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Welcome to the new hub for our main format! With almost every available Pokemon allowed, Let's Go OverUsed provides a balanced and surprisingly diverse, yet simple, competitive experience unlike any other. This thread will be the place to talk about the tier as a whole, share teams, and discuss tournaments and potential (albeit very unlikely) suspect tests.
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Here are some offensive cores proven to be effective, may help you when teambuilding :)
Zapdos is immediately very threatening to teams, and most have a dedicated response, like Dugtrio Alola, Rhydon, Nidoqueen, or Nidoking. Mega Gyarados thrives on these pokemon, and if Zapdos can U-turn on any of these, Gyarados can come in and threaten these pokemon out with its powerful water STAB. In the early game, this also denies the opponent stealth rocks. Mega Gyarados is very threatening and hard to switch into in general, so the more times you can get this Pokemon in the better. Starmie can be used as a very budget mega gyarados on teams that already have a mega, the same concept of water STAB punishing ground types applies here. I have fire move and U turn
Beedrill is known for dominating the momentum of a game through its powerful U-turns, but it struggles to pressure Melmetal because if you attempt to predict it with Drill Run, you still have to switch into it after, a process many teams struggle with. By partnering Mega Bee with Fire Blast U-turn mew, or even WiIl-o-wisp U-turn mew, you can force out Melmetal very easily, and potentially U-turn again on the Melmetal switch as they switch into something to take a burn or fire blast like Mew or Snorlax, going back into Mega Beedrill and forcing them out again. This core is especially powerful when there are no rocks on the field, so Alolan Persian or Water-types can be useful to deny your opponent rocks. Alolan Persian is extra notable because it has U-turn itself, contributing to the momentum core, and can taunt things like Zapdos after they take stealth rock damage, and keep them low health.
Mega Alakazam cannot be reliably outsped by any Pokemon in the tier, and it has a large amount of sweeping potential with its massive special attack and setup options. However it is usually dealt with using hard answers like Alolan Muk, Chansey, Snorlax, or high HP targets like Melmetal, Mew, and Mega Gyarados. Cloyster does something similar, a fast threatening sweeper shut down by Alolan Muk, Mew, etc. Cloyster has the ability to use self destruct, massively chipping or outright removing Pokemon like Mega Gyarados, Alolan Muk, and Snorlax. Considering the fact that these 2 pokemon share so many checks, this means that in the lategame (when defensive options are limited) Cloyster will force a defensive option from your opponent and heavily damage or remove it, meaning Mega Alakazam can likely win.
Here are 3 teams that could potentially be implemented into the sample teams that demonstrate these cores very well.
https://pokepast.es/e8821486c741b518 This team uses timid Zapdos to pivot into Gyarados, preforming as described. Dragon Tail on Gyarados forces out the pokemon your opponent sends in to deal with Gyarados, forcing them to take chip and more rocks damage. Spedef wisp mew is the main defensive backbone, supported by zapdos and nidoqueen. The nidoqueen is standard, reliably gets up rocks while providing extra damage and status, as well as being a hard zapdos counter. Melmetal has both toxic and thunderwave to deal with faster threats that the team struggles with, as well as whittling down things like mew or zapdos so other pokemon can win. The dragonite has a naughty nature and fire blast, which means it needs much much less damage on melmetal to sweep, while slightly limiting setup opportunities.
https://pokepast.es/817b2bfcbb053c22 Mega Beedrill and a mew set that can force out melmetal is the main offensive core, Zapdos and Persian alola contribute to this, checking Melmetal and denying hazards respectively, while both of them have U-turn and offensively pressure the opposing team. Melmetal is impish with thunder punch because a large amount of damage on Gyarados and Poliwrath is very appreciated by this team. Sandslash provides reliable rocks, essential for a U-turn core, and Counter can punish the opponent for U-turning with mega bee, OHKO Poliwrath or Mega Gyarados, and beat melmetal 1v1.
https://pokepast.es/a4478fcc08445468 This last team is fairy standard, has a defensive core in Mew and Muk, Special offense in Cloyster and mega zam, nidoqueen provides rocks and Melmetal is vibing. Foul play Muk would be the only deviation from the norm, this prevents the team to losing to bulk up rest mew, and hits many pokemon harder than crunch. Zapdos could be run over Muk to better the matchup against ground types.
sorry for double post I just didn't know how to merge these There are a couple things that have been difficult to test without a ladder, so I just wanted to share some ideas that are not really represented on the forums at the moment yet.
