M&M Mix and Mega

iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Hello, I'm here to share a team thats been performing pretty well for me and makes use of some strong mons in the tier rn.

:slowbro::rhyperior::ho-oh::eternatus::solgaleo::regieleki:
Life Orb Eternatus Bulky Offense (Click on the mini sprites for the paste)

:ss/slowbro:
BackInTheVillage (Slowbro) @ Manectite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Teleport
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Slack Off
This slowbro set offers a switchin to the majority of physical attackers in the tier, through the combination of solid bulk, intimidate and the threat of a scald burn. It can pivot out into something that can outspeed and KO the present threat. It also offers solid longevity in an excellent pre-mega ability of regenerator, with decent pre-mega bulk as well as slack off to keep it alive on the field.

:ss/rhyperior:
2MinutesToMidnight (Rhyperior) @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
Another defensive mon, specially defensive rhyperior under sand offers immense bulk on both sides and can become a potent offensive threat at +2. It offers significant utility, including setting rocks as well as chipping pokemon like dragonite, lunala and other bulkier pokemon to put them into range of the attackers. It is capable of threatening out defoggers and spinners like ho-oh, regieleki and the less common excadrill.

:ss/ho-oh:
Aces High (Ho-Oh) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SpD
Impish Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Defog
- Recover
- Toxic
Ho-oh is a phenomenal defenisve pokemon, offering the teams primary hazard control, as well as threatening with status, either a burn or toxic. Toxic is useful for if you believe the opponent will be switching in their own ho-oh, lunala or a defensive pokemon not carrying sablenite. This set is very capable of neutering physical attackers such as dragonite, solgaleo, zygarde and annoying defensive pokemon through status.

:ss/eternatus:
Powerslave (Eternatus) @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 136 Def / 220 SpA / 152 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dynamax Cannon
- Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower
- Recover
Eternatus is a very potent offensive wallbreaker, capable of limiting the capability of pokemon like blissey and rhyperior to switch in through threatening a poison from sludge bomb, flamethrower to deal big damage to physically defensive magearna and corviknight and dynamax cannon to deliver strong hits to non resisting pokemon. The EV spread (taken from Chazm) allows it to survive 2 espeeds from altarianite entei (without rocks) and to outspeed unboosted adamant lucarionite zygarde.

:ss/solgaleo:
Flash of the Blade (Solgaleo) @ Metagrossite
Ability: Full Metal Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sunsteel Strike
- Psychic Fangs
- Crunch
- Flare Blitz
Solgaleo serves as a strong and durable offensive threat that naturally outspeeds much of the metagame. Its dual stabs are strong against the meta with few relevant pokemon resisting the combination. Crunch hits slowbro well, with the chance of lowering its defense to discourage it staying in, as well as hitting lunala hard. Flare blitz is to hit corviknight and magearna. Another option is to include Morning Sun in the moves to ensure solgaleo remains healthy.

:ss/regieleki:
The Duellists (Regieleki) @ Altarianite
Ability: Transistor
EVs: 252 Atk / 120 SpA / 136 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Volt Switch
- Extreme Speed
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
We know him, we love (hate?) him. Regieleki offers the primary speed control and secondary hazard control on the team. Its strong volt switches pre-mega'd are useful for dealing damage, especially if the opposing ground type(s) are dead or badly chipped. In many games, regieleki becomes a potent cleaner, capable of finishing off multiple weakened pokemon, and is even capable of completely removing a problematic pokemon from the field with explosion.

The team does have a few weaknesses I've noticed in testing. It can struggle with urshifu rapid strike if slowbro is dead or sufficiently chipped. A well played groudon can also cause issues for the teams offensive core, but can be played around in my experience. Additionally, some lesser used, but still effective mons, such as sharpedonite tyranitar and zygarde complete, can cause issues depending on the state of your team. Obviously no team is perfect, so if you have any insight on anything that can be improved/changed, please feel free to respond. Now onto some things I've noticed in playing and watching quite a few mnm games, between om swiss, roomtours and ladder games.

:ss/urshifu-rapid-strike:
This mon is incredibly scary right now, and i think oftentimes teams, including my own, are underprepared for it. The emergence of rapidshifu as a top offensive threat has a lot to do with slowbro's resurgence, who had been seeing a bit of decline with the coming of mew as a top defensive pivot. This mon can effectively threaten many defensive cores, such as mew, rhyperior and specially defensive steels, especially with surging strikes ignoring intimidate drops. The team above offers a solid matchup against it, especially ice punch variants, with slowbro essentially forcing it to u-turn, with solgaleo outspeeding aerodactylite and speed tying jolly metagrossite.

:ss/genesect:
Another phenomenal attacker, cameruptite genesect can threaten out many pokemon through the use of bolt beam and shift gear + leech life, in addition to gaining a small bit of recovery. This is particularly effective on webs, patching up its mediocre speed. It is capable of nabbing impressive 2hkos when given a special attack boost from download, including rhyperior and hooh, two very specially bulky mons.

It seems to me as though offense is becoming a prominent playstyle in the tier right now, with the rise of urshifu, genesect, offensive eternatus and webs and its abusers such as life orb groudon and offensive lunala.

Thanks for reading and have a good day :)
 
Hello I made few new sets




Heatran:
485-Heatran-M.gif



Heatran @ Diancite
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Eruption
- Heat Wave
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power

1635307412473.png

It's speed might seem good but not actually
Since other Pokémons can mega evolve they might get much more higher speed but this strat will work perfectly with Sticky Web.
Basically eruption just OHKO's a lot of mons with 190 Spa
Heat wave if you need a fire type move when you are low at health
Flash cannon for stab
Earth power for Coverage


static-assets-upload11159987489364154125.gif


Registeel @ Sablenite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 240 HP / 212 Def / 56 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Protect
- Body Press

1635311345832.png

This set is very bulky
(Much more Bulkier than shuckle)
It has a rlly good HP stat for a bulky pok
Bulky poks always have a Drawback like for avalugg even tho
it has 184 def it's sp.def is bad same for steelix
But registeel with sablenite is a rlly good bulk which has good hp and awesome def and spcl.def bulk



Dragapult_Shiny_SS.gif


Dragapult @ Scizorite
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Dragon Dance
- Phantom Force
- Bite

1635311748771.png

+20 Attack stat might not seem that great but it's ability technician makes it
so good
Dragon Darts a Base 50 power which hits twice move becomes Base 75 power move which hits twice
making it a 150 base power move
And Bite is for coverage


880_160x160.gif


Dracozolt @ Diancite
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Low Kick

1635313259332.png


Nothing special here just the same as heatran works well with sticky Web
Bolt beak has a base power of 255 if it goes first (85x1.5x2)
Outrage for Stab
Eq and low kick for coverage
 
Hi guys, this time I want to talk about Zygarde in general.
1635566976037.png
1635567003093.png

He has always been a good pokemon with a unique move too cool, add the Lucarionite and he becomes a monster after a Dragon Dance.
I do not have the calculations, but I do have a replay that I had in the ladder with him, and now that I think about it, it is a pokemon that I always have in mind when creating a team (that's why the Mew Ice Beam).
After this fight, maybe I will team up with Zygarde Coil / Rest and heal bell support, it's a pokemon that I love.
What do you think?
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1445190917-tjrh3oq34axtfuzus25s87fjin9o4q3pw
PD: 2hu is life, 2hu is love
 
Unsure if there is a forum for asking questions or not ( could see one when searching ) but when was the change to allow Zeraora to have Mega Stones again? Just curious as I did a battle today and got caught off guard by it.
 
Hi guys, I wanted to share this set for Lunala.
1636305604385.png

Lunala @ Power Herb
Ability: Shadow Shield
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moongeist Beam
- Psyshock
- Meteor Beam
- Calm Mind

If you're not some pivot Blissey with Teleport, T wave and a faster Poke, you're going to have a bad time against this set.
A pretty strong wallbreaker, and Meteor Beam takes Ho oh special def off the map.
 

Ducky

Aw Phooey
is a Contributor to Smogon
I recently picked up MnM and laddered up to the high 1300s using and just wanted to share my first impressions of the tier.

Extreme Speed + -ate: This combinations seems very strong to me, not broken in my opinion, but is a powerful tool that can win games against weakened or unprepared teams.

Ho-Oh: Less so than espeed but i've been really enjoying Ho-oh as a way to check opposing espeed

Slowtwins: Finally, the slowtwins seem very useful paired with Sablenite, as they become incredibly bulky

sorry if this doesnt belong here, just wanted to see if others shared my opinion

EDIT: OMG guys UT liked my post!!!!!!
 
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iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Hi figured id use this post as a response and as a way to share my own thoughts on some stuff, especially after the start of omwc (which i am not playing in so will hopefully not be betraying anything).
Extreme Speed + -ate: This combinations seems very strong to me, not broken in my opinion, but is a powerful tool that can win games against weakened or unprepared teams.
This is something most newer mnm players comment on, glad to see you dont fall in the camp that thinks it should be banned. Extreme speed and its various abusers are indeed very powerful tools for players to have. Some ways to handle extreme speed include strong ground types such as groudon and rhyperior, especially for the most common extreme speeder, regieleki, slowbro for non-eleki espeeders and even ho-oh as a nice midground for common espeeders.

Ho-Oh: Less so than espeed but i've been really enjoying Ho-oh as a way to check opposing espeed
Ho-oh is indeed one of the stronger defensive pokemon in the tier that comes with considerable utility and a good offensive presence. Ho-oh as i mentioned above, is a good midground to cover espeeders but can often be taken advantage of, depending on what you are switching it in on. For example, entei should be carrying stone edge which will easily ohko ho-oh or can howl on the switch. eleki can volt to gain momentum easily.

Slowtwins: Finally, the slowtwins seem very useful paired with Sablenite, as they become incredibly bulky
I cant say ive ever seen slowking used before, but slowbro is certainly a premier defensive mon in the tier. It isnt a huge fan of eleki tho so it should be paired with strong ground and steel types. Other options usable for slowbro include manectite for the boost in offense and the amazing ability in intimidate, as well as cameruptite which is a bit niche but still kinda neat.

with regards to the post above about zygarde, if youre having trouble dealing with zygarde, this is a post I made a while back about potential checks and counters to lucarionite zygarde. in addition to the mons in that post, manectite mew with ice beam is capable of beating it soundly and with a bit of chip, eleki can kill it, either revenging it or being brought in via slow pivot.

Now onto my own thoughts on the meta:

some things ive noticed from games in both om swiss and wc is that hydreigon and lando t are both picking up in usage. hydreigon is a formidable wall breaker especially with nasty plot and has respectable longevity. Lando offers rocks, can run uturn for pivoting, and other wise offers strong offensive capabilities through its use of sd and body slam/eq or through explosion. aerilate boosted explosion, especially after an sd, can kill many defoggers that want to come in on lando's potential eq and get rid of the rocks it sets. Instead they can be found facing a +2 landorus that can kill even resistant defoggers like corviknight with explosion.

as we all know, regieleki is a phenomal pokemon, who as such has been getting lots of usage in omwc. with the uptick in hydreigon usage, regieleki gets one more target to revenge kill. eleki is, as always, an amazing cleaner late game against weakened targets.

a mon that is a bit underrated imo that can be a very potent threat is buzzwole (s/o chazm for this). with metagrossite, it can function as a solid groudon switchin (because of the extra weight granted by metagrossite) as well as something that can beat a large number of steels and grounds in the tier through the use of close combat and ice punch. it has solid longevity with roost and its immense physical bulk. it can be ev'd to outspeed adamant luc zygarde and ko with ice punch (which conveniently is the same as adamant aerodactylite urshifu).

some new faces, but a very strong combination is lucarionite magnezone and heracronite kyurem. magnezone threatens out lots of ice resists and can hit ridiculously hard with adaptability steel beam for the things that believe they are safe. magnezone often allows kyurem to come in and have very few resists remaining, allowing it to set up and sweep, often without the risk of getting revenged by eleki bc of its substiute. overall, a very strong pairing and kyurem gets more opportunites the longer the game goes on. in a few games before, we've seen even a burned kyurem going on to kill 3 or 4 mons.

milotic is a mon that has kinda been on the outskirts of viability for a bit, but now its gotten some usage in omwc and is starting to look pretty legitamate. it gets a pivoting move, recovery, and haze. has similar defenses to slowbro, but being more specially inclined (assuming sablenite for both). it is also a strong bouncer and can threaten out rhyperior.

urshifu (who should be running ice punch) is still a force to be reckoned with, who appreciates uptick in hydreigon, magnezone and kyurem usage, which it revenge kill (if kyurem is unboosted) easily.

from watching games, it seems as though a broad variety of playstyles are viable rn, with the exception of potentially the extremes of stall and HO, although stall has shown its face during the tour already.

I look forward to seeing more meta development (hopefully) during omwc and beyond. Thanks for reading and have a good rest of your day :)
 

Zapdos-Galar @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Thunderous Kick
- Brave Bird
- Throat Chop / Facade / Blaze Kick

Ok, I am officially on board the Christmas Turkey train. I do agree with the general consensus that Phero is better with Aero (especially as a pivot) but I'm loving this thing because of Defiant. Manec users and especially defoggers must think twice before switch-in/mega/defog, especially if you click Thunderous Kick

The last slot may have some options. Throat chop for Bros (and I'd honestly just leave it at that). Facade in case of a burn, Blaze kick to maybe secure KO on Mage (depending on set and chip).

