Hey everybody! I just want to say really quickly that I'm super happy to have joined the council and I'm excited to help guide and develop this metagame.
A little bit about me: I've been playing Balanced Hackmons since gen6bh. I've been on and off throughout gen6 and 7, before starting to really get deep into the meta around the time shell smash was getting suspected. After getting to the finals of the BH Open in March, I began to develop a really strong grasp of the metagame, and eventually, I was asked to join BH council, so here I am. I'd also like to talk about what you should expect from me as a council member and my ideals.
My philosophy with building up a metagame in general and banning things is that I want to be very precarious with everything that might be suspected, quick-banned, or unbanned. I want to make sure that all metagame changes are generally understood by everyone, and that even if someone might not agree with a change made, they can see and understand the possible reasoning behind it (this includes the BH boomers who might look at the banlist and be like "WHAT THE HECK. COUNCIL HAS RUINED THIS METAGAME.")
Anywhase, I'd like to transition from this to some of my thoughts about the BH metagame.
I think as of this moment, BH is at the best place it's ever been since the start of gen8. There is room for a lot of dynamic play, and the meta now favors more proactive teams overall. Throughout these past few weeks, since the cram ban, I've seen a ton of different teams being developed, all ranging from the slowest of stall teams, to some neat HO ideas. The meta is currently in a pretty good space, however I do believe that a discussion about Zacian-Crowned's presence in it is necessary to be had because its presence to some can seem quite unhealthy.
There is no one pokemon more constraining to team building than Zacian-C. The coverage that Zacian-C has available to it, Glacial Lance, Bolt Strike, Sunsteel Strike, Play Rough, Fishious Rend, Precipice Blades, Close Combat, and V-Create; means that it can really pick and choose which pokemon it wants to own, and it has the ability to OHKO nearly any pokemon in the metagame that doesn't have fc. Thus, FC is often times mandated to stop Zacian-C. However, many of these pokemon are forced be extremely passive, as they have to click recover every time they come in on Zac-C since they'd be generally 3hkoed by most of its moves. The other issue is that Zac-C doesn't even have to hit them with direct damage. It can make an insane amount of progress too with hazards, or even kill them with imprisonform( barring they're not Giratina or shed shell fc). Zac-C can also run nuzzle or sticky webs on HO and BO teams to cripple these pokemon that are forced to come in on Zac-C because of its move set.
Currently, the most effective checks to Zacian-Crowned are FC Giratina, FC Palkia, FC Swampert, FC Zamazenta-Crowned, and terrible sap + Recover Prankster pokemon. Some Primordial Sea Steals, or Volt Absorb Ho-oh variants can also work, however they can simply get one shot by some of the coverage moves I previously listed, thus these aren't reliable. These FC pokemon have to be kept at max hp often times because coverage moves such as Glance or Play Rough will do too much to Giratina and Palkia, forcing the user into a losing situation. Zac-C can also make progress another way on these pokemon by setting up hazards and because of this and for the aforementioned reasons I don't consider these pokemon counters, I consider them checks, which bring me to my next point.
There is no counter to Zacian-Crowned. I really want to make this clear. There is no one mon that exists which can counter all the Zac-C sets, a situation which can draw parallels to that of Mega-Rayquaza in gen7bh purely from how muc the two warped their respective metagames at the time.
Also, something which Mray didn't have that Zac-C boasts, is one of the best defensive typings in balanced hackmons. Stesl-Fairy allows Zacian-Crowned to switch into many offensive pokemon such as Xerneas, Kyurem-White & Black, and Eternatus, This allows the user to be able to make a ton of safe midgrounds, allowing the them to gain a ton of momentum and make progress, while simultaneously denying it. Zacian-Crowns immunity to dragon allows it to switch into many of the dragon pokemon which populate gen8bh and at times can make them ineffective purely by its defensive stats and typing. This makes it very difficult to stop Zacian-Crowned from coming in during a match.
With all these in mind, it can undoubtedly be said that the metagame has dramatically warped around Zacian-Crowned. Zac-C puts a lot of strain on the teambuilder, and forces one to not only prep for a variety of different Zacian-C sets but to also make sure that it doesn't lose to "all the other ones". There are always a few Zac-C sets which a team cannot stop from making progress and managing a game against such a Zacian-C is extremely difficult because of its ability to safely come in on a lot of pokemon. For these reasons mentioned above, many might think that Zacian-C's presence is very restricting for the metagame, both in the teambuilder and while playing.
However, some may argue that Zacian-Crowned's presence is inherently not a bad thing for the meta. Because of how effectively Zacian-Crowned is at making progress, it forces all the other guys to be equally proactive and deter it out and give it less opportunities to come in. This speeds up the metagame, and forces people to play very proactively, which to me is a good indicator of a healthy metagame.
I personally, am not quite sure. I could see myself leaning both sides. I hope this post is able to spur some conversations about Zacian-C and that we can get to a better answer, as weather its presence is healthy or not.
Anywhere, I look forward to working with you all and I hope we can steer the metagame in the right direction!
