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Ladder Mix and Mega
- Thread starter Imperator Romanum
- Start date
Competing for Red Orb.
Please don't carry your assumptions from Ubers into Mix and Mega unquestioned. Putting in the effort to find a counter for Red Orb Victini and then not putting any effort into finding a counter for Primal Groudon is fundamentally misrepresenting the situation, biasing it toward your premise without regard to actual facts.
...? Dazzling Gleam can't be Sheer Forced.
-1 252+ Atk Victini (Red Orb) V-create vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Heatran (Manectite) in Sun: 198-234 (51.2 - 60.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
... no?
Consistency and simplicity, at this point.
Downside the first: you could've given that Red Orb to something else, something with greater longevity or a superior ability to perform the role you're using Primal Groudon for.
Downside the second: Primal Groudon lacks longevity. No healing beyond Rest, remember?
Downside the third: Infinitely more predictable than an OU-or-lower Pokémon running who-knows-what. You'll never surprise anyone with Manectite Groudon or something.
Repeating what I said earlier, have you bothered to look for counters to Primal Groudon that are uniquely available to the Mix and Mega meta? Because this is a pretty strong statement to be making about an under-explored meta.
It loses nothing, but having the almost entire world go up but not you still makes you less relevant and important.
The BST point is weakened by the ability to shove a Mega Stone onto pseudo-legendaries and some actual legendaries, leaving Primal Groudon with a stat point advantage of less than 100 when compared against stuff like Mega Stone Victini or Dragonite, and a stat advantage has to be pretty huge to simply overwhelm other advantages.
It's in the Viability rankings as one of Victini's Mega Stones, actually.
A double dancer is intending to stay in, and unless you think Red or Blue Orb Landorus-Therian is a thing for some bizarre reason, Landorus-Therian will still get its initial Intimidate on its first switch-in before it Mega Evolves. It's only a loss for Landorus-Therians that are expecting/intending to Mega Evolve and switch.
Does it now? I didn't realize it got thunder. That's cool, and actually really good coverage. It's def superior to typhlosion- I just like typhlosion a lot.
Edit: adding to what Ghoul King said, it only has a stat advantage of 10 over kyurem N w/ a mega stone.
Click the blue "Aqua" in my previous post.
sorry about Manectite heatran, I forgot it lost Flash fire.
What counters are there to Primal Groudon?
We don't know, you were the one who made the claim. But to suggest that Pdon has any less counters than the many other threats in this metagame even more absurd than anything in this meta so far, considering nothing has true counters. What counters all gyarados? When it starts running sceptilite, or maybe absolite, or altarianite, or pinsirite, or anything else. Pdon is versatile, but significantly more predictable than anything else in this tier; you know its not going to randomly turn into a fairy type and slap something with a super powerful stab it didn't have before.
Pdon counters...Blissey says hi. Sablenite or Slowbronite hard walls every pdon set that doesn't SD, and even then they can just counter anything that won't OHKO.
252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Precipice Blades vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 271-319 (41.5 - 48.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Sablenite)
252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Precipice Blades vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 229-270 (35.1 - 41.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Slowbronite)
Blue Orb flying types say hi, remember anything in this meta can carry primordial sea. Really, most bulky primordial sea users counter it, but flying types can literally beat any set. Note that nothing in mix-and-mega has true counters, but Groudon-P has consistent switch-ins. Want a blue orb flying type? DD Gyarados. Note that it just can kill Pdon with waterfall anyways. What, you say stone edge is a thing? What about Blue orb Chesnaught, or Breloom, not to mention the myriad of offensive checks that can beat it 1v1 due to their power.
Pdon is the most predictable mon in the meta, which doesn't say much, but the comparison is good enough. A- means its very effective but needs marginal support to be brought out to its full potential. This is true of pdon. Its not bad, but its not something you have "no reason not to use". Not to mention the fact it restricts red orb. When Lando-I and Lando-T were both legal in OU, their viability was hinged on each other because of the opportunity cost of using one and not being able to use the other. Now in that tier, their overlapping typings and generally similar offensive presences meant they were unlikely to be used on the same teams anyways. Here, this is not the case with red orb.
Few things with the viability rankings:
Landorus-T to A+
Its a strong mon, but the metagame isn't very friendly to it. It has a terrible matchup against a large portion of the meta, regardless of what set its running, because it lacks the bulk and speed to shine properly. Lopunnite and Mewtwonite X are both easily revenged killed by Pixilate/Aerilate Espeed, while Altarianite is generally lacking in bulk and speed, hindering it from getting off RPs. Furthermore, sets not named Mewtwonite X have trouble getting kills on the many bulky mons in this meta. Gengar, a common offensive mon, can beat it at +2 if it has yet to mega evolve. Pinsirite Entei, a very popular set, easily revenges all variants and can even switch in with its good bulk. Lucarionite Keldeo can beat both non-pixi sets, while pixi sets are easily countered by the immensely useful Latiasite Heatran. Overall, its still very effective, but it has somewhat consistent checks and is generally underwhelming for an S rank pokemon.