Spread is prelim, but I have two reasons for not running +spe or Metagrossite (someone better with speed tiers feel free to chime in):
1. You want max attack to really punish defensive mons.
2. No chance of outspeeding stuff like Zera, Phero. Not to mention the espeed gang.

Maybe you can get away with a bulkier spread, but a quick calc tells me it still won't be eating any attacks from the threats that outspeed it.

My thought process here is that this won't be your primary pivot. Rather, this would be your suicide/semi-breaker that punishes walls/utility, with an option to hit hard with U-Turn, and the option to add complexity to your gameplay by holding back on mega-evolving (like Slowbro). I think this works best with some speed control (webs, faster mons), walls/bulky attackers (Etern, Slowbro), other pivots (Mage, Slowbro, Eleki).

I'd certainly welcome some input!
 
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iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
hi, its me again.

today i wanted to talk about three mons (and some honorable mentions) that are incredibly strong in the meta rn imo.

#1:
:ss/urshifu-rapid-strike:
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Surging Strikes
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Ice Punch
A strong fighting type with access to uturn and tough claws is a dangerous thing. This mon is probably the closest thing to a broken that there is in mnm at the moment. It has strong stabs, access to uturn and can even run several options in the 4th slot, although i believe ice punch is the best. This mon has very limited switchins, and some of those are based on predictions of which attack urshifu will click. The only true switchins are slowbro and altarianite zygarde. Slowbro takes 40+ from uturn and can bring something in that forces a switch, such as regieleki, a very strong partner for urshifu. Zygarde has more ways to threaten out urshifu, but can still be uturned on or hit with ice punch. If you can accumulate enough damage and force a mega, then the opponent no longer has a solid urshifu switchin. It can also run aqua jet in its 4th slot to confirm kills on chipped mons, but I'm not a huge fan of that choice. Overall, a very strong both pivot and breaker that synergizes well with other threats in the metagame.
252+ Atk Tough Claws Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 316-372 (49.6 - 58.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Tough Claws Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 208+ Def Milotic @ Sablenite: 184-217 (46.7 - 55%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
-1 252+ Atk Tough Claws Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Magearna @ Manectite on a critical hit: 171-201 (46.9 - 55.2%) -- approx. 2HKO after Stealth Rock
-1 252+ Atk Tough Claws Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Mew @ Manectite on a critical hit: 183-219 (45.2 - 54.2%) -- approx. 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Tough Claws Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Metagrossite U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro @ Sablenite: 120-142 (30.4 - 36%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

#2:
:ss/pheromosa:
Pheromosa @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Triple Axel
- Rapid Spin
another strong fighting type with access to uturn and tough claws. This mon is no quite so splashable as urshifu imo because of its neutrality to rocks, it frailty, and its inability to hits zygarde-c with a single hit ice move, like urshifu can, leaving it susceptible to rocky helmet chip. However, its stab uturn hits slowbro significantly harder. In addition to this, it has flexibility in its 4th slot, to either run rapid spin to function as a form of more offensive hazard control or run toxic to cripple one of its more common switchins, ho-oh. I have found pheromosa + groudon to be a potent offensive core, with groudon being capable of handling regieleki for pheromosa and pheromosa heavily chipping common switchins for groudon like slowbro and milotic. Another strong breaker and pivot that struggles a bit with frailty but has potent partners that can assist it.
252 Atk Tough Claws Pheromosa @ Aerodactylite U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro @ Sablenite: 186-218 (47.2 - 55.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Tough Claws Pheromosa @ Aerodactylite Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 258-304 (65.4 - 77.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
-1 252 Atk Tough Claws Pheromosa @ Aerodactylite U-turn vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Mew @ Manectite: 156-186 (38.6 - 46%) -- 18% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

#3:
:ss/kyurem:
Kyurem @ Heracronite
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 56 HP / 220 Atk / 232 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Icicle Spear
- Roost
Unlike the other 2 mons on this mini list, this is not a strong fighting type mon with uturn. Rather, this mon is a setup sweeper, perhaps one of the most potent ones available in mnm right now. The evs are to ensure a blissey seismic toss will not break kyurem's substitute and the speed is too outspeed max speed eternatus at +1. Despite only having mono-ice attcking moves, it can setup of most resists and icicle spear has enough pp to avoid being pp stalled in most cases. Kyurem is a powerful mon that has shown itself capable of winning games outright even when burned throughout world cup. it can take advantage of a very powerful partner in lucarionite magnezone (who was partnered with it 100% of the time in omwc) to remove steels for it. Kyurem will often find itself some way to get some value in a game, somewhat different than other sweepers like genesect.
+1 220+ Atk Kyurem @ Heracronite Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 360-425 (86.5 - 102.1%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO (Kyurem will often be behind a sub)
+1 220+ Atk Kyurem @ Heracronite Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Mew @ Manectite: 290-350 (71.7 - 86.6%) -- approx. 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+6 220+ Atk Kyurem @ Heracronite Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro @ Sablenite: 300-360 (76.1 - 91.3%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (kyurem can often set up easily vs slowbro and one hit from bro cannot break substitute)
0 SpA Slowbro @ Sablenite Ice Beam vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem @ Heracronite: 76-90 (18.7 - 22.2%) -- possible 5HKO

Now onto the honorable mentions:
:ss/magnezone:
Magnezone @ Lucarionite
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Steel Beam
As i mentioned before this mon is a very strong complement to kyurem, but can find itself hard to work onto a team and struggles with strong mons like eternatus and heatran. It still finds itself a powerful breaker that is difficult to switch into without a blissey. Other typical special switchins like ho-oh, rhyperior and even specially defensive sablenite magearna find themselves hard pressed to switch into this mon over the course of a game.

:ss/groudon:
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Atk / 140 Def
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Heat Crash
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
Groudon finds itself one of the best grounds in the tier, functioning as a strong eleki check and a good offensive mon in its own right. An alternative ev spread could be 60 speed evs taken out of the defense evs in order to outspeed 0 speed lunala, but i tend to opt for putting those in defense as well (80 defense evs ensure a 4hko from regieleki's espeed after rocks and leftovers). Swords dance makes groudon a serious threat capable of punching large holes in the opposing defensive core while still maintaining longevity and accumulating leftovers recovery. Groudon can be a strong glue mon on many teams and synergizes well with various breakers and defensive mons.

:ss/genesect:
Genesect @ Cameruptite
Ability: Download
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 60 HP / 252 SpA / 196 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Another powerful setup mon, this one not quite so reliable as the kyurem above. You can opt for leech life over flamethrower but blisseys have (mostly) transitioned over to using flamethrower, so you can just accept you will never beat blissey and nab surprise ko's on steels that feel safe, like solgaleo and magearna. If you can get yourself into a position of getting a special attack boost, then genesect becomes a legitimate threat. I have found the greatest success with genesect on screens teams that give it multiple opportunities to set up and more turns to attack. Leech life is still a viable option on genesect for recovering health as well. (this mon also won all 5 games it appeared in during world cup)

:ss/milotic:
Milotic @ Sablenite
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 SpD
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Haze
- Recover
milotic is a very strong defensive water type, especially in a tier where urshifu rapid is so strong. It functions as a strong bouncer and a rhyperior switchin that can force it out, being faster with scald or flip turn. A strong defesive duo is milotic + manectite magearna which can force urshifu into 50-50s. it has a pivoting move and access to haze, two desirable attributes for a defensive mon. its immense special bulk makes it require limited investment and with similar bulk to slowbro, it is a premier defensive pick and depsite having a less incredible ability than slowbro, it is a great user of magic bounce.

:ss/zygarde-complete:
Zygarde @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Power Construct
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Coil
- Dragon Tail
- Rest
Zygod is another very powerful defensive mon that can itself into an offensive presence. It is the best contact punisher we have in a tier where urshifu is one of the strongest breakers. After it transforms into father form, it takes a ridiculous 35% from max attack regieleki's espeed. Dragon tail is a solid way to phaze mons out and stack up hazard damage, coil to increase longevity and offensive presence and rest as a recovery move, since you can often sit in front of mons. A good partner for this mon is a cleric, such as magearna or sablenite blissey.

Some other mons that are good rn that i wont go into too much detail so i dont bore you to sleep:
:regieleki: we all know what it does, how it does it and how well it does it
:entei: a pretty strong mon on more offensive builds, inner focus can mess with manectite pivots like mew
:heatran: ngl i still struggle to build with this mon, but both amphy and yardite variants seem pretty cool, the former being one of our best rockers and the latter being a surprise factor that can beat many unsuspecting foes.
:eternatus: still a super strong breaker that spreads status to common special switchins such as hooh and blissey.
:xerneas: a fun and strong breaker with geomancy that can often win games on its own, although choice and lo variants are neat

Final thoughts:
Our fighting types (urshifu and pheromosa) are probably the best mons in the tier rn, with regieleki and probably kyurem coming in behind. Any comments, corrections or questions are welcome. Thanks for reading and have a good rest of your day :)
 

xavgb

:xavgb:
is a Tiering Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Former Other Tournament Circuit Champion
World Defender
Hey, quick announcement to clear up what's going on right now.

I'm stepping down from both my tier leader and council positions, as I'm spending more time on other areas of the site nowadays and won't be able to keep up with the meta and my responsibilities as easily. I'll be leaving you guys in the hands of Quantum Tesseract, who will be the sole tier leader going forward. Judging off council activity there should be more announcements regarding various things coming soon, but I'll leave those to him when they're finalised.

I'd also like to apologize for the inactivity over the last few months of my tenure, it was definitely somewhat unprofessional to hold onto the TL position for this long, but hopefully we can move on to bigger and better things under new leadership.

Thanks y'all for making this a fun experience, I'll still be active on Discord as usual if you want to talk to me
 
Hello. As Stresh mentioned, I'll be stepping up from council to tier leader. Thanks so much to them for all the hard work they did, both running and supporting this metagame, during their tenure as leader . With Stresh stepping down, however, that leaves us with only 3 council members. To rectify this, we have decided to add Iapt and Beauts to Mix and Mega Council. Please give them a warm welcome; we have every confidence in their qualifications for this role.

Along with this influx of new blood, we have a few new things planned. First off, a long overdue resources update. This isn't quite done, as we're leaving some time for our two new members to have a say and suggest changes, but it should finish shortly. Secondly, I'd like to announce another user Survey. We've been hearing some scattered feedback about potentially problematic elements of the current metagame, so we'd like to leave the field open for you to share your thoughts. Also included in the survey is a followup on the question of Pidgeotite from the previous survey, this time with less ambiguous wording and more options for clarity of response.
 
Hi, it's been a while! I'm here to provide a sample team that's been treating me pretty well on ladder.
CB Ho-oh Balance (AKA: Nuclear Fusion)
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Utsuho (Ho-Oh) @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Defog

The star of the show, and what should be doing tons of damage to opposing walls. Banded Brave Bird hits like an absolute truck, and Sacred Fire isn't far behind. Earthquake's there for some solid coverage, and bops Heatran in particular. Defog's mostly there as an emergency option, but it's sometimes a very welcome one. The speed EVs are there to specifically creep Dnite and Alt Zygarde unboosted, along with Magnezone. (If I find the need to name something after Utsuho, it is required to hit very hard. No exceptions.)

Wakasagi (Milotic) (F) @ Sablenite
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Flip Turn
- Scald
- Recover
- Haze

This team has a very touch and go defensive core, but Milotic is a very important part of it. The set's very standard, and is meant to weather the blows of most of the -ate speeders, along with Weavile, Rhyperior, and making sure Blissey doesn't just stomp this team flat in advantage. Flip Turn is great, and just allows you to keep tempo with the opponent. A fairly standard set, but it has reason to be standard. Haze can stop a fair few sweeps dead in its tracks.

Tenshi (Zygarde) @ Altarianite
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Coil
- Thousand Arrows
- Substitute

I like -ate speed. Zygarde has proven time and time again to be utterly incredible, and just sweeps up damaged and/or unprepared teams with ease. Substitute allows you to set up on Blissey and other status-happy mons, as well.

Mugan (Eternatus) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 156 HP / 68 SpA / 32 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mystical Fire
- Dynamax Cannon
- Recover
- Sludge Bomb

This spread's a bit of a mess, but it still works rather well. Eternatus is another part of the light defensive core, while also having enough of an offensive presence to deal with Poison weak sweepers to spread status. Mystical Fire is there after I realized Toxic Spikes is not at all worth it, and lets Eternatus challenge both Steel types and Lunala, and is pretty nice in general. The Electric resist in general is really nice, but do be careful about switching this into Regeleki in particular.

Mima (Lunala) @ Power Herb
Ability: Shadow Shield
EVs: 212 HP / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Meteor Beam
- Moongeist Beam
- Moonblast
- Roost

Speaking of Lunala, this team has one of its own. Meteor Beam is very nice in a Ho-oh littered meta, and allows Lunala to OHKO it if it dares switch in, no questions asked. Moongeist Beam/Moonblast represent standard coverage, and Roost lets Lunala stay at full HP when it needs to be.

Koishi (Mew) @ Manectite
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Heal Bell

Finally, we have the team's Defogger and status healer. Psyshock is the one attack, and it's... fine. If you're worried about a specific threat, Psyshock can be replaced with another sttack pretty easily. But Mew's job isn't as a damage dealer, anyways; it's to keep the rest of the team from being crippled, and sometimes it is the sacrifice needed to get the upper hand.

