Metagame Fortemons

[mindof2moons]

I've only just started playing this OM and Body Press as a forte feels absurdly oppressive. Kommo-O clicks Clangorous Soul once and wins the game, Corviknight and Skarmory deal way too much damage for what should be defensive pokemon, even Garganacl can make Salt Cure into a nuclear bomb.

Silver lining is learning that Thunder Cage works as a forte.

 

[duckycrater]

I've only just started playing this OM and Body Press as a forte feels absurdly oppressive. Kommo-O clicks Clangorous Soul once and wins the game, Corviknight and Skarmory deal way too much damage for what should be defensive pokemon, even Garganacl can make Salt Cure into a nuclear bomb.

Silver lining is learning that Thunder Cage works as a forte.

In general body press is balanced by the limits of its abusers. Corviknight and Skarmory's lack of good stabs and low speed(flying/steel is kinda abysmal as an offensive typing) means that they still invite in a lot of mons like Zapdos and Steels. Garganacl is good, but tbh it almost never wants to run Body Press forte, Salt Cure's 40 BP means its never going to actually nuke anything and a lot of the time it'd just rather run leftovers, and Kommo-O struggles with Clangorus Soul not being quite enough to break some important walls while Iron Defense doesn't boost speed, as well as having to choose between being able to deal with Diancie or Prim with its 4th moveslot.

 

[EtherealLouser]

The month's almost over and, thus, so does Fortemons' spot in the sun. I gotta say though, I don't think I've been haxed more in any other meta than this one lol. Anyway, I have some meta thoughts as I climbed to rank 1:

Team used: Big Baxcalibur Gaming

+ Clefable Variation

Team Breakdown + Difficiult Matchups

Baxcalibur @ Choice Band
Ability: Thermal Exchange
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Glaive Rush
- Icicle Crash
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake
My favorite Archetype of attacker: contactless Physical Ice spam, brainlessly bashing big base power buttons. With Rocks up, genuinely nothing in the meta takes 2 hits from this monster. Despite Bax being rated highly on the VR, a lot of people still do not respect this boy enough. The game plan with Bax is simple enough: use pivots to bring it in as much as possible and click.

Tentacruel @ rapidspin
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Flip Turn
- Surf/Giga Drain
- Poison Jab/Sludge Bomb
- Ice Beam
Bax needs hazard removal and is awkward into Primarina. Tentacruel is pretty fantastic synergy in that regard, providing the team with relief into Healing Move Fortes courtesy of Liquid Ooze. Moveset is pretty self-explanatory, though you can drop Surf for Giga Drain to take advantage of Alomomola, which does just kinda pivot on the whole team. Given how well we do into Prim, consider dropping Sassy for Calm and Jab for Sludge Bomb; there were a lot of Diancie on ladder that were max speed Timid to catch mons like Cruel and Mola off guard.

Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 29 Spe
- Earthquake
- Ruination
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock
The team needed a Rocker, so big Ting-Lu has us covered. Another mon without a Forte because Leftovers is really hard to pass up, as it allows Big Lu to sit on a lot more mons more comfortably, namely Zapdos. Physically defensive Lu might seem strange, but our team really struggled into Excadrill without it, especially if it managed to dodge Paralysis. The Phys Def allows us to take 4 Excradrill EQs, and it's still bulky enough to avoid a 2HKO from +1 Tinted Lens Braviary. Admittedly, Lu's EV spread could probably be optimized further.

Iron Crown @ Assault Vest
Ability: Quark Drive
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Tachyon Cutter
- Volt Switch
- Psychic Noise
- Focus Blast
Shoutouts to user duckycrater for showing me that Crown was peak. It's actually a really nice anti-meta tech for the Body Press Fortes (minus Soundproof Kommo kinda) and the Draining Kiss users, notably Diancie. Assault Vest allows us to comfortably take on Latios, Deoxys-S, and other special attackers that Tentacruel dislikes, but also because Crown doesn't really have great Fortes to take advantage of.

