Honestly I agree with a lot of this take to an extent. My personal belief is that bliss and chan make imposter so much stronger than it needs to be. there are plenty of 200 base hp mons that are fine as imp mons, and banning the blobs would effectively be a nerf to imposter without banning it. especially considering eviolite imp can live almost any hit in the game, this would make imposter a bit riskier to just blindly switch in on, as well as making offensive improofing more appealing from a teambuilding aspect. I also hate wish pass blobs rn so there's that XD
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BH Balanced Hackmons
- Thread starter Chessking
- Start date
Imposter is fine bro. There's no need to ban it, and there are plenty of offensive improofs that can be used if you actually look for them. As for the other "issues" raised, they're all hogwash. Scouting moves on switch-in isn't that strong unless you are using a surprise set to try and take out a specific mon, and if you're doing that, then you can still have counterplay by positioning your mon so that Imp doesn't want to switch in. Forcing offensive mons out is only really an issue if you are utterly reliant on using mons that cannot make meaningful progress without having been in for multiple turns, most breakers can come in and fuck shit up, and by the time Imp comes in, they've done meaningful damage already. As for the speed tie "issue," this is only an issue if you are staying in and aren't selfproofed and you also dont have para-spreading on your other mons. Infinite PP is kinda a whatever issue. There is no reason to ban Imposter.
I never said we should ban imposter. read my suggestion
Plus all of your points, and the initial point raised in the post I replied to, are that imposter, WHILE BALANCED, may not be making BH a more "fun" meta. I personally disdain the current state of the meta, because even at high level the most prevalent teams are hazard stacking multiple magic guard schlock that rely on taking 100+ turns to win through attrition and flowcharting. I have been a mid to high level BH player for almost a decade and gen 9 has been my least favorite generation for the format by a landslide.
Now that we have sunsteel and other mold breaker moves back, is there any chance to look at bringing back shedninja?Hello everyone! The new meta is only a few days away, so we've been through the returning Pokemon and have a preliminary banlist! This is only what we have so far, so it's subject to change, but this wouldn't be major and we'll update you if anything does change.
Pokemon:
Calyrex-Shadow - No surprises here. Still egregiously broken with no good long-term answers.
Mega Rayquaza - 180/180/115 with a good amount of different viable abilities that have completely different counters, from Aerilate to Tough Claws to Speed Boost.
Primal Groudon - Even if we banned V-create, this would likely still end up overbearing. The typing and base stats are just too good.
Slaking - We're pretty confident that the Guts set is still going to be broken the same as before. There isn't much new that can really wall it, and it still outruns everything at +1.
Regigigas - See the above. The bulk differences aren't enough to cause any notable shifts in what it does.
Shedinja - No moves with built-in Mold Breaker (Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam, Photon Geyser) remove any chance this had of being freed.
Moves:
All current banned moves
Abilities:
All current banned abilities + Gorilla Tactics
What isn't currently starting on the pre-banlist, but could start there or be banned within the first few days:
Mega Mewtwo Y
Mega Mewtwo X
Deoxys-A
Mega Gengar
Dire Claw
Note that Zacian-C is only off the banlist as it can't be accessed in the banworthy way anymore (with any ability, without Rusted Sword), which makes it simpler for newer players.
The things I mentioned in my post also apply to banning bliss/chans. There's no need to ban them, they aren't a problem, and they aren't making the meta "less fun." I can attest to multiple top level players building a lot of really unusual teams, and superman hazstack is imo not very good atm. The meta is not in a super enjoyable spot atm, but that is due to PDon/MDia, depending on who you ask, not on Imposter. As for Wishpass, that is actually super weak to imposter, so it's pretty easy to exploit. As for banning Bliss/Chans to nerf Imposter, there's no reason to do it, and banning Chansey alone does nothing because the best items are Cloak/Boots atm.
I don't think Pdon and Mdia are really all that problematic, but its more an argument of what "fun" means which isnt really a debate because its subjective, so I'm happy to agree to disagree on what is and isn't "balanced" with regard to fun.
I think it depends on what kind of team you are building as well. The fact that you only have 6 mons to have a functional team, while also dealing with edge case mons is what makes the slappability of a blob imposter so valuable, especially because in team preview you don't know if its sap block special tank or imp, which doesn't make blobs bad or broken. My main reason that I love hackmons is because its such an open format that has a high tolerance for unique sets that you can't find anywhere else, but it feels like a lot of the council decisions in gen 9 have been keeping legacy things banned, or being the fun police (as a long time liquid ooze enjoyer, i feel this especially). That isn't to say that most decisions to ban problematic stuff are bad or the meta is ruined, but it feels like there is now a "right" and "wrong" way to like hackmons, which has made the meta both rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock and not at the same time. I've been running a pretty unique team for a few weeks now at just under 1500, and the meta just feels like you cant have OK counterplay to everything without losing on the spot to a few problematic mons, or you have a game plan that doesn't beat every set.
I'm not claiming that I'm The Guy for making tiering decisions or that everyone is wrong, but I personally am kind of tired about how much normalize, imposter, salt cure, covert cloak, etc are treated as cornerstones of the meta and people are (somewhat rightfully) shamed for complaining about them, but other unique stuff that is powerful without just being objectively big stats (neutralizing gas, gen 9 libero/protean, shedninja in current gen, pheal with no sub or broken setup) is treated like it's overwhelmingly strong to the point that its banned. The format was literally just shaken up in huge ways with the freeing of pdon and mdiance, which has felt like a really strong shift in the right direction, even if they eventually get banned again.
My point is that this isn't OU, and especially because we are still FOREVER away from a new gen (which we all know is going to be even more power crept than gen 9) the hackmons community would be better if it was more OK with things being a bit more broken and weird. I'm not advocating that we all stop having fun and go back to v create dominating offense, or unban mega rayquaza. I'm saying "hey why don't we experiment more, its not gonna hurt anything".
I think MDia absolutely needs to go because it's nigh fucking unwallable, and I've seen a few players bring up how much of a pain in the ass defensive PDon(like LeviDon) is to deal with, so I think it's very reasonable to want both MDia and PDon gone.
This kinda isn't the case though. The "legacy bans" are all things that absolutely should stay locked up, and Liquid Ooze is deeply fucking bullshit when a lot of defensive mons rely on sap. You mentioned the "not knowing if Bliss/Chans is Imp" thing, and Ooze kicks that up to 2000. Not only do you not know if any of their mons are Ooze until you either Imposter them or die to the Ooze, you also don't know if they're being switched in on you or not every time you try to sap. You aren't even safe if your sap mon would normally beat their Ooze mon, because you're one predict from your opponent away from being out a defensive mon. Fuck Ooze, council made the right decision with that, that's not a "fun police" thing, that's a meta health thing.
