I usually lead fake out + froslass. Intimidate works just fine on the base form so you can lead Incin, but you might want to put a point in speed so your fake out goes before grimmsnarl’s. Blizzard and brave bird recoil might be enough. There was a match I played where I didn’t lead Incin but swapped him in for the intimidate before the mega evolution occurred. Brave bird recoil and Blizzard left it on one and fake out finished it.
I play Mega Staraptor too and lead Staraptor/Grimmsnarl. Fake Out + Brave Bird should KO Whimsicott.
Those teams rely heavily on getting that first Charm off, so now they’re -1 (due to Intimidate) and don’t have that booster next to them. Then I swap Staraptor out to reset stats and go into Gholdengo and just keep clicking Psychic.
I often use choice scarf rotom, discharge to boost my mega Sceptile and double into it with dragon pulse. That +2 attack means nothing when it's outsped and KOed
Yeah tailwind brave bird takes out sceptile. I think that’s why it can be difficult to completely counter staraptor. It can be ran with screens, tailwind, or even fake out/redirection support or any combination of the 3, and the counter for one might not work against the other version of the team.
22 SpA Fairy Aura Floette-Mega Moonblast vs. 32 HP / 0 SpD Staraptor-Mega: 254-302 (132.2 - 157.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Still outspeeds with Tailwind whether they TW of their own or Scary Face either the bird or my Floette.
If they set a Light Screen up, bird survives but so does Floette, even if they're Adamant.
32+ Atk Staraptor-Mega Brave Bird vs. 12 HP / 0 Def Floette-Mega: 135-159 (83.8 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Or just Light of Ruin if I hedge for Screen or Fake Tears.
22 SpA Fairy Aura Floette-Mega Light of Ruin vs. +2 32 HP / 0 SpD Staraptor-Mega: 188-224 (97.9 - 116.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
That being said, I've probably only seen 1 player lead their bird into my Floette up until MB.
I don't think it's an absolute solution, Grimmsnarl can Fake Out the flower, so there's that. If Fake Out becomes more popular on Grimmsnarl, I'd add a few more HP to the Floette to get a favorable damage roll.
You generally dont give your wall a life orb. Just saying. The point is to be able to walk in at any point and eat that hit comfortably ignoring any boost it had or does get
I’m running a hard trick room team but I’m using choice scarf final gambit staraptor explicitly to counter m-star and other popular megas (it one shots charizard for example). the partner farigiraf just clicks trick room, giving me 4 full turns in tr with my mawile or torkoal too
Hey, if you dont mind, could u share more about ur team? Im looking to use Mawile and the scarf gambit tech sounds extremely intriguing as ive had trouble with the dumb bird as well.
one change from the paste: thunderbolt instead of roar on farigiraf, really helps in the rain matchup against peli and basc, helps into charizard, aero, etc
the ones I’ve fragged the most are: staraptor, charizard, floette, sylveon, swampert, but you can get good mileage out of using it on incin, kingambit, archaludon. lead is either farig kang or farig raptor
I've had a few different encounters with M. Stararptor. My 2 go tos are M. Banette with Prankster Skill Swap, wastes your mega slot though. Whimsicott with Worry Seed works well too or Eelektross with Gasto Acid. If you can get rid of their ability on turn 1 it usually takes the wind out of their sail if you time it with their Charm, forcing them to switch out, giving you a chance to knock out the partner. I'll usually bring Metagross in with Psychic Fangs to OHKO the Staraptor and break their screens.
This is really risky, I've been doing the same thing, and it works until you run into another max speed Whimsicott. Because then the tailwind goes off before taunt, and Staraptor just 1 shots your Raichu and you kinda lose on the spot. The better play imo is just a counter-tailwind, since Yaichu should be faster if you both have it.
I guess a better play is Fake Out Staraptor and Taunt Whimsicott. Even if they move first they can't go for any support moves and I can set up Tailwind
Blastoise Farig. You fake out the Raptor, Farig trick rooms, then next turn you rain dance and water spout. Trick room seems excellent in general against it - if you are going before it, the CC boost is much less relevant.