As for the team's weaknesses, it has quite a few.
First and foremost, Pheromosa can wear on this team more than most, due to having a good matchup on everything here except for Ho-oh and Zygarde, the latter of which is not a safe switch-in. Opposing Lunalas that are speed invested are also problematic, due to lack of Ghost resists (though Mew can be altered to fix this particular matchup up).
Hydreigon can also crunch the walls of the team quite a bit on its entry. Lastly, Double Edge Altarianite Entei does enough damage to render Milotic an unsafe switch-in, and breaks up the light defensive core that's provided.
 
END OF YEAR MIX AND MEGA TEAMDUMP

I haven't posted a team in a while, so felt like dropping down some builds I made this year for this meta.

FightSpam

:urshifu-rapid-strike: :pheromosa: :ho-oh: :slowbro: :heatran: :landorus-therian:

https://pokepast.es/1275e9f67c595191

Pretty dumb fightspam. Phero brings in ho-oh, which allows u to pivot safely into Urshifu, then you u-turn on the rUshifu switchin back to Pheromosa etc. Its pretty dumb. Slowbro + Ho-oh is a typical defensive core, Heatran is the etern and genesect counter, and Landorus-therian is there to alleviate the groudon mu. Xerneas is a pretty big pain for this team, however Loppunite Pheromosa hits over 500 base speed, meaning u outspeed most bulky varients of Geo-xern (u get f'd if its anything faster. On the note of mosa, Loppunite is cool to speed creep other Pheromosa and to avoid intimidate from Magearna, which is a key detterent of the main core.

s/o to beauts and bj for this one, and stfu flix for saying this would never work

Explosion Offense

:swampert: :regieleki: :landorus-therian: :solgaleo: :dragonite: :zygarde:

https://pokepast.es/d4b597f9377c66b0

This team idea is pretty simple - Boom boom boom. Pert is used here over traditional pivot cores (say milo) because you really need that extra physical sweeper to help break through teams. Body slam can be run over u-turn on Landorus, but u tend to explode on most flying targets anyway, and pivoting is sometimes nice. Extreme speed is on Zygarde otherwise Pheromosa is just a REALLY hard matchup. Would also consider just running yawn > stealth rock on Swampert, it rarely gets the chance to click rocks anyway against the multitude of Sablenite users.

Curse Ho-oh

:ho-oh: :corviknight: :eternatus: :groudon: :pheromosa: :mew:

https://pokepast.es/83f163c96dcb181a

Curse Ho-oh is a pretty cool wincon, with burn from sacred allowing it to wear down teams pretty fast. Speed evs allow it to outspeed 60 speed ev Groudon (which is the stock standard at the moment). Eternatus is there for perhaps the most terrifying mu for curse Ho-oh in Urshifu-Rapid, Groudon acts as the ground (and honestly a terrifying breaker in itself), Corvknight acts as the Eternatus counter and defogger, as well as the ground immunity, and Pheromosa acts as speed control and hazards. Counter Mew is kinda sick, especially in this meta, being about to counter a u-turn on the switch or a boosted attack from Groudon and Rhyperior is so clutch. It needs EP and Ice beam to beat Entei and Zygarde respectively, so u probably need to drop counter if u want to fit pivoting, though I think counter is definitely worth it.

Zeraora BO

:zeraora: :groudon: :magearna: :milotic: :regieleki: :eternatus:

https://pokepast.es/b25480da4b178a7e

I seriously think Loppunite Zeraora has serious potential in the meta; its a unique breaker that has the unique ability of being able to severely pressure the likes of Slowbro / Ho-oh / Milotic virtue of its typing. Loppunite is probably the most viable stone on it, with its ability to ignore intimidate allowing it to 2hko (with a roll) the likes of Manec Magearna, especially the less bulky varients that have come up as the result of the popularity of zone. A key thing with Zeraora builds is being able to deal with Eternatus and grounds. Groudon is used here as the pivot target for Zeroara, being able to nearly always pick up a kill after an SD. Eleki is there to deal with the grounds, in the only way it knows how - boom. Eleki can also be used as a late game cleaner if zeraora has sufficiently worn down the opposing teams walls. The typical Milo / Mag defensive core is slapped on here, and Eternatus here is added for Urshifu. The eternatus here is max speed because the team can't really afford being outsped by opposing Eternatus, and the Urshifu matchup isn't nearly as bad as you might think with Groudon's Sun allowing Magearna to come in more readily.

Demon Magearna

:ho-oh: :magearna: :hydreigon: :hippowdon: :slowbro: :pheromosa:

https://pokepast.es/d28d7bdc47eb4012

Team is honestly pretty stupid, but it works surprisingly well. The Magearna can be deadly in the right matchup, with the only things that stop it just blowing your team wide open being SD Grounds and Heatran. However, you have the rest of the team to break down those things. Hydreigon is the most powerful breaker in the metagame (although its poor speed and typing holds it back), allowing it to tear through teams given good predctions. Pheromosa is slapped on as speed control, using toxic to help bring Ho-oh into 2hko range. Hippowdon, Slowbro and Ho-oh finish off the team, being a very bulky core to help survive against a lot of teams. Probably weak to Urshifu now, but still a sick team.

Gear Gang

:Genesect: :Kartana: :Magearna: :Swampert: :Entei: :Eternatus:

https://pokepast.es/bf86f31ead6c2135

This is SO fun to play. Just click setup moves and win ez. In all honesty, the 3 steels synergise extremely well in their breaking capabilities, with kartana being able to weaken Heatran for Genesect, Genesect very often being able to open lines for Magearna. If you let Kartana die too early, Milotic can pressure this team pretty readily. Eject Button Demon Etern is a cool idea (bad probably bad) idea to try and seize momentum while fitting on another borked bulky set up win condition. Swampert is there to desperately try and cover the teams defensive shortcomings (there are QUITE a bit), and Entei is there to stop Pheromosa from 6-0ing. Team is the ultimate matchup fish, though running into an auto-win matchup with Genesect / Magearna / Eternatus isn't toooo uncommon. LR Magearna is the BEST though lmao, spamming Last Resort can be so statisfying.

Dnite BO

:Dragonite: :Regieleki: :Mew: :Buzzwole: :Rhyperior: :Kartana:

https://pokepast.es/a9efa4da0deaf05a

I wanted to try Dragonite, with its immense breaking abilities, on balance. Kartana seemed like a natural partner alongside it, being able to SD up to help break through magearna. Regieleki is tacked on as the typical speed control, Mew and Rhyperior as the defensive core alongside Buzzwole, which acts as the Groudon and Pheromosa counter. Team loses pretty hard against typical Genesect builds, however against Balance builds it can pose some problems.

Miscellaneous Teams

All of these teams are ridiculously wacky and would make Redflix rage for weeks, but they are fun to play and probably good enough to get high on ladder if you decide to ladder (we need more people in ladder lmao).

:rotom-mow: :magearna: :slowbro: :ho-oh: :ditto: :hippowdon: - Mowtom Stall (CERTIFIED GOAT TEAM)
:primarina: :pheromosa: :entei: :corviknight: :slowbro: :rhyperior: - Primarina BO
:uxie: :dragonite: :regieleki: :groudon: :buzzwole: :solgaleo: - UXIEEEE
:mew: :kartana: :chandelure: :genesect: :dragonite: :entei: - Chandelure HO
:dragapult: :toxapex: :jirachi: :entei: :landorus: :lunala: - just bring it

End of Year Shoutouts

After taking the year off from OMs, this year was a blast in all honesty. Though I keep on making playoffs and losing first round (;;) every single team tour was an extremely fun experience.

Redflix Oh boy, what a year. It was because of you asking me to sign up in OMPL that I even started to play OMs in the first place. I think under any other manager I would have either 1. Quit OMs myself or 2.Drive my manager to insanity, but you were able to somehow keep up with my insane level of activity and tags xD Despite everything I say (and u being a buwy) our time together in these past few team tours were blast, and having you as a builder is the reason I found this year really fun. I hope you're on my team next year!

Osake
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Ty for keeping up my record of playing with only 5 loss AAA players in OMPL LMAO im kidding with ya, u're a funny guy who builds some of the most epic AAA teams I've seen (that Zam Stall was extremely epic). Just saw you get into the AAA Council, as deserved, and I'm fully ready for you to dominate AAA this OMPL (and to quit the team when it turns out I'm in the same team LMAO.

Dr. Phd. BJ I'm so glad u're back. From doing basketball fantasy (ezy $300) to making lit teams, you're just an great guy to hang around with. U're an incredible friend and an incredible player and I hope you stick around for a while.

Euphonos Rip camo.... I think I talked the first time I talked to you was some random TPP tour lmao but I'm glad I've got to know you. U're one of the nicest users on this site, and I really hope that you pick up another OM so you can stick around for a while.

I hope I don't forget anyone, but here are other various shoutouts. beauts XxSevagxX The Number Man Shing'n Streets Gman Chazm Quantum Tesseract DerpyBoi Dragonillis LBDC Atha The Immortal a loser Dj Breloominati♬ King Leo V MAMP UT the right Kris U're all great people and I hope you guys stick around in OMs.

Pce out
 

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Urshifu-R and Pheromosa are now banned from using stones in Mix and Mega!
beautsChazmiaptFinal Verdict
Urshifu-RBanBanBanBan
PheromosaBanBanBanBan
One thing you might be confused about here is the lack of Fardin and Quantum Tesseract in the voting procedure. Unfortunately, Fardin has stepped down from the Mix and Mega council. Quantum Tesseract, on the other hand, has been absent for a few weeks now, and we have been working together with the OM moderation team to make this vote happen. We felt that since the Mix and Mega Open was coming up soon, a vote on two of our biggest issues was in order, something that Quantum Tesseract also agreed on during initial discussion. We additionally felt that the metagame was becoming unhealthily centralized around these two threats nearing the end of Swiss and during OM Championships, and had received multiple complaints from other Mix and Mega players on the topic.

As for our ban verdicts:

Urshifu-R: Urshifu-R was an exceptionally dangerous pivot that exploited common archetype structures utilizing mons like Ho-Oh, Rhyperior, Landorus-Therian, and Heatran. Additionally, the counters to Urshifu-R were incredibly limited, practically being restricted to Slowbro, Eternatus, and Toxapex. These mons were also unable to actually punish Urshifu-R from pivoting into other dangerous partners like Magnezone, Regieleki, Kartana and Pheromosa, and therefore forced some players to run Rocky Helmet even in the place of mega stones, just so that those cores could stop Urshifu-R from freely pivoting around. Though some players experimented with structures that did not let Urshifu-R in easily, such as those utilizing Zygarde-C or Groudon as their Ground-type (or not running a Ground-type entirely), these builds were often prone to Urshifu-R just opting for the trade, letting Urshifu-R get very low, but due to the fact that those builds were unable to punish Urshifu-R's continued assault, a good player would be capable of dismantling most attempts to stop Urshifu-R from getting multiple KOs, and thus end up at a disproportional advantage to those builds not abusing Urshifu-R.

Pheromosa: Pheromosa's most defining, and unhealthy trait, was that it forced Ho-Oh onto an excessive amount of builds, especially once Lopunnite started getting usage. For a mon so fast, and so powerful, very few teams could deal with it reliably without Ho-Oh or Toxapex, and the few checks that were capable of at least taking the majority of Pheromosa's attacks like Manectite Magearna, Solgaleo and Altarianite Entei were exceptionally quickly worn down. Pairings such as Kartana + Pheromosa were also incredibly difficult to deal with long term as they both either pressured Pheromosa's best answers or forced Ho-Oh into Stealth Rock damage, allowing Pheromosa to break it. Whilst Pheromosa did not show itself to be as broken as Urshifu-R in practice, due to the high usage of Ho-Oh already, we felt that Pheromosa was worth banning because of its ridiculous restriction in the builder.

Tagging Kris to implement.
 
:lucario: :regieleki: :landorus-therian: :entei: :solgaleo: :blissey: This Hyper Offense team has gifted me a lot of M&M wins.
  • Lucario is here to use Mega Blastoise's Mega Launcher ability. This boosts the power of all of Lucario's moves, except Flash Cannon. Not just that, but it gets even higher Sp. Atk.
  • Regieleki has destroyed a lot of Dragons' dreams of ravaging my team due to Pixilate from the Altarianite. Rapid Spin just makes huge dents in the opposing Pokémon's HP.
  • Landorus fulfills Blissey's role as a Stealth Rocker, in case of Defoggers. The Salamencite gives it the Flying-type STAB it needed.
  • Entei also takes full advantage of Aerilate and Mega Pinsir's Flying typing for a STAB Extreme Speed.
  • Solgaleo is just better with Mega Metagross's Tough Claws ability. Its pre-Mega ability is the same as base Metagross's ability, but the thing is, that CANNOT be ignored by moves and other abilities. Talking about how Full Metal Body is superior to Clear Body.
  • Blissey is the lead of the team, mainly for Stealth Rock. The Ampharosite lowers Speed it doesn't really need, but boosts defenses. It also gives Mold Breaker, useful against all the Sablenite walls it ever encounters.
 
