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Metagame SV Monotype Metagame Discussion [Indigo Disk]

Scarfire said:
What changed is that Gliscor, the broken element, was removed. Whether or not the meta changes drastically outside of that will take time (few weeks of mcl?) to find out. There doesn't need to be an expectation that a broken mons removal means some previously unseen dogshit is suddenly relevant. If thats what you're insisting on seeing, give it a while. Nothing much has transpired since the suspect yet.
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its been 21 days and you are telling me no one has any idea even direction wise how the meta is shifting, maybe some feedback on changes on flying/ground, how other types got affected etc. tf why do we always need a tour to see how it goes do people not ladder or participate in mono room tours
 
The one thing that everybody agrees on is that sandless Ground is dead.

... except it isn't. Bulky offense is alive and well, and just a few days ago I laddered this team to 1700:
:great-tusk: :iron-treads: :garchomp: :landorus: :mamoswine: :swampert:
It's a fairly straightforward team built around the two pivots in Iron Treads and Swampert. This team doesn't have a water immunity but that's rarely an issue except obviously against Water.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom but honestly I don't understand it. I continue to believe that the Gliscor ban is purely positive; with the broken element gone, there is so much room for exploration that has just been opened up. I don't even think my sandless team is necessarily the best, but it does work as a proof of concept. But we'll never be able to uncover these new opportunities if we start from a position that assumes they don't exist. And if even sandless Ground, the archetype that stood to lose the most with a Gliscor ban, has new life now, what does that say about other archetypes?
 
I don't want to post my team directly as I've got some weird EV spread stuff going on that I would like to keep to myself to now (Only god and myself knows what I'm doing with that Zapdos and Dragonite.) But I've been seeing some success with a specially bulky Lando-T build running SR, Protect, EQ, and U-turn. Its been proving well so far however most seem to be set on Smack Down over protect to better threaten Steel overall though. I haven't seen much of setup Lando-T but it pops up every now and again.

I think with its spreads, I don't think we're going to see minspeed Lando-T though with most looking most like this as base line:
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 Spe or 252 HP / 216 SpD / 40 Spe
Impish or Jolly Nature
Outspeeding Raging Bolt is a must in this meta for flying to avoid getting dumpsters by Draco Meteor. I've also been opting for enough speed to out run Mamoswine as once they see the protect they'll think I'm min speed so they'll go for Crash and with max HP EVs we do barely live a banded Ice Shard from full after intimidate in case of emergency.

In terms of fighting Lando-T, OH THANK GOD. Do you know how enjoyable it is to switch my Grass-type in against a Ground and actually being able to threaten it back or better yet, use status moves into flying and they don't have a mon that freely absorbs that for them, they actually gotta make some choices now? Its making me so happy. I have a matchup that isn't completely doomed.

Lando-I is the same as it ever was, but now its got a lot more moveset restrictions due to being a lot of Flying team's sole stealth rocker unless they opt for rocks Skarmory or try to cope with Gligar or Bombirdier. I am tempted to try and make a bulky Lando-I flying but am fully aware I would have a much worse Dragon MU if I did due how much worse it is into Raging Bolt.

Zapdos has also been another mon I've been having some success with. The Mirror is a lot less annoying with it as before Zapdos had to worry about Hurricane and Gliscor needing 3 of the bastards to hit to remove while teams not opting for an Elec of their own only need their Ground to be slamed twice as most aren't opting for a bulky Landorus forme as I've seen plenty of Lando-I which is easy enough to weardown to the point I usually only need one Hurricane to land.

If you want my team in action, here it is against ltranc for week 6 of Seasonals: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2668854682-axow5aoi8ylmhcqh2cahs7r07e9m09jpw
 
Ethereal Sword said:
The one thing that everybody agrees on is that sandless Ground is dead.

... except it isn't. Bulky offense is alive and well, and just a few days ago I laddered this team to 1700:
:great-tusk: :iron-treads: :garchomp: :landorus: :mamoswine: :swampert:
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Feel like you wouldn't have posted this team unless you were trying to make some justification for an argument. To me this kinda just confirms sandless ground is dead. It's Pre-DLC2 Ground without any fixes to what made Pre-DLC2 Ground so frustrating at the time, you'd consider it because of ground's mu spread on paper, but in practice it has some key autoloss mus and is way more shaky then you'd want it to be.

Maybe we can figure something else out, but everyone spent months at the time trying to make these kinds of ground teams work. I tried the team out too fwiw and it's as suspected, maybe there are some benefits like steel being better due to having pert but in reality this isn't something you'd bring to a tournament unless you were feeling stubborn.
 
TheWyvernKing said:
Feel like you wouldn't have posted this team unless you were trying to make some justification for an argument. To me this kinda just confirms sandless ground is dead. It's Pre-DLC2 Ground without any fixes to what made Pre-DLC2 Ground so frustrating at the time, you'd consider it because of ground's mu spread on paper, but in practice it has some key autoloss mus and is way more shaky then you'd want it to be.