Dragonite to S
I am the biggest known advocate for dragonite because it sweeps basically everything. It doesn't need anything but espeed, earthquake, and dragon dance to sweep about 90% of the meta. Multiscale pre-mega is incredible for setting up, and its dragon/fairy typing assists this as well. With Pixilate Espeed, it literally OHKOs half of the meta at +1 due to its attack stat of 491, almost as high as adamant Primal Groudon. Earthquake hits all its resists for SE damage as well, and it can run roost in the last slot to abuse its good bulk and great typing against threats that wall it but can't do too much damage. Furthermore, it can run superpower and several other coverage moves to get past its common checks and counters due to its deep movepool, and therefore is a massive threat that has to be prepared for on every team. The pixilate set alone warrants S-rank, but Pinsirite, Salamencite, and several other sets have great merit, and its lack of need to immediately mega evolve means it is very hard to do anything while its on the field. It also can revenge kill threats before it even boosts, allowing it to fill the role of cleaner, setup sweeper, wallbreaker, and revenge killer all in one slot. This is probably the most effective mon in the tier atm.
Weavile to A-
This is a really cool fastmon for offense. Refrigerate sets are absolutely devastating, with blazing 145 speed and 160 attack alongside refrigerate return. Like in any other meta, Refrigerate Weavile is amazing and hits tremendously hard. Knock Off going away hurts it, but it has night slash, and thats really all it needs alongside low kick for coverage and swords dance to boost. Tough Claws also has the ever-amazing TC Pursuit, which is extremely useful for picking off defensive threats as they switch out. Overall a mon I feel shines above the rest of the B rank population atm.
Several Noms:
Tornadus to A (Pidgeotite)
Alakazam to B (Pidgeotite, Altarianite, Absolite, Manectite)
Hippowdon to B (Sablenite, Slowbronite)
Latios to A- (Manectite, Absolite, Altarianite, Sceptilite (better typing), Lucarionite)
Tyranitar to B (Pinsirite, Absolite, Garchompite)
Zapdos to B (Manectite, Sablenite)
Zygarde to A (Pinsirite, Altarianite, Aerodactylite)
More to come.
I may reclaim my viability rankings at some point >:D
I'd argue for A-Rank on Primal Groudon. At the moment, I feel like its being both undersold by people saying it's not the greatest thing ever, and oversold by the people who are. P-Don has a fantastic typing when paired with its ability, Desolate Land. Fire / Ground with a water immunity is insane, and there aren't any other Ground-types that do the support roll as good as Pdon (the only one I can think of that gives it competition is maybe Hippowdon due to Slack Off). While it isn't the greatest mon in the meta like it is in Ubers and, well, a lot of metas where it's legal (AG and BH come to mind), I still think it has a lot of merits and uses as a supportmon, and think A is better than A-.
Speaking of Red Orb, why is Victini so damn high? Yes, it's a very solid and versatile mon, but I just can't see what's so S-Rank about it. Red Orb is a killer wallbreaker...in a meta full of killer wallbreakers. Meanwhile it has a kind of meh match-up vs offense due to how slow it is (base 100 is pretty underwhelming), and lacks the support options PDon (the other prime red orb user) has. Cameruptite is alright, I guess, but it just falls back down to being another awesome wall breaker and not much else. Pidgeotite is at least a bit more interesting, as it hits hard and has decent speed. However, I personally don't see how Pidgeotite Victini is S-Rank material (I understand its not just that stone, but I also don't feel the other stones make it S-Rank either). I'd argue A+ is a better placement.
Speaking of Red Orb, why is Victini so damn high? Yes, it's a very solid and versatile mon, but I just can't see what's so S-Rank about it. Red Orb is a killer wallbreaker...in a meta full of killer wallbreakers. Meanwhile it has a kind of meh match-up vs offense due to how slow it is (base 100 is pretty underwhelming), and lacks the support options PDon (the other prime red orb user) has. Cameruptite is alright, I guess, but it just falls back down to being another awesome wall breaker and not much else. Pidgeotite is at least a bit more interesting, as it hits hard and has decent speed. However, I personally don't see how Pidgeotite Victini is S-Rank material (I understand its not just that stone, but I also don't feel the other stones make it S-Rank either). I'd argue A+ is a better placement.
Because there is hardly anything (if there is anything), slowbronite or otherwise, that can consistently check/counter it. 130 Atk is kinda small potatoes, but paired w/ sun-boosted V-Create, stuff is going to die. Aside from just red orb, it can run a plethora of other stones effectively to beat it's common checks. Basically the only consistent "counter" anyone has been able to come up w/ is Sceptilite slowking. Sceptilite Gyarados could too, but it really doesn't like trying to switch in pre-mega for fear of bolt strike.