I don't get what you mean by your complaints about "right" and "wrong" way to enjoy hackmons, as unless you're using absolutely filthy degen MU fish stuff, none of the bans really interfere with that? As for the RPS nature, that is kinda how every stage of Gen 9 has been since I started playing, but it's only gotten more pronounced recently, in large part due to the PDon and MDia unbans. Imposter is actually one of the better ways to have a decent MU into a lot of teams, so if you are complaining about the meta feeling too much like you can't check everything, why do you also want to remove one of the best ways to check a lot of things?
Imposter is treated as a cornerstone because it's one of the biggest reasons for the tier being playable, and removing it would require half the tier to get banned, at least.
As for Normalize, it's kinda not all that scary or important or banworthy, I'm gonna keep it real with you. It fails into 90-95% of good teams unless you dedicate your entire team to removing the plethora of Normalize checks, and even then, it's just kinda mid. MBounce, Plates, GaG, Arceus, Rev Dance, DDesire+Switching, -Atespeed(Like MDia), etc. all fuck over Norm mons pretty hard, so there really isn't a need to ban Normalize, because it just gets countered by a lot of stuff that's already good and on most teams anyways.
Covert Cloak there's no reason to ban, I have no idea why you're up in arms about Cloak of all things, but it is not banworthy.
Salt Cure and Mortal Spin are both contentious, and they certainly aren't treated as cornerstones of the meta. There's quite a few people that want to see one or both get the boot, and I can see some of their arguments.
As for the banned stuff, that shit absolutely deserves to stay banned. NGas is turbo fucking hell and warps the meta into a near-unrecognizable state, forcing a good 80-90% of pokemon to run Ability Shield or do nothing. NGas being allowed single-handedly almost completely kills RegenVests being viable, FurScales mons are forced to run AShield, and run the risk of just getting Knocked and suddenly being unable to wall anything, MBounce has the same issue, Imposter gets fucking ruined, etc. Do Not Unban NGas.
Protean/Libero deserve their bans because on Choiced sets, it's effectively not been nerfed in the slightest, and on non-choiced sets, it leads to the issue of "well I would use my defensive mon to check them, but I can't because they get a free Band/Specs on coverage that will kill me." Oh, also Monotype mons like Deoxys can hide the fact that they're Protean until they click a non-STAB move and blow you up.
Shedinja is a fucking bastard that would enable insanely degenerate bullshit. You could run incredibly unimproofed shit that just blows up everything, and then just use Shedinja as the improof. You don't even need to use Sunsteel/Moongeist to ignore FurScales, but if you do, you can just use AShield Shedinja, especially with the amount of potential -Ate spin users, hard to block spinners, etc. As for the whole "oh but scure/mspin/etc" issue, scouting can relegate that issue to being a minor footnote, and suddenly you have to either desperately keep all your things that can actually hit Shed alive, or make all 6 of your mons hit Shed.
PHeal is incredibly fucking degenerate because there's still VDance, and there's no Spec Thief or Core Enforcer to keep it in check. PHeal will win against just about everything long-term, and can be slapped on most mons and turn them into a game-ending sweeper. Compound this with the difficulty of beating it with Imposter, and you get a problem.
The main goals for tiering are to 1) increase the complexity of in-game positions to maximize the in-game skill ceiling and 2) maximize building skill ceiling by engineering metagames in which a variety of different styles are viable and different archetypes themselves are diverse at a high level of play. Because matchup/rng-fishing aspects are highly obstructive towards these two aspects, they are often acted on as well (ex. Dire Claw, Moody, to an extent damage amp Abilities and overly powerful offensive Pokemon). I think you realize that fun is a subjective concept, but that is how it is operationalized in practice and for the purposes of accommodating competitive Hackmons these guidelines really are better than any alternatives.
There's a pretty compelling argument that Imposter is, as is, an overall positive for the above goals. From a playing perspective, far fewer attackers are able to OHKO Imposter Eviolite Chansey after setup, so there is strong incentive for teams to use slower modes of progress, like hazards/status spreading/Salt Cure chip/partial trapping/attacking Imposter switch-ins then retreating etc, to weaken opposing Imposter enough that your breaker is less impeded. This is good because it increases in-game positional complexity. From a building perspective, it is true that many potential offensive sets are not worthwhile specifically because of Imposter, but this actually increases builder diversity for two reasons. One, some sets become overall worthwhile due to being more advantageous into Imposter (I'd argue to a greater extent than sets are crowded out in an Imposter-less metagame because of qualities intrinsically strong vs. Imposter – think Plate Judgment, Covert Cloak Salt Cure, Thunder Cage + Strength Sap, Ghost/Dragon supereffective STAB, etc.). Two, there are two ways a metagame with severely weakened Imposter can be tiered. Either the metagame without Imposter is extremely defensive or it is very matchup-based (what are you going to do if the opposing near-perfect-coverage breaker is circumstantially strong into your core?) – almost every type has a strong drawback-less attack on both the physical and special side, making balancing around neutral Fur Coat/Ice Scales walls pretty inevitable at this point. Players then gravitate towards the extremes of stacking enough bulky mons to be mostly safe from coverage spam, or they go all in on offense. Any in-between strategies become reliant on significant playing skill disparities, and are thus relegated to niche or unviable status. Imposter averts this outcome by forcing Imposter-proofing on walls (significantly restricting their movesets, making them vulnerable in non-Imposter scenarios or overall less effective at carrying out the its roles in the team's gameplans) and greatly restricting hyper-offensive strategies (by requiring credible plans vs. Imposter for all attackers). Consequently, Hackmons metagames with Imposter are generally more strategically diverse.
I think the way BH currently plays is unfortunate but it isn't really in the council's power to increase playing skill expression and viable builder variety, at least not by that much. As I explained above good coverage moves being too varied (in addition to 8 PP recovery and universal boosting Abilities like Beads + Sword of Ruin) means the meta is fundamentally locked into being balanced around Fur Coat and Ice Scales, and there just aren't as many balanced constraints for passive gameplay as in previous gens (notably Poison Heal). I talked about problems with the pre-unban meta here and I haven't changed my opinions much, but I do think the unbans did legitimately alleviate some meta problems from that time (ex. faster pacing decreases Mortal Spin's unhealthiness, Primal Groudon being Fire-type somewhat decreases Bulwark's unhealthiness and faster pacing decreases Magic Guard Chansey's prevalence, etc.). However, Groudon's insane type coverage synergies (3 of Ground/Fire/Ice/Electric with the possibility of Dragon/Fairy coverage, of which you cannot possibly cover close to all of) and Diancie's coverage strength precipitate somewhat of a "you either answer them or you don't" matchup roulette. I could be wrong in the long run but given previous generations offensive Pokemon were chiefly limited by relatively worse coverage moves I'm not very optimistic right now.