Dragon Tail
Dragon Tail is something that has been featured very little in the strategy dex, but I believe it is an extremely viable move on the above Pokemon. Mega Blastoise and Mega Gyarados are very powerful wallbreakers with limited switch-ins. When your opponent attempts to go into these Pokemon, Dragon Tail chips them, and makes them take an extra round of stealth rock later on. Although it is up to chance what pokemon is dragged in, because they had gone into the best counter to the Dragon Tail user beforehand, the odds are that it will be a pokemon that is beat by the user. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-1178107484
In this replay, the opponent's answer to Mega Blastoise is Poliwrath, as everything else would be 2HKOd by Surf and coverage like Ice Beam or Dark Pulse. On turn 5, Mega Blastoise easily forces out Rhydon, and the opponent goes Poliwrath to avoid a 2HKO and hit back with a Toxic or a Low Kick, but the blastoise uses Dragon Tail, and forces it out into his bee. 14% may not sound like a lot of damage, but considering that the poliwrath took rocks, took 14%, and then will have to take rocks again, it has been chipped significantly. In addition, the opponent has been sent into Beedrill, and while this is not as bad as say, if the opponent had been sent back into Rhydon, beedrill still cannot win vs the turtle 1v1, and has to switch out, losing precious health to rocks. They attempt to go Poliwrath but they miscalculate, as the poliwrath is now in range of surf. Unable to kill a 70% Blastoise, the opponent goes back into beedrill, to U-turn out for damage and attempt to pivot in. They are unable to try to predict a Dragon Tail, because that would mean risking the life of beedrill, so they U-turn into Mew, who can attempt to check blastoise, but the blastoise clicks Dragon Tail again, putting the mew through rocks and Dragon Tail chip, leaving it very weakened. Dragonite is dragged in, losing very important health to rocks, and because it cannot kill without outraging and sacrificing itself, the opponent pivots into Melmetal, finally taking down Blastoise but at the cost of 78% of Melmetal's health. With water answers like Poliwrath, Mew, and Melmetal dealt with, Cloyster wins the game. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-1184103716
In this game Mega Charizard gets in on a Melmetal very early on, the Melmetal is very valuable as always, and can't be sacked to fire blast so he switches, the opponent goes Muk to eat up a fire blast and try to toxic, and gets Dragon Tail'd, takes 12% from rocks, 30% from Dtail, and will have to come in on rocks again, so the Muk is essentially below 50% after 1 interaction. Melmetal is unfortunately put back in, the opponent cannot afford to predict a dragon tail, Melmetal could be easily OHKOd, they try to go Mew to pivot in. Mew takes a similarly large amount of damage and is shuffled out, luckily getting in Muk. The Charizard is timid, so just barely misses out on the KO, notice that if it was a neutral attack nature or a +SpA nature, it would have easily done enough damage to KO Muk. Zard is brought out again later vs a venusaur, Starmie is attempted to be brought in on a fire move, but loses half its health to Dragon Tail and is forced back into venusaur. At this point thanks to the chip and positioning brought by Dragon Tail, there are no switches into Fire Blast(as zap is presumably not timid and cannot switch in) and Venusaur is forced to be sacked. With the defensive core of Muk and Venusaur gone and Mew less than 50%, the remaining offensive mons clean up. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-1184131044
This final example begins very similarly to the previous one, Melmetal being a popular way of punishing an obvious lead aerodactyl. In this case however, the opponent has a very difficult matchup with a Zard X, and only after a single Dragon Tail play on Rhydon, the opponent has no switch in and has to sack a Pokemon. They unwisely choose Mew, which is cleanly 2HKOd, and the previous dragon tail damage on Rhydon leaves it unable to function as a check anymore. They are able to take down the zard with some favorable paralysis, but the team is left too weak to other special threats at that point for them to even have a chance.
Mega Gyarados functions very similarly to Mega Blastoise, albeit quite a bit more viably, and with Dragon Tail being physical, I suspect it should be able to use it to even greater effect than Blastoise. Exeggutor alola gains STAB on Dragon Tail and has great attack, so even though it will be functioning as a special attacker, when your switch in is hit by a dragon tail it will hurt, plus exegg has little competition for a 4th move slot, as hypnosis or reflect are easily outstripped in viability.
1 last pokemon that uses this very well would be Mew, just in a very different way. Dragon Tail is the preferred move on Bulk Up Amnesia Rest sets, as it has amazing neutral coverage and prevents anything from setting up alongside you. It also utilizes stealth rock damage to shred the opposing team and limit their opportunities to get in Pokemon that can kill you with a crit, like Zapdos Mega Aero or Mega Beedril. Shown here, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-1178303220-4dao939yr7ymspzykfkwp6j8f48j2n9pw preventing an opposing nasty plot mew from pressuring it and preventing mega aero from crunching for too long.
Petal Dance
So it had came to my attention that Solar Beam from Mega Venusaur is the strongest attack in the tier, which is cool, but obviously not necessarily very viable. But running some calcs with Petal Dance, it does not seem to be a bad option at all. Offensive Venusaur has been overshadowed by the more viable defensive set for some time, but I think it could preform admirably in some matchups, especially if unexpected.
Melmetal, for example is a very common answer to Mega Venu, and it is pretty easily 3HKOd Mega Venusaur Petal Dance vs. Melmetal: 63-74 (30 - 35.2%) -- 91.1% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock
This is huge, as the most Melmetal can do to Venusaur in a single turn is around 55% with Double Iron Bash, which means Mega Venusaur will be able to pretty often and consistently prevent it from switching in.
Modest also boosts the power of sludge bomb significantly enough that Zapdos can no longer serve as a viable pivot. Mega Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. Zapdos: 73-87 (44.2 - 52.7%) After a poison, this is way too much damage to try to stall roost off. In addition, if a Zapdos attempts to roost, it will lose it's flying typing, and take huuuge amounts of damage from petal dance. Mega Venusaur Petal Dance vs. grounded Zapdos: 96-114 (58.1 - 69%)
Mew is still very much an issue, able to outspeed and roost off any damage, but when using Petal Dance, Mew is unable to try to attack Mega Venusaur or do anything but heal. Mega Venusaur Petal Dance vs. Mew: 88-105 (50.2 - 60%) Due to the confusion self inflected from Petal Dance, Mew is still able to switch in, but if it ends up being paralyzed, poisoned, or toxic'd, it will either be unable to switch in at all, or be be under heavy pressure to be at high amounts of health to check Mega Venusaur.
Modest, or Foul Play
The traditional Muk set has been Sassy to make it most optimal for checking special threats,, with Crunch as it's main STAB, Toxic as a reliable way of handling pokemon with recovery like Mew, Zapdos, and Charizard, Fire blast to threaten Melmetal, something always desirable, and mega drain for the recovery potential and coverage. There are 2 alternative sets that I wanted to share that accomplish various things better or worse.
Muk-Alola
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mega Drain
- Fire Blast
- Foul Play
- Toxic
Running Foul Play over crunch prevents you from needing to run Sassy, meaning you can outspeed a Jolly rhydon attempting to tech you, but more importantly it hits many many many pokemon harder than crunch. Foul Play has quite a bit higher base power than crunch, and takes advantage of the much higher attack stat on pokemon like Melmetal and Mega Aerodactyl and Dragonite to do quite a bit more damage. It also reliably does more damage to Mew and Zapdos, because these pokemon run U-turn very very often, which means they are running full attack IVs. The downside to this is you do much less to Starmie and Alakazam, turning potential OHKO's into 2HKOs. This is substantial enough of a drawback to make it not the first choice, but still is a very viable option, and can also be important to not losing to Bulk Up Rest Mew.
