Testimonial on the development of the GSC Monotype Metagame
:gs/raikou: :gs/porygon2: :gs/Nidoking: :gs/Cloyster: :gs/Skarmory: :gs/Jynx:
In an effort to improve in data analysis and also to advance this metagame, I am trying to collect as many replays as possible.
After today's roomtour, I have gathered the results in this
spreadsheet.
Thanks to
Fentropy Pengairxan cicepece11 Redeeming love and
TenileDysfunction for playing. Congrats to Fent on winning!
The sample is
really small. But it can serve as an opportunity to showcase how these typings work and why some are powerful as well as certain outliers for these matchups.
Here is a summary of the tournament:
Electric the Special Offensive Behemoth :ampharos: :raikou::jolteon:
Electric proves that if you excel at one thing, then you can overcome your weaknesses. While Electric has some of the shallowest movepools and it has an extremely linear playstyle (spamming Thunder + Hidden Power for coverage), it is unrivalled in terms of special offensive power. With the defensive prowess in Rest-Sleep-Talkers like Zapdos and Raikou and the winconditions of Growth + Baton Pass in Jolteon, this typing can patchup its weaknesses it still has the power to tilt the scales in its favour, and it easily can outmuscle
even powerful typings like Psychic. it seems that without a direct counter for their playstyle taking home a victory should prove to be simple.
Normal Swift Recovery :porygon2: :ursaring: :miltank:
Normal is hands down the typing with the deepest bag in terms of moveset, allowing for a plethora of different techniques, roles, and playstyles to come to light. While boasting some of the best STAB moves and best coverage pool, Normals also offer the most widespread utility. An example of this is how TenileDysfunction displayed that you can viably use teams without Blissey and add three different pokemon with 1-turn-recovery moves in Recover/Moonlight/MilkDrink,
making Normal exceptionally hard to outpace or wipe out.
Water More than a matchup fish :lanturn: :tentacruel: :kingdra:
Water types are among my favourite due to their deceptively deep movesets and malleable role compression. In this tournament, they ran into a Ground type which was a forgone conclusion, but was also giving Normal typing a run for its money. With its widely spread STAB, access to many utilities like Spikes, Explosion and different setup moves, this typing is often picked in tournaments for a reason. Cicepece made an impressive showing of RainDance offense, nearly wiping out TenileDysfunction's team.
Steel the outlier :magnemite: :steelix: :skarmory:
This typing is unique in that it has exactly 6 pokemon and has little variation to go by. Fentropy decided to stray away from his Electric team and in the finals used Steel. Fortunately for him, his opponent had not brought so much as one Fire coverage move while loading a Normal team, giving Fentropy a fighting chance and a
huge advantage.
Steelix managed to withstand the onslaught of Ice Beams spammed from Clefable and Porygon 2, and Miltank's Growls were not enough to stop Skarmory from sweeping.
I've labbed this type and unfortunately this team is completely shut down as long as one normal pokemon has a fire move. It's a miracle that it won in the finals!
Ground jack of all trades :nidoking: :steelix: :quagsire:
I was unfortunate enought to face Water in the first round. But With Nidoking and Lovely Kiss, I was still able to control the pace of the game in the beginning. And despite the loss, it was proving to at the very least pose somewhat of a challenge. With the likes of Quagsire, Steelix and Nidoking, you have a strong backbone against the likes of Normals, Electrics, with ample opportunities to switch around. Not a great showing in this tournament, but it definitely can be fine tuned.
Psychic All in :Espeon: :Alakazam: :Exeggutor:
While having a deep move pool, Psychic greatly suffers from shallow type combinations and defensive utilities which is always going to skew the Electric matchup in the favor of the latter. Still, with pokémon such as Jynx, Starmie, Alakazam, Exeggutor and Espeon, there is plenty of power and utility to go by.
Flying courageous only: enter SuperMan! :Zapdos: :Charizard: :Delibird:
With access to Spikes in Delibird, a Zapdos and Belly Drum Charizard, you have a team with so many chances to make progress and plenty of wincons... as long as you're
not facing other Electric teams. Having a Zapdos of your own is great, and in some cases the access to spikes while having an immunity across the entire team can in certain scenarios really shut off the opponent's chances of making progress. One of its issues is that its defensively frail and is weak to 2 of the most frequent attacking types in the game in Electric and Ice.
I'll have more findings to share after the ongoing discord tournament is concluded and more data is gathered.
