Council Minutes
Hallo everyone! We have been as busy as ever with keeping up with the metagame. We have come together to discuss what the current metagame is trending towards, any potential issues.. you get the idea. Here's a collected summary of our current thoughts.
Following the recent bans, we are very happy with the way the metagame is turning out. Nothing stands out as blatantly broken right now and we are very happy about that. Beyond that, there's a lot more versatility in teams too.
We believe that 3 Pokemon clearly stand out as the best right now. Those are Clefable, Heatran, and Hydreigon.
Clefable is one of the most versatile Pokemon. It is an incredibly customizable potential wincon with Calm Mind, devoid of any true counters; Steel-types such as Excadrill, Ferrothorn, Mega Scizor, and Aegislash are easily worn down by Flamethrower, but it can also elect to overwhelm other checks like Toxapex and Heatran with Thunder / Thunderbolt. Beyond that, it has many key support options available, such as Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Wish, Thunder Wave, you get the gist. Out of all these, Wish in particular stands out, giving Clefable a place on many teams alongside Pokemon that lack sustainability, like Heatran, Mega Mawile, Garchomp, and Excadrill. Clefable also stands out as a Stealth Rock setter, capable of pressuring Defoggers such as Tapu Fini and Zapdos, which many people have turned to with the leave of Tornadus-T, very handily. To add onto all that, it is a very convenient check to Pokemon like Mega Lopunny, Mega Latios, and Hydreigon, though it still struggles with its EV spread at times.
Heatran provides teams with an incredible amount of utility. It helps greatly with the influx of Steel-, Fairy-, and Psychic-types and is one of the best Stealth Rock setters. With the ban of Mega Metagross in particular, Steel-, Fairy-, and Psychic-types like Mega Mawile, Mega Scizor, Magearna, Clefable, and Tapu Lele have gained a lot more breathing room. I don't think it's hard to see how this has boosted Heatran's defensive utility through the roof. Heatran has a pretty decent matchup against current entry hazard removal; Zapdos and Corviknight really do not want to mess with it, and Tapu Fini is very susceptible to being worn down quickly. Tapu Fini is also suspect to Defogging its own Misty Terrain away, which Heatran can use as an opportunity to cripple it with Toxic. Beyond just its utility, Heatran simply has no consistent counters. Bulky Water-types such as the aforementioned Tapu Fini as well as some others like Gastrodon and Rotom-W are greatly threatened by Bloom Doom, while other checks like Garchomp, Hydreigon, and Mega Latios are prone to Toxic and Corkscrew Crash.
Lastly, there's Hydreigon, which has continued to be one of the most threatening wallbreakers with Nasty Plot. Despite Clefable's dominance, the utility Hydreigon brings to the table through checking Pokemon like Heatran, Gliscor, and Toxapex is almost unmatched. Hydreigon thrives very strongly in a metagame such as this one, where Speed control is oftentimes foregone completely. It may have checks such as Clefable, Tapu Fini, and Magearna, but Hydreigon is so ridiculously strong at +2 that they really cannot stand up to a boosted Tectonic Rage after just about any chip damage.
As you could probably tell from the above paragraphs, Defoggers really don't matchup too well against prominent Stealth Rock users right now. With the departure of Tornadus-T from the tier, there really is no such thing as conveniently fitting entry hazard removal. Pokemon such as Tapu Fini, Zapdos, Corviknight, and Excadrill may matchup well against some entry hazard setters, but all of them miss out on one thing that Tornadus-T had: its Speed. Tornadus-T's Speed tier was huge in allowing it to force out Pokemon like Garchomp. None of the current options share that trait and as a result, Stealth Rock setters like Garchomp and Landorus-T really thrive right now. In response to Garchomp and Landorus-T, we have been seeing a fair amount of Defog Mega Latias, which is a formidable pick because of its matchup against both those Pokemon as a Defogger, as well as some other Pokemon that are otherwise tough to deal with like Kartana. It's also worth noting that other Stealth Rock setters matchup really well against the current pool of entry hazard removal, as was pointed out earlier in this post.
