Pre-Evolution Corner

Porygon2, The Virtual Pokémon. For the purposes of planetary development, Porygon was updated with the most cutting-edge technology available. Porygon was updated to a new version in readiness for planetary development. But that dream remains unrealized as yet. AI has been installed in it. It learns various things all on its own, but it even remembers things it doesn’t need to know. Even though it doesn’t die in the vacuum of space, it can’t move around very well in zero gravity.

Overview

While VGC's favorite duck reigns in Doubles formats, on Singles, Porygon2 has a few niches it can pull off: Thanks to its pre-evolution status, it gains the boosts from Eviolite. Combine this with Porygon2's 85/90/95 decent bulk and you got yourself an authentic wall capable of stopping many threats and one of the best defensive picks in Battle Spot Singles. Trace is the icing of the cake, as it allows Porygon2 to copy its foe's ability and stop Pokemon like Heatran, Gyarados, Dragonite and Salamence using their own ability against them. While Porygon2 has many excellent defensive traits, unfortunately, Porygon2 is also plagued with many weaknesses. To start with, Normal type is a very bad defensive typing and unless it traces an ability like Flash Fire or Water Absorb, Porygon2 doesn't has many resistances or immunities to switch into boosted users. Porygon2 is also heavily reliant on its Eviolite item which means that moves like Trick or Knock Off cripple it. Porygon2 is also vulnerable to Toxic making it unable to last for long if it gets poisoned. Finally, Porygon2 is a very passive Pokemon and it can be easily stopped by Taunt users such as Tapu Fini or Bisharp that Porygon2 fails to either cripple or damage heavily.
Positives
Eviolite makes Porygon2 an insanely strong wall capable of walling many strong attackers with its decent 85/90/95 in addition to Eviolite's x1.5 boost.
Trace allows Porygon2 to use the opponent's ability against it. Intimidate allows Porygon2 to check threats like Salamence, Gyarados and Landorus-T while copying Flash Fire lets Porygon2 switch into Heatran on almost anything it throws.
Porygon2 has a nice coverage movepool and combined with Thunder Wave/Toxic, which makes it a great wall with the right support options for its team. It also has access to Recover, which means that it can replenish its own health when it needs to.
Access to Trick Room and in addition to its base 60 Speed makes it a fine choice to set up Trick Room for other Pokemon to take advantage of it.

Negatives
Porygon2's reliance on its Eviolite item makes it incredibly vulnerable to moves like Knock Off and Trick.
Normal is a very bad defensive typing for a wall as it leaves Porygon2 with only one immunity to take advantage of its great bulk.
Posion heavily cripples Porygon2's defensive abilities, making it very vulnerable to Toxic or Toxic Spikes. Weather and hazards also chip Porygon2's health due to the lack of Leftovers.
Taunt stops defensive Porygon2 cold and makes it unable to cripple the opponent's team. Pokemon that don't fear its coverage options like Tyranitar, Tapu Fini and Bisharp, can get past it very easily.
While the extra bulk from Eviolite helps, Porygon2 is still vulnerable to Fighting-type attacks and strong Pokemon like Mega Lopunny or Mega Medicham will be able to dispatch it.
Base 60 Speed is slow, which means that Porygon2 will usually take a hit before doing anything else. It's decent enough for Trick Room, however.

Abilities

Trace: Ability becomes the same as that of the opponent. Switching this Pokémon out of battle restores its original ability. In a Double/Triple Battle, a random opponent’s ability will be copied. - A solid enough Ability. If against the right opponent, it can make Porygon2 pretty brutal
Download: Attack is increased when the foe’s Defense is lower than its Special Defense or increases Special Attack when the foe’s Special Defense is lower than its Defense. - Always handy but very situational
Analytic: Attack power increases by 30% if the Pokémon is the last Pokémon to attack this turn - Porygon2 can use this well but it's very situational

Movesets

Windows Firewall

- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Tri Attack / Foul Play
- Toxic / Thunder Wave / Discharge
Item Attached: Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs and Nature:
240 HP / 168 Def / 100 SpD
Bold Nature

Thanks to its Eviolite boost, Porygon2 becomes an insanely strong wall capable of walling some physical and special threats because of its good mixed defenses. Recover allows Porygon2 to replenish its lost health throughout a match while extending its durability. Ice Beam is a must as it allows Porygon2 to beat 1-vs-1 Pokemon like Dragonite, Mega Salamence and Zygarde, making it an excellent check for these Pokemon. Tri Attack is a decent STAB option to hurt anything that is not vulnerable to Ice Beam. However, Foul Play deserves a special mention as it allows Porygon2 to beat set up sweepers like Mimikyu with it. Finally, the last slot is reserved for what it is preferred for your team. Toxic puts Pokemon like Tangrowth on a timer as they take very little from Porygon2's offensive moves. On the other hand, Thunder Wave allows Porygon2 to heavily cripple Pokemon like Tapu Lele while providing speed control for its teammates. Discharge can provide potential paralysis support as well while also dealing solid damage against foes such as Gyarados, avoiding Taunt in the process.