Muk-Alola
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mega Drain
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Toxic
This set trades becoming a worse response to Pokemon like Alakazam for becoming a better response to things like Mew, and has a unique offensive presence. Modest allows you to outspeed and OHKO Rhydon with Giga Drain, 2HKO Melmetal with rocks up, and most importantly, get burned. Dark Pulse means you can to switch into Psychic Wisp Mew and not instantly be neutered, you can still Toxic it and do large chunks of damage, forcing it to Roost, unlike Crunch, which can do around 25% to Mew when burnt.
Apologies for the inconsistent formatting and capitalization.
Exeggutor alola gains STAB on Dragon Tail and has great attack, so even though it will be functioning as a special attacker, when your switch in is hit by a dragon tail it will hurt, plus exegg has little competition for a 4th move slot, as hypnosis or reflect are easily outstripped in viability.
just to note that it is at minimum reasonable for exeggutor-a to run dragon tail as its sole dragon stab. it is slower than everything that it wants to use its dragon stab against with the exception of opposing exeggutor-a, and almost all of the pokemon it wants to use its dragon stab against (the dragon and fire types of the tier) are weak to rocks and hate being phased out which makes up for the lower damage output, again except for opposing exeggutor-a. (also when running dragon tail you may choose to use a -speed nature, in which case you are losing the mirror matchup against modest exeggutor-a regardless)
dragon pulse may be preferred in situations where you do not want to rely on prediction, for example facing melmetal when the opponent has say a zard x, in certain situations you may not want to click flamethrower and risk giving zard x a free switchin, and using dragon pulse will still give you some decent chip damage on melmetal if it does stay in while preventing zard x from switching in, while if you use dragon tail while melmetal stays in it will move first and presumably ohko you. however those are pretty specific scenarios.
so while running dragon pulse and dragon tail together isnt completely implausible, i think u will find that you are rarely actually using dragon pulse on that set, and it is at least as viable to drop dragon pulse and use hypnosis/reflect/whatever in the fourth slot. hypnosis + dragon tail can be quite effective, since if you do land hypnosis the opponent is heavily pressured to switch out, especially if the slept pokemon does not resist mega drain, which gives you a potentially free turn to dragon tail and get rocks damage on two pokemon plus have a chance to phase the slept pokemon back in.
1 last pokemon that uses this very well would be Mew, just in a very different way. Dragon Tail is the preferred move on Bulk Up Amnesia Rest sets, as it has amazing neutral coverage and prevents anything from setting up alongside you. It also utilizes stealth rock damage to shred the opposing team and limit their opportunities to get in Pokemon that can kill you with a crit, like Zapdos Mega Aero or Mega Beedril. Shown here, https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7letsgoou-1178303220-4dao939yr7ymspzykfkwp6j8f48j2n9pw preventing an opposing nasty plot mew from pressuring it and preventing mega aero from crunching for too long.
i saw eve mention this set too and i am somewhat confused about why dragon tail is the preferred physical attack.
~ @ opposing pokemon setting up alongside you, set up moves (other than agility which is not relevant for this context) are pretty rare in lgpe ou? really outside of mew they are very uncommon, calm mind on m-zam but m-zam is only going to be using shadow ball regardless of mew's chosen attack since it has terrible physical bulk; maybe bulk up on some fighting types which will lose to bulk up mew regardless of its chosen attack; shell smash cloyster which has to lower its defense to set up and will also mostly struggle with mew regardless of its chosen attack; mega pinsir which is a potential issue but it can only really have a chance to set up while mew is sleeping anyway, with the exception of mega pinsir that run bulk up instead of swords dance to whatever extent that is viable, and of course calm mind clefable which is immune to dragon tail, thats pretty much it (lol quiver dance venomoth).
~ since you are presumably trying to set up as much as possible before attacking, stealth rock damage is mainly relevant for pokemon you dont damage well with your chosen attack, most likely melmetal. eg you bring up mega beedrill but m-bee is going to be ko'ed by almost whatever physical attack after a few boosts, the stealth rock damage is not really relevant, or rather the stealth rock damage is relevant for m-bee trying to get a crit with u-turn, which has nothing to do with mew running dragon tail.
~ the negative priority seems extremely unfavorable to me for a set up sweeper that has a pretty good speed tier, because it means that you have to take more attacks while and after setting up, and also means that eg opposing users of leech seed and sleep inducers can use those moves before/without taking any damage, both of which are pretty crippling, tho i guess dragon tail does have the feature of preventing counter.
(there is nothing in the replay that really shows the merits of dragon tail specifically, with maybe the exception of phasing opposing np mew, and once mew got to like +3/+3/+4 it was likely to be over regardless of its chosen attack. i agree that dealing with opposing np mew is important but dragon tail is not the only or even the best move for doing so.)
some other possible physical attacks:
megahorn ~ this seems to me the best mono-attack to run, but at minimum it has the most to offer that dragon tail lacks. +1 megahorn has a chance to ohko opposing (neutral natured) mew after stealth rock so you really dont have to worry about np mew at all; outspeeds and does 74-88% to mega gyarados, which is also very useful since m-gyara's crunch easily ko's with a crit and does pretty good damage even after one or two bulk ups as well as carrying a defense drop chance, plus m-gyara sometimes runs dragon tail itself; and unboosted megahorn ohko's m-zam, and also foul play persian-a and exeggutor-k. megahorn has excellent base power and actually reasonably good neutral coverage in the tier, with gengar being the only common 4x resist. it is also resisted by zard x but the latter's moves have low pp so it has limited chances to land a critical hit and can be easily pp stalled, but if it has dragon tail it can end a sweep, since it survives even +6 megahorn after rocks (but if mew is running dragon tail, then the same is true for +speed zard x and neutral speed zard x has a 50/50 chance to p-haze mew before it is p-hazed itself, and do so without taking any damage.) gengar is a significant problem while mew is just starting to set up, and after set up it will still have some chances to try to ko with a crit shadow ball due to its 4x resistance to megahorn and usually running wisp.
some other useful features of megahorn's high base power are that +6 megahorn usually 3hko's melmetal so it cannot rest loop, +1 megahorn ohko's chansey to prevent it from getting off toxic or stoss, and +1 megahorn 2hko's muk-a. it is also the strongest option vs mega venusaur (which is a huge problem for dragon tail sets because of leech seed + sleep powder), for example +2 megahorn will usually still 2hko with one turn of leech seed recovery, and +2 megahorn also ohko's eevee-s before it can use sappy seed.
