Other From BW to XY-- How the tier has changed so far.

[Roane]

Hey guys, Roane here, you probably haven't heard from me much, but that's probably because I'm not that great of a battler (my teambuilding and predicting isn't that great, haha), but I wanted to share some interesting facts with all of you. So, I decided to figure out which type was the most prominent type in the current OU metagame. Now, mind you, this includes all mega evolutions as their own pokemon (they really mess with the statistics, but oh well). After careful calculation, I learned that the most prominent type in the game right now is...

The Flying Type

Here are the actual numbers to show you guys how I came up with this number.

1) Flying=13 Pokemon
2) Water=8 Pokemon
2) Steel= 8 Pokemon
4) Fairy= 7 Pokemon
4) Dragon= 7 Pokemon
4) Ground= 7 Pokemon
7) Dark= 6 Pokemon
8) Fighting= 5 Pokemon
8) Fire= 5 Pokemon
8) Psychic= 5 Pokemon
8) Electric= 5 Pokemon
8) Bug= 5 Pokemon
13) Grass= 4 Pokemon
13) Rock= 4 Pokemon
13) Poison= 4 Pokemon
16) Ice= 2 Pokemon
16) Normal= 2 Pokemon
18) Ghost= 1 Pokemon (Lonely ol' Gengar)

Interesting, right? I mean, it really goes to show how the metagame acts, and why the tiers are the way they are! In total, there are 53 Pokemon in OU currently, and only 10 of these pokemon have only one type. That's interesting, isn't it??

So, it got me thinking... So how have these types changed since the days of BW?

So I did some calculations on the types of the days of BW, and I got that the most prominent type in BW OU was...

The Water Type

Yeah, um, no duh, Sherlock... Most anyone who knows anything about BW OU can tell you what caused the water type to be the most used type in BW OU. That's a no brainer.

The rest of the types lined up with Water like this.

1) Water= 10 Pokemon
2) Steel= 9 Pokemon
2) Psychic= 9 Pokemon
4) Dragon= 8 Pokemon
4)Ground= 8 Pokemon
6) Fighting= 7 Pokemon
6) Flying= 7 Pokemon
8) Grass= 4 Pokemon
8) Fire= 4 Pokemon
8) Poison= 4 Pokemon
8) Electric= 4 Pokemon
12) Ice= 3 Pokemon
12) Bug= 3 Pokemon
14) Ghost= 2 Pokemon
14) Rock= 2 Pokemon
17) Normal= 1 Pokemon
Fairy Types N/A

Yeah, a little bit of a difference, right? I think it's pretty cool, honestly. In BW OU, there were a total of 50 Pokemon, with a total of 13 pokemon only having one type.

The changes? Well...

Water= 10 to 8 (-2)
Steel= 9 to 8 (-1)
Psychic= 9 to 5 (-4)
Dragon= 8 to 7 (-1)
Ground= 8 to 7 (-1)
Fighting= 7 to 5 (-2)
Flying= 7 to 13 (+6)
Grass= 4 to 4 (0)
Fire= 4 to 5 (+1)
Poison= 4 to 4 (0)
Electric= 4 to 5 (+1)
Ice= 3 to 2 (-1)
Bug= 3 to 5 (+2)
Ghost= 2 to 1 (-1)
Rock= 2 to 4 (+2)
Normal= 1 to 2 (+1)
Fairy= 0 to 7 (+7)

As you can tell, the metagame has changed a lot.

My thoughts on the subject? Well...

With the loss of permanent weather, rain teams really lost the chance to really shine in this generation. With that loss, water types loss a lot of prominence, water resists became not as important, and really, the only pokemon type that was really hurt was the water type. Sun teams and Sand teams were definitely hurt, but the types that benefited from Sand/Sun weren't torn up primarily by permanent weather, since the metagame in BW practically revolved around rain.

Flying types have risen to power due to the rise of Defog. So many pokemon (Scizor, the Lati twins, Mandibuzz, Zapdos, etc, etc...) have been given the gift of Defog, which makes entry hazards less of a necessity with the new mechanics. In turn, pokemon weak to the dreaded rocks (Flying types) were given a chance to spam their horrible flying type attacks on the rest of the world (Namely Pinsir, Togekiss, and Talonflame), essentially turning the flying types into the new dragon types. In turn, ground types with their ground type STABS are less important, (but important nonetheless), and flying type resists, primarily rock types, became more important.

