VGC Reg M-B Metagame Discussion Thread

[Haxlut]

Xeggutor said:

I think my favourite lead combination with the team is with Politoed + Incineroar. People let their guard down when they don't see a Gengar team not lead Gengar, so you can hard switch into Qwilfish and sideways Parting Shot into the Qwilfish slot to bring Dragonite* in. Then you quickly snipe one of their guys with Icy Wind Draco Meteor, the second guy with Haze Draco Meteor, and suddenly they have 2 guys left so you can just click Perish and win.

*Alternative here you can bring Politoed back in, Whirlpool Perish and immediately eliminate their most dangerous guy, then you just need Dragonite to remove 1 more guy before a second Perish wins the game.

Parting Shot into Qwilfish to prevent protect from blocking it right? With Haze, Parting Shot into other mons would not matter much.Thats really good

 

[Badly Poisoned]

Haxlut said:

Parting Shot into Qwilfish to prevent protect from blocking it right? With Haze, Parting Shot into other mons would not matter much.Thats really good

Yes, especially when you lead Incineroar, people instinctively want to Protect turn 1 against Fake Out, so a side Parting Shot gives a clean switch into Dragonite at the back. Against a favourable matchup, I don't even attempt to go for the Fake Out because rain turns are limited.

This is also why Sylveon kinda feels redundant. I built the team with the intention that Qwilfish + Sylveon can sometimes lead with Whirlpool + Yawn, but the problem is that the switch back into Politoed to activate Swift Swim gets very awkward. I experimented a bit with :swampert: (<click for Pokepaste) a bit after I made the post, and it feels much smoother than Sylveon because it now opens up the option to lead with Qwilfish Swampert or Politoed Swampert and bait the possibility of a Mega Swampert. Then you get to immediately threaten with a Yawn Trap or a Flip Turn into Qwilfish Dragonite.

 

[Unmasked]

Hey. I wanted to know why a decently popular EV spread for incineroar is 32/0/21/0/11/2 (bold nature)
...According to MunchStats anyway.

 

[Karxrida]

Unmasked said:

Hey. I wanted to know why a decently popular EV spread for incineroar is 32/0/21/0/11/2 (bold nature)
...According to MunchStats anyway.

I have no idea why the nature is Bold instead of Careful, but that spread minimizes the chance of -1 LO Garchomp landing a 2HKO with Earthquake.

-1 32 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs. 32 HP / 21+ Def Incineroar: 88-109 (43.5 - 53.9%) -- 2.7% chance to 2HKO

(Stomping Tantrum has a higher chance but only slightly so barely worth noting.)

Secondly, Jolly Sneasler barely has a chance to OHKO with White Herb.

32 Atk Sneasler Close Combat vs. 32 HP / 21+ Def Incineroar: 170-204 (84.1 - 100.9%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

And finally, it dodges an OHKO from Sylveon's Hyper Beam.

20+ SpA Fairy Feather Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Beam vs. 32 HP / 11 SpD Incineroar: 166-196 (82.1 - 97%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Sitrus Berry recovery

Probably some other calcs and Speed creep I'm missing (those 2 Speed points have to do something) but what I listed came to mind first.

 

[Unmasked]

82 lets it outspeed negative Sinistcha and no investment Tyranitar apparently?

 

[Sugarbear]

Here are the top 8 teams at Worlds, in the Masters division.

8th: Giovanni Piscitelli

7th: Stefano Greppi

6th: Yuya Wakasugi

5th: Antonio Sanchez

4th: Joao Filipe Leite

3rd : Zachary Weed

Finalist: Hirsohi Onishi

Finalist: Takuma Yamazaki

Was gonna post Pokepastes of the teams, but I couldn't be bothered. Click on the pictures of the teams on this website (not sure if it gives a Showdown importable). Some interesting things.