megahorn sets would prob play a little differently, they want to be somewhat more aggressive with bulk up because many initial mew switch-ins are heavily threatened by +1 megahorn, and may not need to prioritize setting up amnesia as much esp against teams without gengar due to the excellent matchup against opposing psychics. this is also an advantage bc as soon as u use rest the opponent can switch in any dtail user if they have one and p-haze mew before it wakes up (which leaves mew close to full health but the point is to remove its boosts).
waterfall ~ waterfall has very good neutral coverage in the tier as well as a flinch chance and notably is the only real option that hits melmetal neutrally. being resisted by most opposing dragon tail and sleep move users is a downside, tho mew can always be p-hazed when it is asleep anyway. hitting nidoqueen and m-aero super effectively is nice, and the extra pp (compared to all the other moves suggested here) could be useful sometimes too idk. as is true of all the moves listed below this, the much lower damage on opposing mew means that np mew may be more of a concern.
play rough ~ decent bp and very good neutral coverage in the tier. hitting m-gyara super effectively is again valuable, tho play rough is obv not as strong as megahorn. note that it is also resisted by gengar and nidoqueen, as well as m-venu, really its sole advantage over megahorn is against zard x and dnite (but dnite is unlikely to have dtail anyway and probably loses if it doesnt).
rock slide ~ it has a lot of super effective coverage that could be useful, vs zapdos, m-aero, m-pinsir, dragons, but most of those outspeed mew anyway so dragon tail is just as effective against them, and rock slide could have serious pp problems due to being resisted by many physically bulky pokemon in the tier (melmetal, grounds and poliwrath) even tho mew will still have good matchups with all of those individually, with the exception of counter sandslash-k.
(if it is not clear i have not used bulk up amnesia rest mew, why i am phrasing this more as questions / out of ~curiosity)
along the lines of bulk up/amnesia/rest mew, has anyone tried out / had success with other moves boosting defenses, some potential options to explore are: iron defense melmetal, barrier (m-)alakazam, iron defense muk-a, amnesia m-venusaur.
With the key exception of zapdos many of melmetal's prominent checks are actually on the physical side, such as mega gyarados and poliwrath, neither of which can 3hko +2 melmetal, tho poliwrath could potentially run bulk up. opposing melmetal also cannot 3hko at +2, nor can any of sandslash-k, nidoking even with a +attack nature, and nidoqueen with super fang followed by 2 earthquakes. however, melmetal reallyyyy has trouble fitting acid armor + rest on its moveset, basically it means it has to choose between earthquake and toxic for its fourth moveslot, without earthquake it cannot do much of anything to opposing melmetal other than try to pp stall and it is also going to have serious issues with attacking pp in general with dib as its only damaging move, and without toxic it is completely helpless against zapdos. or maybe it could drop dib and run both eq + toxic since eq covers all toxic immune pokemon and has better pp than dib, particularly actually being able to beat opposing melmetal without using all its attacking pp, but obviously dropping the most threatening attack in the metagame is a significant cost. nature is debatable, probably impish or careful is preferable to adamant.
i have tried to build with acid armor melmetal a few times (before the m-gar ban tho) and was not at all satisfied with it, however that was also before toxic was as common on melmetal and idr if i even tried toxic / acid armor / rest.
as with many suggestions here, i think acid armor + rest melmetal will have significant consistenty issues, particularly due to the zapdos matchup. however some teams may find themselves almost unable to deal with it at all so i think it def has some viability.
Almost all of m-zam's checks are physical attackers, rly all other than chansey, so barrier seems to have a lot of potential. for example, at +2 snorlax can only do 36-44% with crunch, and at +4 it cannot even ko with self-destruct after rocks, so snorlax lacking toxic is actually in a pretty bad position if it switches into barrier, tho if it has body slam it can at least fish for para. if melmetal is not running a status move it will also be in a bad position if it switches into barrier bc zam can boost to +4 and then recover stall dib out of pp pretty easily. even adamant m-gyara is only 50% to ohko +2 m-zam after rocks (and is 2hko'ed by dazzling gleam otherwise), and neutral attack m-gyara cannot ever ko after rocks. however, zam's vulnerability to status means that matchups that barrier would otherwise flip such as against toxic muk-a it will still lose at least most of the time. unless someone thinks m-zam could run rest (prob dazzling gleam / cm / barrier / rest LOL but if ur trying to run a set like that u should prob be doing it with mew instead).
and obviously the moveslots taken up by barrier + recover means that zam can only run two attacks, dropping shadow ball doesnt matter much for melmetal but leaves u usually unable to beat toxic mew and twave starmie tho it can stall out other starmie and defensive mew, and dropping dazz gleam means u are not improving either the m-gyara or muk-a matchups which leaves snorlax and melmetal lacking status as the only matchups improved by barrier.
nonetheless, barrier sets would need to be handled somewhat differently and since teams often rely heavily on a single pokemon (usually muk-a) to deal with m-zam, they may find themselves in a lot of trouble if they are not prepared to deal with a moveset with barrier. particularly the occasional rest muk-a which might not be running toxic and suddenly it cant check m-zam at all. also barrier m-zam can usually run modest, because m-aero cannot beat +2 zam at all and jolly m-bee cannot ohko it after rocks so that mu becomes a sort of 50/50 even if the beedrill user has figured out that m-zam is modest, so timid would really only be for the mirror matchup.
this case is a little different, muk-a is a pokemon that would reallyyy like to run rest in general, but usually cannot do so very effectively because even though it can rest loop some key special attackers including m-zam without calm mind, they can just switch out to common pokemon such as ground types that easily outspeed and 2hko it. acid armor can help with this somewhat, muk-a will still not be able to rest loop against eg nidoqueen even at +4, but using acid armor before using rest, particularly on an opposing will-o-wisp, can protect muk-a from being 2hko'ed by grounds allowing it to burn a key second sleep turn while still staying at reasonably high health. acid armor can also help with prediction in situations when you are not sure which physical attacker will switch in, for example +2 muk-a with mega drain can 1v1 sandslash-k and esp poliwrath pretty well despite being outsped, and rhydon even if it is outsped, and is 50/50 to avoid being 2hko'ed by melmetal's earthquake and if it does avoid the 2hko, foul play has a ~25% chance to 3hko melmetal after rocks.
the moveslots are not as crucial to muk-a as for melmetal and m-zam, particularly if it runs foul play for stab which lets it drop flamethrower/fire blast and still deal good damage to melmetal, and then it can choose between mega drain and toxic for the fourth moveslot, toxic probably being preferable in most cases.