With Steel's inability to resist ghost and dark, Dark types rose to power and psychic types fell from grace. I mean, dark types have definitely benefitted from this, since they can take out ghost types and psychic types with ease.

Fairies have definitely changed the metagame, keeping steel types in the battle (in a more offensive way), checking dark types, replacing most psychic types, and hitting dragon types hard. I don't really need to go into the details really that much; you get my drift.

So, what do you think of the metagame right now? What do you think of these numbers? Post your opinions!

 

[Peemoo]

The addition of one Mega-Pokemon per team is a huge change as well, as it is similar to allowing one Legendary or Uber per team. Many players have them as their win conditions, and build their teams around that.

 

[megacrazyhand]

I'm curious, did you apply the type changes from mega evolutions to this as well? Other than that, it is always interesting to see how the meta changes from gen to gen especially now with a new batch of megas coming up that will probably change up the meta once again. That said I don't quite get Peemoo's point in the post above me about how mega evolution is similar to allowing a legendary or uber per team. I have teams with many legendaries for example, and I don't quite see how it allows an uber. That said I do agree that the edition was important, allowing many previously subpar Pokemon to hold a purpose in the metagame.

 

[hey yal]

Are we supposed to make discussion about how typings have changed the meta from bw to xy? Also, I think the lists only apply to the ou list and there are still some viable pokes in bl uu ru etc. Usage doesn't equal to viability. All I want to ask is the question there ^

 

[TheTraininator]

I think having a discussion thread on how the meta has changed from 5th to 6th gen is an interesting idea, but it probably shouldn't focus on types alone, instead the actual differences in common playstyles between the two metas.

 

[ssjjynx]

I think that in terms of the pokemon and strategies used, things have changed a lot. Pokemon like Venusaur would only ever be seen coupled with Ninetales in Gen 5, but now Venusaur is an extremely good pokemon by itself simply because of Mega Evolution. And you'd have been laughed at if you brought a Herracross, Pinsir, or Charizard to a battle last Gen, but now they're a very serious matter.

However, in terms of team structure I think it is a little bit similar. For instance, in BW, almost every single team had either Sun, Sand, or Rain on it (with one of the few exceptions being DragMag).
And in Gen 6, almost every team has a Mega pokemon on it (with stall being one of the exceptions, but even that often packs the afore-mentioned M-Venusaur). There was a strategy shift, with weather being nerfed and the introduction of Megas. Instead of building their team around weather, people now build them around a Mega pokemon.

But Mega evolution isn't the only thing that changed the meta. The introduction of Fairies changed things up a lot as well. Before Fairies, Dragon Spam was a very effective team style, with dragonuser even winning his Wcop finals match with it last year. However, now Dragon Spam is barely even viable anymore, due to Clefable being able to take all the dragons, and then all Magnezone and the other steel type of choice too with Flamethrower. In fact, Fairies changed the meta so much that they even made Salamence, a pokemon who was banned to Ubers in Gen 4, go down to BL.

2 smaller changes are the removal of the sleep count for a pokemon being reset upon each switch out, and the nerf of Hidden Power. The first hasn't made all too much of an impact in terms of team building/strategies, with the only things worth noting are Amoongus' drop to RU, and Venusaur usually running Leech Seed rather than Sleep Powder as sleep isn't as effective as it was last Gen.
As for the nerf of Hidden Power, that has made a few changes to the movesets of some pokemon. Now Keldeo runs Icy Wind over hp ice, Latios occasionally running Roost over hp fire, and and Landorus-I usually running Knock Off, Calm Mind, or Stealth Rock over hp ice. And last gen, hp ice lando-t was a thing, this gen it rocks Knock Off instead.

So there were a fairly large amount of things that changed between this gen and last gen (as is expected with the transition to a new gen), from team styles, to pokemon usage, and the two gens can't really be compared with all the new pokemon.

 

[Creative]

You need to edit the OP to include BW OU's Dark-types and the changes in Dark-types.