of Pokémon has no effect on those who are ignorant."
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
- In the video covering Mr. Mime and Mr. Rime, Kellen says that Mr. Mime was banned from OU in Gen 3note and says that it's not some delayed April Fools' prank. He even says you can look it up yourself if you don't believe him.
- In the video covering Bibarel, Kellen says that both it and Bidoof tore through Ubers in Generation 5 note , saying that it sounds like a joke video, but it really did happen.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Some Pokémon, who otherwise would have been competent for their role, didn't see play in higher tiers because others fulfilled the same role, but better.
- In Golem's video, the running theme is it being outclassed by Rhydon since Gen 1; they're both physical Mighty Glacier Rock/Ground types with similar movepools that fulfill the same role, but Rhydon hits much harder thanks to its higher base Attack, and Rhydon's much better HP gives it a bit more durability too despite Golem's slightly better defense stats. All Golem had was being marginally faster, that really only served to let it win the 1-on-1 against Rhydon as it wasn't outspeeding anything else relevant that Rhydon couldn't, and a couple niches in its movepool that Rhydon didn't have, particularly Explosion and Rapid Spin (which did let Golem briefly avert this in Gen 2 whose meta that niche was tailor-made for, but was too little to matter in every other Gen). It would only get worse in Gen 4 when Rhydon got an evolution in Rhyperior, dashing any hope of Golem seeing usage in higher competitive tiers ever again, and said evolution also meant Rhydon could use Eviolite from Gen 5-onward to boost its defenses to incredible levels when it was already bulkier than Golem without it, which in addition to Explosion losing half its power in Gen 5, ensured Golem would eternally be pushed out of the lower tiers by Rhydon too.
- Dragonite wasn't used in Gen 3 OU because Salamence had the exact same typing, was faster, and had higher offensive stats, making Salamence the better option. Ironically enough, this was reversed since Generation 5, as Dragonite has the far better hidden ability in Multiscale, allowing it to take even quad-effective stab ice moves at full health without needing to roost.
- Thundurus completely outclassed Zapdos offensively in Gen 5 because the former had higher Special Attack, Speed, and Nasty Plot to boost its Special Attack even further, resulting in Zapdos dropping to the UU tier for the first and only time.
- The Deoxys video mentions that its Normal form has always been outclassed by its Attack form; they're both an extreme Glass Cannon, with Normal Deoxys having lower attack stats in exchange for less bad defense stats, but its defenses are still too low to not get one-shotted by most things, especially in the Ubers tier, whereas the higher attack stats of Attack Deoxys did let it exceed crucial KO benchmarks that Normal Deoxys couldn't reach. This results in Normal Deoxys seeing almost no use in Ubers for every Gen it been available in, but Normal Deoxys has also always been too strong to allow in OU, resulting in one of the least competitively used Pokemon of all time.
- Durant is basically a worse Scizor, meaning that, while it's in no way bad, it has no way of getting much of any usage in any environment that has Scizor in it.
- Vileplume has been eternally overshadowed by Venusaur, to the point that saying exactly that was the first line of the summation of Vileplume's episode. This was made even worse when Venusaur's Hidden Ability ended up being Chlorophyll, the one thing Vileplume had that it didn't up to that point.
- Fearow is described as an inferior Dodrio. Thus, when Dodrio itself ended up driven down to the lowest tiers, that in turn ended up pushing Fearow out of competitive viability entirely.
- Bastiodon was already a bad Pokémon to begin with, being a Stone Wall with possibly the worst defensive typing in the game, but it also had to share a tier with Probopass for its entire existence, who filled the same role at least slightly better thanks to some key moves, better Abilities, and usable Special Attack.
- Power-Up Letdown: Has brought up examples on occasion:
- A few of the Pokémon that he has covered are competitively outclassed by their own pre-evolutions, such as was the case with Dusclops and Slaking, to the point that Vigoroth got its own episode entirely separate from Slaking.
- As a lesser example, Murkrow tends to appear in the VGC format considerably more than Honchkrow, though in this case, it's more due to the Prankster ability giving it a few unique tricks than Honchkrow being outright worse.
- When covering Dugtrio, it was noted that Alolan Dugtrio was effectively a non-starter from the moment it was introduced, as Dugtrio was far too defined by its Arena Trap ability for any version of it without that ability to have any real competitive use.
- The Remake: False Swipe Gaming has done seventeen remakes of Pokémon videos including Dragonite, Scizor, Skarmory, Tauros, Chansey and it's evolution Blissey, Charizard, Heracross, Starmie, Meganium, Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Articuno, Suicune, Lucario, Sceptile, Swampert, and Blaziken. These were done due to the channel's increased production value compared to their earlier videos. For example, in the case of Chansey/Blissey, their original video was barely 10 minutes long compared to their remake clocking in at a whopping 67 minutes. In Charizard's case it's even more extreme, going from a 6-minute video to almost as long as the Chansey/Blissey video.
- Shown Their Work: All the videos are clearly researched, and the sources for said research can always be found in the description. For sections involving official tournaments, they've at times reached out directly to the players to gain additional information on how they minmaxed the Pokémon, why they did so in that way, and the exact role that Pokémon was intended to play in battle.
- Special Guest: A few narrators have taken over Kellen in narrating a few of the channel's videos. These include Vish (a competitive Super Smash Bros. narrator), Joey "pokeaimMD", and BKC.