Venusaur has good matchups with many physical attackers already, and amnesia can allow it to stay in and use leech seed against some special attackers it would otherwise be forced out by, particularly defensive mew which can no longer outpace leech seed and mega drain recovery even assuming it is running psychic which does 30-36% to +2 venusaur, and it similarly flips the gengar matchup. amnesia will also win the mirror. (ill look into this a lil more later and edit this post accordingly, i havent investigated this option as much as the others)
i think the only move amnesia can rly replace is sleep powder, dropping sludge bomb means losing the mirror instead of winning it and that is also one of m-venus safest opportunities to set up amnesia (among other things), and amnesia is designed to help m-venu stay as healthy as possible so losing mega drain recovery is undesirable.
edit: this is somewhat different but to not double post, counter as an option for alolan sandslash.
counter is most important for impacting the m-gyara matchup, which is ohko'ed by a countered earthquake and heavily damaged by countered waterfall or crunch, and even if counter is known it is still a 50/50 bc if m-gyara tries to use substitute or twave instead it has to take an extra attack.
counter also significantly helps sandslash-a when it has not boosted, particularly for melmetal which is ohko'ed by countered earthquake and takes ~50% from countered dib. also eg impish nidoqueen which is a roll to be koed by ice punch + ice shard as opposed to being ohkoed by countered eq or almost ohkoed by countered super fang. if impish, sandslash-a even has a chance to survive poliwraths low kick and ohko back with counter.
the reality is ice punch is not that important, the main target at +2 is sandslash-k which depends on a speed tie otherwise ice shard is just as good, and rhydon which takes only slightly less from earthquake but is not ohkoed by +2 ice punch if impish anyway, and rhydon is unlikely to be anywhere near full health when sandslash-a is sweeping anyway. almost everything else relevant for ice punch outspeeds so ice shard is just as good in terms of sweeping; and prior to setting up counter helps with ice punch targets such as grounds and m-aero anyway, in addition to flipping the m gyara matchup
counter is effective alongside swords dance, as pokemon trying to avoid counter can instead end up giving a safer set up turn, but it maybe could also replace swords dance (allowing the fourth moveslot for stealth rock or maybe toxic). alolan sandslash has a good typing for using counter bc 1 it is immune to toxic and 2 outside of users of fire type moves most pokemon rely on eq to hit it hard and the only earthquake in the tier that ohkos is adamant rhydon's.
With our first LGPE Global Championships coming up, we're bound to have a bunch of new players looking to get/make teams. To help with that, here's a quick basic teambuilding guide- this isn't the only way to build LGPE teams, by any means, but it's very tried, true, and simple.
First I'll show the recommended structure, and then I'll explain it for anyone wondering what it does.
Mew
Melmetal
Mega
Ground-type
Zapdos / Filler
Filler / Special Tank
Mew is not 2HKOed by almost any neutral attack and packs great Speed, reliable recovery and momentum. This makes it by far the best defensive tool in the metagame, especially in a meta quite lacking in good resistances to types like Ground and Water. It can also provide Stealth Rock, or, for a more offensive approach, attempt a sweep with Nasty Plot or Bulk Up (Facade EQ Roost is the standard for that set). There's pretty much no reason to not run Mew.
The same is true of Melmetal, which is an extremely valuable resource and can 1v1 99% of the metagame in a pinch, notably including massive threats like Mega Aerodactyl, Mega Alakazam, and Mega Beedrill, while also being a terrifying breaker with very limited responses. Use your Melmetal carefully, however, or you'll probably get cleaned up hard.
Almost every LGPE OU team is better off having a Mega- thanks to LGPE's lack of items, it's viable to even have two potential Mega Evolutions in some cases, assuming that the base formes are effective enough. Ground-types are the best way to avoid being overly vulnerable to Zapdos, which can otherwise be the most disgusting Pokemon you'll ever have the displeasure of battling. Which one you choose really depends on preference and playstyle- Rhydon/Golem are the most damaging Ground-types and provide the best physical tanking presence but have crippling weaknesses, a Toxic vulnerability, and poor Speed; Nidoqueen is the best defensively and has an amazing tool in Super Fang, but can struggle to make much progress offensively; Alolan Dugtrio has the best overall offensive presence due to its great Speed while also packing a Toxic immunity, but its relative frailty can cause issues; and Nidoking and Sandslash are both decent, albeit more niche, options with specific upsides and drawbacks that you can read in their analyses. This slot can provide Stealth Rock if you don't have space for the hazard on Mew. Zapdos has great power, a powerful defensive typing that includes a vital resistance to Double Iron Bash, and, like Mew, also has coveted access to U-Turn and Roost. Having a Zapdos on your team makes you significantly less terrified of massive wallbreaking threats like Melmetal and Mega Gyarados too- note, however, that Zapdos is not a safe switchin to either if Stealth Rock are up (they will be). Toxic Zapdos can be a real pain to try and outlast or handle, while Reflect Zapdos is a great momentum-preserving pivot that keeps its teammates safe as they inevitably switch into whatever the opposing Ground-type goes for. Zapdos is less required than Mew and Melmetal, hence the option for this slot to be something else, but if you don't know what you're doing and don't have any crazy synergistic ideas, you're probably better off with zap.