• Only 1 Incineroar. I guess a lot of the additions in Regulation MB hurt it, there's more special attackers around now, and a lot of Kingambits have started running Occa Berry. That's the 3rd year in a row of missing out.
• 7 Kingambits. I think that's the second highest usage of a Pokemon in Worlds top 8 ever, after Landorus-T in 2015 with 8/8. I knew that thing was good, but wow!
• Charizard Y and Floette tie for the most common mega, with 4 hits each. Not surprised by Charizard, but Floette was a shock I was under the impression that people were preferring Sylveon on Charizard-Y teams so they could have Fire + Fairy coverage at the same time while also giving the team a Trick Room option.
• 2 Italian Snow teams make top 4, proving that team is still great. Never thought I'd see the day when Scovillain had more appearances, and placed higher, than Incineroar.
• The big surprise for me was Mega Dragonite making 2 top 8 appearances. And what's more, neither of them were on Rain teams.
• Loving some of the teams I've seen, been fooling around with that Blaziken + Primarina soft Trick Room team in game, loads of fun to use.
• Apparently Wolfe Glick didn't make day 2. That's a shame, he's made top 4 in 2 separate regionals so clearly he's still got it. Guess this was just a bad year for him.
• Overall, I'm rooting for Takuma. I'm sick of seeing Mega Charizard-Y everywhere, and want it to lose.

Can't wait to see what the meta changes will bring on the 9th of September, looking forward to seeing what abilities the Z megas get.

 

[Voidstarr]

I feel like calling this a "bad year" for Wolfe implies that he should be making top no matter what, which... even for his consistency and level of play, is a really crazy expectation to have. There are countless players out there who are just as deserving of top 16 as he is, and they're just less visible/public about their involvement with VGC. 5-3 before drop is still a decent run and I don't think it's below his level.

That aside, the Mega Blaziken team was my favourite underdog and I'm very sad it didn't make top cut despite the stellar performance in the first eight rounds of Swiss. Regardless, having a wildly experimental team reach this far into the competition is a testament to the creativity of the team builder.

I'm a little bit disappointed that none of the top cut is something we've never seen before at all, but also relieved it's not all Charizard slop. I hope Mega Dragonite takes it.

 

[Sugarbear]

Voidstarr said:

I feel like calling this a "bad year" for Wolfe implies that he should be making top no matter what, which... even for his consistency and level of play, is a really crazy expectation to have. There are countless players out there who are just as deserving of top 16 as he is, and they're just less visible/public about their involvement with VGC. 5-3 before drop is still a decent run and I don't think it's below his level.

That aside, the Mega Blaziken team was my favourite underdog and I'm very sad it didn't make top cut despite the stellar performance in the first eight rounds of Swiss. Regardless, having a wildly experimental team reach this far into the competition is a testament to the creativity of the team builder.

I'm a little bit disappointed that none of the top cut is something we've never seen before at all, but also relieved it's not all Charizard slop. I hope Mega Dragonite takes it.

He’s the VGC equivalent of the Brazilian football team - it’s a surprise when he doesn’t make the top stages.

 

[Karxrida]

Shout-outs to a Feint from Sneasler into Protect Zard Y being the winning play at Worlds.

And congrats to Mega Dragonite and Yamazaki.

 

[Swagodile]

It has been announced that Regulation M-C will begin on September 9th.

It will add Mega Absol Z, Mega Lucario Z, Mega Garchomp Z, Baxcalibur, Rillaboom, Mega Heatran and more.

Mega Absol Z has the ability Sharpness
Mega Lucario Z has the ability "Aura Guard" - takes half damage from contact moves
Mega Garchomp Z has the ability Levitate

 

[pengu]

Swagodile said:

It has been announced that Regulation M-C will begin on September 9th.

It will add Mega Absol Z, Mega Lucario Z, Mega Garchomp Z, Baxcalibur, Rillaboom, Mega Heatran and more.

Mega Absol Z has the ability Sharpness
Mega Lucario Z has the ability "Aura Guard" - takes half damage from contact moves
Mega Garchomp Z has the ability Levitate

It will not be including Mega Heatran; Mega Heatran won't be available until December.

 

[Worldie]

I wonder if the presence of Rillaboom will actually give a chance to Raichu X to cash in on the terrain, or will stay as wasted potential

 

[Busterbunner]

I don't think Raichu X is gonna do much considering it can nearly kill itself. I think some of the old teams are going to be better or worse. Especially perish teams.

 

[Karxrida]

Busterbunner said:

I don't think Raichu X is gonna do much considering it can nearly kill itself. I think some of the old teams are going to be better or worse. Especially perish teams.

Raichu X can run a competent Special Attacker set thanks to Rising Voltage and its SpA stat being barely lower than Tapu Koko's. The question is whether any team structures will want to run it that badly as a secondary Mega for Rillaboom hate.