Heya, I felt it was needed to write a post in Mix and Mega addressing some Pokemon that people have called out as potentially unhealthy or broken. Recently, after the Urshifu-R and Pheromosa bans, there have been a few standouts that have remained in the eyes of the community as problematic, and here's my opinions on those:

:ss/eternatus:
Eternatus
reasons to suspect: annoyingly bulky for an offensive Pokemon that's heavily resilient to chip damage

Eternatus is a frustratingly bulky Pokemon for how fast and powerful it is. Access to recovery and a large HP stat makes Eternatus frustratingly difficult to break for offensive Pokemon, it being able to switch into a few of the major ones like Regieleki and non-howl Entei, and allows it to tank weaker super effective hits from Pokemon like Earthquake Ho-Oh. The access to perfect coverage in 3 moves does not help Pokemon deal with Eternatus any easier, as it makes resisting its hits very difficult, and even if Pokemon can avoid 2HKOs from Eternatus, such as Milotic and Ho-Oh, Eternatus punishes back passive switchins with frequent Sludge Bomb poisons, effectively killing off these targets if they wish to continue to check Eternatus. Additionally, Eternatus has a bunch of techs up its sleeve that allow it to punish certain switchins, like Cosmic Power and Meteor Beam. So, with all that in mind, how does someone reasonably check Eternatus?

reasons not to suspect: dealable with via offensive pressure, often times Eternatus just lacks the ability to get crucial OHKOs or 2HKOs, Thunder Wave / other forms of speed control, is reliant on poison chance to break through at times

With Eternatus being a fairly fast Pokemon, it is capable of outspeeding many otherwise relevant offensive checks like Groudon, Landorus-Therian and Lucarionite Zygarde. Thunder Wave is key in slowing down Eternatus so that these Pokemon are capable of making progress. Good Thunder Wave users include Magearna, Ho-Oh and Zapdos. There are also solid checks, like Solgaleo, Slowking-Galar, Heatran, Bulk Up Venusaurite Corviknight, Rhyperior, and SpD Hippowdon that are capable of avoiding a 2HKO from its STABs, and either OHKOing or taking little damage from Flamethrower. The two Dragon neutral targets here are also capable of exploiting Dynamax Cannon's low PP, making it easier for them to switch in continually despite the chance to be poisoned from Sludge Bomb. Additionally, Eternatus really needs Life Orb to get the 2HKO benchmarks that make it so devastating, so exploiting the fact that most Eternatus are Life Orb is fairly easy if you can force Eternatus to recover often, by using offensive Pokemon that are capable of seriously damaging or outright OHKOing Eternatus. Few Pokemon that are currently viable are unable to damage Eternatus without an alternative punish like Knock Off, so keeping your offensive momentum is a great way to deal with Eternatus if you don't have the space to run an explicit counter.

Eternatus can be a frustratingly tough Pokemon to check, and therefore we plan to suspect it at the start of next week. Check in soon for an announcement!

:ss/genesect:
Genesect
reasons to suspect: bolt beam + flamethrower coverage is difficult for current offensive structures to withstand, can exploit certain mega evolutions and team structures with download

Genesect... can be overwhelming to deal with. Like Eternatus, it has exceptionally powerful 3-move coverage in BoltBeam + Flamethrower, and with Download, it can boost these moves to get a wide range of OHKOs on what would be otherwise good answers. Additionally, resistances to Extreme Speed and a speed tier that is good enough to outspeed practically every Pokemon after a Shift Gear make Genesect a surprisingly tough Pokemon to check offensively. So, how do you beat Genesect?

reasons not to suspect: it's difficult to get a download boost with Genesect against some builds, severely hampering its power and allowing a lot more soft-checks to answer it, even at +1 it has various checks that are already present on a large majority of builds, has serious issues trying to break through balance builds

Genesect checks tend to work a lot like Xerneas checks - often times they will just barely beat out Genesect, then punish it with a Fire move, Thunder Wave or other STAB attack that deals significant damage. Even when taking the Download boost into effect, something that can indeed be managed on more offensive teams, there are still good answers like Ho-Oh, Slowking-Galar, Blissey, Lunala, Swampert, and Heatran that can all take it on fairly reliably even at +1. Certain builds can also carry soft-answers that just aren't OHKOd by it but can do significant damage back whilst taking a +1 or being able to beat a +0 Genesect, like Sablenite Hippowdon, non-Venusaurite Solgaleo, Venusaurite Magearna, and Entei. The Leech Life variants that would be able to beat some checks on this list, like Lunala and Swampert, as well as some otherwise dubious soft-checks not listed like Manectite & Sablenite Mew, tend to fail to do much back to Steel-types, making it a hard ask to fit said move.

:ss/xerneas:
Xerneas
reasons to suspect: one shot wonder that can straight up snowball some team structures without much interactivity, is excellent at exploiting worn down mons

Xerneas, like Genesect, is a very powerful cheese machine that can just straight up body some matchups. However, opposite to Genesect, its strongest aspect is not its coverage, but rather, its extremely consistent STAB. Moonblast isn't really something that you can pivot around; if you're beating Xerneas, you're either OHKO'd by Moonblast, or you're not and are one of the few rare answers that actually gets screwed over by coverage options, or you tend to answer Xerneas well. Substitute is also something that Xerneas can use to its advantage to dampen the effectiveness of some other ways to counter it that would work for other sweepers like Thunder Wave and Magearna. Additionally, threats like Genesect and Pinsirite Magearna further add to Xerneas' power to finish the endgame with a full sweep, as these Pokemon often demand attention from Steel and Fire types, which these Pokemon will often try to be an answer to Xerneas with. So, with that in mind, how do you beat Xerneas?

reasons not to suspect: checks are common, pixilate extreme speed is the single best soft check in the game, dealing upwards of 60% to most variants, is still hard countered by mons like Solgaleo and Slowking-Galar

Thankfully, unlike Genesect, Xerneas is soft-checked by every common priority user in the game, taking 60% from common Extreme Speed users like Entei, Regieleki and Zygarde. Additionally, the presence of Fairy resists like Solgaleo, Slowking-Galar and Ho-Oh make it extremely difficult for Xerneas to 100% secure a sweep, as these Pokemon will at the very least be able to punish it with status, if not outright counter it, either via phazing or just getting an OHKO. There are also just blanket special walls, like Milotic, Banettite Toxapex and Rhyperior that can take a +2 Moonblast and either deal significant damage back or just haze away Geomancy. These will often be trading for this position, however, and this can therefore be exploited by Xerneas' teammates.

:ss/regieleki:
Regieleki
reasons to suspect: is too good of a revenge killer, capable of getting 1 KO almost all the time at the very least, pressures ground-type slots immensely

If you asked a player right now why they'd think a Ground-type is mandatory in MnM, they'd almost certainly respond with Regieleki's sheer existence being the reasoning why. Whilst I disagree with this (I think Magearna is a far more pressing reason to run a Ground-type; even despite Magearna's ability to 2HKO every relevant one), I do understand the pressure that Regieleki can put on its resistances and the momentum that it can get from simply just using Volt Switch is incredible, often being capable of breaking teams through sheer pressure throughout longer games. Additionally, if Regieleki is not needed for an endgame, it can simply explode on the target trying to check it, which is almost always a guaranteed OHKO, and if not, it's a significantly heavy hit for its checks to be taking. So, how do you beat Regieleki in the current metagame?

reasons not to suspect: ground types are already strong against it, taking multiple turns to break through, some teams are even capable of outright foregoing ground types for regenerators like Ho-Oh as means to check it, momentum from Regieleki isn't 100% absolute as various midgrounds can stop the opponent from exploiting the switchin

Quite honestly, I think Regieleki is actually overrated in the current metagame. Not only do you not always need a Ground-type to take care of it (something like Ho-Oh, Eternatus or Slowking-Galar can work), but the Ground-types that do beat it in the current metagame are all incredibly good at doing so, to the point where Regieleki barely shows off its endgame potential. Additionally, due to how Ground-types are supported, they may be used simply to check Regieleki, or will have support in the form of other Fairy resists that in combination with them, heavily dissuades the usage of Volt Switch. This is especially notable now because its best partner, Urshifu-R, is now stone restricted, meaning it no longer has a 100% method of forcing momentum. This also discludes the fact that teams now have more reason than ever to be prepared for Electric-type attackers with the introduction of Zapdos and Zeraora back into the metagame, making non-Ground resistances to Regieleki much more common.

:ss/entei:
Entei
(this was not requested by anybody, but I'd like to highlight this anyway)
reasons to suspect: insane lategame potential, can 2HKO a vast majority of the metagame with Pixilate Double-Edge, even including switchins that people are usually used to calling Entei checks (like Eternatus and Slowbro)

Here's a personal take: if people are asking for Pokemon like Genesect and Xerneas to go, I think Entei should also be looked at. Entei, like Genesect and Xerneas, has excellent lategame potential, but also has the ability to be seriously self-sufficient and open up holes for its teammates via Pixilate Double-Edge and Sacred Fire, effectively being able to force checks like Slowbro to play more conservatively with their HP and often-times, also forcing early Mega Evolution. With Pokemon that would otherwise check it like Slowbro and Mew being pushed aside due to the rise of Electric-type wallbreakers like Zapdos, this leaves a gaping hole for Entei to exploit. Furthermore, like Eternatus and Genesect, it is difficult to revenge kill due to its resistance to Altspeed, and many Pokemon that are faster than it are either chipped down heavily by its own Altspeed, like Landorus-Therian, or have a bad type matchup, like Solgaleo and Kartana.

reasons not to suspect: easy to chip down, can often lack power vs bulkier targets like Sablenite Hippowdon and Manectite Slowbro, is Intimidate pivot-able after Mega Evolution

So, with that in mind, how do you deal with Entei? The aforementioned Slowbro and Mew are both still fantastic answers to it, as long as you can force Entei to mega early, allowing it to get around Intimidate pivots. Niche picks like Sablenite Hippowdon and physically defensive Eternatus are also great stopgaps. Pivoting around with resistances to 3 of the moves like Ho-Oh and Manectite Magearna can also work to dampen the effectiveness of Entei's lategame potential; although it requires some dancing, soft answers like this very much can help against Entei. Milotic can also fake being an answer, as although it is 2HKOd by Double-Edge, it is only a range, and still threatens Entei heavily if it switches into any of its other moves. More soft answers like Groudon, Rhyperior and Landorus-Therian all hate burns, but can immediately OHKO Entei and possibly tank 2 Double-Edges dependent on the spread. And if you really want to shut the dog down, Banettite Toxapex can be used as a catch-all answer to Entei. The viability of Banettite Toxapex builds are questionable, but being able to hold off Entei and Eternatus at least semi-reliably is a win in my book.

So, how do I feel about all of these Pokemon that I'm mentioning myself? Well, I don't really think any of them are broken, but if I were to have to ban any on this list, I'd probably say Eternatus or Entei due to how they can suffocate offensive structures. I do not think they put enough of a bind on them, and don't really stand out compared to other Pokemon previously considered suffocating like Zygarde and Solgaleo, but they are irritating enough to at least warrant a suspect if given enough demand.

Additionally, I feel it's worth explaining some new (and maybe, old) Pokemon that I've started using as a result of the metagame changes. Some of these Pokemon were already good anyway, it just took me a while to figure out that they're useful!

:zapdos:
Zapdos @ Cameruptite
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 176 HP / 176 SpA / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Thunder Wave


Zapdos is a mon you may have seen this month as a breaker that can deal with MiloMag + Ground cores and I think it's an absolute monster. Without Blissey, Zapdos is actually an exceedingly tough Pokemon to switch into, being able to deal upwards of 80% to offensive Eternatus, 90% to Groudon (if Hurricane hits) and 2HKOing practically every defensive Ground-type in the metagame, even Zygarde-C! (176+ SpA Sheer Force Zapdos Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 306-361 (48.1 - 56.7%) -- 37.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery) Recently, I've been trying out a more bulky spread that is capable of taking a bit more punishment from the likes of Ho-Oh, letting it stay alive for longer and spend less time using Roost.

:zekrom:
Zekrom @ Life Orb
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Bolt Strike
- Dragon Dance
- Roost


Speaking of answers to Zapdos, this is probably my least viable Pokemon I'm listing here, but the one that answers Zapdos the best. Zekrom is very similar to Zapdos in that it's a breaker of MiloMag cores, but in comparison it breaks fairly slowly and has issues with being revenge killed by Altspeed, making Dragon Dance a move that it will rarely sweep with, but rather a move that makes prediction easier and exploits chipped Ground-types / Eternatus. Its defensive typing also provides an interesting niche, with it being able to switch into some bulky offense picks like Heatran, Pinsirite Magearna and Magnezone. If the Electric metagame is worrying you, try Zekrom out; it's a different spin on the breakers that prey on MiloMag.

:yveltal:
Yveltal @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 188 Def / 72 SpD
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog


Usually I'm quite negative about defensive Dark-types in Mix and Mega; they usually have a terrible type matchup against the metagame as a whole. However, I've recently been trying out defensive Yveltal, and I have been impressed so far. Yveltal is capable of checking various troublesome breakers like Kartana, Solgaleo, Lunala, and Groudon, and is also difficult to offensively exploit, with most offensive switchins taking considerable damage from Foul Play, or other switchins losing momentum from U-turn. This mon works quite well as a balance glue, also being capable of filling in the Defog slot that I find a struggle to fit.