The last slot is typically filler, meaning you can put whatever you want here. This slot is the main source of creativity in this structure. The Pokemon you already have should barely cover most of the biggest threats in the metagame, but maybe you could use this slot for a bit more insurance against something that matches up well against your specific Mega Evolution. Maybe you could use it to take a bit of pressure off of Melmetal defensively, freeing it up to dish out its massive attacks earlier in a battle. Maybe you could use it as a breaker/cleaner to either clear the way for your Mega Evolution or exploit the holes said Mega leaves in the opposing team- a good example of this is the combination of Mega Alakazam and Shell Smash Cloyster, who both share many similar checks and negate most offensive counterplay by outspeeding everything. This slot was almost always filled with a special tank when Mega Gengar was in the tier, but the demand has since died down dramatically- it's still a good option and worth listing, however, as the likes of Mega Alakazam, Gengar, and Starmie can make them worth using. The primary options for this role are Alolan Muk, Snorlax, and Chansey.
I hope this helps some of you! If you need any elaboration or a demonstration/explanation of how this tier even works in the first place, feel free to ping me in the LGPE Discord (or ask here / in a Smogon DM if you don't have Discord). Good luck to all!
Hi! This post is going to be a combination of a few announcements and a rambly analysis of the tournament that is pretty much an article.
First, the announcements. Tournaments We're planning to host another tournament in the near future! What that tournament will be, however, is up to all of you. If you have any level of interest in playing, please vote on the poll at the top of this page to help decide the format. If we don't get enough votes from this to make a confident decision we'll just host a standard OU Best of 3 tournament, but I want to take this opportunity to gauge interest tournaments as a whole and which specific formats interest the playerbase. For those interested in UU, I'll be looking into hosting a separate tournament for it at some point this year regardless of this poll's results.
Resources
We updated the Sample Teams 2 weeks ago. These new teams should fare significantly better against the metagame as a whole than the old ones, which had several glaring issues- one even had no Zapdos checks or anything faster, which is pretty dangerous seeing as nearly 2/3 of all teams in the tournament packed Zapdos. I also want to put out a reminder that we're always accepting new Sample Teams- if any experienced players would like to submit their own teams, go ahead!
Now for an analysis of the over/underperformers in the current tournament, and my opinions on what happened in each case. You can find compiled usage stats and winrates for the entire tournament here if you're not interested in what I have to say, or if you just want to take a closer look.
The Winners
This section will cover some Pokemon that have won significantly more battles than they have lost, with the exception of most Pokemon that weren't used many times- in those cases, outliers are expected.
88.9% (8:1)
Let's start with this. What the hell is going on here? That's a pretty consistent performance... is Venomoth suddenly S-Rank? Simply put, no, it isn't. These results can be attributed to Lilburr's great performance, and the rest of her favorite team. Venomoth plays an fairly minor role on the team, meaning that it's pretty much carried by its user- in fact, this team's only loss comes courtesy of me.
75.0% (3:1)
Koalacence is crazy lol. In actuality, even in just these 4 games Starter Pikachu did a little better than I was expecting with all the Mega Beedrill, Mega Alakazam, and Mega Gyarados going around, helping to reliably revenge kill all of these after reasonably achievable damage. This stat is funny though, which is why I'm bringing it up.
61.2% (63:40)
I don't think I really need to say it but this Pokemon is, and always will be, very good, and its standout high winrate for a highly used Pokemon reflects that. More and more people switching to an Adamant nature has only secured this, as Crunch deals absolutely obscene amounts of damage to Mew and almost invalidates it as a good answer. However, keep in mind that this winrate is an average- it performed extremely well in Round 1, presumably as newer players aren't as accustomed to the amount of preservation required as defensive counterplay to Mega Aero in a tier without Choice Scarf, which greatly increased its otherwise good but fairly unremarkable winrate.
58.0% (69:50)
Here it is. Mega Alakazam has really taken off during this tournament for the first time in its LGPE career, which seems odd seeing as its main set, CM 3 Attacks, hasn't changed at all. What has changed, however, is the teams people build around Zam- it turns out that when you pair it with Pokemon that pressure its answers, it becomes an unmatched terror. In retrospect this sort of approach should have been used sooner, but oh well, we're here now and we're very scared.
56.4% (31:24)
Cloyster has been excelling in this tournament as a great partner for Mega Alakazam, as they share a huge number of common checks like Alolan Muk, Melmetal, and Mega Gyarados, and offensively checking either is practically impossible (eve how could you forget starter pikachu) due to their uncontested Speed. It has a similar Round 1 usage bias to Aerodactyl, but this doesn't tell us the full story either. In fact, its overall win rate could be considered misleadingly low; a disproportionate number of losses with Cloyster came down to players unfortunately missing their first and only Hydro Pump or getting haxxed when attempting to set up. Keep an eye on this mon.
55.8% (67:53)
This is entirely unsurprising. Alolan Dugtrio, similarly to Mega Aerodactyl, has always been good and will always be good. It clicks Earthquake fast and checks Zapdos, which is really all it needs to be amazing. This mon is firmly holding onto its seat as one of the two defining Ground-types alongside Nidoqueen. Substitute sets seeing more serious play has even taken its threat level up another notch, as it can often set Substitute up for free versus Zapdos and become much harder to handle.
55.6% (20:16)
Is Nidoking suddenly better than Nidoqueen? No, it isn't, but it's definitely solid. After Round 1, where it actually had quite a poor performance, it was mainly used on one of the suddenly dominant Mega Alakazam builds that good players began to favor. Nidoking has clear positive traits over Nidoqueen in this role, namely in its Speed which lets it outrun Mega Gyarados and smash it with Megahorn. It definitely has plenty of flaws too, however, such as being a much worse answer to Gengar and not having Super Fang's reliable damage output against everything. As always, if you're not using Nidoking to catch out specific targets, you're probably still better off using Queen.
The Losers
This section, on the other hand, will cover noteworthy Pokemon that have performed disappointingly.
36.4% (8:14)
Charizard has the sad distinction of being on the worst of the removed samples (yeah, the one I made). Rest + Eevee teams just don't work (we'll get to Eevee itself in a moment). Mega Charizard X itself is still a fundamentally good Pokemon though, and Mega Charizard Y is always going to be that one Mega that you laugh about and then get obliterated by.
