So this is the image that has been making the rounds on the internet:
White is Pokemon that got cut, green is Pokemon that are in Sword & Shield, and orange is Pokemon that are in with a new Galarian form.
View attachment 204071
We also are 99.9% sure that Mega-Evolutions and Z-Crystals will not be returning. Holy metagame differences, Batman!
Of current OU Pokemon, the only ones I noticed that are going to be in Sword & Shield are Tyranitar, Rotom, Excadrill, Toxapex, Ferrothorn, Hawlucha, and Kommo-O. Hawlucha is debatable, because I really don't think it stays OU without Tapu support. I'm also not including anything that isn't OU without its Mega-Evolution or Z-Crystal (Gyarados, Charizard, Mawile, etc). I should also probably mention that I didn't spend hours going Pokemon-by-Pokemon, so I might have missed a couple.
For the first time in years, we're looking at a meta without Garchomp, Landorus-T, Skarmory, Heatran, and many, many other staples. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that SwSh is going to be a
fun meta (it's way too early to know), but it's definitely going to be different.
Other things I've notices, as they pertain to Smogon metas:
- Sun teams have lost their best weather setter, as Charizard-Y will not be in the game.
- Rain teams no longer have Mega-Swampert to take advantage of the weather, but they still have Pelipper
- Sand teams lost Garchomp, but retained Excadrill and Tyranitar
- Ice teams: we don't know. Vulpix is in, but what about Alolan forms?
- The only starter from previous generations is Charizard. That means no Greninja, no Incineroar, no Serperior.
- There are basically no legendary or mythical Pokemon from previous gens other than Mew.
- Wouldn't be surprised if Toxapex gets banned from OU, as essentially all of its checks/counters have been removed.
- I think it's pretty much guaranteed that "power creep" seems to be moving backwards heavily with SwSh, which I guess is a good thing. Maybe we'll see a lot more viability for Pokemon that got largely overlooked in later generations.