- Takes One to Kill One: A couple cases with Pokémon that were particularly dominant in certain environments.
- Downplayed with Snorlax in Gen 2. While anyone can technically defeat Snorlax, the only way to knock out Snorlax in one hit without a Critical Hit is for another Snorlax to use Self-Destruct.
- Also brought up with Tauros in Gen 1, to the point that one of the most important confrontations in a Gen 1 OU battle was often the one between the Tauros in both players's respective teams.
- For the time it was allowed in Gen 4 OU, this was also the case with Garchomp, to the point where matches often came down to a face-off between the Garchomp on both sides, with the game often being decided by one winning a speed tie or an attack missing due to Sand Veil. This was a large part in why Garchomp eventually ended up getting banned to Ubers.Kellen: Endgame scenarios frequently came down to Chomp vs. Chomp, and then it was just who was lucky with a speed tie or Sand Veil dodge.
- However, even that is nothing compared to first generation Mewtwo. Basically nothing could handle it's combination of bulk, fantastic speed and offensive capabilities, and wide movepool that included good coverage (Thunderbolt and Ice beam), Recover (Which had more PP), and Amnesia (Which was the equivalent of two Calm minds at once in that generation) making it so there was no other pokemon it couldn't simply overpower. It abused every single unbalanced mechanic in the generation to the point that the entire tier of Gen 1 Ubers consist on basically trying to help your own Mewtwo to gain the upper hand against the opposing Mewtwo one way or the other.Kellen: YOU DO NOT HANDLE MEWTWO. You simply pray that you come on top with your own Mewtwo. And alternative options include status, with either paralysis or freeze, combined with prayer. Not exactly reliable stuff!
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: A common theme covered is how Pokémon find niches, or outright solidified use, in tiers that should have been above their punching weight thanks to a unique combination of traits that allows it to do something valuable no other stronger Pokémon can do.
- Something that frequently comes up is how the most unlikely imaginable Pokémon can end up making forays into Ubers on the sole basis that they can stand in the way of Kyogre, or at the very least its Drizzle and Choice Specs-powered Water Spout. This includes the likes of Shedinja, Quagsire, Abomasnow, and, of all possible things, Parasect.
Kellen: Parasect would then Spore something on Kyogre's team, in an infuriating reversal of both momentum and the natural order.- While Golem's video makes it a point of how it normally always been outclassed by Rhydon and been pushed into lower tiers by it, it managed to reverse it briefly in Gen 2, thanks to being the only fully-evolved Pokémon in the game that could learn the combination of Rapid Spin, Explosion, and Roar, on top of being a Rock type with very high Defense. When Gen 2's meta heavily relied on Spikes removal, Explosion to punch holes in the opposing teams in a meta that severely lacked strong offense, phazing to rack up Spikes damage and remove Curse boosts, and a Normal resistance in a meta ruled by Snorlax, Golem became an OU staple in Gen 2, whereas Rhydon, while still ranked OU, was a more niche pick in comparison with its lack of Rapid Spin and Explosion. The same video also noted that Alolan Golem, while ordinarily a PU-Tier Pokémon, would sometimes be used by players in OU-Tier matches to trap and defeat Steel-type Pokémon that Magnezone - the Pokémon normally known for handling that job - can sometimes have trouble with, including the likes of Heatran and Magearna.
- Ariados has normally been a horrible Pokémon in every generation, but in Gen IV Ubers, it was noted to have a niche as a lead thanks to Insomnia, Toxic Spikes, and the Bug Bite-Shadow Sneak combo, which let it take out the most common leads in Darkrai and Deoxys-S, in a meta where the lead was extremely important. Granted, it was considered an unviable gimmick still that could be beaten by the aforementioned Pokémon it was meant to counter and was utterly useless for anything else, but the fact such a terrible Pokémon found any sort of use in Ubers of all places made it notorious.
- Seaking is an overshadowed, generally Master of None bulky Water, but its semi-unique Lightning Rod ability has given it sparing use in VGC. Most notably, being able to shrug off and take out Tapu Koko with a Specs-boosted +1 Hydro Pump in Gen VII.
- This is exemplified in the "Quagsire Theorem", where Pokemon with low stats turn out to actually be very good due to factors outside of their stats (i.e. the titular Pokemon's Unaware ability allowing it to answer basically any boosting threat under the sun, including Zacian-Crowned).
- Useless Useful Spell: Heavily downplayed with sleep-inducing status moves. They were nerfed in Gen 2 due to the prominence of Rest Talk, enabling Pokémon to counter the sleep status easily, as well as changes to the sleep mechanics no longer dedicating an entire turn to waking up, but spreading sleep is still incredibly useful due to the random (and thus unreliable) nature of Rest Talk.
- Valentine's Day Episode: Similarly to Delibird, Kellen goes over how Luvdisc spent Valentine's Day 2020 pondering its (and everyone else around it) love-life throughout the generations.
- World's Strongest Man: Snorlax is the absolute best Pokémon in Gen 2 OU, and in proportional terms, it's the most dominant OU Pokémon in a generation ever. Every single video covering Gen 2 will always mention this, with some outright referring to the Pokémon as "Tier King Snorlax." Multiple other tiers and generations also occasionally use the "Tier King" moniker. For instance, Gen 4 NU will say "Tier King Charizard", for instance.