 

[Badly Poisoned]

Karxrida said:

I have no idea why the nature is Bold instead of Careful, but that spread minimizes the chance of -1 LO Garchomp landing a 2HKO with Earthquake.

-1 32 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs. 32 HP / 21+ Def Incineroar: 88-109 (43.5 - 53.9%) -- 2.7% chance to 2HKO

(Stomping Tantrum has a higher chance but only slightly so barely worth noting.)

Secondly, Jolly Sneasler barely has a chance to OHKO with White Herb.

32 Atk Sneasler Close Combat vs. 32 HP / 21+ Def Incineroar: 170-204 (84.1 - 100.9%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

And finally, it dodges an OHKO from Sylveon's Hyper Beam.

20+ SpA Fairy Feather Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Beam vs. 32 HP / 11 SpD Incineroar: 166-196 (82.1 - 97%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Sitrus Berry recovery

Probably some other calcs and Speed creep I'm missing (those 2 Speed points have to do something) but what I listed came to mind first.

Unmasked said:

Hey. I wanted to know why a decently popular EV spread for incineroar is 32/0/21/0/11/2 (bold nature)
...According to MunchStats anyway.

32/21/11/2 with Impish is the spread Shiliang Tang’s used on his Toxapex Sun team and a lot of people probably just copied his spread.

32/21 Impish is standard for PDef Incin mainly for surviving 3 notable attacks. Karxrida already mentioned Sneasler Close Combat, Life Orb Garchomp, but it also importantly survives the 2HKO from Mystic Water Basculegion Wave Crash in the Sun. You can invest more to always survive Close Combat, but you actually want to invest less to survive Garchomp and Basculegion because of a quirky interaction with damage rolls and Sitrus Berry. This spread minimises the odds you get KOed by Sneasler without compromising on Garchomp and Basc calcs.

2 Spe is surprisingly important here. You want at least 1 point in Spe so you can trap min Speed Incin with Toxapex Infestation and Throat Chop to stop their Parting Shot. However, you don't want to speed tie Sinistcha because it makes the game a 50/50 sometimes. Even though Sinistcha does not necessarily threaten Incineroar, adding 1 more point gives you perfect information that you are faster outside of TR, and slower inside of it; notably this means you can always Parting Shot into Sini in TR without fearing a burn on the incoming mon. I personally prefer 3 Spe, which outruns base 60s that randomly run 32/32/2 like Sylveon. Speaking of Sylveon, Sylveon commonly run 5 Spe to outrun Garchomp in Tailwind, and if you run <5 on your Incin, you can Throat Chop them under Trick Room.

 

[Karxrida]

Xeggutor said:

32/21/11/2 with Impish

I have no idea why I said Careful over Impish lol. Must have been looking at a Poké Paste with Careful Incineroar or something beforehand and got wires crossed. 2am posting probably didn't help.

Xeggutor said:

2 Spe is surprisingly important here. You want at least 1 point in Spe so you can trap min Speed Incin with Toxapex Infestation and Throat Chop to stop their Parting Shot. However, you don't want to speed tie Sinistcha because it makes the game a 50/50 sometimes. Even though Sinistcha does not necessarily threaten Incineroar, adding 1 more point gives you perfect information that you are faster outside of TR, and slower inside of it; notably this means you can always Parting Shot into Sini in TR without fearing a burn on the incoming mon. I personally prefer 3 Spe, which outruns base 60s that randomly run 32/32/2 like Sylveon. Speaking of Sylveon, Sylveon commonly run 5 Spe to outrun Garchomp in Tailwind, and if you run <5 on your Incin, you can Throat Chop them under Trick Room.

You could also easily modify this spread to put 6 SPs into Speed at the cost of some SpD and Throat Chop Sylveon out of TR, but then you're getting into speedcreep territory and might still lose to a Sylveon that decided it wanted to outspeed minimum possible investment Staraptor (25 Jolly) or something. Plus maybe it's better to have the insurance for when TR goes up.

 

[Badly Poisoned]

Karxrida said:

I have no idea why I said Careful over Impish lol. Must have been looking at a Poké Paste with Careful Incineroar or something beforehand and got wires crossed. 2am posting probably didn't help.


You could also easily modify this spread to put 6 SPs into Speed at the cost of some SpD and Throat Chop Sylveon out of TR, but then you're getting into speedcreep territory and might still lose to a Sylveon that decided it wanted to outspeed minimum possible investment Staraptor (25 Jolly) or something. Plus maybe it's better to have the insurance for when TR goes up.

