Premier League Spotlight: MWP 4

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Introduction

Monotype Winter Premier League, more commonly known as MWP, showcases a plethora of Monotype OMs ranging from AAA and STABmons to Monotype's unique format in Monothreat, but AAA, STABmons, LC, and Ubers were cut from this year's tournament. Many vocal players in the community wanted to experiment with fewer slots in an attempt to make the tournament more competitive, so the tournament only had 6 slots rather than the usual 8, and a Bo3 Old Gens slot was implemented consisting of SM, ORAS, and BW.

Teams & Power Rankings

The Power Rankings were written by the Monotype community from the managers, tour players, and Monotype veterans.

Metagame Insights

SS

With this year's tournament only sporting 6 slots, an SS slot inevitably needed to be removed, but only at the cost of being included in Bo3. SS has been stable for a while now, with the last suspect being in June 2021, so the tournament's SS usage was less about testing new ideas and more about optimizing existing ones while also predicting what the other team will use. Many types declined in usage, most notably Steel and Dragon, while a few gained more traction. Most types in the top 10 usage had a win percentage below 50%, with the most common type's win percentage being exactly 50%, so there was a lot of variation in the results.

Flying continues to be a dominant force in the metagame, as it is widely regarded as the most consistent type with an abundance of viable Pokémon to pick from. It was the most used type in MPL VII, but surprisingly managed to surpass that usage during this tournament even though it lacked another SS slot. It rose from an admirable 31% usage to a staggering 40% usage, clearly above any other type. The Pokémon usage is comparable to MPL VII, although Galarian Moltres and Corviknight had notable rises in usage. Galarian Moltres is known for using Agility and Nasty Plot, often paired with STAB moves or incorporating Substitute to take advantage of passive Pokémon. Many Galarian Moltres sets opted to use RestoChesto rather than Substitute, and even Sleep Talk over Agility, so it is less liable to status and poses a greater threat by sidestepping its lack of recovery. Zapdos's usage, on the other hand, fell off significantly on Flying teams. Many regarded it as a suspect-worthy threat a year prior due to its Choice Specs Hurricane set having nearly 0 switch-ins, but its reliability, susceptibility to Stealth Rock, and constant 50-50s evidently repelled many builders from using it.

Steel was nipping at Flying's heels for the most used type in MPL VII, but it fell by 4% and only has a win percentage of 31%. It is a consistent type thanks to its immunity core of Heatran, Aegislash, and a Flying-type in Celesteela, Corviknight, or Skarmory, but it has a straightforward, susceptible game plan. It mostly relies on entry hazards, status, and taking advantage of its resistances and bulk to deal back consistent damage. However, Steel struggles against types that can disrupt its bulky strategy. Flying and Water are the two main reasons for Steel's decline; Flying has many naturally solid Pokémon against Steel in Galarian Moltres, Thundurus-T, Galarian Zapdos, and so on, while Steel relies on Ferrothorn to take on Water, but Volcanion had a notable surge in popularity rising from 22% in MPL VII to 52% in MWP IV and Urshifu-R remained consistent around 60% usage.

Poison is an interesting case, as it had lower overall usage but also had a higher win percentage. Poison takes slow and steady quite literally with its multiple Regenerator Pokémon, bulky Dark-type companion, and various other combinations of more defensive or offensive Pokémon. Many types have issues breaking Poison's core, as it has access to pretty much everything it could want between Spore, Foul Play, Defog, Toxic, Haze, Knock Off, and so on. The most common strategy to combat Poison is by using Substitute Landorus-T with Gravity, but Poison managed to avoid all Ground teams.

Bo3

This year's MWP featured the rather controversial addition of an Old Gens Bo3 slot consisting of the 3 most recent Old Gen formats, SS, ORAS, and BW, instead of a SM or another OM slot. While this did mean Old Gens got to see further exploration in an official tour before MPL, having all of them be in one Bo3 meant that each individual metagame did not get as much development as it normally would. Nevertheless, there was a surprising amount of new old gen development throughout this year's tournament.

SM is a metagame famous for its type diversity. Flying, Water, and Psychic, closely followed by Steel, resumed their reign as the most consistent types in the tier and saw a lot of play as a result. As for the rest of the tier, Fairy and Electric saw a decent amount of use after their breakout MPL performances, but had pretty mixed results overall. Grass also saw a surprising amount of usage, and although not a bad type because of its solid matchups against Water and Ground, struggled to beat the top echelon of the tier consistently. Fire and Ground had better tours after their middling MPL performances, while Normal was unsurprisingly only used in one game after its terrible MPL showing (although it did win that game!). After a quiet MPL, Poison had a slight resurgence towards the end of the tour, going 2-0 in the playoffs, which can be attributed to its great defensive core of Mega Venusaur, Toxapex, Alolan Muk, and Crobat.