Zapdos @ thunder
Ability: Static
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
- Discharge
- U-turn
- Hurricane
- Roost
If there's one mon that pisses me off the most in this tier, it's Zapdos. God, it just paralyzes everything, and god forbid if it ever gets a Discharge off: that's a 51% chance to just para you on the spot, ridiculous. This is here to punish Drill for existing, dissuade Dragapult from U-turning, and be a general Physical Roadblock.

Dragapult @ hex
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Dragon Darts
- Will-O-Wisp/Sucker Punch
- U-turn
Standard Pult rounds out the team with solid speed control. Because Zapdoes para's everything on the opposing team, I didn't get to click Wisp as much during the run. Considering how dire the opposing Pult matchup can be sometimes, consider going Sucker Punch to catch other Pult unaware.

Difficult Matchups:

This was a bit of an oversight...I didn't face a single one on ladder, but I don't need to to tell you this team gets absolutely SMOKED by it. While this current version was the one I mainly laddered with, here's a separate Clefable version that I was also testing before it was swapped for Crown. It's a bit more suspect into Diancie and Excadrill, but that's better than an instant-loss-at-preview match-up.

Mola kinda just Flips on the whole team, allowing scary threats with favorable matchups. Especially if it's paired with a Fairy type, Mola is super frustrating for this team. Mola teams tend to be fatter and slower on average, so take advantage of Crown and Zapdos to pivot around, deny healing, and spread status.

This is specifically talking about the RestTalk, Sand-Tomb Forte set. It's hard to kill, while being able to take like 60% off any mom with Ruination + Sand Tomb. Play aggressive and use Zapdos to pivot around. In a pinch, Bax can take a Ruination or EQ to force it out; I find forcing it out the first time is the hardest part when versing it, but once its chipped, Ting struggles to get a second switch in. If using the Clefable set, this is a non-issue.

Dark types are a problem on a team with no Fighting or Fairy types, go figure. A Facade Forte really fucks up the whole team, and it has priority to contest Pult and Bax. It's a bit inevitable that Gambit's gonna get paralyzed, so trade Zapdos into it, while keeping Lu around and non-statused to revenge it later.​

Body Press:

I think these two are the only sorta problematic users of Body Press forte because they take advantage of it best offensively, and I personally would rather see Diancie or Kommo go, rather than tossing the whole Body Press forte out. Diancie especially requires that you go out of your way to dedicate answers for it, which I personally don't enjoy.

This, I think, is the most oppressive mon in the tier. Status is really good to spam with Fortes like Body Slam, Discharge, and Thunder; and if you do, the 2nd fastest mf in the tier gets double damage on the mon for the rest of the game, like hello? I know the Facade Forte exists, but 1) It's quite niche (Gambit's like the only good one in my eyes due to its bulk and prio) 2) It's conditional, as you're not guaranteed to get statused in the first place, and 3) There's opportunity cost with other Fortes, even on a mon like Gambit.

yeah, buddy.....how do we break it to you? This thing is genuinely better without Fortes, so much so it kinda defeats the point of the gimmick. CB isn't even the only set, as SD Scale Shot is just as scary. Even teams with a Fairy + Alo that should theoretically beat this mon every time were not able to stop the Bax on my way to rank 1. With hazards so easily removed by Rapid Spin Fortes and Defoggers, like Giratina-O and Corv, I think Bax should be banned.

 

[KaenSoul]

We had another run of votes with the following results:

Rapid Spin is now restricted, Great Tusk and Terapagos are now free!
Simply put, there were concerns about the state of hazard removal and a suggestion was to restrict Spin and free some of its old abusers, so we will try it out, but the options are still kind of limited, we cant free Quaquaval without a proper suspect and IT main set was Body Press, we are basically gaining Tusk while some mons like Tentacruel will lose viability.

dhelmise please.