I agree IGN isnt a good source for a popularity test.
Flygon isnt exactly a one trick pony with a single support set, as its movepool is extremely diverse. Like i said before YMMV but i justified my usage of flygon during the DeoSharp era, where other defogers became momentum killers, defog flygon became a new universal answer to most pokemon and even a lure for Ballon aegislash, bisharp and Thundurus I with the added bonus of stoping Vol switch and thunderwave. I can say it performed greatly on that era. As it allowed me to bring in safely an iffensive responce to tge other player reactions.
On a side note flygon spatk while not great is still usable. Much like weather volcarona or dragonite he has a niche as a weather answer. Ill give you that it fares poorly against rain, but against sand offence he can really punch sone holes in the XY meta. Again this is another niche that could justify a teamslot or fear that your enemy migth be too overprepared for rotomW.
Diverse Moovpool=/=Many Usable sets. I understand that flygon can defog and preserve momentum but it's not like only flygon can u-turn, both mandibuzz and scizor can also do so as well as do other things like walling, stalling, punching holes in the opposing team, etc.
As far as it being a lure for Aegislash, bisharp and thundo I'm failing to see how. It can't OHKO any of them and is OHKO'd in return if it stays in by any of the opposing pokemons strong moves. Bisharp especially doesn't make any sense as it'll just KO you with sucker punch if you try and U-turn. It can absorb electric moves well and I think that is a fair point to make provided hp ice isn't floating around, which it sometimes is.
That's kind of why used it. Sure IGN has lots of problems. However this test was done by users in face-off format so it's not like the owners could mess it up like they do with a lot of stuff. Since anyone could face-off as many times as they wanted it does not make seach user count as much as everyone else, which is a small problem.
However the main point is that IGN is a gigantic site and tons of people participated in it. You can't really ruin it that easily. Sure you can only choose to vote for the old memorable ones, but the whole point is that genwunners and the like are also taken into consideration. There are probably some people who only picked a random one or picked the one they disliked the most to screw up the results, but I don't think that was a huge problem.
The test shows a picture of what pokémon which are popular among both people who like pokémon, people who only like the old stuff, people who only like the new and people who never cared.
I see where you're coming from now. I wasn't aware it was a face-off, that certainly makes it harder for results to be screwed considerably. Now if it was like click on your favourite pokemon with a list showing all of them then i'd be a pretty crappy representation but this does sound better, despite still having some issues. I think it would be cool if we had a popularity contest like with the latest TCG set allowing you to vote for your favourite pokemon on the official site, that would certainly be more accurate than any other website running a test. That reminds me, could the results of that vote for a pokemon to get an event at the beginning of gen 5 that Arceus won have any merit? Admittedly people would vote for who they need over who they like, but it could be useful for us to see how popular certain pokemon really are.
I think that's exactly what it should do. Pokémon that maybe don't shine as much competitively should be given a chance to compete. Like Beedrill was. I just think generally people should stop hating on pokémon in lower Smogon tiers; each pokémon can shine in OU, it depends on the trainer
Pokemon in lower tiers can certainly do well in higher tiers, but when there's a better option available, like Garchomp vs Flygon for HO, you're gonna pick what's better, not the worse one because you can make it work with enough teambuilding.
I think this is hardly a fair argument. Any pokemon can win, even against a team of ubers if you have hax. Sure it's a part of battling but it applies to every pokemon, not just a select few.