:lunala:
Lunala @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Shadow Shield
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Night Shade / Will-O-Wisp
- Roost
- Defog


Whilst I do dislike defensive Lunala's passivity, I also do feel like Lunala is a slot worth considering on bulky builds as the Defogger, like Yveltal. Some useful traits about Lunala is that it's also a Ground-type check that doesn't use any intrusive stones like Sablenite or Manectite, allowing you to use Sablenite on another slot like Hippowdon or Mew. Additionally, the massive initial bulk that Lunala has allows it to severely cripple offense just by sitting on some mons like Genesect, as they are unable to hit Lunala hard enough due to its unique typing.

:slowking-galar:
Slowking-Galar @ Cameruptite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic / Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower / Scald
- Nasty Plot / Calm Mind
- Slack Off


So, you may have seen that in this list I mention a lot of Cameruptite Slowking-Galar; yet very few people have been using the mon. This is because I really do think that Slowking-Galar is in right now and has a lot of good reasons to be used, including checking those threats mentioned. Slowking-Galar is a really deadly force to defensive cores - it can force a high amount of initial damage and is a difficult mon to KO on the special side or approach on its vulnerable side with an attacker like Groudon, as it is significantly slower than almost every pivot in the metagame, and is capable of dealing significant damage on the switchin even unboosted. Despite this, the fact that it even has boosting makes it 3x as threatening, and against teams without a sufficient bulky pivot, it can simply just win on preview by being annoyingly difficult to OHKO without putting yourself at risk from being OHKOd by it.

:hippowdon:
Hippowdon @ Sablenite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Facade / Rock Slide
- Curse
- Slack Off


Sablenite Hippowdon is probably my favourite bouncer on balance right now. No; it isn't because it's exactly perfect at Magic Bounce - note that the two most common Stealth Rock users that aren't Mold Breaker users, Groudon and Rhyperior, are capable of forcing their way through Hippowdon pretty easily, at the exchange of some HP. The reason I like Hippowdon on balance right now is because it's a difficult setup user to break through, and something that tends to be very difficult to force out, even with Pokemon like Eternatus running amok. Additionally, Hippowdon has a bit of a better matchup vs the Electric-type wallbreakers right now, being able to take Hurricanes from Zapdos marginally better than other Ground-types, and being able to pivot into Magnezone and Magearna a bit more safely, as its access to reliable recovery as well as greater Special Defense means it is capable of recovering easier from dealing with these breakers as a stopgap to its Curse sweeping.

:tapu bulu:
Tapu Bulu @ Metagrossite / Aerodactylite
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly / Adamant Nature
- Horn Leech
- Stone Edge
- High Horsepower
- Swords Dance


Since I'm out of the MnM Open, I figured I'd reveal the secret tech to you. Tapu Bulu is an interesting form of breaker - you'd think at first it's pretty much outclassed by Kartana at the moment, but its access to EdgeQuake coverage makes it significantly better at handling the metagame's Grass resists. Ho-Oh and Eternatus hate fighting this mon compared to its Ultra Beast brethren, Kartana, and given how ridiculously common these two Pokemon are, the fact that Tapu Bulu can almost immediately get rid of these two targets makes it an arguably better breaker at the moment. It is also more reliable at switching into Ground-types and breaks the MagMilo core much faster than Kartana does, giving it more opportunities to harass common builds. Do note that switching to Aerodactylite will lose you the Groudon matchup, as Metagrossite adds a large amount of weight, allowing it to take Heat Crash easier.

:buzzwole:
Buzzwole @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- Leech Life


Ever wished you wanted Urshifu-S back? Wanted a Fighting-type breaker that could just wreck things out of the gate? Well, Aerodactylite Buzzwole is at least an attempt at trying to clone that feeling. Whilst its switchins are not the easiest to find, mostly because Ground-types tend to punish switchins better than other Pokemon, Buzzwole does have the strength to 2HKO a very large portion of the metagame, with its counters basically being limited to some defensive Eternatus, Xerneas, Manectite Magearna, Entei... and itself.

:tapu koko:
Tapu Koko @ Manectite
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 32 SpA / 192 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- Calm Mind
- Roost


To tell you the truth, this is a mon I've been trying to make work for a while. The issues plaguing it are fairly evident - it's not exactly the bulkiest thing ever, meaning it's taking pretty heavy damage from generic Scalds, it's not super strong, only being barely able to 2HKO Ho-Oh, and does pretty light damage to Ground-types... yet it's been the one mon I've continued to try to make work time and time again, hoping that I can at least show off its utility as a fast utility setup user on really bulky builds. Thanks to Slowking-Galar, however, I think I've found this composition. Slowking-Galar likes to punish Koko's best switchins and pressures Ground-types simultaneously, allowing both of them to make a tag team duo in terms of long-term breaking. Koko is able to force out bulky SpDef walls like Milotic, Ho-Oh and Ampharosite Blissey, whilst Slowking-Galar is capable of exploiting switchins like Eternatus to help Tapu Koko make progress.

Ending this post, I'd like to talk about the progress on the Pidgeotite suspect. Due to a change in leadership in the middle of planning, and a change in the metagame, resulting in more Electric-types and therefore Thunder / Zap Cannon abusers, it is unlikely action on Pidgeotite will be taken at the moment. Whilst this is unfortunate, I do feel like not taking action on Pidgeotite and suspecting our currently borderline Pokemon first is the approach that should be taken. The metagame is in an ever evolving state and to potentially tip the balance over now is a short sighted move in my opinion.

Finally, here's a selection of some of the teams I've used post-Open, and my current personal VR.
Viability ranking ranked alphabetically, sans the A ranks, which are ranked in order.

S Rank

:Magearna:Magearna [Manectite, Pinsirite, Venusaurite, Latiasite]

A Rank

A+

:Entei:Entei [Altarianite]
:Eternatus:Eternatus [Life Orb, Rocky Helmet, Black Sludge, Power Herb, Metronome]
:Regieleki:Regieleki [Altarianite, Glalitite, Light Clay]

A

:Milotic:Milotic [Sablenite, Slowbronite]
:Ho-Oh:Ho-Oh [Heavy-Duty Boots, Choice Band]
:Blissey:Blissey [Ampharosite, Sablenite]
:groudon:Groudon [Leftovers, Lum Berry, Life Orb]
:Solgaleo:Solgaleo [Metagrossite, Aerodactylite, Slowbronite]
:Slowbro:Slowbro [Sablenite, Manectite, Cameruptite]
:Mew:Mew [Manectite, Sablenite, Ampharosite]

A-

:Kartana:Kartana [Metagrossite]
:Landorus-Therian:Landorus-Therian [Salamencite]
:Heatran:Heatran [Ampharosite, Charizardite Y]
:Zygarde:Zygarde [Altarianite, Heracronite, Lucarionite]
:Lunala:Lunala [Power Herb, Heavy-Duty Boots, Leftovers]
:Magnezone:Magnezone [Lucarionite, Diancite]
:Zapdos:Zapdos [Cameruptite]

B Rank

B+

:buzzwole:Buzzwole [Metagrossite, Aerodactylite, Venusaurite]
:Genesect:Genesect [Cameruptite, Altarianite]
:Hippowdon:Hippowdon [Sablenite]
:Hydreigon:Hydreigon [Blastoisinite]
:Rhyperior:Rhyperior [Tyranitarite]
:Swampert:Swampert [Sablenite]
:Xerneas:Xerneas [Power Herb]
:zapdos-galar:Zapdos-Galar [Aerodactylite, Metagrossite]
:zygarde-complete: Zygarde-Complete [Leftovers, Rocky Helmet]

B

:Corviknight:Corviknight [Venusaurite, Sablenite, Salamencite]
:dragapult:Dragapult [Lucarionite]
:Dragonite:Dragonite [Altarianite, Salamencite, Pinsirite]
:kyurem:Kyurem [Heracronite]
:Slowking-Galar:Slowking-Galar [Aggronite, Cameruptite]
:Tyranitar:Tyranitar [Heracronite, Pinsirite]
:yveltal:Yveltal [Heavy-Duty Boots, Choice Specs]
:Zeraora:Zeraora [Lopunnite]

B-

:Arcanine:Arcanine [Altarianite]
:Excadrill:Excadrill [Glalitite, Latiosite, Venusaurite]
:Shuckle:Shuckle [Gyaradosite, Ampharosite]
:skarmory:Skarmory [Gyaradosite, Ampharosite]
:Toxapex:Toxapex [Banettite]
:Victini:Victini [Aerodactylite, Banettite, Lucarionite, Charizardite Y]
:zamazenta:Zamazenta [Aerodactylite, Lopunnite]

C rank

:urshifu:Urshifu [Choice Band]
:Mandibuzz:Mandibuzz [Sablenite]
:Terrakion:Terrakion [Lopunnite, Lucarionite, Tyranitarite]
:marshadow:Marshadow [Choice Band]
:Tapu Koko:Tapu Koko [Manectite]
:spectrier:Spectrier [Lucarionite, Manectite]
:Weavile:Weavile [Scizorite]


Until the next post

- Lydia
 

iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
hello everybody!

in this post im gonna be sharing all the teams i used during open, explaining a bit of my thought process when building, sharing replays and finally giving my thoughts on the meta atm to kind of follow up on chazm's post and give my own thoughts.

Round 1:
:eternatus::zygarde::magearna::milotic::heatran::zapdos-galar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1496428937-zf2ri87pq5dyepxn1jooi63p4tqdrbhpw
im pretty sure this team was stolen from chazm and just dropped shifu for gapdos but its still a very solid team. its a little bit on the slower side, but espeed on zyg and twave support from mage ease that a bit. etern provides a long lived attacker that can spread poisons and make it easier to beat physdef mons in the long run. zyg is sort of your speed control and can be a good hooh lure with stone edge. milo, mage, and heatran form our defensive core that is pretty solid at taking hits from most things in the tier together. gapdos is a strong breaker with broken tkick really making it easier to click and not having to worry about predictions as much. a little on the slower side, but with proper play that can be remedied, overall one of the more solid teams that i have in here imo.

:swampert::magearna::entei::kartana::eternatus::zapdos-galar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1496434335-w0so9wvsleqg5ni8h0x4b2xchki68kepw
on a more offensive team like this, pert and mage form a pretty solid core that can eat a good amount of hits and pivot around for our breakers. pert provides a bouncer, rocks and even forces switches with yawn. mage gives good support with twave and gknot to ease the groudon mu a bit. kart entei and gapdos can all overwhelm shared checks making it much easier for each of them to win in the later game. team is a little on the frailer side but it does get the job done.

Round 2:
to preface this round, these were some of the most fun games ive played in mnm, and not just because i won, it was awesome to play beauts and im sorry i knocked you out but also happy i won lol. anyways

:eternatus::zygarde::magearna::milotic::heatran::zapdos-galar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1498814129
Same team as g1 above, very solid team that as i said, does struggle with ada aero solg which was a good bring from beauts. yveltal was a bit annoying for me but once i got zyg in and mega'd it became more handle-able. i thought this team was really interesting and the magneton honestly mightve worked if i was less speed on zyg.

:eternatus::magnezone::solgaleo::groudon::milotic::entei:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1498817377
once again, this team is fairly self explanatory, use zone to deal with the fat waters and hooh so that solg and entei can clean up. obviously this did not work out great for me, def could've played around the bro better, as it shouldn't be a huge annoyance for this team but i managed by mons badly and it ended up definitely being one. This team is a bit more offensive and doesn't have super great counterplay for some special attackers.

:shuckle::lunala::magearna::entei::zygarde::groudon:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1498822358
this was probably my favorite team for this series. i built it kinda late at night with UT stupid checking me bc i wanted to bring cam zap + groudon lol. i was trying to take advantage of the fact that beauts has said that they arent a huge fan of eleki rn, but it ended up being brought anyways, but it all worked out fine for me. lunala is a super cool special attacker that honestly doesn't have many walls rn. the groundspam bit was to take advantage of the fact that their aren't a ton of good flyings rn and none of them want to come into zyg, especially luc. LO groudon is cool on webs and has a pretty crazy damage output and entei is just there to clean. i normally hate magearna but i was scrolling through builder and trying to think of a 6th and saw mage. was initially gonna go with cm tri attack but ended up switching to LR because it seemed better and UT said he approved. this was a really fun team i think, probably not an optimal team overall but it did well enough here.

Round 3:
:eternatus::zygarde::magearna::milotic::heatran::zapdos-galar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1503993496-ojjfghfhkdj4n4oc6z56tpsmrb9ub13pw
Same team as the other g1s, nm to say here

:swampert::magearna::entei::kartana::eternatus::zapdos-galar:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1503995272-uzxcxx3pettuhe47qa8zko07omq3quspw
Same team as i brought g2 of r1, got lucky that my zapdos was jolly not adamant, this was a cool bring from DuGuo ngl, a qways team from w1 of ompl, and a well played game too, zarude was p scary especially on doubles

For r4, i brought the same teams as all the other g1's and the webs team from the beauts series.
wouldve liked to have maybe gotten a bit further but hey ill take what i can get, especially considering i didnt think i would get pasr round 2.

Now, onto some thoughts on some of the mons in the metagame. im gonna try to avoid covering the same mons that chazm covered, although i did wanna give my piece about etern and genesect.