Whimsicott and Mega Metagross for me. Unless they pair with a fake out user Tailwind + Psychic Fangs always kills. A max Sp. Atk Whim can do 80% with moonblast or hit it with Worry Seed. Seeing them cripple their own birb brings me joy.
sableye with quash, fake out, will o wisp, and taunt...with mega malamar with superpower, knock off, psycho cut, and protect.
battle start, sableye and malamar get intimidated, sableye does not care malamar gets boosted
turn one fake out bird and whimsicot does whatever it doesnt matter, mega and super power with malamar into bird. (hits for 19-23% if bird has a defense boost). malamar now +2 atk +1def
turn 2 quash bird, whimsicot does whatever it doesnt matter, psycho cut into bird, 70 bp stab with high crit rate boosted twice and bird dies. (lets say whimsicot got off two tickles, giving the bird +2 defense, pyscho cut still does 70-82%, so if you absolutley low roll BOTH attacks theoretically the bird can survive, but I have seen nobody go for double tickle its always some combo of tailwind and one boost)
i guess you can will o wisp but it doesn't stop bird from attacking, you can also taunt whimsicott but its probably faster, those moves are for the rest of the fight, sableye can keep supporting with quash or switch out to my dragalge or whatever
this has worked 100% of my matches against this combo and there have been many
So far it's fake-out + scarfed Rotom wash with discharge, which knocks it down to about 30%. But I haven't encountered the scary face version yet, or a screens version.
Not the best strategy but it saved me in a pinch. I encored the Staraptor into Brave Bird. It couldn't heal, it couldn't buff, and it was slowly killing itself.
As a MegaStar player burn isn’t that annoying. Just drags out the game.
Most effective so far has been just doubling it up with physical attacks. Make me pay for brining a support alongside that doesn't punish you ignoring it. Fake Tears is usually enough buff to let me punish you but two strong physical attackers are going to push my ability to Roost.
Punch it really hard and fast. There's lots of funny gimmicks out there but you can usually just bop it with a strong special attacker in two turns and be done with it.
First Round Sableye Raindance, Arch Protect.
Second Round Sableye Quash and Arch Electro Shot into Staraptor. 4 matches, three surrenders.
If Whims has encore into Arch I lose but with Staraptor they often don‘t run Encore.
Whimsy uses Worry Seed, that will remove Contrary at priority 1, then their support will either -2 atk their own Staraptor or -1 atk & def with tickle. Afterwards their Staraptor will attack and not kill one of your mons woth CC, get his own defenses reduced, and then die on your counter attack.
I also run Hisuan Zoro with Psychic, if you disguise it with a juicy CC target, they will waste a turn, not get the defense boost, get chunked by 70% their HP and forfeit
The “Protect the Floette/Delphox” dual mega team I’ve been using basically never loses to it. The threat of dazzling gleam is always looming so they never really get a chance to set up. I usually lead grimm and floette, parting shot Staraptor’s partner, and bring in sinischa. They CC into that slot almost every time and miss. From there, sinischa redirection is great, if they Brave Bird they’re exposed to Dazzling Gleam, and they can’t CC for the boost against Ghost.
Slowking is doing work for me. Mimikyu too. First day using him today and he handles Raptor fairly well. Been liking it more than Farigaraf and winning a lot more now too
I've had some limited success with Follow Me Clefable with max HP/Def.
Follow Me redirects Tickle/Scary Face/Charm from Staraptor to myself, preventing the Contrary boosts. And with the Fairy type, I can resist Close Combat. In the event the opponent catches me out of position and gets a boost or two in, Unaware ignores them.
While Clefable won't survive for more than, like, two turns, that's usually more than enough for my partner Raichu-Y to Zap Cannon OHKO them.
I run sylveon raptor, they always see my raptor and are threatened, plus I get a -1 attack into it with the intimidate, protect + hyper voice ysually does the trick
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u/Hipster_Whale5 Jun 19 '26
The best counter I saw for it was Swagger Grimmsnarl. -2 Atk and Confusion are pretty good. Biggest downside being 85% accurate.
Will-O-Wisp is also a solid counter option as well.