Maybe we can figure something else out, but everyone spent months at the time trying to make these kinds of ground teams work. I tried the team out too fwiw and it's as suspected, maybe there are some benefits like steel being better due to having pert but in reality this isn't something you'd bring to a tournament unless you were feeling stubborn.
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You're right, I wouldn't have posted it here - probably I would've posted it in the sample team thread but given the ongoing conversation here I figured it would fit.

Pre-DLC 2 Ground looked quite different from the team I posted for two reasons; first, Swampert didn't exist yet (you'd prefer an actual water immune, but none of them have pivoting), and second, both Gliscor and a certain bear were still legal which probably had somewhat of an effect on teambuilding.

In any case, for sure the sandless Ground teams where you just brainlessly go Gliscor and SubToxic your way to victory are dead. I know - I've abused those teams before as well. And I tend to think that it's a good thing that those teams are no longer allowed.
 
I have to agree with Ethereal Sword that sandless ground is definitely not dead. I laddered to 1800 sandless HO before without Gliscor; sand is generally overprepped for a lot these days and ground has a bunch of solid mons that don't rely on sand to function. I did it without a "fishy" structure; it's hardly "It's Pre-DLC2 Ground without any fixes to what made Pre-DLC2 Ground so frustrating at the time", I actually run Clodsire for example.

Sample replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2510552400-w5smbkr53kanvp2x55j13qw6v33gn42pw?p2 vs water
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2512993297-att71cpws7g07lnwljl5b9a8160rtqfpw vs dragon
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2510549713-cs81ikx9yno8yvn9efd1cexs085stdmpw?p2 vs flying
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2509417711-7qoc92ifn47s0r40vmvtfouos6jjle8pw vs flying
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2509279176-0un6bsfc6venid8p3fdovmc0ufp6gnhpw?p2 vs fighting

I'm not sure why sandless ground is so unpopular, but I'm guessing it just hasn't been explored very much. Ground has a bunch of mons that are just good that don't rely on sand (chomp, lando, tusk, treads, clodsire, mamo, tinglu, quagsire, and a bunch of more niche stuff not mentioned), so there's definitely stuff to work with here.

It does seem like bulky ground is harder to make work without Gliscor, which makes sense as Gliscor was such a broken defensive piece in such builds. I still believe bulkier defensive ground styles are viable, but I haven't gotten around to building it yet. But yes, I too am glad that the sandless Ground teams where you just brainlessly go Gliscor and SubToxic your way to victory are dead. And I tend to think that it's a good thing that those teams are no longer allowed.
 
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Hi monotype community,
I have completed almost 2 months of national service, i went from not knowing how to use a gun to shooting properly, I lost 8Kgs in the process (21 BMI now), my kid is getting born next month (i will let my chatgpt PRO 20x subscription GPT-6 Astra High pick the name), trichotomy got a pokecoach key and his bot is working overtime to solve monotype and the reply i got about what changed since then is some sandless ground and a google link form from the CCP trying to gather information to hack me.
 
Vodoom said:
Hi monotype community,
I have completed almost 2 months of national service, i went from not knowing how to use a gun to shooting properly, I lost 8Kgs in the process (21 BMI now), my kid is getting born next month (i will let my chatgpt PRO 20x subscription GPT-6 Astra High pick the name), trichotomy got a pokecoach key and his bot is working overtime to solve monotype and the reply i got about what changed since then is some sandless ground and a google link form from the CCP trying to gather information to hack me.
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You know if this is true then, trich, we need to team up bro, I also trying to make a bot lol.
 
Hello everyone. Here are the results of the October 2026 edition of the Community Type VR. We had 60 respondents (27 qualified); thanks to everyone who filled out the form!

July 2026
Feb 2026
Qualified Ranking
1793209258583.png

Code: 
+----------+-------+------+
| type     | mean  | std  |
+----------+-------+------+
| Dragon   | 1.41  | 0.73 |
| Steel    | 2.74  | 0.97 |
| Dark     | 3.11  | 1.71 |
| Ground   | 4.96  | 1.64 |
| Water    | 5.0   | 1.59 |
| Flying   | 6.07  | 2.34 |
| Fighting | 7.52  | 2.23 |
| Fairy    | 8.22  | 1.97 |
| Fire     | 8.85  | 2.05 |
| Ghost    | 9.04  | 1.82 |
| Poison   | 11.0  | 1.7  |
| Bug      | 11.63 | 1.87 |
| Normal   | 11.85 | 2.26 |
| Psychic  | 14.22 | 0.83 |
| Grass    | 15.85 | 1.6  |
| Ice      | 15.93 | 1.15 |
| Electric | 16.37 | 1.16 |
| Rock     | 17.22 | 1.34 |
+----------+-------+------+
1793209660895.png
1793209814677.png
Overall Ranking
1793209896511.png