Victinis ridiculous attacking movepool makes it
However, I fully agree w/ the Pdon part. Sure it lacks recovery, which sucks, but nothing is w/o it's own flaws. For the record, mega Ray is even more easily worn down, and that doesn't hold it back (I know this isn't a perfect comparison, I'm just illustrating a point). I do think it's been ignored w/ all this shiny new toy syndrome.
I believe that by "A-rank," he meant rank it at an A, not A-. I.e. A*dash*rank
Agreeing with a lot of people on P-Don's ranking, some people are heavily overrating it. The problem with P-Don is that it is S-rank in Ubers, because there is absolutely nothing competing for its specific slot and niches. In Mix and Mega, there are not only competitors for using the Red Orb, but for things that fulfill its niches as well. Hippowdon can use Red Orb, with only slightly less bulk, and gets recovery out of the deal as well. A- Is fine for it, due to it still having a great movepool and stats, but faces competition from other Red Orb users that can do whatever it might do better.
OK, so some new stuff.
Meet Cresselia's less bulky, annoying cousin, Sablenite Mew!
Mew @ Sablenite
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Soft-Boiled
VERY solid, but not broken like cress was. It has much more exploitable defenses, and magic bouncers/fire types don't care about will-O-wisp. Its lower defense stat makes it prone to being revenge killed, and if it chooses to run physical bulk and dazzling gleam so it can make itself into cresselia, it then gets beaten by some strong physical attackers.
Gengar @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
A bit of an interesting concept, mold breaker gengar can support a team reasonably well, firing off taunts and will-O-wisps without worrying about magic bounce. its also got a much less awful defenses 60/95/105, with still good 90/140/110 offenses. the typing becomes a good ghost/dark and loses a weakness and turns it into an immunity.
Raikou @ Red Orb
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Weather Ball
- Calm Mind/Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Aura Sphere
Something someone used against me, and was pretty effective. The defensive typing is rather poor, but is an awesome offensive typing. Weather Ball hits VERY hard in the sun. Its got a solid base 165 sp. atk and decent 90/95/100 defenses, even with the forced rash nature.
OK, so some new stuff.
Meet Cresselia's less bulky, annoying cousin, Sablenite Mew!
Mew @ Sablenite
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Soft-Boiled
VERY solid, but not broken like cress was. It has much more exploitable defenses, and magic bouncers/fire types don't care about will-O-wisp. Its lower defense stat makes it prone to being revenge killed, and if it chooses to run physical bulk and dazzling gleam so it can make itself into cresselia, it then gets beaten by some strong physical attackers.
Gengar @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
A bit of an interesting concept, mold breaker gengar can support a team reasonably well, firing off taunts and will-O-wisps without worrying about magic bounce. its also got a much less awful defenses 60/95/105, with still good 90/140/110 offenses. the typing becomes a good ghost/dark and loses a weakness and turns it into an immunity.
Raikou @ Red Orb
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
- Weather Ball
- Calm Mind/Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Aura Sphere
Something someone used against me, and was pretty effective. The defensive typing is rather poor, but is an awesome offensive typing. Weather Ball hits VERY hard in the sun. Its got a solid base 165 sp. atk and decent 90/95/100 defenses, even with the forced rash nature.
Sorry, lol. I mean A Rank, not A- Rank (used the - as a dash ;P). And I still think it should go to A over A- for the points I mentioned.
You also miss out on some utility moves, such as Lava Plume (30% burn chance is good), Thunder Wave, and Dragon Tail (although Hippo has Whirlwind, in some situations Tail is better. Both have Roar). Plus, outside of Hippo (which I do consider a worst PDon even with Recovery), there is no true competition unless you're team building around stones rather than Pokemon (which is a bad idea imho). Tini and Don do completely different things - one is a wallbreaker while the other one can be either a great support mon or a sweeper with RP+SD. They don't compete for the moveslot most of the time - either you need a supportmon that can check certain things, or you want a powerful wallbreaker. And, honestly, if they were to compete I'd say PDon "wins" in the sense that Victini can just use another stone to wallbreak if you desperately need a wallbreaker. Sheer Force and No Guard sets are still monsterous wallbreakers. I'm not going to oversell don either - he has a ton of issues in this meta compared to its Uber counterparts. However, I think A Rank is more fitting than A-.
I think hippo does stand out in that it has access to recovery, however, what it lacks is the ability to cripple a sweeper and save your team. The most it can do is whirlwind, and that isn't going to prevent it from setting back up and sweeping you in the future. Lava plume and Twave are both so incredibly useful. Hippo works far better on balance/stall than it would on offense, for which Pdon is almost undeniably better. However, Pdon could work well for balance, too.