36.4% (16:28)
It's quite funny that Eevee has exactly twice the wins and losses of Charizard. What isn't funny, however, is the resulting bad winrate (less than half of Starter Pika's...). It shouldn't come as a surprise to experienced players that over two thirds of Eevee's usage was in the first round, which is also where it saw an almost excusable winrate of 43.3%. Its performance dropped off a cliff in Round 2, it saw only two uses and subsequent losses in Round 3, and was given up on entirely in Round 4. Unless someone figures out something out that makes Eevee work amazingly, this kind of record is probably where it'll stay- it's not unviable at all, but it's not really worth going out of your way to use, and the people that tend to use it / lose to it aren't those with much know-how.
36.7% (33:57)
How the mighty fall, right? As the first designed Pokemon, Rhydon's age is really showing, as it gets outsped and put to bed by the vast majority of Pokemon that carry special attacks thanks to its pitiful special bulk. This makes it a pretty bad Stealth Rock setter, as it fails to find a good opportunity to set the entry hazard up more than pretty much any other setter in the game. Rhydon is still a lot stronger than the alternatives at least- that is, until you consider Golem, which packs nearly the same punch while also outrunning standard Alolan Muk and packing Explosion to annihilate the likes of weakened Mew on switchin, keeping up momentum where Rhydon can often lose it. Rhydon isn't the best Zapdos answer either as it's vulnerable to Toxic and more heavily disrupted by Reflect than Super Fang Nidoqueen is. It's a decent physical tank, which can be cool, but a lot of the best physical attackers dumpster it. Once again, not unviable, just a lot worse than we've given it credit for in the current meta.
37.0% (17:29)
Chansey fills a very specific role that is only really useful against Mega Alakazam or Nasty Plot Mew. Chansey's pitiful 5 Defense leaves it hard-pressed to beat or check much else, as it takes a lot of damage from even weak moves like Mew's U-turn. Chansey is typically relegated to death fodder in other matchups, or is maybe used to status a single opponent before fainting. To be fair, Chansey also suffers from being on a team that was extremely heavily prepared for, and many Round 1 players were entirely unaware of just how frail it is, leading to an extremely poor Round 1 performance and not much of an improvement beyond that due to counter-prep. Despite this, it can't be ignored that Chansey is just quite inconsistent.
41.2% (28:40)
I don't quite know what happened here. I guess the increased usage of Mega Alakazam and continued high usage of Mega Aerodactyl didn't do it many favours, as both massively annoy it. There was also a lot of reluctance to click U-turn in the replays I watched which probably cost a few games. Considering this peformance though, maybe Beedrill just isn't quite an A+ mon anymore? I'm personally not sure.
42.9% (27:36)
The old Wish Killer sample hasn't been holding up too well to modern meta adaptations, which probably explains this performance quite cleanly. Mega Venusaur still has all the same positive traits as always, and is never not going to be a pain to switch around, but maybe the upsurge of Mega Alakazam and continued issues with actually damaging Melmetal are catching up with it.
44.0% (22:28)
Starmie has seen scattered usage this tournament on various teams, and it's understandable that it's not doing amazingly. Firstly, it's just kind of weak, and people are exploiting that more and more by easily checking it with Mew. Secondly, it loses to most prominent Mega Evolutions, and even Melmetal, which it normally checks, is running Thunder Wave a whole lot at the moment to ruin its day. Lastly, it's just kind of hard to fit on most teams- you'd often rather have Poliwrath as a defensive Water for the Gyarados matchup, Cloyster as an offensive one for supporting Alakazam, and Gengar as a fast special breaker. Still, this isn't too awful of a performance.
44.2% (65:82)
One of the most used Dragonite teams this tournament features the poorly performing Beedrill and Rhydon, so it's not surprising that its winrate took a hit. The most used team having Dragonite and barely getting a 50% winrate didn't really help in offsetting this either. Regardless, I still think this Pokemon is great, and it looks to stay that way with the recent appearance of terrifying Fire Blast variants that incinerate Melmetal after very little chip.
Closing Words
I was going to include a section overviewing popular teams, but this is already more than long enough. To wrap things up, here's a look at which Pokemon would be OU if it were based off the usage statistics of this tournament:
Pokemon
Usage %
Win %
Melmetal
93.93%
51.08%
Mew
92.11%
52.09%
Zapdos
64.37%
55.66%
Muk-Alola
34.41%
50.59%
Dragonite
29.76%
44.22%
Gyarados
26.11%
48.06%
Dugtrio-Alola
24.29%
55.83%
Alakazam
24.09%
57.98%
Nidoqueen
22.06%
47.71%
Aerodactyl
20.85%
61.17%
Rhydon
18.22%
36.67%
Snorlax
17.81%
51.14%
Beedrill
13.77%
41.18%
Poliwrath
13.56%
50.75%
Clefable
12.96%
50.00%
Venusaur
12.75%
42.86%
Cloyster
11.13%
56.36%
Starmie
10.12%
44.00%
Chansey
9.31%
36.96%
Eevee-Starter
8.91%
36.36%
Gengar
7.49%
48.65%
Nidoking
7.29%
55.56%
Sandslash
5.06%
52.00%
Charizard
4.45%
36.36%
I think this is a pretty good representation of the tier as a whole, and there's not too much to comment on- it's a massive improvement from having the likes of Arcanine, Kangaskhan, and Rapidash up here. It's nice to see that Gengar has made a comfortable home in the tier without its Mega Evolution too!
I really enjoyed both playing in and watching this tournament, and I hope other participants did too and are looking forward to future tournaments. Massive thanks to emma for being a better host than I could ever be! Also don't forget to join the LGPE Discord, cya
~ i said this on discord but a note @ m-beedrill, that while m-bee 'didnt perform very well overall', m-beedrill + sandslash teams went 9-5 (64%), and two of those loses were in the first round which some ppl might argue to be weighted less analytically (excluding the first round, sandslash's win rate is 8-3 (72%).) also fwiw one of the (first round i think) losses was a turn 1 scald crit denying sandslash rocks.
m-beedrill's winrate paired with any ground other than sandslash, was *correction sry* 19-36 (34%), or excluding the first round 5-17 (23%). the vast majority of these used rhydon or nidoqueen, with bee + nidoq not doing quite as badly with a winrate of 8-11 (42%) and bee + rhydon with a winrate of 9-19 (32%).
i wouldnt really describe this as m-beedrill performing badly, as while rhydon was once considered a solid option for m-bee teams it almost always ends up being a momentum drain which m-bee teams in particular cannot afford, and rhydon j struggles in the current meta generally. nidoq is a somewhat awkward m-bee partner as offensively it rly doesnt provide much over sandslash and defensively sandslash's neutrality to earthquake (and psychic) is worth more than features such as being able to switch into muk-a which m-bee doesnt care about and being immune to zapdos's toxic when sandslash still keeps up momentum vs zapdos and arguably is a better u-turn switch-in than nidoq due to its lack of weaknesses/exploitability.
prob the best ground type for m-bee teams other than sandslash would be golem, such as in the current m-bee sample team, which pair was only used once in this tourn.