The black sheep of the Monotype family due to its staleness and lack of diversity, ORAS got its first tour after some hopeful improvements to the tier: the modern Mega Evolution rule was implemented, which means that Mega Evolutions can only be used if their base forme and Mega forme share the same type as the team, notably removing the ability to use Mega Gyarados on Flying. Following this, Mega Charizard X was unbanned, which was originally banned for its strength on Flying without the rule. These changes, along with the banning of luck items, hoped to bring some more legitimacy to the metagame. The result, at least for this tournament, was the absolute dominance of Psychic and Water. In fact, Psychic was brought in 67% of the ORAS games at 16 uses, with Water behind at 10 uses. Psychic not having to deal with its one of its worst matchups, Mega Gyarados Flying, allowed it to dominate the metagame. As a response, Water moved away from its notoriously unsuccessful rain structure from recent tours and more towards a balance style, usually utilizing Mega Gyarados. While no other type was close to matching these two in usage, Flying, Ground, and Steel remained as solid types, and Normal and Fairy made appearances here and there after being seen very little in MPL. Flying saw a major dip in usage from MPL, which could be attributed to the Mega Evolution rule change.

For BW, Psychic unsurprisingly retained its dominance after a very successful 67% winrate over 21 games in MPL. However, a few other types began to see more use as well. Ice was a big breakout winner in the tournament, winning 3/4 games it was played, thanks to the sheer amount of matchups it can win, like Water, Ground, and Flying, making it surprisingly consistent. The three games it won were also traditionally negative matchups for the type in Fire, Fighting, and Psychic, showing that the type was more than just a fish for specific matchups. Fighting and Water also had big improvement in their winrates after underperforming in MPL. Interesting developments on Fighting teams like Hidden Power Grass Cobalion and Hidden Power Dark / Ghost Keldeo gave it much stronger matchups against Water and Ground, while Water teams usually stuck to the same structures, although there were some experiments with rainless Water that went well. Steel and Ground saw an expected amount of play and success as other top types in the metagame.

One interesting development we saw across all three gens was the downfall of Dragon. Dragon was the only type that was never brought in any old generation game, which can seem surprising given that it isn't really considered a bottom-tier type along the likes of Rock or Ghost by any means. This can be attributed to the tournament community's waning attitude towards Dragon as a whole in Monotype, as it can feel very underwhelming with its lack of a defensive backbone and one-dimensional offensive structure.

NatDex

National Dex Monotype, being one of the few active metagames, found its way into MWP rather expectedly. There were some arguments about the tier being its own metagame with its own tournaments and projects, and thus did not need to be included in the tour.

Going into the tour, there weren't a whole lot of preconceived notions of overwhelming top types, and NatDex is a metagame that is associated with having a lot of viable types because of its similarities to SM. The four top types in the tier were thought to be Water, Flying, Psychic, and Electric, and this was proven in the tournament with a four-way tie for the most used type. Water, Flying, and Psychic are top types in nearly every Monotype metagame because of their versatility and solid balance or offensive structures without any glaring weaknesses, and these traits are made even better in NatDex because of the immense variety of options available to these types. Electric also has some remarkable consistency thanks to its potent offensive structure enhanced by developments like offensive Zapdos, Regieleki, access to Hidden Power Ice, and unpredictable Z-Move users like Alolan Raichu and Zeraora. Of these four types, Water found the most success with a 67% winrate, and Psychic saw the least at 33%. Psychic's underperformance is a bit surprising, but trends such as the rise of Fire and even the occasional use of counterteams such as Ghost made it so that the type never felt too comfortable.

Following up these types was Fire, which saw an uncharacteristic amount of play and success with a 71% winrate out of 7 games. The type matches up well against Psychic and certain Flying teams that lack Mega Aerodactyl and Mantine, and its potent offensive threats in Cinderace, Volcarona, and Blacephalon make playing against it very difficult, similarly to Electric. Fairy, Dark, Grass, and Ice also seemed to have the tools to form potent teams, and saw play here and there, but never managed to form consistent results, with Dark in particular underperforming greatly. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the tour was the fact that Normal, Ground, and Steel saw next to no play, with Ground and Steel played once and Normal going unplayed. These types are not considered bottom tier in the format by any means, but their rather lackluster matchups against the most used types in the tour did make them particularly unappealing.

Monothreat

For the first time in an official Monotype team tournament, Monothreat diverged from current generation and opted to try out the NatDex variation after a close 5-3 vote amongst the managers! Many community members who do not play Monothreat were skeptical due to it being an OM of an OM, but between Monothreat not being a clear-cut OM, due to following SS Monotype's banlist and rulesets, and the NatDex variant offering a wider range of teambuilding options, it was eventually given the green light. The types played in the tour consist of Ground, Fire, Poison, Water, Rock, Flying, Bug, Normal, and Electric.