The given EV spread allows Porygon2 to avoid being 2HKO'd by Adamant Mega Salamence's Double Edge while being 3HKO'd at most by Scarf Tapu Lele’s Psychic. Bold is the preferred nature to check on physical sweepers like Landorus-T and Gyarados much better. Depending on your team preferences, you can tweak the EV spread with more Special Defense EVs with a Calm nature to take on Tapu Koko and Tapu Lele more efficiently. Trace is what allows Porygon2 to become an excellent check for Pokemon like Heatran, Volcanion, Dragonite and Landorus-T expanding Porygon2's defensive abilities. Download is worth mentioning for its ability to boost Porygon2's Special Attack to higher levels, though this can be inconsistent.

Ubuntu Linux

- Trick Room
- Ice Beam
- Tri Attack / Shadow Ball
- Thunderbolt / Hidden Power Fire
Item Attached: Eviolite
Ability: Download / Trace
EVs and Nature:
248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature

A base 60 Speed makes Porygon2 decently slow enough to be a good Trick Room user. Thanks to the defensive boost provided by Eviolite, Porygon2 becomes difficult to OHKO and can set up Trick Room reliably. Ice Beam allows Porygon2 to destroy Pokemon like Zygarde and Gliscor. Tri Attack is Porygon2's main STAB move and with this set's offensive investment, it hits for decent damage. Shadow Ball is another option that allows Porygon2 to hurt Mew while preventing Porygon2 from being walled by Steel types. Thunderbolt allows it to fry Tapu Fini and Mega Gyarados while Hidden Power Fire is an option to demolish Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn, which are annoying Pokemon to face for Trick Room abusers.

252 EVs in Special Attack are dumped to boost Porygon2's damage output to decent levels. 248 HP EVs are thrown in to increase its overall bulk while gaining an extra switch-in to Stealth Rock. The rest is dumped on Defense to slightly increase its physical bulk.

Download is the preferred ability as Porygon2 gains an Special Attack boost if the opponent it switched into has a lower Special Defense than its Defense. However, many Pokemon with equal or similar defense stats, usually invest to avoid giving Porygon2 a Download boost. For this reason, Trace is a valid option to gain more switch-in opportunities against foes like Heatran or Volcanion.

Other Options & Partners

Signal Beam and Psychic are niche options to hit Tyranitar, Cresselia and Conkeldurr. However, the coverage of these attacks are generally poor and both Porygon forms prefer to stick with Ice Beam and Thunderbolt. These moves are easily overpowered by Adaptability boosted Breakneck Blitz.
Porygon2 can use Analytic as an alternate ability to gain more power vs foes that stay on it. Because of its low Speed, it will gain the Analytic boost most of the time and is useful for guaranteeing the OHKO on boosted offensive Mimikyu. However, this is counter-intuitive on Trick Room sets.

VGC & Double Battle Options

The Porygon family tends to have an unusual history in Doubles formats, filling familiar roles in a unique fashion but rarely being a dominant choices in those roles. Porygon-Z is considered a niche pick at best even with Z-Conversion, as it lacks both the bulk and coverage slots to see much success and finds itself outmatched by Kommo-o as a setup Z-Move user these days. The more notable of the two is Porygon2 though, filling a very useful Trick Room role without the usual weaknesses that most setters have due to their Psychic typing. Porygon2 is one of the few viable users of Eviolite in Doubles, which gives it almost complete authority over that item slot, and it benefits greatly from the current meta providing great support for semi-room teams. Fighting-types are also not particularly common in Doubles outside of Kommo-o, which means its sole weakness can often only be exploited by non-STAB coverage moves that will struggle to ever OHKO Porygon2 without a boost. However, Porygon2 does suffer from being fairly passive and rigid in its setup, making it easily exploitable with Taunt and Knock Off. If it lacks super-effective coverage for something it struggles to deal meaningful damage as well, but on a solid Trick Room team it will very often pull its worth.

