Metagame Let's Go OverUsed Discussion & Resources

[Maris Bonibelle]

unsure when ill play this tier again so gonna post

its no secret that most of my help during this tournament came directly from Samu77 who already made his post above so im not going to retread on the admittedly similar opinions i have and ill instead dedicate the bulk of my post to talk about substitute + disable gengar, because it felt good in testing and the one tour game i got to use it in:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7letsgoou-889797

Gengar vs mew in lead is very mindgamey:
-shadow ball into psychic means mew is forced out and likely not getting rocks or switching into anything, so mew is either being preserved so the fast mega/dug/jolt gets a free hit on something else, or the mew player is giving up rocks, unless they have a backup rocker. in my opinion, this is a favored situation for the gengar player and i dont expect it to happen a lot, unless the mew predicts a turn 1 taunt and goes for the kill right away
-what i expect to happen most will be that the mew player will click rocks turn 1 and that the gengar player will open with substitute to take advantage of rocks click, and once the substitute is broken with an attack, gengar can click disable. many of the rocker mew sets fit one attack that will break gengar's substitute, and any other attack is likely u-turn, which fails to break substitute and leaves gengar open to land a free hit. if disable connects, the gengar player truly can just do whatever. you can just spam shadow ball and their options to go to are fairly limited:

Gengar Shadow Ball vs. Mega Aerodactyl: 60-72 (38.7 - 46.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (100.00% chance to 3HKO after accuracy)
Gengar Shadow Ball vs. Beedrill: 67-81 (47.8 - 57.8%) -- 92.6% chance to 2HKO (92.60% chance to 2HKO after accuracy)
Gengar Shadow Ball vs. Melmetal: 81-96 (38.5 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (100.00% chance to 3HKO after accuracy)
Gengar Shadow Ball vs. Dugtrio-Alola: 76-91 (69 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (100.00% chance to 2HKO after accuracy)
Gengar Shadow Ball vs. Zapdos: 63-75 (38.1 - 45.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (100.00% chance to 3HKO after accuracy)

(you're ideally running a +speed nature since gengar is not outspeeding fastest mew otherwise)

Disable matters because instead of the threat of killing mew, not getting rocks and gengar being revenge killed after killing mew, this move + substitute threatens the possibility that gengar will kill mew and remain behind a substitute right after, often forcing an opener where the low hp mew is being preserved instead of sacked after setting rocks, forcing one free turn of damage on something else. if you're a real asshole you can even opt to hypnosis on the switch, it's a 60% chance to land but you know the switch is coming so you might as well go for it once in a while

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-2484240433-idelon15dtwwljm07wrc91bdluua95spw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-2485282405-a4lsgdj5sa0vgfc36b31hh45qegiqd9pw

Zapdos is potentially a decent switchin to gengar for this situation ,but keep in mind zapdos also tends to have a single move to damage it, same as mew, so disable leads to another substitute or just disabling roost and forcing damage to stick

https://pokepast.es/63ebebacf0256aa4

here's the paste i used in tour. i like mega beedrill more than mega aero overall but can't risk getting counterlead by bee and aero without insurance. my own aero helps with the beedrill problem so uh just pray they're an honest player that wont lead mega aero into you if you use gengar lead : )

additional miscellaneous thoughts:
-yeah zapdos gives up so much vs both grounds, what does it matter that you switch into eq? you're slower, can get flinched by rock slide, which can stall out your own reflect turns, you will get revenged easily by both megas after some chip + rocks, jolteon makes progress vs mew more consistently too, why was this ranked #3? i think it's viable but definitely not better than either mega, jolteon, or the grounds. i see the utility for doing zapdos -> melmetal pivoting and i think drill peck makes this better into venusaur than jolteon by a lot, but that's all
-i dropped zapdos in many games for venusaur and it makes the matchup vs vap don a lot nicer instead of playing a mirror , didnt miss it for melmetal much

second shoutout to Samu77 for playing sooo many practice games with me, this tier feels a bit like too little cooks situation so im glad i was able to find something to make gengar lead more consistent. would also like to thank my friend Sabelette for drafting me despite my middling results in lgpe overall prior, i wish id played cleaner overall cause i lucked like half of my sets, promise ill be more locked in for next! and we won!!!

also hearty shoutout to juoean , who was my first help when i first got into tier, hope you hear about our win soon!

 

[Samu77]

And that is a wrap for our Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee Summer/Fall SSNL. ggs to everybody. Before I start talking about all that went down and how I see the meta right now I want to thank everybody for joining. The last couple rounds were especially exciting and it seems the overall level of play has increased a good amount.

