Metagross
[OVERVIEW]
name: Fast Mega Physical Attacker
move 1: Iron Head / Meteor Mash
move 2: Zen Headbutt
move 3: Ice Punch / Hammer Arm / Substitute
move 4: Protect
item: Metagrossite
ability: Tough Claws
nature: Jolly
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
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Set Details
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Other Options
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Checks and Counters
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**Fire Types**: Fire types like tran and zard y resist all of the common attacks metagross runs, and can hit it with super effective stab. That said, you can lure and kill these with some of the moves in oo.
**Bulky Steels**: Metagross generally has problems dealing with bulky steels, unless you're using hammer arm. Notable steels are aegislash, ferrothorn, celesteela, heatran, jirachi, and other metagross. If you use sub tho, ferro, rachi and celesteela prolly wont be able to break it. unless flamethrower celesteela, i guess.
**Landorus-T**: Landorus-T can switch in, drop metagross' attack with intimidate, and then hit Metagross with EQ for like 80%. Most Lando T run choice scarf, so they will outspeed metagross as well. That being said, if Lando comes in before you mega evolve, or as you mega evolve, clear body will prevent any loss of attack from intimidate.
**Ghost types**: Aegislash and mega gengar are common ghost types that greatly threaten metagross just by switching in. If gengar switches in and it is already mega evolved, it can outspeed and ohko metagross while trapping it with shadow tag. Aegislash isnt able to trap metagross, but it easily forces it out and sets up a substitute
**Dark types**: Dark types arent as much as a big deal for metagross, as metagross has ways of dealing with all the common ones: Hoopa-U, scrafty, muk-A, and hydreigon. standard hoopa is ohkod by iron head, scrafty takes a ton of damage from hammer arm, muk-a cant do too much damage with knock off, and hydreigon is outsped and ohko'd with either ice punch or hammer arm
**Intimidate and Burns**: Metagross is a physical attacker, so intimidate and burns greatly hinder its effectiveness. Intimidate can be played around with clear body, but once metagross has mega evolved, you lose that option. Burns p much neuter metagross. Be careful around pokemon that might have scald (milo, cune) and pokemon that commonly use will o wisp (rotom, mew i guess)
**Speed Control**: Metagross lasts much longer, and makes better use of its bulk and typing, when it's outspeeding the opponent.
[OVERVIEW]
- Metagross has a real good matchup against psychic spam, which is super hot rn
- Its bulky af, can tank lando t earthquakes for example
- wide movepool, can run moves to lure in and wreck some common switch ins.
- its speed combined with its typing make it easy to support in a wide variety of teams and playstyles.
- p bad offensive typing, steel and psychic have mediocre coverage.
- typing is a mixed bag defensively, with good resistances, but also weaknesses to popular mons like lando t, zard y, aegislash, tran, etc.
name: Fast Mega Physical Attacker
move 1: Iron Head / Meteor Mash
move 2: Zen Headbutt
move 3: Ice Punch / Hammer Arm / Substitute
move 4: Protect
item: Metagrossite
ability: Tough Claws
nature: Jolly
evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
- Iron Head is good consistent STAB option, ohkoes tapu lele and sylveon. If you want the OHKO on Kyub, you have to run meteor mash, but it misses
- (meteor mash also guarantees the ohko on tapu bulu, but you wall it anyways so eh.)
- (it also guarantees the ohko on 0/0 hoopa-u, but most people use 0/0- so not sure if i should mention this)
- Zen Headbutt is the other STAB, it gives o-k neutral coverage, but there arent too many common things that its gonna hit super effectively right now
- Ice Punch hits Lando-T, Lando-I and Salamence
- Mega mence can outspeed you and chunk you with fire blast tho so be careful of that
- Hammer arm gives you coverage for steel types (heatran, jirachi, celesteela) that would otherwise wall you.
- Substitute can be used alongside metagross' solid bulk and typing to punish your opponent for switching or using protect.
- Protect is used to stall out field conditions like tailwind and trick room, and to protect metagross for a turn while a partner removes a threat.
Set Details
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- Jolly is p much mandatory, if you run adamant instead, you get outsped by boosting natured base 100s.
- Clear Body is the preferred pre-mega ability, if mence or lando switches in on you as/before you mega evolve, you dont lose any attack.
- If using substitute, you can use an alternate spread of 28 HP / 228 Atk / 252 Spe to ensure that lando t's u turn will never break your sub, but you probably miss out on some ohkos if you do that.
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- Metagross has some pretty useful resistances, so use them to get metagross in on stuff that wont do too much damage, and then fire off some attacks
- metagross prefers to come in when it can hit super effectively, as its stabs have pretty mediocre coverage and cant be spammed like sylveon's hyper voice or charizard's heat wave
- metagross' offensive presence comes from its typing and its ability to do large damage on targets that are frail or weak to its stabs or coverage move. When this is not an option, it is best to switch metagross out.
