Paradox Vs Originals comparison - Delibird

Hi I'm going to be doing an analysis of all the paradox pokemon to see which ones are better than their originals and which ones aren't. I've played pokemon for a while but I'm still a bit of an amateur in doubles so if there are any corrections people have feel free to put it in the comments. This article is on the Santa expy himself Delibird and his vastly superior robot Santa version Iron Bundle. Honestly this one is pretty clear and is more a breakdown of the exact specifics of what makes Iron Bundle better. Though part of the reason is just Delibird has always just been bad and it could really only get better.

Roles: Delibird's only role in singles is to be sac fodder in nuzlockes as it doesn't do anything particularly well, it can set a layer of spikes or tailwind but doesn't have the bulk or speed to really do anything with it or the damage to be any kind of offensive threat. In doubles it's even worse actively taking up a spot for literally almost anything else. Iron bundle can be a good revenge killer and offensive threat in singles, and while slightly worse in doubles it can still be good offensive pressure with a bit of speed control.

Type: Defensively both combinations aren't super great mainly because they both have ice in them, however Robo Santa's ice/water edges out the win here by a bit. While ice/flying does get a ground immunity for safe switches Robo Santa's typing lets it resist water which is a more common attacking type than bug or grass, and while they both have the same number of weaknesses one of Santa's is a 4x weakness to rock, which is especially bad in singles due to the existence of stealth rocks. Offensively Robo Santa's typing is also better, as while they have the same number of super effective, neutral and resisted types, being able to hit the powerfully tanky steel neutrally is much more valuable than being able to hit water neutrally. And being able to hit rock for super effective damage is better than hitting bug.

Stats: Overall: I know last time I said it's not about how big your stats are but how you use them, but when your stats are literally 240 points higher than the competition maybe that's not entirely true. Though to add insult to injury Santa doesn't even use them that well with a horrendous stat allocation of it's small 330 points. Physical Bulk: Santa has truly awful bulk for both stats having both defenses and hp at 45, even without it's ice typing this thing would be shattered by a soggy paper bag, it could have perhaps been saved if one stat was prioritized and the other dropped but alas. In contrast, remember how I just said it would be better if one stat was prioritized? Well Robo-Santa does exactly that actually managing to have a respectable physical bulk of 114 def to make up for its low hp. Special Bulk: It's still Robo-Santa here though having 11 more hp and 15 more sp def, though its still pretty frail specially. Speed: Speed is Santa's best stat and even then it's still pretty mediocre sitting at only 75, In comparison Robo-Santa also has speed as it's best stat and is in the top 15 of fastest pokemon when not considering mega's sitting at 136. Attack stats: Santa's preferred attacking stat is special though it's pretty low sitting at a 65, though for some awful reason it also has an attack stat of 55 which is higher than its defences. Neither of these stats or speed are good enough to make it a mixed attacker and everything they put in its attack stat should have been put into either speed, special atk or at the very least its defences. On the other hand, while Robo-Santa is still a special attacker it can actually use it's decently high atk stat of 80 for something as it can run flip turn to get decent chip damage and a switch out with it's high speed, and it's special attack is fantastic being on the upper end at 124.

Ability: Santa's abilities aren't bad in general however they are specifically bad on Santa himself, two of them only prevent being put to sleep which doesn't really help when you can't do much and die to almost everything. It's final ability hustle also sucks as it boosts it's physical attack despite primarily being a special attacker when it does do damage. On the other hand Robo-Santa has a fantastic ability in Quark Drive, as when its triggered it can boost Iron Bundles already crazy speed or boost its special attack to ensure he can either move before opponents and get damage down or secure kills. Its a a little bad when trying to trigger it naturally as it being weak to electric is not great in electric terrain, however this can be mostly mitigated simply by switching out with an ultra-fast flip turn. In other words Robo-Santa wins again.

Movepool: In general neither of these pokemon have both ok'ish move pools. Santa actually has some decent supporting moves in tailwind, spikes and rapid spin, and access to some good special Ice STAB, though is held back by the fact that it doesn't have any good special flying STAB (not that there really are many). In fact it could be decent movepool wise if this pokemon didn't just suck in every other way. Robo-Santa on the other hand can make amazing use of all the great special ice STAB moves including freeze dry which completely flips its issue of not being able to hit water types well also getting flip-turn for good switches, and with its offenses it really doesn't mind the loss of most supporting moves. It also can make use of fast icy wind in doubles to help provide speed control. Its only issue is the lack of a good special water STAB having to rely on the inaccurate Hydro Pump, and also doesn't have access to surf.

Overall: I mean Obviously Iron Bundle wins here, a lot of what makes it good is straight up done by fixing the issues with Delibird itself including not just its stats, but how they're distributed, its typing, its ability. The only thing it doesn't necessarily improve on is its movepool and honestly that's because Delibirds movepool isn't bad (ignoring the fact that its natural learnset is only two moves). Paradox wins.

Paradox - 2 Current Timeline -1 next up will prbably be Jigglypuff (or rather wigglytuff against scream tail)