If you, yes you! want a replay to be reviewed and commentated by yours truly, let me know and I'll be happy to commentate over it. I might do a few of my matches as well, but tbh I'. more interested in reviewing somebody else's.

And now onto my favourite part: bitching about the metagame.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it; since I've been playing LGPE in about 2022-2023ish I feel as if this is the most stale and least fun the meta has been, and that includes the time Mega Zam was legal. Now I was not there during the Dark Days of Mega Gengar making switching in impossible, but I will say that sometimes this meta feels ominously similar to what I would believe that felt like hmmmm. Forshadow Balling.
I think you can tell from the teams I loaded that I had practically zero faith in almost nothing but Double Mega Eeveelutions when the chips were down and the lights came on. The synergy in this team is ridiculous and quite frankly, soulless and boring. The closest thing to a "counter" that was devised against a team winning EVERYTHING was the admittedly glorious FishBall team bestowed upon us by our fearless tier leader. More on that in a second though because I wanna keep highlighting problems.

The ability to load this broken team and have your only consideration be the opposing Aero Matchup for if you want to bring Bedrill or not is astounding. There's no weakness in the team, nothing at all to exploit. Electrode is the closest thing and oh look at that: Jolteon and Venusaur, the best two answers against it. Look at all of the OU and tell me how you are going to exploit this team. Look under too. I seriously considered loading Cloyster and Alo-Slash as counters and in the end I didn't follow suit because they are just so bad. You know when I'm bringing Starter Pika things are bad (that was technically a misclick, but it was a happy mistake and I wouldn't have had the team in my builder if I didn't believe in S. Pika even a little).

This seques me into the next section of this likely-to-be wall of a post: tiering action. I'll start with most likely and work my way down.

Sleep: :Venusaur:
I can't lie I think Venu has a real shot for being the best non-mega Pokemon in the tier, which is totally barbaric. Now this is partly because of how much it punishes a certain Yellow Fox-Mutant, but the real reason as we all know, is sleep. I don't feel the need to harp on about this point too much because everybody hates sleep right now, and while I do think part of that is people not bringing the right mons, Venu is unfortunately the only mon for Venu. As if the ghost of RBY Tauros' past has possessed the Grass Starter of all things, the Venu 50/50 is so real and so unbelievably awful, which is forced mainly because Venu blocking Sleep Powder is the only thing preventing your switch from being decimated. Sleep being rubbed in by rocks, highly discouraging any pivoting around it to try and pin Venu down with counterplay instead of just taking the 50/50 is also awful! This move can go, and while I'd be sad at policies getting in the way, I would be willing to take a universal sleep ban if that meant getting rid of Sleep Powder (that means Yawn, Sing, Hypnaursis). I think every Hypnosis user is super fine ftr because they are either absurdly impossible to get in to just threaten raw sleep, or they are not fast enough to use it. Also they all want 4 other moves, Venu is super fine with Drain, Leech, Bomb and Powder.

I do want to highlight Yawn more though, because I hold onto the belief people are rarely using it correctly. I think punishing passivity in switching with Yawn loops are actually okay. And I think it provides good counterplay to set-up Mew sets (those have other problems and counterplay which I'll address). If you ever click yawn without Rocks up you are throwing. If you ever try to dance predicting yawns from your opponent you are also throwing. Pinning down with Yawn is a legit skill I think should be kept in the game. However the ire people might have for Sleep might come from Yawn as well because of...

Jolteon: :Jolteon:

The greatest evil in the current age of Let's Go. As if Venu's Sleep Powder wasn't enough of a reason to run that frog, this thing is the real reason anybody was slapping Venu on every team like its Flex Tape. This thing stifles all of your creativity and is way, WAY too good of a pick for how lazy it is to slap on a team. Switching into this thing is like switching into and RBY Body Slam. It feels absolutely disgusting. Did it delete your switch in with Yawn? Did it sub for a riskless free move? Did it Shadow Ball and OOPS! You just got dropped and the next Shadow Ball your Venu, yes Venu because fuck me does nothing else take Shadow ball, now die to the Sludge Bomb from YOUR Venu kills it when it comes in and the Sleep Powder train gets to keep choo-chooing along? Did I Tbolt and the variance of the roll against lead it into threatening a kill with Aero or Bee if you just TRY to revenge them, or did it not? It may have even paralyzed, I don't need to worry about that guy anymore, my Melm will DIB it down if somebody else’s Ground Coverage won’t take it out.

This thing is heinous to the nth degree. And the worst part is how it can easily shift if Yawn gets banned. Your options are cope mons like Midoqueen and Sloplax For all we know banning Venu just makes this thing even more crazy, you’re certainly weakening it’s best check. Jolteon is wack. Too Broken Plz Ban.