Unbanning stuff is an interesting idea but there's not much that wouldn't negatively interfere with what I've been talking about. Neutralizing Gas makes RegenVest near-unviable, centralizes the meta around item removal (single strategy, so this is a bad thing), and is honestly kinda crazy with consistent residual damage like Mortal Spin poison or Salt Cure. Libero/Protean acts a lot like a 1.5x damage amp on both sides vs. FurScales cores when on a team built to repeatedly bring the attacker in via slow pivoting (with the punishment for clicking wrong being minimal). Shedinja is arguably balanced (people could reasonably deal with it in the builder without severely nerfing most strategies) but forcing Ghost-types/elaborate 2-Regenerator cores on most teams due to Endeavor is a constraint that reasonably irks most players. I think banning most setup moves in exchange for freeing Poison Heal should be seriously explored, but the loss of non-Poison Heal setup would of course be very major and "the meta is better this way" alone isn't sufficient reason to tier.
tldr I agree that Gen 9 BH is pretty "bad" (worse equilibrium of building variety at a high level + in-game positional complexity) compared to other BH metas but there's not much anyone can do about it
There's a pretty compelling argument that Imposter is, as is, an overall positive for the above goals. From a playing perspective, far fewer attackers are able to OHKO Imposter Eviolite Chansey after setup, so there is strong incentive for teams to use slower modes of progress, like hazards/status spreading/Salt Cure chip/partial trapping/attacking Imposter switch-ins then retreating etc, to weaken opposing Imposter enough that your breaker is less impeded. This is good because it increases in-game positional complexity. From a building perspective, it is true that many potential offensive sets are not worthwhile specifically because of Imposter, but this actually increases builder diversity for two reasons. One, some sets become overall worthwhile due to being more advantageous into Imposter (I'd argue to a greater extent than sets are crowded out in an Imposter-less metagame because of qualities intrinsically strong vs. Imposter – think Plate Judgment, Covert Cloak Salt Cure, Thunder Cage + Strength Sap, Ghost/Dragon supereffective STAB, etc.). Two, there are two ways a metagame with severely weakened Imposter can be tiered. Either the metagame without Imposter is extremely defensive or it is very matchup-based (what are you going to do if the opposing near-perfect-coverage breaker is circumstantially strong into your core?) – almost every type has a strong drawback-less attack on both the physical and special side, making balancing around neutral Fur Coat/Ice Scales walls pretty inevitable at this point. Players then gravitate towards the extremes of stacking enough bulky mons to be mostly safe from coverage spam, or they go all in on offense. Any in-between strategies become reliant on significant playing skill disparities, and are thus relegated to niche or unviable status. Imposter averts this outcome by forcing Imposter-proofing on walls (significantly restricting their movesets, making them vulnerable in non-Imposter scenarios or overall less effective at carrying out the its roles in the team's gameplans) and greatly restricting hyper-offensive strategies (by requiring credible plans vs. Imposter for all attackers). Consequently, Hackmons metagames with Imposter are generally more strategically diverse.
I think the way BH currently plays is unfortunate but it isn't really in the council's power to increase playing skill expression and viable builder variety, at least not by that much. As I explained above good coverage moves being too varied (in addition to 8 PP recovery and universal boosting Abilities like Beads + Sword of Ruin) means the meta is fundamentally locked into being balanced around Fur Coat and Ice Scales, and there just aren't as many balanced constraints for passive gameplay as in previous gens (notably Poison Heal). I talked about problems with the pre-unban meta here and I haven't changed my opinions much, but I do think the unbans did legitimately alleviate some meta problems from that time (ex. faster pacing decreases Mortal Spin's unhealthiness, Primal Groudon being Fire-type somewhat decreases Bulwark's unhealthiness and faster pacing decreases Magic Guard Chansey's prevalence, etc.). However, Groudon's insane type coverage synergies (3 of Ground/Fire/Ice/Electric with the possibility of Dragon/Fairy coverage, of which you cannot possibly cover close to all of) and Diancie's coverage strength precipitate somewhat of a "you either answer them or you don't" matchup roulette. I could be wrong in the long run but given previous generations offensive Pokemon were chiefly limited by relatively worse coverage moves I'm not very optimistic right now.
Unbanning stuff is an interesting idea but there's not much that wouldn't negatively interfere with what I've been talking about. Neutralizing Gas makes RegenVest near-unviable, centralizes the meta around item removal (single strategy, so this is a bad thing), and is honestly kinda crazy with consistent residual damage like Mortal Spin poison or Salt Cure. Libero/Protean acts a lot like a 1.5x damage amp on both sides vs. FurScales cores when on a team built to repeatedly bring the attacker in via slow pivoting (with the punishment for clicking wrong being minimal). Shedinja is arguably balanced (people could reasonably deal with it in the builder without severely nerfing most strategies) but forcing Ghost-types/elaborate 2-Regenerator cores on most teams due to Endeavor is a constraint that reasonably irks most players. I think banning most setup moves in exchange for freeing Poison Heal should be seriously explored, but the loss of non-Poison Heal setup would of course be very major and "the meta is better this way" alone isn't sufficient reason to tier.
tldr I agree that Gen 9 BH is pretty "bad" (worse equilibrium of building variety at a high level + in-game positional complexity) compared to other BH metas but there's not much anyone can do about it
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I totally agree that all of this has a place in the meta, and none of it should be banned. My point is that everything I brought up and you touched on here is strong and deserves to be accounted for in teambuilding. You've brought up a lot of really good points, and I want to get back to the core of the issue here ( which aerobee really summarized well in the post above):
The GAME sucks to play hackmons in and there's not much that banning or unbanning things can do to fix it.
Due to this, I'll always advocate (as I have been on and off for a few years now) for banning/unbanning weird things to get some semblance of joy from having to figure out a meta that isn't as solved/polarized as gen 9 BH is. So what if we ban imp for a week to see if the tier can exist without it? Maybe we try some stupid convoluted clause that we agree to never do again in a month? I don't think rapid experimentation in banning or unbanning things would leave the tier in a bad place. I just know that if we had matchmaking for gen 7 BH, I would rather sit waiting for a match all day than play gen 9 (but that's just me). I remember a year or so back when regulation H for VGC banned a lot of things and wound up making that meta substantially more fun.