I think deciding on Incin's speed tier is definitely team specific. This team in particular has good speed control with Venu and Scarf Chomp, so it's more annoyed by Sylveon under TR rather than Tailwind.
But on other teams a faster Incin definitely makes sense too, but it goes into janky speed creep territory. I have a fast Incin with 8 Spe, which is built to creep Kingambit that creeps other Kingambit that creep 5 Spe Sylveon, which is dumb for many reasons, but with how centralised the meta is it kinda makes sense.
Here's hoping M-C gives us something to break the stupid Sneasler/KG/Basc/Garchomp core that you can use in combination of any 2 Megas and call it a new team.

 

[Worldie]

Xeggutor said:

Here's hoping M-C gives us something to break the stupid Sneasler/KG/Basc/Garchomp core that you can use in combination of any 2 Megas and call it a new team.

I mean, isn't Rillaboom already a pretty big deal to this core?
Not only you're getting another fake out user (between Incin and Snealer as far as speed goes), but one that actually outspeeds & 1hkos bascu if not scarfed, and adds its own priority to the mix (priority that's pretty strong into certain archetypes, albeith... weak to charizard :| )

Then again, Rillaboom can also just work WITH that core, weakening earthquake so Snasler, Kingambit or Incineroar can more comfortably take on Garchomp or Swampert.

Personally I do hope that Rillaboom returning also means Indeedee returning. I'm cautious on this one (I was hoping this would happen when Mega Raichu X was revealed to have terrain but we saw where that went).
Rillaboom and Indeedee existing do warp the meta a lot both because of what they offer, as well as Indeedee properly enabling Trick Room archetypes, but also cause in general they're more "generic supports" added to the mix, and the more splashable pokemon there are, the higher the variety.

 

[Sugarbear]

My thoughts on the Z Megas:

Absol. This has potential, but its extreme frailty will make it hard to use effectively. It will need careful support to get the best out of, but I think it could be solid.
Lucario. This is what Mega Lucario always should've been. Aura Guard (?) isn't the ability I was expecting, but the damage reduction could let it survive attacks it otherwise wouldn't, so that it can fire off another hit.
Garchomp. Yeah I was sure this thing would be shit when I first heard it was losing its Ground typing, as part of Garchomp's charm is its incredible STAB combination. Maybe it could've been saved with a better ability, but Levitate doesn't really help it. Especially since base 141 SpA isn't that high without any boosting items. It actually doesn't hit as hard as Kommo-o, despite having 41 more SpA.

252+ SpA Life Orb Kommo-o Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 253-298 (74.1 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Garchomp-Mega-Z Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 247-292 (72.4 - 85.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'm hoping for Skill Link or Slush Rush on Mega Baxcalibur.

 

[Worldie]

Sugarbear said:

Garchomp. Yeah I was sure this thing would be shit when I first heard it was losing its Ground typing, as part of Garchomp's charm is its incredible STAB combination. Maybe it could've been saved with a better ability, but Levitate doesn't really help it. Especially since base 141 SpA isn't that high without any boosting items. It actually doesn't hit as hard as Kommo-o, despite having 41 more SpA.

The real issue I see with Garchomp-Z is that even if we ignore the fact Dragon as mono-stab is kinda shit, it doesn't remotely have the nuclear power of something like Miraidon who can afford to even choice specs lock into Draco Meteor and not care.
141 Spa without item means if you throw a single Draco Meteor then you kinda have to swap out or be ignored. So you could rely on Dragon Pulse which... uuuh... yeah.
If it just kept the Ground Typing it'd be so much better :\ actually being able to threaten nuclear Earth Powers with Flamethrower as coverage for steel fliers is so good.

It's definitely not unusable, definitely way better than something like Beedrill or Heracross, and in closed team sheet it's probably possible to run it as secondary mega to catch out people off guard expecting regular chomp and eating special nukes instead, but yeh, I'll agree with the Life Orb joke.
I can see it managing to be Champions UU by technicality with the regular Mega Chomp, with probably 0 usage in VGC. Tragic.