:eternatus:- i think everyone that has played even a little bit of mnm in the past month or so can agree that eternatus is incredibly powerful. It has very good bulk for an offensive mon, great speed tier, can be EV'd to fulfill its needs and the needs of the team. Has pretty decent STABs considering it comes with flamethrower and can use that free 4th slot to last a long time. Now, this list of eternatus' virtues leads to the question: Is Eternatus broken? at this very second that i am writing this, probably a bit before this post actually goes up, i am leaning towards yes. its ability to get past its checks through poisons, which are fairly easy to just fish for on stuff like hooh and milo can basically invalidate them as checks. not that eternatus does not have any counterplay, because it certainly does. It cannot deal significant immediate damage to pre-mega heatran and pre-mega blissey can switch out to get rid of poisons. Metagrossite solgaleo can force out eternatus as it is rarely at full health due to life orb. Manectite mage can survive one flamethrower and paralyze it, significantly lowering the threat level. Despite this counterplay, it is not available all of the time, and may not be present at all in some games. Eternatus' ability to beat its checks through status fishing or to outlast them and finish them off after its teammates have dealt enough damage make eternatus very difficult to deal with in both the builder and in game have me leaning towards believing that eternatus is broken.

:genesect:- genesect has been the subject of some scrutiny from community members lately. In this replay, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8mixandmega-1506460036-aijjekf0g914ii7ltjgy95zoui5dcvcpw, Ren vs hybone mnm r4 (srry ren :( ), we see genesect lead off and get two immediate KOs on the the defensive backbone of Ren's team, making the game very difficult past that. it having boltbeam coverage and the option to mix up the 4th move make it a very dangerous pokemon. while atm i do not believe genesect to be broken, i do believe that it could be considered unhealthy by essentially mandating heatran and blissey onto balances as to not have a massive hole punched into them. I am not so concrete on genesect being broken/unhealthy compared to eternatus but there is undoubtedly an argument to be made.

Moving past the potentially broken mons:

:zapdos-galar:- this birdie seems to have stepped up and filled the shoes of the big fightings fairly well, making great use of its signature move to help beat its switchins handily. its drawback is that it has less bulk than urshifu-rs and its stabs both make it easier to revenge kill for things like entei and regieleki. it has an interesting pre mega ability of defiant, meaning that pre-mega landorus or any manectite user cannot switch safely into it when it has first entered the field. it is pretty easy to revenge kill it, but it is very difficult to stop once its going. pairing this guy with a strong cleaner like entei, zygarde or eleki is great bc of its ability to punch huge holes into teams and not really allowing them to recover from it easily.

:zapdos:- galarian zapdos' kantonian sibling has made a return to mnm in a big way, landing at B+ on the VR. with cameruptite, there is not much that can safely switch into it barring stuff like rhyperior and groudon users that pray u dont land hurricane in sun. its weakness to rocks makes it require good hazard removal but it can use roost to last longer than expected in games, utilizing its surprisingly effective 90/115/120 bulk to recover hp and to KO unsuspecting offensive mons. hurricane is an absolute nuke to a lot of mons and tbolt is pretty spammable into a lot of teams. thunder wave, heatwave or even agility can be used in the 4th slot to cripple possible switchins like etern or solgaleo, heat wave to nail steels like mage and agility to let it outspeed basically the entire unboosted meta.

:entei:- this guy sorta flew under the radar for a while but has made a resurgence as a powerful cleaner and early game breaker. the loss of the big fightings has made life easier for the bulky waters, at least for the moment, which has made life harder for entei. despite this, it definitely has a fairly sizable niche on offensive and more balanced teams alike. its immunity to intimidate on its pre mega makes it able to deal good damage to things like manec mew and base lando switching in, and on the next turn as well. not as much to write about this guy, solid mon overall that probably deserves a little bit more attention.

:zygarde:- zygarde has long been a very prominent mon in the tier, with both its complete and its 50% mega evolving forms. With urshifu and pheromosa leaving the tier, zygarde complete has not seen as much usage. Lucarionite and Altarianite are both formidable offensive threats, one being a terrifying wallbreaker, the other being a powerful and effective late game cleaner. i would say that both of these stones are about the same level in the current meta, hovering in high A- on the VR. zygarde makes a strong duo with magnezone, using its ability to take out the bulky physically defensive mons to open the way for zygarde to sweep or to have its breaking continue uninterrupted. if the stone that you are using on zygarde is not easily discernible from team preview, this adds an extra layer to zygarde's strength, a factor of unpredicatability. for example, manectite magearna can comfortably switch into alt zygarde, but never wants to switch into lucarionite zygarde. each set has some interesting options, with both being able to run coil, luc being able to run outrage, espeed, sub or even pain split in the last 2 slots, and alt having flexibility between stone edge and facade. additionally, zyg can run the less explored heracronite set, which certainly looks effective on paper but i have to try in practice.

:groudon:- groudon is one of the best mons in the tier and almost certainly the best ground type in the tier atm. Can set rocks, is a potent eleki check, great offensive mon in its own right. swords dance makes it very difficult to switch into and it can stay surprisingly healthy through leftovers. Your best chances to outright beat it are manec mew with ice beam and offensive meta buzzwole, otherwise, pivoting around it can work but that cycle can be cut short. Groudon has many good matchups and rarely any matchups where it cannot make any progress.

:lunala:- lunala has seen a bit of a resurgence in usage and its offensive power herb sets are very threatening as they often have coverage for almost anything u can throw at it. ice beam for dragons + groudon, focus blast blissey, pre mega heatran and magnezone, moongeist hits so much for strong neutral damage, and meteor beam to boost against many things. U can also run roost for recovery, or psyshock to bop etern. lunala's got pretty good bulk even uninvested especially with shadow shield. fits well on a lot of offensive teams that like its abiltiy to pressure stuff like hooh and slowbro. I think it has a great niche on webs teams as a defog deterrent considering our best defogger is hooh rn. cm roost and bulkier sets can certainly have their niches but are generally outclassed by more offensive sets imo.

Now, I'm gonna follow chazm and make a personal VR up until B+ here.

In order of viability
S Rank
:Magearna:Magearna [Manectite, Pinsirite, Venusaurite, Latiasite]

A Rank
A+
:eternatus:Eternatus [Life Orb, Black Sludge, Power Herb]
:regieleki:Regielek [Altarianite, Light Clay, Glalitite]
:entei:Entei [Altarianite]
:groudon:Groudon [Leftovers, Life Orb, Lum Berry]

A
:milotic:Milotic [Sablenite, Slowbronite]
:solgaleo:Solgaleo [Metagrossite, Aerodactylite, Venusaurite]
:ho-oh: Ho-Oh [Heavy-Duty Boots, Choice Band]
:slowbro:Slowbro [Sablenite, Manectite]
:mew:Mew [Manctite, Sablenite, Gyaradosite]
:zygarde: [Altarianite, Lucarionite, Heracronite]

A-
:heatran:Heatran [Ampharosite, Charizardite Y, Latiasite]
:blissey:Blissey [Ampharosite, Sablenite]
:zapdos-galar:Zapdos-Galar [Aerodactylite, Metagrossite]
:lunala:Lunala [Power Herb, Leftovers, Heavy-Duty Boots]
:landorus-therian:Landorus-Therian [Salamencite]
:kartana:Kartana [Metagrossite]
:magnezone:Magnezone [Lucarionite, Diancite]
:zapdos:Zapdos [Cameruptite]

B Rank
B+
:genesect:Genesect [Cameruptite]
:rhyperior:Rhyperior [Tyranitarite]
:buzzwole:Buzzwole [Metagrossite, Aerodactylite, Venusaurite]
:xerneas:Xerneas [Power Herb]
:swampert:Swampert [Sablenite]
:hydreigon:Hydreigon [Blastoisinite, Absolite]

Thanks for reading, hoping it was semi-coherent! Any questions, comments or citicisms, feel free to post here or on discord. Ill be posting the teams from above in the Bazaar thread along with some other teams i built at a later date. Also, some of this stuff may be a little disconnected started this post a couple weeks ago and have stopped and started and rewritten stuff multiple times. Have a good day :)
 

iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Hello everybody (again)! With the Mix and Mega Open completed, congrats to Quantum Tesseract, I am going to be posting usage for each round of the tour and cumulative usage, as well as making some brief observations about the implications of the statistics. so here's all the usage, everything is spoilered so it doesnt take up too much space

The Mix and Mega Open: Cumulative Usage

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Regieleki          |   44 |  44.00% |  52.27% |
| 2    | Magearna           |   43 |  43.00% |  58.14% |
| 3    | Entei              |   41 |  41.00% |  56.10% |
| 4    | Zygarde            |   34 |  34.00% |  38.24% |
| 5    | Solgaleo           |   33 |  33.00% |  45.45% |
| 6    | Eternatus          |   28 |  28.00% |  60.71% |
| 7    | Milotic            |   27 |  27.00% |  59.26% |
| 8    | Landorus-Therian   |   24 |  24.00% |  45.83% |
| 9    | Slowbro            |   23 |  23.00% |  39.13% |
| 10   | Blissey            |   22 |  22.00% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Ho-Oh              |   21 |  21.00% |  52.38% |
| 11   | Groudon            |   21 |  21.00% |  42.86% |
| 13   | Lunala             |   19 |  19.00% |  47.37% |
| 13   | Zapdos-Galar       |   19 |  19.00% |  47.37% |
| 15   | Heatran            |   15 |  15.00% |  66.67% |
| 15   | Swampert           |   15 |  15.00% |  53.33% |
| 17   | Mew                |   14 |  14.00% |  64.29% |
| 18   | Kartana            |   13 |  13.00% |  53.85% |
| 19   | Genesect           |   12 |  12.00% |  58.33% |
| 20   | Rhyperior          |   11 |  11.00% |  63.64% |
| 20   | Yveltal            |   11 |  11.00% |  54.55% |
| 22   | Slowking-Galar     |    9 |   9.00% |  33.33% |
| 23   | Hippowdon          |    8 |   8.00% |  75.00% |
| 23   | Kyurem             |    8 |   8.00% |  62.50% |
| 23   | Zeraora            |    8 |   8.00% |  25.00% |
| 26   | Magnezone          |    7 |   7.00% |  71.43% |
| 26   | Xerneas-*          |    7 |   7.00% |  71.43% |
| 28   | Zapdos             |    6 |   6.00% |  33.33% |
| 29   | Dragonite          |    5 |   5.00% |  80.00% |
| 29   | Shuckle            |    5 |   5.00% |  60.00% |
| 29   | Mandibuzz          |    5 |   5.00% |  20.00% |
| 32   | Victini            |    4 |   4.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Toxapex            |    4 |   4.00% |  50.00% |
| 34   | Buzzwole           |    3 |   3.00% |  33.33% |
| 34   | Tyranitar          |    3 |   3.00% |  33.33% |
| 34   | Spectrier          |    3 |   3.00% |   0.00% |
| 34   | Weavile            |    3 |   3.00% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Dragapult          |    2 |   2.00% | 100.00% |
| 38   | Calyrex-Ice        |    2 |   2.00% |  50.00% |
| 38   | Hydreigon          |    2 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
| 38   | Terrakion          |    2 |   2.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Zekrom             |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Arcanine           |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Excadrill          |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Golisopod          |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Corviknight        |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ditto              |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Gastrodon          |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Zarude             |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Magneton           |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Registeel          |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Togekiss           |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Ferrothorn         |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Giratina           |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
| 42   | Vaporeon           |    1 |   1.00% |   0.00% |
The Mix and Mega Open: Round 1

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Entei              |   10 |  62.50% |  50.00% |
| 2    | Zygarde            |    9 |  56.25% |  44.44% |
| 3    | Regieleki          |    8 |  50.00% |  62.50% |
| 4    | Landorus-Therian   |    6 |  37.50% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Solgaleo           |    6 |  37.50% |  16.67% |
| 6    | Magearna           |    5 |  31.25% |  60.00% |
| 7    | Eternatus          |    4 |  25.00% |  75.00% |
| 7    | Milotic            |    4 |  25.00% |  75.00% |
| 9    | Zapdos-Galar       |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 9    | Shuckle            |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 9    | Lunala             |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 9    | Ho-Oh              |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 9    | Zeraora            |    3 |  18.75% |   0.00% |
| 14   | Swampert           |    2 |  12.50% | 100.00% |
| 14   | Magnezone          |    2 |  12.50% | 100.00% |
| 14   | Mew                |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Rhyperior          |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Groudon            |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Genesect           |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Spectrier          |    2 |  12.50% |   0.00% |
| 14   | Weavile            |    2 |  12.50% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Heatran            |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Kartana            |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Xerneas-*          |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Kyurem             |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Calyrex-Ice        |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Togekiss           |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Ferrothorn         |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Tyranitar          |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Giratina           |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Slowbro            |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Blissey            |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Vaporeon           |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Terrakion          |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
The Mix and Mega Open: Round 2

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Groudon            |    7 |  58.33% |  42.86% |
| 2    | Entei              |    6 |  50.00% |  66.67% |
| 2    | Milotic            |    6 |  50.00% |  33.33% |
| 4    | Ho-Oh              |    4 |  33.33% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Heatran            |    4 |  33.33% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Magearna           |    4 |  33.33% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Eternatus          |    4 |  33.33% |  25.00% |
| 8    | Kartana            |    3 |  25.00% |  66.67% |
| 8    | Slowbro            |    3 |  25.00% |  66.67% |
| 8    | Regieleki          |    3 |  25.00% |  66.67% |
| 8    | Zygarde            |    3 |  25.00% |  66.67% |
| 8    | Landorus-Therian   |    3 |  25.00% |  33.33% |
| 8    | Zapdos-Galar       |    3 |  25.00% |  33.33% |
| 14   | Kyurem             |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Yveltal            |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Magnezone          |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Lunala             |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 14   | Solgaleo           |    2 |  16.67% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Swampert           |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Genesect           |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Xerneas-*          |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Toxapex            |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Dragapult          |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Shuckle            |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Spectrier          |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Blissey            |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Magneton           |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
The Mix and Mega Open: Round 3