I think that trying to do BALANCED hackmons is secondary to doing balanced HACKMONS if you know what I mean.
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After an hour long rabbit hole chase down your previous post, which led to a rabbit hole into the smogon tiering policy, I have observed the following:
A. Your analysis of the format exceeds my own and I think your takes are, almost without exception, correct
B. I have a genuine question for the BH community with regard to how the council operates.
The tiering policy for all of smogon ends with this statement regarding the goal of the tiering policy:
I.) To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.
II.) To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowds are catered to regarding I.)
III.) To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.
IV.) To preserve the spirit of the design of Pokemon, both individually and as a generation.
In what way at is BH faithful to point IV?
The tiering policy was very intentionally written for a non-BH environment, where not every pokemon can learn every move and have every ability (A foreign concept to us lol). Is this an oversight in how our format has handled tiering, or is the general consensus that the tiering policy is applicable in spirit to a more unconventional format?
Point IV does not apply to BH and most other Other Metagames, which is why they are Other Metagames and not official (sorry, I mean "top-level") metagames. Point IV is also not about creating a tier that is competitive, so it doesn't really matter when discussing balance issues.
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I don't really talk very much, and only feel inclined to make a post when I feel something should be brought up. I'm additionally not someone super involved in the community as a whole, so I understand if my opinion isn't taken very seriously as a result. But, like... the recent changes have honestly made BH ladder feel kind of crappy. I only casually ladder and I don't really know what tours are like right now, but I want to make my opinion known here.
Ya guys, I'm starting to think that maybe having a pokemon with greater physical bulk than Arceus, all of the benefits of Blaziken and Garchomp with only Speed being their shared downside, and twenty or more viable sets legal in BH isn't a good idea. Primal Groudon has literally caused most Steel-types to disappear entirely from the meta with only Kartana and Primordial Sea Celesteela being used now.
Groudon and Diancie are both extremely unhealthy, especially together. Groudon has made Diancie checks far less common overall, while Diancie makes Fur Coats and bulky Dragons a living hell. But I overwhelmingly believe Primal Groudon is more unhealthy.
In my opinion, the list of viable Primal Groudon sets are:
I consider Mega Diancie to be unhealthy as well. People have not explored it nearly as much as they should be, and as such its a very one-tone Pokemon, if you get my point. Its Rock-type STAB is not to be underestimated; Rocky Payload Stone Judgment can self-imposterproof on an offensive team for example, while OHKOing a lot of stuff after a Nasty Plot. But ultimately, because Mega Diancie lacks the bulk and extremely good type of Primal Groudon, I consider Primal Groudon to be more of a problem.
Sorry for the long winded post, I just wanted to give my two cents on the current state of the meta. The beginning of the post was a bit snide, but was not intended to be rude whatsoever.
Ya guys, I'm starting to think that maybe having a pokemon with greater physical bulk than Arceus, all of the benefits of Blaziken and Garchomp with only Speed being their shared downside, and twenty or more viable sets legal in BH isn't a good idea. Primal Groudon has literally caused most Steel-types to disappear entirely from the meta with only Kartana and Primordial Sea Celesteela being used now.
Groudon and Diancie are both extremely unhealthy, especially together. Groudon has made Diancie checks far less common overall, while Diancie makes Fur Coats and bulky Dragons a living hell. But I overwhelmingly believe Primal Groudon is more unhealthy.
In my opinion, the list of viable Primal Groudon sets are:
- Tough Claws Choice Band, a nuclear breaker that does everything Blaziken and Garchomp did but better. Sword of Ruin is another similar set worth mentioning.
- Mold Breaker is an extremely common set, often paired with Clear Amulet to make it even harder to check. This set has basically made Ability Shield mandatory on Fur Coats and further strains teambuilding in a way no other Pokemon has.
- Desolate Land, an extremely versatile set that removes one major weakness and allows for extremely difficult-to-check setup strategies, as well as the ability to be a nuclear mixed breaker with minimal support.
- Triage is viewed as a cheesy matchup fish, except my findings are that if you cannot counter it and quickly, it can and very easily will run away with a game, especially if your opponent lacks Imposter, which Imposter hates Primal Groudon as it is.
- Levitate lets it check other Primal Groudons, and serve as a non-passive utility mon. Primal Groudon is functionally impossible to spinblock and as a result has largely caused hazard stack to disappear from ladder.
- Regenerator Assault Vest makes it a constant, perpetual pest that never dies no matter what as long as you can play half decently, and even without an Assault Vest, Regenerator will constantly harass any form of defense and I've seen Covert Cloak used viably as a result.
- Fur Coat works on a Pokemon with higher Defense than Arceus, and Primal Groudon's type leaves it only really weak to Ash Greninja and other Primal Groudons.
- Ice Scales works on it, but it needs more support to handle Primal Kyogre and Palkia-O. If you can work around it, Primal Groudon can definitely be used as a Specially Defensive Pokemon to annoy bulky Dragon-types and Mega Diancie/Flutter Mane.
- STAB Torch Song and a 4x weakness lets it easily run Unburden to fish a matchup against unsuspecting opponents while being self-imposterproofed. This set will usually cause you to lose instantly if you don't have a Primordial Sea/Well-Baked Body pokemon, as its very easy for Primal Groudon to run away with a win in this case. Dawn Wings Necrozma wishes it was as effective as this.
- Guess what? It also runs physical Unburden well, too. With Psychic Surge, it can use a Psychic Seed to patch up its weaker defense while being immune to Jet Punch, and Misty Surge is also likely a viable option as well.
- Sheer Force with Life Orb is a mixed breaker that can easily 2HKO Primordial Sea Steel-types while also OHKOing Imposter as it has Steam Eruption available as viable coverage.
- A Fire-type Pokemon is always able to viably run Chlorophyll with Sun support, and Primal Groudon is capable of breaking even without V-create.
- Outside of Sun, I've seen Speed Boost used and Swords Dance with Speed Boost leaves it even harder to check while making Imposter even harder to bring in.
- Tinted Lens allows banded sets to click STABs without having to predict as much and only have to worry about Primordial Sea Celesteela otherwise, and completely invalidate even Levitate Dragon-types.