Undeniably, there is competition for Pdons stone and roles. Obviously, it wouldn't be A- if it was outclassed or its roles completely overlapped, however, you have to build with the mega stones in mind. Saying that there is no reason not to use pdon is just ignorant tbh. Furthermore, its effectiveness hasn't been argued yet, rather, all I've seen is theorymonning. Personally I do not feel any inclination to move it up considering I am probably the only person here who has actually extensively used it in this tier. Now go use it and see what happens, and if you want to argue A bring a few replays and maybe you'll convince me.
Anyways, I'm going to steal back my viability rankings soon, so I will repost those at some point.
Anyways, I'm going to steal back my viability rankings soon, so I will repost those at some point.
Just out of curiosity, are there any mons that benefit from holding an item that's NOT a mega stone/orb?
Basically all the ubers and choiced users. Anything on stall wants a stone over leftovers, since reliable recovery is necessary, unless you want an unaware user.
Also this probably doesnt matter but can we please add an evasion clause? I don't want to face any bannetite drifblims with pranskter minimize.
Also this probably doesnt matter but can we please add an evasion clause? I don't want to face any bannetite drifblims with pranskter minimize.
I agree, but I think that the presence of Pidgeotite makes evasion spamming a weak strategy. It's still over-centralizing and uncompetitive, and needs to go, however.
Hey this might be a bit controversial. I'd like to instigate or promote a suspect test of Shadow tag and trapping. In ubers play I believe one of the reasons that it wasn't banned is because Ubers will never be defensive, there is a lack of ubers mon that can be used defensively and so it's pretty widely decided that balance is the best option. However, in mix and mega (I'm loving this metagame rn, voting on it) you give ubers a chance to be defensive. But that's not possible with Gengar... You can't run shed shell either because you'll just get overpowered.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/aqua-mixandmega-1647
I don't have a better argument than whats already been stated in the OU suspect test and Ubers suspect test, so I'll leave it to the fact that you gain nothing from shadow tag, but you strongly diminish the viability of stall, and stall is wonderful.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/aqua-mixandmega-1647
I don't have a better argument than whats already been stated in the OU suspect test and Ubers suspect test, so I'll leave it to the fact that you gain nothing from shadow tag, but you strongly diminish the viability of stall, and stall is wonderful.
while shadow tag does centralize stall teams, its important to note you have not yet tried stall, and while it supposedly is too good in ubers, stall remains the best playstyle. I think you need to wait for this metagame to develop and attempt to stall. If we find shadow tag uncompetitive, we will ban it.
you do realise I posted a replay of my stall team in action, right? Shadow tag 6-0d me though and it's really hard to prepare for :/ I'm pretty sure I would've won hadn't it been for Shadow tag. Anyways another glitch, I couldn't mega evolve slowbro using my sablite? It wouldn't give me the option and I hadn't used it either. I also tried to use Diancite Beedril to get it to below zero defence and that didn't work either, didn't give me the option ot mega evolve
Mostly theorymonning when I made the team, but it checks all top tier threats and I see no immediate weakness
Slowbro would've had 0 Spe, and Beedrill would've had 0 Def which aren't allowed in the code.(i.e. it isn't a glitch but rather it's intended)
No, there have been solid arguments for it, not just theorymonning. However, I completely agree that the opportunity cost is FAR higher here than in Ubers. It's roles don't completely overlap w/ Victini, as a matter of fact, they are really quite a lot different. Victini is a FAR better wallbreaker, but Pdon is better able to sweep and support its team. I feel that A is very much fair, considering its crazy bulk, vast number of support options, far superior defensive typing, and access to Rock Polish. Also, although you are right that this is small, but it does have a 70 BST advantage, which is a pretty big number.
I'm not so sure about that. Stall is limited by the number of available stones, but psychic types seem to be a dominating force for stall, and they are a threat to Gengar in themselves. I'm not dismissing your suggestion, but I'm just uncertain.
Also, I must say, I feel offensive teams will still be far more popular and dominating anyways, especially w/ cresselias banning. The options for offense are, not surprisingly, far greater than stall. Gamefreak just doesn't like stall, imo. Balance-balanced/bulky offense seems to be very good here. The problem is, there are so many things that hit like a nuclear warhead that it's really hard to fully stop many offensive threats, even for stall. Offense has to really play prediction well, otherwise you're screwed. If you mispredict and use the wrong move on a not yet mega-evolved opponent, you may just end up helping them. Sceptilite is a prime example. You not only could boost there SpA, but youll kill momentum, which offense needs desperately. It'll be important to have stuff to force the opponent to reveal their mega stone, so that basically once you start a sweep, it can't be interrupted by something like that, because, once again, if the sweep is cut short, it could easily lose you the entire match. Trying to stack stuff w/ common checks is going to be risky, because it's not always inherently clear what those checks are. This will hold back HO teams, too.