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Regieleki          |    8 |  66.67% |  50.00% |
| 2    | Solgaleo           |    6 |  50.00% |  33.33% |
| 3    | Magearna           |    5 |  41.67% |  80.00% |
| 3    | Slowbro            |    5 |  41.67% |  60.00% |
| 3    | Zygarde            |    5 |  41.67% |  60.00% |
| 6    | Ho-Oh              |    4 |  33.33% |  75.00% |
| 6    | Entei              |    4 |  33.33% |  25.00% |
| 8    | Eternatus          |    3 |  25.00% | 100.00% |
| 8    | Zapdos-Galar       |    3 |  25.00% |  66.67% |
| 8    | Groudon            |    3 |  25.00% |   0.00% |
| 11   | Rhyperior          |    2 |  16.67% | 100.00% |
| 11   | Blissey            |    2 |  16.67% | 100.00% |
| 11   | Yveltal            |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Kartana            |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Mew                |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Heatran            |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Swampert           |    2 |  16.67% |  50.00% |
| 11   | Kyurem             |    2 |  16.67% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Slowking-Galar     |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Milotic            |    1 |   8.33% | 100.00% |
| 19   | Mandibuzz          |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Gastrodon          |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Zapdos             |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Hydreigon          |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Terrakion          |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Landorus-Therian   |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Zeraora            |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
| 19   | Zarude             |    1 |   8.33% |   0.00% |
The Mix and Mega Open: Round 4

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Magearna           |   13 |  59.09% |  46.15% |
| 2    | Regieleki          |   10 |  45.45% |  40.00% |
| 3    | Milotic            |    8 |  36.36% |  75.00% |
| 3    | Eternatus          |    8 |  36.36% |  62.50% |
| 5    | Solgaleo           |    7 |  31.82% |  71.43% |
| 5    | Zygarde            |    7 |  31.82% |  14.29% |
| 7    | Entei              |    6 |  27.27% |  83.33% |
| 7    | Groudon            |    6 |  27.27% |  50.00% |
| 7    | Blissey            |    6 |  27.27% |  33.33% |
| 7    | Slowbro            |    6 |  27.27% |  16.67% |
| 11   | Zapdos-Galar       |    5 |  22.73% |  60.00% |
| 11   | Ho-Oh              |    5 |  22.73% |  20.00% |
| 13   | Genesect           |    4 |  18.18% |  75.00% |
| 13   | Landorus-Therian   |    4 |  18.18% |  75.00% |
| 13   | Swampert           |    4 |  18.18% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Rhyperior          |    3 |  13.64% |  66.67% |
| 16   | Heatran            |    3 |  13.64% |  66.67% |
| 16   | Xerneas-*          |    3 |  13.64% |  66.67% |
| 16   | Yveltal            |    3 |  13.64% |  66.67% |
| 16   | Lunala             |    3 |  13.64% |  33.33% |
| 16   | Slowking-Galar     |    3 |  13.64% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Kartana            |    2 |   9.09% |  50.00% |
| 22   | Toxapex            |    2 |   9.09% |   0.00% |
| 24   | Kyurem             |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Magnezone          |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Mew                |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Dragonite          |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Hippowdon          |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Zeraora            |    1 |   4.55% | 100.00% |
| 24   | Buzzwole           |    1 |   4.55% |   0.00% |
| 24   | Golisopod          |    1 |   4.55% |   0.00% |
| 24   | Shuckle            |    1 |   4.55% |   0.00% |
| 24   | Corviknight        |    1 |   4.55% |   0.00% |
| 24   | Ditto              |    1 |   4.55% |   0.00% |
Mix and Mega Open: Semifinals

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Magearna           |   10 |  55.56% |  50.00% |
| 2    | Regieleki          |    8 |  44.44% |  50.00% |
| 3    | Entei              |    7 |  38.89% |  42.86% |
| 4    | Mew                |    6 |  33.33% |  66.67% |
| 4    | Eternatus          |    6 |  33.33% |  50.00% |
| 6    | Solgaleo           |    5 |  27.78% |  80.00% |
| 6    | Zygarde            |    5 |  27.78% |  20.00% |
| 8    | Heatran            |    4 |  22.22% |  75.00% |
| 8    | Blissey            |    4 |  22.22% |  75.00% |
| 8    | Kartana            |    4 |  22.22% |  50.00% |
| 8    | Milotic            |    4 |  22.22% |  50.00% |
| 8    | Swampert           |    4 |  22.22% |  25.00% |
| 8    | Zapdos-Galar       |    4 |  22.22% |  25.00% |
| 14   | Hippowdon          |    3 |  16.67% | 100.00% |
| 14   | Landorus-Therian   |    3 |  16.67% |  66.67% |
| 14   | Ho-Oh              |    3 |  16.67% |  66.67% |
| 14   | Yveltal            |    3 |  16.67% |  66.67% |
| 14   | Lunala             |    3 |  16.67% |  33.33% |
| 14   | Genesect           |    3 |  16.67% |  33.33% |
| 20   | Zeraora            |    2 |  11.11% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Magnezone          |    2 |  11.11% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Slowking-Galar     |    2 |  11.11% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Tyranitar          |    2 |  11.11% |  50.00% |
| 20   | Slowbro            |    2 |  11.11% |   0.00% |
| 20   | Rhyperior          |    2 |  11.11% |   0.00% |
| 26   | Zapdos             |    1 |   5.56% | 100.00% |
| 26   | Groudon            |    1 |   5.56% | 100.00% |
| 26   | Dragonite          |    1 |   5.56% | 100.00% |
| 26   | Buzzwole           |    1 |   5.56% |   0.00% |
| 26   | Calyrex-Ice        |    1 |   5.56% |   0.00% |
| 26   | Xerneas-*          |    1 |   5.56% |   0.00% |
| 26   | Mandibuzz          |    1 |   5.56% |   0.00% |
The Mix and Mega Open: Finals

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Blissey            |    8 |  50.00% |  50.00% |
| 2    | Entei              |    6 |  37.50% |  66.67% |
| 2    | Lunala             |    6 |  37.50% |  50.00% |
| 2    | Solgaleo           |    6 |  37.50% |  33.33% |
| 5    | Magearna           |    5 |  31.25% |  80.00% |
| 5    | Regieleki          |    5 |  31.25% |  60.00% |
| 5    | Slowbro            |    5 |  31.25% |  40.00% |
| 5    | Landorus-Therian   |    5 |  31.25% |  40.00% |
| 5    | Zygarde            |    5 |  31.25% |  40.00% |
| 10   | Victini            |    4 |  25.00% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Hippowdon          |    4 |  25.00% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Milotic            |    4 |  25.00% |  50.00% |
| 10   | Zapdos             |    4 |  25.00% |  25.00% |
| 14   | Mew                |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 14   | Eternatus          |    3 |  18.75% |  66.67% |
| 16   | Slowking-Galar     |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Groudon            |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Genesect           |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Dragonite          |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Mandibuzz          |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 16   | Swampert           |    2 |  12.50% |  50.00% |
| 22   | Dragapult          |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Heatran            |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Kyurem             |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Xerneas-*          |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Buzzwole           |    1 |   6.25% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Zekrom             |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Yveltal            |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Arcanine           |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Excadrill          |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Zapdos-Galar       |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |
| 22   | Hydreigon          |    1 |   6.25% |   0.00% |

Some observations:
:heatran: -this guy had one of the highest winrates in the tour, and the highest winrate of any mon over 10% usage. One of our best rockers, and a decent short-term eternatus check. some common pairings for heatran were with magearna and eternatus, having over 60% and 70% win rate, respectively. Overall, Heatran pairs well with plenty of top mons and was remarkably consistent throughout the tour.
:magearna: and :regieleki: -im gonna lump these two together because they are both excellent pivots and two of the best mons in the tier, expressed by having impressive usage and winrate. they were present in several of the top pairings in the tour.
:eternatus: -etern, currently being suspected (go get reqs if you havent already!!!), had one of the best usage to win rate ratios in the entire tour, and while it was never in doubt that etern was a peak metagame threat, this combination certainly makes it more apparent and noticeable. similarly to eleki and mage, it was present in several of the top duos present in the tour.
:entei: -a mon that has been getting some discussion for being potentially broken had a strong showing during this open, similarly to etern, having a very high usage to win ratio. while this doesnt necessarily mean its broken, it is a solid indicator that it is very strong, and people have expressed interest in seeing an entei suspect. Another top mon during the open, probably not a big surprise to most of us.
:zapdos: and :zapdos-galar: -two of the new kids on the block, i had pretty good confidence in both of them, but they did not have a great showing this open, surprisingly. I am hoping that these two can see some more successful usage in the future, since both seem like very cool mons in the current meta.

Dont wanna put you to sleep, so im gonna end the observations there. Keep in mind that these usage stats were done with all public replays, so the earlier rounds and the cumulative usage may be off, so take this with a grain of salt. I do have cumulative partners, sets and leads so feel free to dm me if ur interested about that stuff. feel free to leave any comments, questions or criticisms here or on discord somehwere. hope this was at least a little bit informative, thanks for reading and have a good day :)
 
Announcements:
Eternatus was suspected and banned from the Mix and Mega metagame with a 75% vote in favor of the measure. Eternatus is no longer permitted in Mix and Mega, regardless of if it holds a mega stone or not. As a top tier, highly versatile and threatening pokemon, this change will end up greatly shaping the metagame to come. As such, we are also pleased to announce a few updates.

The first of the updates is the sample team modernization. As the metagame is currently in somewhat of a state of flux, there will be some further changes in the coming weeks to ensure relevancy, especially as teambuilding shifts to accommodate the reduced need for Eternatus checks, but overall the replacements are all viable modern teams.

The second update is the VR. This change is still in progress, but we're taking into account the way the tier has been effected by the removal of Eternatus and the broader usage trends, particularly from the Mix and Mega Open and OMGS Playoffs. There are also a handful of other things in the pipeline, but none so imminent as this one.

Finally, the manager signups for OMPL X have gone up, so the player sign ups won't be far behind. If you want to participate in the biggest MnM team tournament, be sure to put your name in the hat once the thread goes up next week.
 

iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
gm

im here to talk about electric types, one of which is the mon that i mentioned in my previous post as having a pretty poor showing in the open, but as of late has been surging in popularity, even being featured in this week's OM Matchmaking! This mon is, of course, Kantonian Zapdos.

Using cameruptite's sheer force and its sky high special attack, Zapdos is capable of tearing through common defensive pokemon like slowbro, hooh, and even mew. it even gains access to uturn to be able to pivot on some of its hard counters such as blissey and rhyperior. since it struggles with breaking these kinds of pokemon, teammates like entei, keldeo, and victini are excellent for zapdos, for which you can find reasoning in the matchmaking thread. ill keep this bit short just since you can read about it a little more in the matchmaking thread and maybe submit your own partner for it!

now, the second electric type is another mon that has risen in popularity since the eternatus ban.

:sm/zeraora:
Zeraora @ Lopunnite
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Plasma Fists
- Close Combat
- Volt Switch
- Bulk Up

Zeraora is a very cool mon rn and for the majority of this section ill be addressing lopunnite sets just bc i havent had a chance to use aerodactylite ones. performs as strong speed control when paired with pokemon that can handle extreme speed users such as entei and zygarde. it can act as a potent setup wincon in the late game but has lots of struggles with pokemon like landorus and hippowdon because of their resistance and immunities to both of its stabs and immense natural bulk, respectively. fighting + electric coverage is actually pretty good especially with pivoting and setup. having the ability to maul milobliss cores in a single mon is definitely very attractive, considering that is a very strong defensive core rn, even if it may be falling out of favor post eternatus. the intimidate immunity is very nice vs magearna, although the added fighting type makes it very necessary to be cautious. Zeraora can act as a strong anti offense mon too, being able to offensively check both zapdos forms, keldeo, and kartana if given a safe entry onto the field.

another cool electric to try out is zekrom, its a really cool offensive check to zapdos and can also set up to win or just do lots of damage in the mid game. i dont have as much experience with this guy so i wont be writing much at all about him.

anyways thats all ive got for the moment, just wanted to put some thoughts out there before OMPL starts up. hopefully this post was mostly coherent, apologies if not lmao. good luck to everyone at the draft on saturday and have a good night! :)

PS i didnt forget about eleki or zone or any of the other more well-known electrics, i just wanted to address newer electric types to the scene
 
Mix and Mega is now National Dex
Hello everyone! The Mix and Mega leadership has some great news to share - in accordance with the new OM Policy changes, Mix and Mega will be migrating out of the galar dex to a brand new national dex format. This change has been long anticipated, as the existence of mix and mega in gen 8 was always a bit awkward due to the stones no longer existing in the game. Within the national dex format, however, the core concept of Mix and Mega once again slots into the standard OM framework. With this comes a multitude of changes - the most notable is the return of many previously missing Pokemon, such as Arceus, but with it also comes the return of return, pursuit, refresh, and the like. With these changes, however, the metagame will be vastly shaken up, so to ensure we end up in the optimal end state, there have been some changes to the initial banlist.