- I've seen some users run Refrigerate Boomburst to delete those same pesky Dragon-types and Primordial Sea Landorus-Ts that would deal with most Primal Groudon sets, and it also has respectably strong priority in Extreme Speed to compliment it.
- Magic Guard Life Orb allows it to sit on basically anything remotely passive and click Flare Blitz or hazards or even Swords Dance and gain progress. Anything like Ting-Lu or Registeel or Mega Audino gets immediately and promptly punished for sitting in front of Primal Groudon. As Primal Groudon is almost impossible to spinblock, MGLO can also be your primary form of hazard removal and even fat balance would be helpless to spinblock it. MGLO offers ludicrous utility while not having the weaknesses Ho-Oh does.
- Basically any strong physical attacker can viably run GaG and Magic Bounce, and unlike those physical attackers, Primal Groudon can viably run defensive Magic Bounce as well.
I consider Mega Diancie to be unhealthy as well. People have not explored it nearly as much as they should be, and as such its a very one-tone Pokemon, if you get my point. Its Rock-type STAB is not to be underestimated; Rocky Payload Stone Judgment can self-imposterproof on an offensive team for example, while OHKOing a lot of stuff after a Nasty Plot. But ultimately, because Mega Diancie lacks the bulk and extremely good type of Primal Groudon, I consider Primal Groudon to be more of a problem.
Sorry for the long winded post, I just wanted to give my two cents on the current state of the meta. The beginning of the post was a bit snide, but was not intended to be rude whatsoever.
So I've been thinking a lot about PDon and MDiancie, and I think that they both are ultimately unhealthy for the meta. MDiancie is just stupid fucking obnoxious to try and check because PixiBurst hits like a damn freight train, and the few things that would check it are either easily sniped by MDia or are a lot harder to run because of the presence of PDon. Steels aren't really easy to run because of the presence of PDon, and MDia can slot on HLR to fuck up most checks, steels included, but it can also easily add Pyro Ball or Armor Cannon to snipe Levitate Steels. Fires like PDon and Ho-Oh aren't safe either, because Stone Axe is common on MDiancie as a STAB option with good utility, which fucks up Ho-Oh, and HLR is common as coverage for all non-Levitate/Celesteela/Ho-Oh resists for Boomburst. These already constrain MDia's checks quite heavily, but are by no means the only things it can use. Pixilate Extreme Speed makes it hard to just out-offense it with faster pokemon, Surging Strikes/Steam Eruption lets MDia destroy Levitate PDon while also hitting Scales Ho-Oh and PSea Steels hard, Volt Switch lets it get momentum on would-be checks the same way that MGarde/MZam would, Population Bomb lets it annihilate non-resists on the physical side, etc. All of this combines to create a pokemon that already is checked by very little, and it can narrow that list of checks even further without sacrificing much of anything, as the only necessary thing on the set is Boomburst.
The cherry on top is that this is only one of several viable abilities. I've used Sheer Force MDia to devestating effect before, sacrificing damage with Fairy STAB for significantly stronger coverage, allowing it to punch holes in teams that stack multiple MDia checks. Unburden is also usable, because a free Nasty Plot boost on top of self-proofing and giving you coverage that compliments your STABs is never going to be bad. Rocky Payload is also viable, because it selfproofs and hits some insane damage calcs with Rock Judgment. MGLO MDia is also usable, because while you don't have LoR or Mind Blown anymore, you still have STAB Head Smash, along with whatever combination of Wave Crash/HJK/Wood Hammer/Flare Blitz/Volt Tackle/Moonblast/Magical Torque/Chloroblast you want to punch through whatever would-be checks your team doesn't handle as easily. These probably aren't even the only viable abilities either, they're just the ones I know are viable.
This also leads into the final issue I have with MDia. While its checks are few and far-between, and it can choose to invalidate several of them, that by itself might be able to be played around, but the MDia has 5 other pokemon to enable it. This enabling goes beyond the typical "oh just pivot into it with a RegenVest" as well, because the team can also pretty easily remove/weaken the few checks that your MDia doesn't invalidate, putting your opponent into a lose-lose scenario of either being forced to sack mons to the MDia's teammates, or letting their MDia check get weakened and then losing to MDia. Overall, I think that MDia has too much flexibility for how strong it is, and should be banned because of both the amount that it constrains the builder, and how easily it can bypass even its "good" checks.
I was originally going to add my thoughts about PDon here as well, but I'm getting a headache and didn't think that my MDia portion would get this long, so I'll be coming back for PDon later. I will say that I think that the main issue with Big Don is its versatility and lack of flaws, but I will go into that in more detail later.
The cherry on top is that this is only one of several viable abilities. I've used Sheer Force MDia to devestating effect before, sacrificing damage with Fairy STAB for significantly stronger coverage, allowing it to punch holes in teams that stack multiple MDia checks. Unburden is also usable, because a free Nasty Plot boost on top of self-proofing and giving you coverage that compliments your STABs is never going to be bad. Rocky Payload is also viable, because it selfproofs and hits some insane damage calcs with Rock Judgment. MGLO MDia is also usable, because while you don't have LoR or Mind Blown anymore, you still have STAB Head Smash, along with whatever combination of Wave Crash/HJK/Wood Hammer/Flare Blitz/Volt Tackle/Moonblast/Magical Torque/Chloroblast you want to punch through whatever would-be checks your team doesn't handle as easily. These probably aren't even the only viable abilities either, they're just the ones I know are viable.
This also leads into the final issue I have with MDia. While its checks are few and far-between, and it can choose to invalidate several of them, that by itself might be able to be played around, but the MDia has 5 other pokemon to enable it. This enabling goes beyond the typical "oh just pivot into it with a RegenVest" as well, because the team can also pretty easily remove/weaken the few checks that your MDia doesn't invalidate, putting your opponent into a lose-lose scenario of either being forced to sack mons to the MDia's teammates, or letting their MDia check get weakened and then losing to MDia. Overall, I think that MDia has too much flexibility for how strong it is, and should be banned because of both the amount that it constrains the builder, and how easily it can bypass even its "good" checks.
I was originally going to add my thoughts about PDon here as well, but I'm getting a headache and didn't think that my MDia portion would get this long, so I'll be coming back for PDon later. I will say that I think that the main issue with Big Don is its versatility and lack of flaws, but I will go into that in more detail later.
Seen some posts and discord discussion regarding tiering action and so wanted to address these in some directionless rambling as per usual.