Fast Megas: :aerodactyl-mega: :beedrill-mega:

I’m tired of these things I can’t lie. Outside of Fishball, every single serious team needs these two Pokemon that determines the life and death of every single Pokemon in the tier. The entire tier feels less interactive overall with these things just destroying everything. It feels like the whole game is just based around hitting Melmetal with one special attack to let these things sweep, all other counterplay as far as I’m concerned is fake, at least for Mega Aero, because Mega Beedrill has the counter OF Mega Aero (and Electrode too but that’s also pretty damn specific and S-Pika is even more barbaric). Rhydon is not a sufficient check to either Mon when it is slow, invites heavy damaging Special Attackers in too much and wants to wall Zapdos and Block Jolteon and EQ Mew, not miss Rock Slides on Mega Aero and die to EQ. Wisp Mew is either too telegraphed or too easily broken down in other ways and it just gets destroyed by Beedrill as hard. Vaporeon can’t switch in. Kingler is unreliable, you get the point. I think Beedrill forcing more nuanced plays in how it threatens immense damage with its pivots is actually pretty cool, but I also think that it's just too strong at it. Aero with its supreme Flinch Chance just cements my argument for these Pokemon most of the time forcing winning positions too much, or if they aren’t just robbing the game as many times.

I think these mons should seriously be examined more to have a Let’s Go without them. They stifle creativity and innovation in play and teambuilder by forcing Rocks and Melm to be the only reliable answer. I think it’s time for LGPE to evolve and stop being held back by tradition in rewarding the one singular line of play that is preserving fast Mega to win games. Pidgeot will also still be here while not being an unreachable speed tier outside of two mons.

Some things I thought were worth highlighting:

Setup Mew is so bad man. Sleep is one thing and might get banned but it’s so telegraphed and every non-rocker Mew set just puts you at -1 already and now you can just sac to handle that Mew. Beedrill= You never actually do anything. Shadow Ball Jolt+Aero means the same thing. You will always have coverage problems.

I actually hate Charizard less then I ever have right now. Jolteon is annoying and so is Venu. I expect this immediately to change upon a Sleep Ban though, and it is still a mon flawed to an extreme.

Gyarados is good. I knew I was onto something when I mentioned to my team in LGPL II that Gyara’s positives were insane into the meta we have but was dissuaded when Trashdos and Beedrill was brought up. Huge props to Eve for finding a team that allowed it to shine. I never would have come up with that myself even at my most explorative. Seriously impressed and amazed with that team. A masterpiece in full. If a sleep ban happens it can probably fairly easily just shift that Venu slot to something that helps it against the field. This team I would say right now is the only realistic option in regards to having a “counter” to Fast Megas. Fair warning though this team is hard to pilot, so I still think it isn’t top dog.

I think Zapdos is better now than it was at the end of LGPL, where I saw my goat just did not have it in him anymore. Part of this is Venu meta and Dpeck being nice, part of this is that I actually don’t mind Jolteon as much as I thought with this guy since it has U-Turn, a part of it is slight Dugtrio waning and Rhydon just not being a good option right now. I would still have it comfortably below Venu, Jolt and Vaporeon right now though. His canon event of getting frozen by Melmetal also will forever make me bitter towards this thing. Sleep Ban would help alleviate the need for Drill Peck too, but also U-Turn as well since you don’t need the Yawn Jolteon tech. The return of Toxic Zapdos!?!?!?

Chansey might be worth looking at more. It’s surprisingly annoying into certain comps and Toxicing Mew is always a good thing to be able to do. That said it’s weaknesses are the same as ever and loading it as a rocks user leaves you too vulnerable to too much. You need to use it defensively only with like Teleport/Toxic/Stoss/Softboiled/Reflect.

Muk is -1 guys. It just never does enough. I never really understand the justification in loading it specifically. It does like every job at like a 65/100 score. Zam can’t hurt us anymore.

Wrapup:

I still truly love this tier more than anything else. But to me it’s become stale and I think that the playerbase has shifted enough along with what’s been good has been proven enough to the point we can take more bold decisions in changing the landscape. I think a sleep ban is a given and also is a good start but I also don’t feel this shifts the needle as much as one would think it would as to how the tier is fundamentally played. The offense of fast mons is just too high and I think that it might be time to say goodbye. Time will tell who agrees with this sentiment but that’s my thoughts.

Anyways all from me, everybody have a good rest of your day/night and remember that now more than ever, A-Dug is the fakest OU mon to ever grace this tier.

 

[violet river]

its not stale just dictated overly by player tastes and preferences, ppl shld l2p