Ferrothorn in particular is worth pointing out too. With entry hazard removal being in such an awkward spot. Now is the perfect time to be using Spikes. Ferrothorn is the primary setter and it can be very annoying to deal with for entry hazard removers like Tapu Fini and Zapdos. It is also quite customizable, with options such as Toxic to cripple Zapdos or Thunder Wave to cripple Corviknight being available to add onto just how annoying it can be to deal with. With Pokemon such as Clefable really running the metagame, Ferrothorn really doesn't struggle to come into play either. Spikes can quickly accelerate the rate at which wallbreakers can make progress, and Ferrothorn's effectiveness at setting Spikes is very noteworth right now.
With the departure of many important Speed control options like Ash-Greninja, Galarian Darmanitan, and Tornadus-T, National Dex has really come to a halt when it comes to options to consider for Speed control. In general, there seems to be much less of a need for it anyways; Pokemon that could require Speed control of some sorts like Mega Lopunny, Volcarona, and Cinderace are honestly easy enough to deal with defensively to the point where you really do not need to dedicate that slot. Ofcourse, that doesn't mean that there are no options; Choice Scarf users like Ditto, Greninja, Cinderace, Kartana, and Landorus-T, as well as some other miscellaneous options like Sand Rush Excadrill can still suffice and are often still good options, but teams in general are trending towards a much bulkier approach. The fact that Dragapult beats all Speed control options in National Dex anyway definitely plays into this as well.
Since the bans, we have seen a much larger pool of wallbreakers thrive. Swords Dance Kartana, Landorus-T, and Aegislash are good examples of Pokemon that were greatly limited by their offensive checks previously. Without Ash-Greninja, Tornadus-T, and Galarian Darmanitan, it is much harder to naturally check these Pokemon offensively. Without these Pokemon to hold them back, these slower wallbreakers that can easily bust open defensive walls are really thriving. Luckily, there are still other options available such as Mega Latios, Mega Latias, Hydreigon, and Mega Lopunny that can naturally check some of them, but it is certainly a lot tougher than it was previously. We are also seeing some other wallbreakers such as Mega Mawile, Tapu Lele, and Mega Latios thrive, which were primarily held back by the previous prominence of Mega Metagross. They are now able to capitalize off the much more passive state of the tier, taking advantage of Pokemon like Clefable, Toxapex, and Tangrowth with ease. Some of these Pokemon also don't have to deal with the very strong competition from Mega Metagross and Galarian Darmanitan, which is what really makes them enticing options on top of all this.
Stall teams have taken a big hit following the bans. Although nothing commonly run on stall teams was directly adressed, many stronger wallbreakers like the aforementioned Kartana, Landorus-T, Mega Mawile, and Tapu Lele are thriving right now and stall teams are really being overloaded by the amount of strong threats they have to check now.
Instead of stall, balance and bulky offense are the archetypes that are really thriving right now. There's many subgroups of these, but some that really stand out right now are Wish Clefable + Mega Mawile balance / bulky offense teams, very bulky Mega Latias balance teams, and sand teams.
It doesn't just end there, though. Hyper offense teams are just as strong as they have been since the Mega Blastoise ban too. With Spikes support from Mew, Pokemon like Dragapult, Rillaboom, Volcarona, Cinderace, Mega Pinsir, and Bisharp can be incredibly hard to deal with. Especially with the departure of Ash-Greninja, Tornadus-T, Galarian Darmanitan, and Mega Metagross, these teams have only gotten more consistent.
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That's really it for observations that we have made so far. We will make sure to keep an eye out on the metagame. These things in particular haven't quite struck us as problematic yet, but could prove to be an issue in the future, so we are going to keep an extra eye on them:
- The many strong wallbreakers that the defensive metagame might simply not be able to keep up with.
- The mediocre entry hazard control and overall effectiveness of Stealth Rock and Spikes setters.