Water had the least amount of diversity compared to any other type in the tournament, even though it has the most available Pokémon. This is due to Pokémon such as Mega Gyarados, Greninja, and Seismitoad being so good that it only made sense to use them. Gyarados now gets Power Whip, letting it 2HKO just about anything, so the best way to combat it is through Speed, damage-reducing Berries, and limiting it with Stealth Rock. Greninja's Grass- and Electric-type moves and Seismitoad's Power Whip and Stealth Rock only exacerbate the issue. This core was used on over 80% of teams, at least 6 of the 8, with the main adaptations consisting of Choice Scarf Urshifu-R and Mega Slowbro. Mega Slowbro is hardly seen, but it can tank Mega Gyarados's +2 Power Whip after Stealth Rock and prevent a sweep thanks to Trick Room and Grass Knot.

Following Water is Rock, which saw a variety of strategies. The most common was Shell Smash + Heavy-Duty Boots Carracosta because it can make use of Sturdy. That is not the only set Carracosta used, however, as there was one that sported Waterium Z and Hydro Pump on a slow, Solid Rock build to combat Stakataka. Terrakion and Cradily were the most used Pokémon as usual, thanks to their unique advantages and offensive potential. An interesting adaptation many Cradily opted for was using Grass Knot over Giga Drain to take advantage of Rock-type Pokémon's general heaviness. To the surprise of many, no one opted for Sticky Web, which had infested many tours in the past, probably due to the fear of facing Trick Room or Mega Diancie. No Pokémon aside from Cradily, Terrakion, and Carracosta had over 50% usage, which goes to show the range of teams Rock has to display.

Bug was allowed with Mega Pinsir in the lineup for the first time, and to no one's surprise, Mega Pinsir was the sole Pokémon with 100% usage. Mega Pinsir's role is straightforward with Swords Dance, Quick Attack, and Return or Frustration, but it can take advantage of a variety of support moves in its last slot. During the tournament, we saw Secret Power and Me First. Secret Power ignores contact, most notable against Volcarona, whereas Me First was theorized to beat Crustle by copying Rock Blast after setting up. To combat Mega Pinsir, there were many people using part Steel- and Electric-type Pokémon in Scizor, Durant, Forretress, Galvantula, and Vikavolt. Electric-type STAB moves proved to be an issue due to the lack of reliable resistances, but some people adapted with defensive Vikavolt and even Wormadam-S.

Highlight Matches

Trichotomy vs. Xiri [SS]

Flying vs. Fairy

This was easily one of the more sought-after SS matchups throughout the tour. Trichotomy of course needs no introduction; he is one of, if not the best, Monotype players in recent years. Xiri, on the other hand, does not regularly play Monotype but has had his fair share of successes, with the most notable being his dominant 8-1 showing in MPL a few months earlier. The same matchup taking place in the Monotype Circuit playoffs weeks prior made this match all the more exciting. The match itself was anyone's game and both teams were fairly straightforward. The game was neck and neck throughout, with Trichotomy barely edging out by winning a 50-50 with Celesteela and winning their second encounter as well.

mushamu vs. Sabella [Bo3]

Game 1 (SM): Poison vs. Flying | Game 2 (BW): Water vs. Fighting

mushamu and Sabella faced off for a second time in the semifinals following their week 1 encounter, in which mushamu wound up as the winner. mushamu, who won the Monotype Fall Seasonal, Ladder Tour, and most recent Circuit back-to-back, has been thriving in Monotype over the past few months. Sabella is playing full-time in best-of-three for the first time but is no stranger to old gens, seeing particular success in BW with a solid 14-4 record across MPL 6 and MPL 7. The series kicked off with a Poison vs. Flying matchup in SM; mushamu opted for a standard Poison team with the less common Gengar in lieu of Nihilego, whereas Sabella's Flying team used an almost-never-seen set in Nasty Plot Thundurus. Despite Dragonite proving to be threatening, mushamu was quick to nullify it and win the game thanks to Nidoking and Gengar. Game 2 was BW, Sabella's home tier. He opted for a standard Fighting team while mushamu used an unconventional and rare rainless Water. Breloom and Toxicroak were potent threats to mushamu; however, some great positioning and utilization of Gyarados allowed Gyarados to sweep with relative ease.