- dont leave metagross in on aegislash, celesteela, or heatran unless you have thunderpunch or hammer arm for celesteela or heatran respectively. These pokemon often run substitute, and will use metagross' inability to damage them as an opportunity to set up. predicting switch ins from these mons and going directly into a counter is a good way to prevent subs from going up.
- If using Hammer Arm, be sure to use it judiciously, as it lowers your speed, which makes you outsped by many pokemon which metagross beats otherwise
- Metagross will have its full speed the turn it mega evolves, which means it can be useful to delay your mega evolution to bait an intimidate while you still have clear body
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- Landorus (I or T) are good teammates, as they get rid of fire and steel types that metagross has problems with. In addition to this, Landorus T has intimidate, which can further enhance Metagross' tremendous physical bulk.
- Water mons like Azumarill, Milotic, and suicune likewise deal with fire types, but also have the benefit of beating lando-t.
- In addition to doing the above, politoed and pelipper set up rain, negating metagross' fire weakness and letting metagross take fire moves pretty handily
- Heatran, volcarona, and Charizard beat steels that metagross has trouble with.
- Tapu Lele can be used to increase the power of metagross' zen headbutts, but dont run bullet punch, cuz psychic terrain prevents priority.
- If you want to use bullet punch, you should strongly consider tapu koko, tapu bulu, or tapu fini to make sure that psychic terrain is off the field as much as possible.
- tapu fini is especially cool as a parner as it has synergy as a water type, protects you from burns with misty terrain, and can use swagger on metagross to give it +2 attack while blocking the confusion with misty terrain.
Other Options
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- Bullet Punch lets you deal with fast threats that would otherwise outspeed and 2hko you, like skymin, deoxys-a, and tapu koko
- If you're gonna use bullet punch, dont run tapu lele, as psychic terrain will prevent you from using bullet punch on grounded mons.
- metagross gets some neat support moves like magnet rise, trick room, and gravity; but this stuff is better left to dedicated support mons.
- Metagross has some ways to hit things that would otherwise wall it, tho these moves tend to be much more niche.
- thunderpunch hits milotic and celesteela which wall metagross otherwise. It also lets you ohko azumarill, tho that matchup isnt too bad anyways. (I could mention volcanion here, but i havent been seeing to much of it so idk)
- Rock slide hits charizard and volcarona, (thunder punch doesnt guarantee you an ohko on any zard y, and bulky zard y will always be 2hkoed)
Checks and Counters
===================
**Fire Types**: Fire types like tran and zard y resist all of the common attacks metagross runs, and can hit it with super effective stab. That said, you can lure and kill these with some of the moves in oo.
**Bulky Steels**: Metagross generally has problems dealing with bulky steels, unless you're using hammer arm. Notable steels are aegislash, ferrothorn, celesteela, heatran, jirachi, and other metagross. If you use sub tho, ferro, rachi and celesteela prolly wont be able to break it. unless flamethrower celesteela, i guess.
**Landorus-T**: Landorus-T can switch in, drop metagross' attack with intimidate, and then hit Metagross with EQ for like 80%. Most Lando T run choice scarf, so they will outspeed metagross as well. That being said, if Lando comes in before you mega evolve, or as you mega evolve, clear body will prevent any loss of attack from intimidate.
**Ghost types**: Aegislash and mega gengar are common ghost types that greatly threaten metagross just by switching in. If gengar switches in and it is already mega evolved, it can outspeed and ohko metagross while trapping it with shadow tag. Aegislash isnt able to trap metagross, but it easily forces it out and sets up a substitute
**Dark types**: Dark types arent as much as a big deal for metagross, as metagross has ways of dealing with all the common ones: Hoopa-U, scrafty, muk-A, and hydreigon. standard hoopa is ohkod by iron head, scrafty takes a ton of damage from hammer arm, muk-a cant do too much damage with knock off, and hydreigon is outsped and ohko'd with either ice punch or hammer arm
**Intimidate and Burns**: Metagross is a physical attacker, so intimidate and burns greatly hinder its effectiveness. Intimidate can be played around with clear body, but once metagross has mega evolved, you lose that option. Burns p much neuter metagross. Be careful around pokemon that might have scald (milo, cune) and pokemon that commonly use will o wisp (rotom, mew i guess)
**Speed Control**: Metagross lasts much longer, and makes better use of its bulk and typing, when it's outspeeding the opponent.
- Choice Scarf users. Common choice scarf users that threaten metagross are scarf lando t, scarf hoopa-u, and scarf genesect with flamethrower.
- tailwind. common tailwind users are suicune and zapdos, but other viable ones are hydreigon, salamence, latios, and charizard-y
- icy wind. there are a ton of mons that can use icy wind, the most common ones are milo and rachi.
- trick room. common tr setters are rachi, cress, necrozma, and hoopa. Bronzong, porygon2, jellicent, oranguru, and exxegutor are all also viable (tho jellicent might be stretching it) but it remains to be seen how good these are going to be.
- Thunder wave. T wave isnt as common as it used to be since its only 90 accuracy now, but thundurus-i, rotom h, rotom w, tapu koko, cress run it commonly, though there are a ton of mons that can use it at least semi-viably.
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