Code: 
+----------+-------+------+
| type     | mean  | std  |
+----------+-------+------+
| Dragon   | 3.37  | 4.09 |
| Steel    | 4.37  | 4.04 |
| Dark     | 4.85  | 3.93 |
| Water    | 6.0   | 3.58 |
| Ground   | 6.52  | 3.55 |
| Fairy    | 6.82  | 3.53 |
| Flying   | 7.1   | 3.4  |
| Ghost    | 8.07  | 3.15 |
| Fire     | 8.9   | 3.01 |
| Fighting | 9.15  | 3.62 |
| Poison   | 11.08 | 2.4  |
| Normal   | 11.6  | 3.27 |
| Bug      | 11.62 | 4.32 |
| Psychic  | 13.15 | 3.25 |
| Grass    | 14.05 | 3.44 |
| Ice      | 14.18 | 3.98 |
| Electric | 14.48 | 4.09 |
| Rock     | 15.7  | 3.37 |
+----------+-------+------+
1793209988306.png
1793210020986.png
 
Something i want to highlight in the VRs is, that Poison still lingers on C tier, yet has seen more play in Tournaments recently. The Gliscor ban may have hurt Flying, but Flying is still playable and ground barely relied on it at all, but the Flying structures we see are vastly different and rarely rely on stalling out your opponent.
I personally didn't fill out the survey, but i can see atleast 3 types i would rank differently on the list, yet it's pretty close overall to what we see in tournament play and on ladder.
With that said, in the end the overall meta is still fairly dragon centered, the counterplay to dragon is still the same but Dragon is so clearly rated the top type, it's almost an outliar on how strongly people agree on that type specifically. We see more Anti-Dragon techs in teams than ever, yet i don't feel like dragon REALLY struggles to hold it's top spot with it's incredibly flexible, high BST, strong mons. Considering that mons like Garchomp, Raging Bolt or Kyurem are fighting for a spot on dragon should show how incredibly powerful the type is this generation.
Maybe we can open the discussion a bit on what the peoples favorite ways are to handle and stop Dragon Teams, since we all are in agreement that it is if not the single, then one of the greatest types as of this gen.
 
Hello everyone. In the interest of developing some discussion around the Community Type VR results, I just wanted to give a few comments/interpretations that can be made from the data. This is the second time I've included the histogram of all responses and the first time including the breakdown by rank and there are some interesting points to note with both. I'll primarily be focusing on the qualified results here.

1. Flying is a wildcard
Flying is the type with the highest standard deviation, and looking at its histogram reveals exactly why. There is an almost uniform distribution from rank 3 to rank 9 - the entire range from "top tier type" to "middle tier." Post-Gliscor ban Flying teams have gone in a number of different directions, and with few team tour games since the ban and ladder/individual tour games having somewhat less visibility, the meta has yet to coalesce around any particular Flying builds, and consequently, newly viable countermeasures to Flying are neither well-explored nor immediately necessary. It is likely that MWP will begin to develop a stronger consensus in this respect. Perhaps one or multiple dominant Flying teams will emerge, or perhaps its value will fall once people start prepping for it more.

2. Psychic has a surprisingly strong consensus
Psychic has the second-lowest standard deviation among all types, and at times it was even the lowest. The rank breakdown explains why this is happening. There are four types that are clearly worse than all the others which leaves Psychic to comfortably occupy rank 14 - the consensus pick for "the worst of the rest." A deeper look at the rank breakdown reveals that a fairly substantial number of voters put Psychic in rank 15, thereby placing one of the four other bottom-tier types in rank 14 instead. Of these, the most common pick is Ice, which has a reputation as a potent fish type with promising matchups against a surprisingly large number of the top types. These voters likely valued Ice's occasional flashes of brilliance over Psychic's consistently slightly-below-average performance everywhere. It is just a pity that this quality of Ice is not valued in team tours, seeing zero uses in MPL and being the only type with zero uses in MWP.

3. Dragon
A whopping 70% of qualified respondents put Dragon in Rank 1, making it far and away the best type in the meta. This is nonetheless down from 78% in the July Community Type VR. A large part of Dragon's popularity is undoubtedly its intuitive nature with a clearly-defined physical wall and a clearly-defined special wall, then letting base stats carry it the rest of the way. If you don't know what to run, you may as well just bring Dragon and force the opponent to do the thinking. Still, Dragon's performance in team tours (where it is presumed that the opponent will in fact "do the thinking") is subpar with only a 44% win rate in the available MPL stats and 50% in MWP. This must in part be due to the fact that Dragon has a very obvious weakness, one that all of the six types after it can potentially exploit - Dragon typically does not run any hazard removal. In a tournament context, this helps make Dragon easier to prepare for, and much of the time, its gameplan will be to win the game fast, or else it will lose to hazards.
 
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