Ticken vs. shieldpoke [Monothreat]

Rock vs. Rock

This was a rather interesting matchup—on one hand we have Ticken, who is no stranger to Monothreat as its Co-Leader and who has continually practiced for almost 8 years. He is by far the most experienced player in the format and has one of the most unique approaches to building. On the other hand is shieldpoke, a relatively newer player in their debut team tour with near-nonexistent Monothreat experience. The game exceeded everyone's expectations with shieldpoke stepping up to the occasion and making for a hard-fought, exciting battle. As for the game itself, the players did not disappoint in the building department, as we saw some extremely well-crafted team options and sets. Ticken's Mega Aerodactyl was easily the trump card across both teams; using a Flying-type in Rock Monothreat may seem counterproductive, but it proved its worth by setting up Substitute against Cradily, setting the tone for the rest of the game by forcing Choice Scarf Terrakion to lock into Rock Blast. On the flip side, shieldpoke utilized a less-explored Trick Room-based approach. We saw some other unique sets such as physically defensive, Special Attack-invested Waterium Z Carracosta, Choice Scarf Terrakion with Quick Attack, Cradily with Grass Knot in lieu of the more conventional Giga Drain, and Lycanroc-D to name a few. All in all, despite it being a lopsided matchup in Ticken's favor on paper, shieldpoke made it an extremely close game and left everyone at the edge of their seats until the very last turn!

Late Weeks

Heading into the concluding weeks of the regular season, it was easy to distinguish which teams would find themselves in playoffs. At the start of Week 6, the Mossdeep Murkrows, Zephyr Zigzagoons, and Seafolk City Spirits were leading the rankings, all with 7 points, while the Nixtorm Ninetales trailed behind slightly with 6 points. At the same time, the Wayward Weaviles found themselves at the middle of the pack with 5 points. At the bottom of the barrel were Late Night Lunatones, Po Town Pandas, and Mauville Memers with virtually no shot at making playoffs. Proceeding toward Week 7,the rankings were more evident; the aforementioned bottom-of-the-barrel trio was entirely eliminated, while the Murkrows and Zigzagoons had secured themselves spots in playoffs. The Zigzagoons in particular put up a commendable performance throughout the regular season, despite one of their star players in Feitan the steam deserting the team as early as Week 2 of regular season. This left three teams—Spirits, Weaviles, and Ninetales—competing for the two final playoffs spots. At the conclusion of Week 7, the Ninetales secured the third spot in playoffs with their impressive 6-0 victory over the Weaviles. The Spirits needed a tie at least, and despite being down 2-3 before their final game, they tied against the already-eliminated Mauville Memers, barely edging out the Weaviles for the final playoffs spot. With this, the top four seeds were finally determined as Murkrows, Ninetales, Zigzagoons, and Spirits.

Final Standings

• SS: Shiba vs. Prof.Otaku
• SS: Xiri vs. Hyperspace12
• SS: Plunder vs. Leafium Z
• Bo3: Bushtush vs. mushamu | Game 1 (SM) / Game 2 (ORAS)
• Monothreat: Nailec vs. adjustments
• National Dex: Mateeus vs. FatFighter2

Both being ranked out of the top four on the official power rankings, the Nixtorm Ninetales and Seafolk City Spirits surprised a majority of the community by facing off in the finals. The Spirits had a 4-2 victory in their regular season encounter, seemingly stacking the odds against the Ninetales. The series kicked off with adjustments defeating Nailec in an interesting game of Electric Monothreat. This was followed by a Flying vs. Electric game between FatFighter2 and Mateeus where FatFighter2 triumphed, and in one of the rare occasions FatFighter2 ran into a seemingly "bad" matchup, no less. Shortly after, as a result of a minor late-game misplay by Xiri, Hyperspace12 was able to defeat him in an interesting Flying vs. Psychic game, giving the Spirits an early 3-0 lead. This lead quickly converted into a dominant 4-0 victory for the Spirits, with their manager mushamu making quick work of Bushtush in their best-of-three rematch. Despite the series being anticlimactically decided in four games, Shiba and Prof.Otaku opted to play their game, which Shiba won, finishing the tour with a 8-1 record and cementing himself as a beacon of consistency in Monotype tours yet again. Despite barely qualifying for playoffs as the fourth seed, the Spirits undoubtedly stepped it up a notch in playoffs with solid 5-1 and 4-0 victories in semifinals and finals. Their performance made a mockery of their low seventh ranking and proved that the power rankings were as inaccurate as could be.

Manager Interviews

Closing Thoughts

This year's tournament was truly an experiment with six slots as opposed to our usual eight, as well as opting for old gen formats over Monotype OMs due to the lack of development. There are mixed feelings regarding both choices due to the tournament feeling less hype with the fewer slots and the tournament losing its OM identity. Overall, though, it was a fun tournament that brought Monotype OM and old gen players together and had many upsets along the way. Congratulations to the Seafolk City Spirits on their hard-earned win!