Note this has nothing to do with the deleted posts I had this written up yday
We are just over 3 months since the meta changes have taken place. I personally am quite happy with the changes and the resulting meta, both in its current state and in the short term future through further developments. The nearly fresh slate while still retaining a skeleton of "established good sets on established Pokemon (importantly they don't have to be good though!) is akin to the period after new gen/DLCs drop, while being better by not being completely in the fog. I think that this is further made interesting by the varied opinions and viewpoints of the current community (even if it is still split into a few major groups), compared to pre-March when they were more homogenous. And it is because of this current state of community that council does not find anything demanding tiering action currently, since if a large portion of the top players do not share the same preferred Pokemon or sets and the meta is volatile then what determines if something is actually problematic? I also do not expect these opinions to start homogenizing given OMPL ongoing, which typically prevents this as players gatekeep opinions.
And even disregarding the whole differing viewpoints part, I personally also just don't agree with any of the elements brought up most by people. I find that most elements can be answered quite reasonably and that teambuilding has felt overall fine in terms of restrictiveness, with any limitations mostly being the same macro stuff that has been around for most of the gen (excuse my vagueposting but I unfortunately am part of the gatekeep side). To continue vagueposting, this is not to say I think that these elements are definitely balanced, but in the current state of the meta warped by how people are building and using Pokemon, I think they are all fair. I think it definitely helps that, for the most part, Pokemon are able to be checked by sets that have fairly good compression (i.e. they are able to fulfill other defensive roles). I also think that there are plenty of adaptations made and to be made, and only until the meta has settled in more can we more properly judge the unbans.
With maybe the exception of Arceus-Ghost, personally. If you needed me to list what I think is the most standout element in current OMPL meta, that would be my pick. With the current way people are using Ghostceus it has climbed rapidly to roughly tied for first in usage, which is impressive for being an Arceus forme. On top of already having limited Pokemon answers, with the "best" ones being like Yveltal and Audino, its surprising diversity in sets all while remaining effective (very much helped by built in selfproof) further limits the specific sets these checks need. Knock Off and Mortal Spin's common presence demands Magic Guard on the former and likely Take Heart for the latter, while Take Heart and Strength Sap + bulk demands passive moves like Topsy-Turvy on Yveltal (see: damflame), Spikes punishes lack of removal (and Audino sucks at removal). Take Heart nullified paralysis, MG prevents chip strategies, can also negate para by switching into Mortal, FC makes it challenging to beat it down with stuff like Knock while having splashability. All of these are not even accounting for the offensive sets. And of course these Pokemon like Yveltal and Audino are pretty much terrible outside of answering Ghostceus (and no this has been this way for well before the unbans), something that is very similar to Blaziken pre-unbans if not to a greater degree. This isn't advocating/suggesting tiering action since meta has plenty of opportunities to still adapt, just that I think this mon is more problematic than anything people have brought up, and in the cases of people mentioning it I don't think the 3 unbans have much to do with this outside of adding 3 good matchups for it, as mentioned previously its checks havent been good for a while. The other thing that changed for it is lower opportunity cost in other arc formes (electric and water) being less common/valued, which has led to the duopoly between ghost and steel.
To respond to some specific points raised in previous posts:
Additionally, "I cannot tell what set it is" is also not true. It is very much possible, assuming sensible teams (on ladder the sensible are loading Imposter + outplaying anyways), to deduct, or at worse narrow down, the specific set on Preview, and as turns progress you get plenty of more information such as the plays being made (e.g. it NOT switching in), the specific sets of its teammates (missing roles + potential improofs and improofed bys), and this is not including outright scouting with Imposter. This works the exact same way as every other tier with preview, except you have Imposter and improofing which helps as restrictions to counterbalance the sandbox nature. It also helps that the most common offensive set (the most threatening/punishing/dangerous to switch into) fully announces, and the other most common one is a offense exclusive, while the other sets aren't nearly as potent/common.
TLDR: Meta is fine, I think its enjoyable, if anything needs to be looked at personally think its Ghostceus.
Edit: oh and for any fellow gatekeepers due to ompl, I encourage you to consider drafting up posts for whenever ompl ends for you. Should there be something that we want to tiering action there’s only a short window before hackmons pl that would be least disruptive so it is best to have your posts in asap.
Note this has nothing to do with the deleted posts I had this written up yday
We are just over 3 months since the meta changes have taken place. I personally am quite happy with the changes and the resulting meta, both in its current state and in the short term future through further developments. The nearly fresh slate while still retaining a skeleton of "established good sets on established Pokemon (importantly they don't have to be good though!) is akin to the period after new gen/DLCs drop, while being better by not being completely in the fog. I think that this is further made interesting by the varied opinions and viewpoints of the current community (even if it is still split into a few major groups), compared to pre-March when they were more homogenous. And it is because of this current state of community that council does not find anything demanding tiering action currently, since if a large portion of the top players do not share the same preferred Pokemon or sets and the meta is volatile then what determines if something is actually problematic? I also do not expect these opinions to start homogenizing given OMPL ongoing, which typically prevents this as players gatekeep opinions.
And even disregarding the whole differing viewpoints part, I personally also just don't agree with any of the elements brought up most by people. I find that most elements can be answered quite reasonably and that teambuilding has felt overall fine in terms of restrictiveness, with any limitations mostly being the same macro stuff that has been around for most of the gen (excuse my vagueposting but I unfortunately am part of the gatekeep side). To continue vagueposting, this is not to say I think that these elements are definitely balanced, but in the current state of the meta warped by how people are building and using Pokemon, I think they are all fair. I think it definitely helps that, for the most part, Pokemon are able to be checked by sets that have fairly good compression (i.e. they are able to fulfill other defensive roles). I also think that there are plenty of adaptations made and to be made, and only until the meta has settled in more can we more properly judge the unbans.
With maybe the exception of Arceus-Ghost, personally. If you needed me to list what I think is the most standout element in current OMPL meta, that would be my pick. With the current way people are using Ghostceus it has climbed rapidly to roughly tied for first in usage, which is impressive for being an Arceus forme. On top of already having limited Pokemon answers, with the "best" ones being like Yveltal and Audino, its surprising diversity in sets all while remaining effective (very much helped by built in selfproof) further limits the specific sets these checks need. Knock Off and Mortal Spin's common presence demands Magic Guard on the former and likely Take Heart for the latter, while Take Heart and Strength Sap + bulk demands passive moves like Topsy-Turvy on Yveltal (see: damflame), Spikes punishes lack of removal (and Audino sucks at removal). Take Heart nullified paralysis, MG prevents chip strategies, can also negate para by switching into Mortal, FC makes it challenging to beat it down with stuff like Knock while having splashability. All of these are not even accounting for the offensive sets. And of course these Pokemon like Yveltal and Audino are pretty much terrible outside of answering Ghostceus (and no this has been this way for well before the unbans), something that is very similar to Blaziken pre-unbans if not to a greater degree. This isn't advocating/suggesting tiering action since meta has plenty of opportunities to still adapt, just that I think this mon is more problematic than anything people have brought up, and in the cases of people mentioning it I don't think the 3 unbans have much to do with this outside of adding 3 good matchups for it, as mentioned previously its checks havent been good for a while. The other thing that changed for it is lower opportunity cost in other arc formes (electric and water) being less common/valued, which has led to the duopoly between ghost and steel.