(Unless someone cooks some weird degenerate bs with it but I don't see anything in Garchomp's moveset that makes me think that is a possibility)

 

[Sugarbear]

Worldie said:

The real issue I see with Garchomp-Z is that even if we ignore the fact Dragon as mono-stab is kinda shit, it doesn't remotely have the nuclear power of something like Miraidon who can afford to even choice specs lock into Draco Meteor and not care.
141 Spa without item means if you throw a single Draco Meteor then you kinda have to swap out or be ignored. So you could rely on Dragon Pulse which... uuuh... yeah.
If it just kept the Ground Typing it'd be so much better :\ actually being able to threaten nuclear Earth Powers with Flamethrower as coverage for steel fliers is so good.

It's definitely not unusable, definitely way better than something like Beedrill or Heracross, and in closed team sheet it's probably possible to run it as secondary mega to catch out people off guard expecting regular chomp and eating special nukes instead, but yeh, I'll agree with the Life Orb joke.
I can see it managing to be Champions UU by technicality with the regular Mega Chomp, with probably 0 usage in VGC. Tragic.

(Unless someone cooks some weird degenerate bs with it but I don't see anything in Garchomp's moveset that makes me think that is a possibility)

If it got to keep Nasty Plot from Legends Z-A, then maybe, maybe, it could've had a small niche as a fast special sweeper with Nasty Plot, Dragon Pulse, Protect and either Earth Power or Flamethrower in the last slot, but alas no...also, give Milotic back Calm Mind from Z-A, it should've always had that move.

The trailer also showed off Heatran, that could be really strong too if it came back. It completely walls Mega Charizard Y (unless it starts running Scorching Sands, which is very hard to fit) and threatens Mega Floette as well. I'm interested in Mega Heatran too, as I think the speed drop is actually helpful. Base Heatran's Speed is kind of neither here nor there, but Mega Heatran is much better in Trick Room than its base form. It might end up being like Aerodactyl and Tyranitar - one of those Pokemon that's happy to mega or not, depending on the matchup.

Of course it needs a good ability. If it actually got Earth Eater that would make it insanely broken.

 

[Worldie]

Sugarbear said:

The trailer also showed off Heatran, that could be really strong too if it came back. It completely walls Mega Charizard Y (unless it starts running Scorching Sands, which is very hard to fit) and threatens Mega Floette as well. I'm interested in Mega Heatran too, as I think the speed drop is actually helpful. Base Heatran's Speed is kind of neither here nor there, but Mega Heatran is much better in Trick Room than its base form. It might end up being like Aerodactyl and Tyranitar - one of those Pokemon that's happy to mega or not, depending on the matchup.

Heatran was teased but it does not look like it's coming in M-C.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2094485399284429158

They only specifically mention the regular pokemon.
Most people expect Heatran to be a M-D pokemon, which would be reasonable as at this point most of the "good" regular pokemon are in the game and they probably want to start adding some of the legendaries.

 

[Busterbunner]

I do believe that Heatran will arrive in either the next season in December. A lot people say it's coming in December but I could be wrong. If it comes in M-D, it's probably gonna be one of the best if it gets the ability everyone expects.

 

[Busterbunner]

Sugarbear said:

My thoughts on the Z Megas:

Absol. This has potential, but its extreme frailty will make it hard to use effectively. It will need careful support to get the best out of, but I think it could be solid.
Lucario. This is what Mega Lucario always should've been. Aura Guard (?) isn't the ability I was expecting, but the damage reduction could let it survive attacks it otherwise wouldn't, so that it can fire off another hit.
Garchomp. Yeah I was sure this thing would be shit when I first heard it was losing its Ground typing, as part of Garchomp's charm is its incredible STAB combination. Maybe it could've been saved with a better ability, but Levitate doesn't really help it. Especially since base 141 SpA isn't that high without any boosting items. It actually doesn't hit as hard as Kommo-o, despite having 41 more SpA.

252+ SpA Life Orb Kommo-o Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 253-298 (74.1 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Garchomp-Mega-Z Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 247-292 (72.4 - 85.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'm hoping for Skill Link or Slush Rush on Mega Baxcalibur.

Imagine they give Baxcalibur both Thermal Exchange + Slush Rush. It's probably getting sent to Ubers.

 

[Sugarbear]

Busterbunner said:

I do believe that Heatran will arrive in either the next season in December. A lot people say it's coming in December but I could be wrong. If it comes in M-D, it's probably gonna be one of the best if it gets the ability everyone expects.

What ability does everyone expect?