M56 Prototype

- Ice Beam
- Trick Room
- Recover
- Thunderbolt / Shadow Ball / Return
Item Attached: Eviolite
Ability: Download
EVs and Nature:
244 HP /124 Def / 140 SpD Sassy Nature

Porygon2 is fairly straightforward in its setup, as its primary role is being a bulky Trick Room setter with unique coverage. Ice Beam provides the ever-valuable coverage against Landorus-T while boasting generally good offensive coverage. Trick Room is the sole reason Porygon2 is particularly useful, as being a Normal-type with Trick Room is particularly useful in a metagame with few Fighting-types. Recover gives Porygon2 the ability to stay healthy and continue to be a bulky cornerstone to the team, as well as give it more opportunities to set up Trick Room throughout the game. Thunderbolt is a popular pick to round out coverage with Ice Beam, granting useful coverage against Tapu Fini and Milotic, though Porygon2 has several other options it can use to patch up weaker team matchups. Shadow Ball is particularly useful for getting solid damage against Mega Metagross, Tapu Lele, and Aegislash, which otherwise don't fear much of what Porygon2 can throw at them. Return can also turn otherwise useless Attack boosts from Download into an advantage, dealing decent damage against specially bulky foes such as the aforementioned Tapu Lele.

The given EV spread with a Sassy nature rounds out Porygon2's overall bulk so that it can handle foes on both the physical and special sides, while also making it as slow as possible. A Speed IV of 0 can be chosen to minimize Speed entirely but this is not usually necessary. Favor is given to the special side due to the larger amount of specially offensive foes in general, though the EV spread can be tuned to the user's needs if more or less physical bulk is desired. Eviolite is necessary to increase Porygon2's bulk as it is otherwise not very durable, and makes the most of the somewhat evenly distributed EVs. As hinted at previously, Download is the preferred ability to potentially give it a significant power boost, which makes it capable of dealing very meaningful damage with its coverage moves. Trace can be considered if the boost potential is not appealing, though this can backfire with some abilities such as the terrain abilities or weather.

Other Options & Team Ideas

- Ally Switch deserves a mention because everyone loves Ally Switch. While it can feel like a dead moveslot if you're not used to it, a well timed Ally Switch can quickly turn a bad situation into an excellent one. It can be tough to fit this on a moveset though.
- Foul Play can give Porygon2 an excellent way to threaten physical attackers more effectively, namely Snorlax. This isn't particularly meaningful if the team isn't particularly weak to Snorlax, but it's worth consideration on some teams.
- Every Trick Room setter loves having Incineroar as a teammate and Incineroar itself benefits from the Trick Room as well. Trick Room abusers such as Arquanid also appreciate Porygon2's help, though more speedy teammates like Mega Metagross or Tapu Koko can also simply benefit from its ability to reset Trick Room or control Speed tiers in certain matchups.
- While not directly involved on Porygon2 sets, its evolution Porygon-Z can be a decent sweeper with Z-Conversion. However, it only has room for two coverage moves due to requiring Protect and is otherwise inferior to Kommo-o in this role, so it's not an overly notable threat.

Checks & Counters

Fighting-types such as Blaziken, Mega Lucario, Breloom, Mega Lopunny, Mega Heracross, and Pheromosa can threaten Porygon2 with their STAB moves. Breloom in particular can threaten Trick Room setups with Spore, while Mega Heracross can take advantage of Trick Room itself, though the others must be wary of Trick Room, since they struggle if Trick Room is set up.

Knock Off and Trick are Porygon2's worst nightmare as they remove its Eviolite rendering it into a mediocre Pokemon. Toxic users will also break down Porygon2 due to its inability to remove status. Steel-types like Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn hard wall Porygon2 and they can set up easily on it unless Porygon2 runs Hidden Power Fire to fend them off.

Locations in Games

Red/Blue/Yellow:
Not in game

Gold/Silver/Crystal:
Not in game

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald:
Not in game

FireRed/LeafGreen:
Not in game

Colosseum/XD:
Not in game

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum:
Evolve Porygon2

HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Evolve Porygon2

Black/White:
Evolve Porygon2 (White)
Trade from White (Black)

Black 2/White 2:
Trade from White

X/Y:
Trade from Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire:
Evolve Porygon2

Sun/Moon:
Evolve Porygon2

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon:
Evolve Porygon2