To respond to some specific points raised in previous posts:
This is not true. You can check replays and usage stats yourself, Steels combined should comfortably be around or more than 100% usage and Steelceus itself is easily the 2nd most common Arc forme. PDon does not have nearly the level of flexibility people believe it to have and there are plenty of downsides to the mon (unfortunately im vagueposting here) and you can tell by the trend of usage through the 3 weeks.
Additionally, "I cannot tell what set it is" is also not true. It is very much possible, assuming sensible teams (on ladder the sensible are loading Imposter + outplaying anyways), to deduct, or at worse narrow down, the specific set on Preview, and as turns progress you get plenty of more information such as the plays being made (e.g. it NOT switching in), the specific sets of its teammates (missing roles + potential improofs and improofed bys), and this is not including outright scouting with Imposter. This works the exact same way as every other tier with preview, except you have Imposter and improofing which helps as restrictions to counterbalance the sandbox nature. It also helps that the most common offensive set (the most threatening/punishing/dangerous to switch into) fully announces, and the other most common one is a offense exclusive, while the other sets aren't nearly as potent/common.
Can't reply to this while vagueposting gg
TLDR: Meta is fine, I think its enjoyable, if anything needs to be looked at personally think its Ghostceus.
Edit: oh and for any fellow gatekeepers due to ompl, I encourage you to consider drafting up posts for whenever ompl ends for you. Should there be something that we want to tiering action there’s only a short window before hackmons pl that would be least disruptive so it is best to have your posts in asap.
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Can't post my full thoughts sadly because yeah OMPL, but I will say that diancie is probably even more egregious than pdon, and pdon has kind of been covering it up. the TLDR on the pdon issue is that mortal spin is unblockable and the SG set is easy to play around sure but still just fundamentally a huge builder constraint because it kills nearly everything in the tier bar ashield users (which means your pdon checks won't be able to take mortal). I don't want us to return to the dogshit meta state where we were considering banning mortal spin because nobody had figured out counterplay (which there was then, and might be now, but I really have to doubt it).
Diancie simply isn't a fair pokemon to wall, unlike gardevoir it can fit just about any coverage it wants, and while some may say "4MSS is the only reason anything in bh is wallable", Diancie's ability to pick off fast ice scales mons like arceus or zacian from very fair ranges with LO espeed and ability to fit physical coverage for any regenvest is the main issue.
Neutral Ice Scales arceus is picked off by LO rash boomburst into espeed from 71% on a double minroll, and 80% on an average roll while zacian is guaranteed to die after rocks, admittedly most people are currently running +spe and not life orb, but the calcs reach a similar extent with +atk pixie plate, since espeed does a little more into scales than boomburst. 4mss is rough, but when scales mons only need a tiny bit of chip, you can just run Headlong + a move that hits celesteela (bolt or pyro realistically) and you've covered everything, losing to psea teela isn't even that big of a problem with pyro since +spatk LO boomburst will 2hko it after rocks). Oh yeah and LO rash also has 86% roll to 2hko pdon from full so lets be serious about claiming levidon as a check, even +spdef is a coinflip away from dying to pixie plate boomburst after rocks.
These calcs are admittedly generous, assuming chip and rocks and whatnot, and life orb is a hard sell compared to pixie plate so you lose a bit of damage there. I don't think diancie is broken to the extent of winning on the spot unless your opponents team is bad, but it gets free entry on the vast majority of offensive mons, on ting lu, on all the dragons that pop up to check pdon, and the only reliable answers (FC Poisonceus and to a lesser extent FC Steelceus) are notably fur coats that cost an arc slot (very tight in the current meta) and do not check Pdon. So diancie gets the opportunity to claim kills freely against teams that have even the most marginal of chip, while sometimes having the adequate coverage to just kill you anyway.
Aaaanyway since my post won't get deleted may as well slander chess a little. Who confidently affirms that the meta is good and tiering did not need to be revisited before OMPL while not having built a single team between the changes and OMPL.
I do actually respect his opinions now that we're a couple weeks in, even if I disagree, but I think it is genuinely irresponsible to lock in a volatile meta you did not play as TL for the year's OMPL.
Diancie simply isn't a fair pokemon to wall, unlike gardevoir it can fit just about any coverage it wants, and while some may say "4MSS is the only reason anything in bh is wallable", Diancie's ability to pick off fast ice scales mons like arceus or zacian from very fair ranges with LO espeed and ability to fit physical coverage for any regenvest is the main issue.
Neutral Ice Scales arceus is picked off by LO rash boomburst into espeed from 71% on a double minroll, and 80% on an average roll while zacian is guaranteed to die after rocks, admittedly most people are currently running +spe and not life orb, but the calcs reach a similar extent with +atk pixie plate, since espeed does a little more into scales than boomburst. 4mss is rough, but when scales mons only need a tiny bit of chip, you can just run Headlong + a move that hits celesteela (bolt or pyro realistically) and you've covered everything, losing to psea teela isn't even that big of a problem with pyro since +spatk LO boomburst will 2hko it after rocks). Oh yeah and LO rash also has 86% roll to 2hko pdon from full so lets be serious about claiming levidon as a check, even +spdef is a coinflip away from dying to pixie plate boomburst after rocks.
These calcs are admittedly generous, assuming chip and rocks and whatnot, and life orb is a hard sell compared to pixie plate so you lose a bit of damage there. I don't think diancie is broken to the extent of winning on the spot unless your opponents team is bad, but it gets free entry on the vast majority of offensive mons, on ting lu, on all the dragons that pop up to check pdon, and the only reliable answers (FC Poisonceus and to a lesser extent FC Steelceus) are notably fur coats that cost an arc slot (very tight in the current meta) and do not check Pdon. So diancie gets the opportunity to claim kills freely against teams that have even the most marginal of chip, while sometimes having the adequate coverage to just kill you anyway.
