Summary

Celebi is the premiere Swiss Army Knife of ADV Draft. Its customizable but strong stat spread, great movepool options and solid defensive typing allow it to morph into a multitude of roles on a draft team. While Celebi does have a few common sets, opponents often are playing a guessing game when trying to figure out what moves Celebi brings.

Celebi is primarily used as a support Pokemon with Leech Seed and Baton Pass as its tools of choice. Leech Seed into Pokemon with high HP stats such as Snorlax or Hariyama can recover large amounts of health in conjunction with Leftovers, often allowing Celebi to escape turns it faces an attack without losing health. This, alongside its 100/100/100 bulk, ability to create 101 HP substitutes, and access to powerful direct healing in the form of Recover, allows it to hit the field often and stay for a while. Celebi has access to both Swords Dance and Calm Mind, allowing it to boost both offensive stats in preparation of passing to a teammate. Since both of its types' attacks are special, Calm Mind is the boosting move that is used most often, allowing it to fire off Giga Drains, Psychics, and special Hidden Powers with a strong base 100 special attack stat. However, Swords Dance does have its niches and can be used to pass to physical partners such as Aerodactyl or counter special walls such as Blissey with Hidden Power Fighting. Something to note is that in most ADV Draft rulesets, the combination of Ancientpower and Baton Pass is banned, meaning that physical Celebi sets have to choose two between Ancientpower, a non-rock Hidden Power type, and Baton Pass. Celebi, of course, can also choose to keep these boosts for itself and operate as a win condition via packing coverage for an opponent's known threats and boosting up.

Celebi's best partners are those that can eliminate its biggest threats and those that like receiving the boosts and Substitute it can pass. Its most common partner is Aerodactyl, which outspeeds and takes care of Heracross, Charizard, and Moltres with 4x super-effective STAB damage. Aerodactyl, in turn, loves receiving Swords Dance and can run away with games with a doubled attack stat in tow. Other common partners for Celebi include Milotic and Cloyster, who appreciate Celebi taking electric-type attacks for them and the support Leech Seed can provide.

Celebi is not without fault, however. Its typing, while effective into switching into things like Earthquake and Thunderbolt, leaves it with a 4x weakness to Bug which leaves it scared of both faster threats that pack Hidden Power Bug, such as Dugtrio, and threats that can get the jump on slower Celebi sets such as Heracross. By virtue of operating in the draft format, this weakness is very exploitable due to matchups being known and multiple opposing Pokemon can slot bug coverage to target Celebi. Additionally, Baton Pass Celebi is sometimes foiled by passing negative effects, such as the attack drop from Intimidate, on the switch.

Summary written by Scraf

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