Initial Mega Stone Bans: Beedrillite, Kangaskhanite, Gengarite, Medichamite, Mawilite
Other Bans: Calyrex-Shadow, Zacian Crowned, Baton Pass, Electrify, Shadow Tag, Sleep Moves
Initial Restrictions: Arceus, Calyrex-Ice, Deoxys-Attack, Deoxys-Base, Deoxys-Speed, Dialga, Eternatus, Giratina, Giratina-Origin, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Kyurem-Black, Kyurem-White, Lugia, Lunala, Marshadow, Mewtwo, Naganadel, Necrozma-Dawn-Wings, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, Necrozma-Ultra, Palkia, Rayquaza, Regigigas, Reshiram, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zacian, Zekrom, Zygarde-Complete

While Calyrex-S and Zacian-C were judged too disruptive to remain, all other Ubers are to be allowed, at least on an initial trial basis. For those of you worried about the likes of Zacian and Kyogre proving as broken as before, fear not; the mix and mega council will be watching intently and are prepared to take decisive action on quickbans within the first few days to weed out the worst offenders, and further action - be it council or suspect - will follow shortly.
 
hey, im a pretty new face in mnm. so far i've had a ton of fun with the tier, and figured i would post a team to show what i've done. here is the end result:
:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar::ho-oh:
https://pokepast.es/dc3d46ec11de4f2b
big shoutouts to Daylight, since they inspired me to make an mnm team, and im trash rn for testing the team with me. so im gonna stop stalling and go into the teambuilding process

:xerneas:
to start off, i wanted to build a team around non-geomancy xern, since i really like those sets. i experimented with a couple sets on xern. originally i thought i could try scarf, however, it just didnt perform as i expected. with how fast everything in the meta is, its not worth to run a scarfer. so i moved onto the next best thing: what could give me immediate power throughout a game? the obvious answer is specs. moonblast is all that's really needed, and the other moves are just extra coverage that're rarely clicked.

:xerneas::regieleki:
looking at the viability rankings in the resources thread, it was pretty obvious that fairy beats a lot of the tier. but there is one very troublesome target for fairy: ho-oh. so what do i do to beat ho-oh? run regieleki, of course. eleki gives a strong double fairy core that can wear down usual checks like magearna or solgaleo through raw strength. they can tank an espeed and specs moonblast, but they cant tank those repeatedly while getting constantly volt switched on.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon:
actually, magearna and heatran are BIG problems for this team. they just beat my double fairy core endlessly and threaten big damage in return in the early game. so i had to add something that could hit them. groudon was an obvious answer to me, as it also beat spdef ho-oh very reliably thanks to its lum. it always outspeeds and ohkos an ampharosite heatran, too, so it was a great pick for the team.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic:
ok so most of this has been "hey this mon has great synergy, so i should use them," but milotic is an exception. it definitely benefits the team, but i moreso used it because i saw daylight using it on their team and really liked what it did. so i just threw it on since it also handled altarianite entei, one of the biggest threats to this team.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar:
currently, the team is quite solid. but im lacking immediate offensive pressure, and my speed control could use some work. oh sure, eleki can outspeed most things, but it cant ohko most things. gapdos gives me all the coverage i'd need for this team to work offensively. thunderous kick forces tons of switches from even the bulkiest mons like groudon or milotic, and everything else is just your standard gapdos set.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar::ho-oh:
one distinct thing that these 5 didnt give was consistent hazard control. since eleki liked to boom a lot, lategame hazards could be a big problem. xern and lunala were also threats. so the answer to all of these is simple: run ho-oh. with this set, ho-oh can break lunala's shadow shield with sacred fire burns, wall most xern sets with groudon's sun support making thunder 50% accurate, and beat mag 1v1.
now, onto the actual team analysis:
:ss/xerneas:
1-1: HEART OF THE SUNRISE
Shattered Illusion (Xerneas) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt
- Aromatherapy
as i explained earlier, specs xern just really clicks moonblast and not many other moves. with that being said, the other moves certainly can help. offensive variants of ho-oh can outspeed and double burn groudon, making its stone edge not an ohko. aromatherapy fixes this, and also beats all the toxics running around.
:ss/regieleki:
???: THE CYBER GRIND

The Cyber Grind (Regieleki) @ Altarianite
Ability: Transistor
EVs: 252 Atk / 200 SpA / 56 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Volt Switch
- Extreme Speed
- Explosion
- Rapid Spin
this thing has quickly become my favorite mon in the meta. it just does so much for the team; it spams espeed, spams volt switch, clicks spin whenever it wants, and just feels like it beats everything. there's not much else to say. its just an incredible mon
:ss/groudon:
0-1: INTO THE FIRE

Into The Fire (Groudon) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Drought
EVs: 208 HP / 136 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
setting rocks, spamming twave for xern to clean, beating most ho-oh and mag variants, GOD i love groudon so much. there's a reason its one of the best ubers to date, and mnm just exemplifies why thats the case.
:ss/milotic:
1-S: THE WITLESS

Garden of the Mind (Milotic) @ Sablenite
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 SpD
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Recover
- Haze
as i said above, i mostly chose milotic because i liked daylight's usage of it, NOT because it was the best choice for the team. with that being said, its absolutely incredible here, making great use of flip turn and haze to shut down otherwise scary threats like entei.
:ss/zapdos-galar:
2-4: COURT OF THE CORPSE KING

Presence of a King (Zapdos-Galar) @ Metagrossite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thunderous Kick
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Close Combat
have you ever wanted a kill button really, really badly? well, metagrossite gapdos might just be the mon you're looking for. its like hawlucha with 135 attack and tough claws, and if that doesnt sound like a godsend, i dont know what does. it just kills everything and demands you bring a sturdy fighting resist.
:ss/ho-oh:
4-1: SLAVES TO POWER

Dune Eternal (Ho-Oh) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Atk / 168 SpD
Careful Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Defog
as i said above, ho-oh fits this team beautifully. it has hazard control, beats most of the big special attacking threats rn, and can be a pain in the ass for a lot of teams to handle. not exactly a complex role, but a valuable one for sure.

though it seems like this team is great, it really isnt lmao. the main threat for this team atm is kartana, who 6-0s it super easily. i've experimented with quite a few ways to beat it, but sadly i just cant find a way to. if you have any suggestions to improve it, please reply to this post and/or dm me on discord with suggestions. this meta is an absolute blast and i cant wait to build more teams for it
 

iapt

the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
is a Tiering Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
hey, im a pretty new face in mnm. so far i've had a ton of fun with the tier, and figured i would post a team to show what i've done. here is the end result:
:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar::ho-oh:
https://pokepast.es/dc3d46ec11de4f2b
big shoutouts to Daylight, since they inspired me to make an mnm team, and im trash rn for testing the team with me. so im gonna stop stalling and go into the teambuilding process

:xerneas:
to start off, i wanted to build a team around non-geomancy xern, since i really like those sets. i experimented with a couple sets on xern. originally i thought i could try scarf, however, it just didnt perform as i expected. with how fast everything in the meta is, its not worth to run a scarfer. so i moved onto the next best thing: what could give me immediate power throughout a game? the obvious answer is specs. moonblast is all that's really needed, and the other moves are just extra coverage that're rarely clicked.

:xerneas::regieleki:
looking at the viability rankings in the resources thread, it was pretty obvious that fairy beats a lot of the tier. but there is one very troublesome target for fairy: ho-oh. so what do i do to beat ho-oh? run regieleki, of course. eleki gives a strong double fairy core that can wear down usual checks like magearna or solgaleo through raw strength. they can tank an espeed and specs moonblast, but they cant tank those repeatedly while getting constantly volt switched on.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon:
actually, magearna and heatran are BIG problems for this team. they just beat my double fairy core endlessly and threaten big damage in return in the early game. so i had to add something that could hit them. groudon was an obvious answer to me, as it also beat spdef ho-oh very reliably thanks to its lum. it always outspeeds and ohkos an ampharosite heatran, too, so it was a great pick for the team.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic:
ok so most of this has been "hey this mon has great synergy, so i should use them," but milotic is an exception. it definitely benefits the team, but i moreso used it because i saw daylight using it on their team and really liked what it did. so i just threw it on since it also handled altarianite entei, one of the biggest threats to this team.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar:
currently, the team is quite solid. but im lacking immediate offensive pressure, and my speed control could use some work. oh sure, eleki can outspeed most things, but it cant ohko most things. gapdos gives me all the coverage i'd need for this team to work offensively. thunderous kick forces tons of switches from even the bulkiest mons like groudon or milotic, and everything else is just your standard gapdos set.

:xerneas::regieleki::groudon::milotic::zapdos-galar::ho-oh:
one distinct thing that these 5 didnt give was consistent hazard control. since eleki liked to boom a lot, lategame hazards could be a big problem. xern and lunala were also threats. so the answer to all of these is simple: run ho-oh. with this set, ho-oh can break lunala's shadow shield with sacred fire burns, wall most xern sets with groudon's sun support making thunder 50% accurate, and beat mag 1v1.
now, onto the actual team analysis:
:ss/xerneas:
1-1: HEART OF THE SUNRISE
Shattered Illusion (Xerneas) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt
- Aromatherapy
as i explained earlier, specs xern just really clicks moonblast and not many other moves. with that being said, the other moves certainly can help. offensive variants of ho-oh can outspeed and double burn groudon, making its stone edge not an ohko. aromatherapy fixes this, and also beats all the toxics running around.
:ss/regieleki:
???: THE CYBER GRIND

The Cyber Grind (Regieleki) @ Altarianite
Ability: Transistor
EVs: 252 Atk / 200 SpA / 56 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Volt Switch
- Extreme Speed
- Explosion
- Rapid Spin
this thing has quickly become my favorite mon in the meta. it just does so much for the team; it spams espeed, spams volt switch, clicks spin whenever it wants, and just feels like it beats everything. there's not much else to say. its just an incredible mon
:ss/groudon:
0-1: INTO THE FIRE

Into The Fire (Groudon) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Drought
EVs: 208 HP / 136 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
setting rocks, spamming twave for xern to clean, beating most ho-oh and mag variants, GOD i love groudon so much. there's a reason its one of the best ubers to date, and mnm just exemplifies why thats the case.
:ss/milotic:
1-S: THE WITLESS

Garden of the Mind (Milotic) @ Sablenite
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 SpD
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Recover
- Haze
as i said above, i mostly chose milotic because i liked daylight's usage of it, NOT because it was the best choice for the team. with that being said, its absolutely incredible here, making great use of flip turn and haze to shut down otherwise scary threats like entei.
:ss/zapdos-galar:
2-4: COURT OF THE CORPSE KING

Presence of a King (Zapdos-Galar) @ Metagrossite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thunderous Kick
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Close Combat
have you ever wanted a kill button really, really badly? well, metagrossite gapdos might just be the mon you're looking for. its like hawlucha with 135 attack and tough claws, and if that doesnt sound like a godsend, i dont know what does. it just kills everything and demands you bring a sturdy fighting resist.
:ss/ho-oh:
4-1: SLAVES TO POWER

Dune Eternal (Ho-Oh) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Atk / 168 SpD
Careful Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Defog
as i said above, ho-oh fits this team beautifully. it has hazard control, beats most of the big special attacking threats rn, and can be a pain in the ass for a lot of teams to handle. not exactly a complex role, but a valuable one for sure.

though it seems like this team is great, it really isnt lmao. the main threat for this team atm is kartana, who 6-0s it super easily. i've experimented with quite a few ways to beat it, but sadly i just cant find a way to. if you have any suggestions to improve it, please reply to this post and/or dm me on discord with suggestions. this meta is an absolute blast and i cant wait to build more teams for it
Hello there CAT! its great to see people trying to learn mnm so im gonna try and help improve your team in what ways i can, and it is already a pretty solid team, albeit with a few weaknesses.

As you already pointed out, the kartana matchup is not ideal. A possible solution to this is to make Ho-Oh have significantly more physically defensive investment.

Ho-Oh @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Roost
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird

While this isn't a perfect solution, it should make the team be able to deal with kartana more easily. Another option is to switch milotic out for a manectite magearna, but that compromises the lunala and entei matchup further, the two other glaring bad matchups this team has. Alternatively, scarf xerneas can KO meta kart after some chip with moonblast and with focus blast from full hp.

In order to improve the entei matchup and help a little bit with lunala, i would recommend switching groudon to a hippowdon, using this set:

Hippowdon @ Sablenite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

This set can survive 2 entei double edges as well as meteor beam -> ice beam from modest lunala, definitely improving both matchups. Additionally, to help with the lunala matchup, you can make your galarian zapdos have throat chop over close combat, helping u revenge kill lunala once shadow shield is broken.

Final thing, you can make your milotic into a sablenite or slowbronite blissey, which immediately improves all 3 matchups tbh.

Blissey (F) @ Slowbronite / Sablenite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Soft-Boiled
- Teleport
- Shadow Ball

This will greatly improve the lunala matchup, as well as never being 2hko'd by entei or kartana at +0, barring crits, as well as most other special attackers like zapdos, pult, and genesect.

Obviously, these suggestions are not perfect, but I believe that they should improve the team's performance. Feel free to respond to this post with any questions or dm me on discord/PS. Hope this helps and good luck with learning the tier further!
 

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