Aaaanyway since my post won't get deleted may as well slander chess a little. Who confidently affirms that the meta is good and tiering did not need to be revisited before OMPL while not having built a single team between the changes and OMPL.
circa week 1 ompl:
Unlike the two (ex) council members above me, I will post my thoughts DESPITE OMPL because I care about the community experience more than a tournament my team is guaranteed to win anyways. You see, many people will try to convince you that "Pdon is an issue" or "Diancie isn't a fair mon" but the real checks are hiding in plain sight.
Toxapex @ Black Sludge / Cover Cloak / Ability Shield
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Pain Split
- Salt Cure / Mortal Spin
- Parting Shot / Teleport
- Strength Sap / Court Change / Burning Bulwark
This is basically the best non-Arceus Diancie wall available. You can thank FlamPoke for bringing a set so bad (Soundproof Slowbro) that I felt compelled to share this set to you today. Don't worry about the calcs, just trust me that this mon will wall most Diancies easily. Not only that, we also wall a bunch of miscellaneous mons like... Pdon, Steel Arc, Zamazenta, Flutter Mane and others. You know, mons that a you see a few people run. Toxapex blocks Pain Split, Strength Sap AND can pivot slower thanks to its statline.
IF words are not enough to convince you, I have a replay right here showing Toxapex putting in A LOT of work walling a Pdon because its last move is definitely Strength Sap.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9balancedhackmons-946466
Salamence-Mega @ Rocky Helmet / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Magic Guard / Purifying Salt / Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly / Naive Nature
- Brave Bird / Dragon Tail
- Strength Sap / Recover
- Dragon Energy / Some utility
- Some utility
Next up is Mega Salamence. This mon has one of the best typing to wall Pdon and a solid 120 speed and good bulk. Magic Guard is the best ability to remove the Rocks and Poison vulnerability and enables Brave Bird. To be honest, I think you should run a STAB, Recovery and 2 utility moves right now since this mon isn't gonna be breaking anything tbh. Some utility moves include Glare, Knock Off, Spikes, hazard removal, Topsy and such. Notably I like Haze because it removes attack drops from Sap so you can beat some sappers like Pdon and Zamazenta eventually.
Outside of MG there are a few other options. Purifying Salt Salamence into a Ghost arc soft check which is very useful. However, it doesn't remove hazard or recoil chip which is a considerable downside. Fur Coat is another option which is much better into non-moldy offensive Pdons since they don't carry moves like Mortal Spin or Knock Off. It can also wall Kartana since it's a fast Fur Coat mon.
I have a whole video for you to watch if you need to see a Mega Dragon/Flying type Pokemon beating Pdon in the world stage right here:
Metagross-Mega @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Fur Coat
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gigaton Hammer / Iron Head
- Strength Sap / Recover
- Salt Cure / Utility
- Sacred Fire / Blazing Torque / Combat Torque
Obviously everyone already knows FC Steel Arc but what if I tell you that you can downgrade your Steel Arc a little bit so you can run Ghost Arc? Metagross has almost the same physical bulk as Arceus which means it is as good as Arc if you want to wall Kartana.
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin
Pyro Ball vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 
220-260 (60.4 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 
258-304 (58.1 - 68.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Admittedly, Metagross isn't as good at walling Diancie since it takes about 30% more damage on the special side but that's pretty good for a fairy resist that can outspeed Diancie.
Now that you are equipped with knowledge, I want to sell you the newest 3-mon core that is sure to break the meta (terms and conditions apply, no refund allowed)
Toxapex @ Black Sludge / Cover Cloak / Ability Shield
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Pain Split
- Salt Cure / Mortal Spin
- Parting Shot / Teleport
- Strength Sap / Court Change / Burning Bulwark
This is basically the best non-Arceus Diancie wall available. You can thank FlamPoke for bringing a set so bad (Soundproof Slowbro) that I felt compelled to share this set to you today. Don't worry about the calcs, just trust me that this mon will wall most Diancies easily. Not only that, we also wall a bunch of miscellaneous mons like... Pdon, Steel Arc, Zamazenta, Flutter Mane and others. You know, mons that a you see a few people run. Toxapex blocks Pain Split, Strength Sap AND can pivot slower thanks to its statline.
IF words are not enough to convince you, I have a replay right here showing Toxapex putting in A LOT of work walling a Pdon because its last move is definitely Strength Sap.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9balancedhackmons-946466
Salamence-Mega @ Rocky Helmet / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Magic Guard / Purifying Salt / Fur Coat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly / Naive Nature
- Brave Bird / Dragon Tail
- Strength Sap / Recover
- Dragon Energy / Some utility
- Some utility
Next up is Mega Salamence. This mon has one of the best typing to wall Pdon and a solid 120 speed and good bulk. Magic Guard is the best ability to remove the Rocks and Poison vulnerability and enables Brave Bird. To be honest, I think you should run a STAB, Recovery and 2 utility moves right now since this mon isn't gonna be breaking anything tbh. Some utility moves include Glare, Knock Off, Spikes, hazard removal, Topsy and such. Notably I like Haze because it removes attack drops from Sap so you can beat some sappers like Pdon and Zamazenta eventually.
Outside of MG there are a few other options. Purifying Salt Salamence into a Ghost arc soft check which is very useful. However, it doesn't remove hazard or recoil chip which is a considerable downside. Fur Coat is another option which is much better into non-moldy offensive Pdons since they don't carry moves like Mortal Spin or Knock Off. It can also wall Kartana since it's a fast Fur Coat mon.
I have a whole video for you to watch if you need to see a Mega Dragon/Flying type Pokemon beating Pdon in the world stage right here:
Metagross-Mega @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Fur Coat
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gigaton Hammer / Iron Head
- Strength Sap / Recover
- Salt Cure / Utility
- Sacred Fire / Blazing Torque / Combat Torque
Obviously everyone already knows FC Steel Arc but what if I tell you that you can downgrade your Steel Arc a little bit so you can run Ghost Arc? Metagross has almost the same physical bulk as Arceus which means it is as good as Arc if you want to wall Kartana.
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin
Pyro Ball vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 220-260 (60.4 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin
Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fur Coat 258-304 (58.1 - 68.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKOAdmittedly, Metagross isn't as good at walling Diancie since it takes about 30% more damage on the special side but that's pretty good for a fairy resist that can outspeed Diancie.
Now that you are equipped with knowledge, I want to sell you the newest 3-mon core that is sure to break the meta (terms and conditions apply, no refund allowed)