Untrue. Since Electric and Dragon moves are your most powerful and therefore your best wallbreaking tools, you'll want to be using either one 98% of the time, regardless of your opponents team. Does the common Scarf set even run anything not electric or dragon? i guess stone edge or earth power are possibilities, but the former compounds reliability problems and the latter feels gimmicky/weak
(The two ubiquitous mons whose names are) Pdon and Xerneas aren't used to punish Zekrom. That's just an innate and minor part of their role compressions, and either (arceus forbid both) screw with Zek just by being there, regardless of matchup. For example, unless you're superbly confident in your Xern-stopping abilities and have no objection to losing Zekrom guaranteed, the move Outrage basically doesn't exist while an opposing Xerneas lives.
Honestly you don't need prediction that much. Even if your opponent mispredicts and Zekrom nabs a kill, you can just send out Xern/Pdon/Arceus-Ground/Arceus-Fairy on an immunity and forced switch (since Zek is obviously choice-locked), and proceed set up Geo/Polish/SD/CM. I've covered why you don't need a specific team setup or even that good prediction (although good prediction certainly makes Zekrom's life even worse).
According to you, these guys all have 50% chance to come out at least neutrally, a better chance than a choiced outrage/meteor zek has against a xerneas revenge kill. Again, even if Zek does its job and you win the initial 50/50, you have an extra "screwed potential factor" because Zekrom is predictably choice-locked and a revenge killer makes zek's life traumatic. Also, these guys are plauged by either pdon/xerneas, not both.
agreed
Generally, finding out what advantages (and disadvantages) Zekrom has over a badmon to find its niches (and flaws). I'm being purposefully brief here since i don't want to get bogged down in a zekrom v. rayquaza debate when zekrom is obviously better
Who says that Ray can't run scarf? Any mon with greater-than-Togekiss speed and solid offense can theoretically slip on a scarf and revenge kill. Zek has electric coverage, and fewer relevant things are hit super effectively by Flying, but Rayquaza has key Water/Fire coverage and is equal to or stronger than Zekrom is by offensive stats.
Wow basically makes Zekrom a non-entity (at least when you consider wow-ing a ray you know lum berry is a technical possibility), band/lo ray is quite a bit stronger than scarf zekrom is, and doesn't have the matchup on things like lugia/yveltal/giratina but does on things like pdon/arceus-steel/neutral targets[/hide]
I'd say it outweighs by about full rank, roughly putting it at c=, but not by two
welp.
Altering my argument to put Zekrom in B-
Reasoning-I believe that this is a much more reasonable claim to have made and I would've made it in the first place but, you know what they say-Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. However, I think a decent point has been made in the ccomparison between Zekrom and the B+ rank, showing that, despite being proposed for two ranks lower, Zekrom can still hold it's own.
Your first three points I suppose are correct, I forfeit them to you, I should've thought of that in the first place. However, I'd just like to mention that there are still multiple Pokemon throughout the B ranks that are akin to your point in 3, for instance Ferrothorn with Pdon, which can just switch in for free and set up. As such, I think that, while true, it's equaly true for many of the Pokemon across the B ranks and as such shouldn't put Zekrom down too much.
You said something along the lines of "these are only plagued by either Pdon or Xern", sorry for no quote, I'm a lazy shit. While this is true none of these Pokemon can offer the almost unique potential Zekrom has for physical wall breaking. As such, I believe that this double-edged sword scenario is more than acceptable, as Zekrom is a team weakness but can be utilized as a team strength.
"Who says that Ray can't run scarf" I think here that, if Rayquaza runs scarf it loses many of the perks you pointed out such as coverage and slips significantly below Zekrom, at least in my opinion. As such, I ignored this possibility. Considering it, ScarfRay is quick but has pathetic power, rarely hits with a super-effective move and is pretty much reduced to revenge killing or cleaning a weakened team, whereas a scarfed Zekrom can do this in addition to being able to smash through walls, a superb asset for offensive teams.
Either way, I get what you were doing here, it's not whether or not Zekrom is better than Ray, but by how much, as Ray is a good standpoint to compare things to. Zekrom provides two great role compressions in contrast to ray, which I'll quickly outline
-
Wallsmashererer, it doesn't seem like this is being appreciated as much as it should be. Zekrom provides superb wall breaking compression as per physical walls, smashing through nearly all of them with relative ease. Pokemon such as Ray simply can't get close to that. It was brought up that WoW destroys Zek, true on most teams-Zek is meant to be played offensively, but not to the degree at which it risks burns. Many of it's targets, as a result, don't carry WoW, like Skarm and Lugia
-
GottaGoFast, Zekrom is quick without sacrificing viability, whereas a scarfed Ray is perhaps one of the least viable sets out there.
Finally, a point that seems to get being missed is that, while Zekrom is apparently awful, it actually fits in really well with the rest of B rank, performing similarly. Is it really reasonable to keep a Pokemon that has the same strategic potential as B-ranked threats inside of C-rank? If someone would mind debunking this it would be much appreciated.
"
What does Zekrom do better than Kyu-W?"
While Kyu-W's attacks are more spamable they are, on the whole, less relevant to the metagame. Zekrom has a specific role in smashing physical roles, whereas Kyu-W justs hits everything with IB+DM, not really picking up any critical usefullness.
Thanks for reading another boring Zekrom rant!