~ only other comment abt eve's notes/summary is at eevee-s, that this mon is imo still very under-explored both in terms of movesets and teams. moveset wise, eevee-s 'should be' extremely flexible outside of buzzy buzz but anything other than sizzly + sparkly is almost completely untested rn.
the prevalence of sizzly slide to me is from a sort of outdated meta perspective that underestimates the value of paralyzing melmetal, and sizzly slide has the well known issue of inviting in mew and takes up a precious moveslot primarily to hit one target. the more i see i am inclined to think that baddy bad is almost always a better use of the moveslot than sizzly slide, if you face melm and are in range of dib through burn/reflect then u just use buzzy, and if u are out of range then use baddy first followed by buzzy. the damage output is only slightly less, in exchange for not having conflicting status moves ('both ways', if a phys attacker has a different status u can still reduce its damage output with baddy bad) and not caring about mew switch-in at all, as well as the utility of the screen turns after eevee-s is ko'ed.
as eve said sparkly swirl is not at all consistent and sometimes u may want to use eevee-s to force out zam/aero/mew with buzzy buzz when u dont have any status u care about removing, so sparkly is just taking up a valuable moveslot. and even when u do want to cure teammate(s)' status, u have to weigh that against what eevee-s would use otherwise as its turns are very limited.
eevee-s can threaten potential paralysis absorbers with the right moveset, glitzy glow + sappy seed pressures zapdos on the switch, and also is sufficient to take on nidoqueen. bouncy bubble (or sizzly ofc) does major damage to dugtrio-a if ran, otherwise u need to hit it with either baddy bad or sappy seed on the switch.
team structures with eevee-s are maybe even more under-explored, eevee-s used to be on a lot on defensive teams as a cleric but that rly didnt/doesnt work well, but its use on offensive teams as a soft check to zam/aero/np mew, or with teammates that really want the paralysis support, or idk other teams is largely unexplored.
It seems that the community is fairly split on Solo and Team Tournaments, so I've made the decision that we'll be having another Solo next- expect more info about LGPE OU Summer Seasonal 2, as well as the future of LGPE tournaments as a whole, at the start of June.
Now for the main subject of this post, something that we should have made a very long time ago...
LGPE OU Role CompendiumV1
This will serve as a list of Pokemon that can fulfil major roles in the LGPE OU metagame, with the aim of aiding players in selecting the best suited Pokemon when teambuilding. Pokemon within each role are listed in alphabetical order. Only Pokemon deemed viable will be listed, so if you want to see an unranked Pokemon on here, make a nomination in our Viability Rankings thread. Given that this was put together by myself alone, there are likely to be mistakes and absences- if there is a ranked Pokemon that you believe should/shouldn't be listed for a role, or if you think an entirely new role should be listed, provide your reasoning and I'll update the compendium.
Utility Stealth Rock:
Paralysis:
Burn:
Sleep:
Cleric:
Dual Screens:
Super Fang:
Offensive Roles
Wallbreakers: Pokemon that are effective at consistently making progress against the opponent's defenses without prior damage.
Physical:
Special:
Setup Sweepers: Pokemon that can utilize setup moves to make progress or sweep.
Agility:
Bulk Up:
Calm Mind:
Nasty Plot:
Quiver Dance:
Shell Smash:
Swords Dance:
Priority:
Aqua Jet:
Fake Out:
Ice Shard:
Sucker Punch:
Quick Attack:
Zippy Zap:
Dragon Tail:
X
Defensive Roles
Walls:Pokemon that are valuable for handling a variety of attacks, whether physical, special, or either. Due to LGPE's more limited longevity options and smaller roster, Pokemon on this list may not fill strictly or even primarily defensive roles (see: Mega Gyarados) but are still typically integral to a team's defensive function.
Physically Defensive:
Specially Defensive:
Mixed:
Pivots: Pokemon that either utilize pivoting moves to generate offensive momentum, or that can be switched in on common attacks comfortably without letting up all momentum (e.g. can set Stealth Rock, hit hard, or utilize a pivoting move).
That's right- it's been 2 and a half years, but we're finally hosting a yearly tournament circuit that will be situated in the brand new Unnoficial Circuits forum! While we're starting fairly late into the year, we've created a schedule that should make good use of our time:
LGPE OU Global Championships (January)
LGPE OU Summer Seasonal #2 (June)
LGPE UU Cup (August)
LGPE OU Fall Seasonal (October)
LGPE Championships (December)
How will this Tournament Circuit work?
Players who place in the top 16 of the first four tournaments will recieve points based on the tournament and their position, and the players with the most points at the end of the circuit will face off in the LGPE Championships to compete for a profile banner (potential extra prizes, courtesy of a certain generous user, are TBD). Of course, you can also join these tournaments for fun without the goal of winning the entire thing. You can find more info and the current standings here.
Why UU?
As it stands, LGPE doesn't really have options for varied mono-ou tournaments- we don't have a ladder for Ladder Tournaments, we don't have a large enough playerbase for some of the fancy formats, etc.. In order to compensate for this, we're adding UU to our circuit (at least for this year) with a reduced points reward compared to the OU tournaments. There is precedent for tournaments not including the tier played in a circuit's Championships (e.g. UU Classic), so this isn't an entirely foreign concept. It also doubles as a great opportunity to develop the UU tier and expand LGPE's presence past simply OU. If you'd like to try out the tier in advance, join the discussion in the LGPE Discord!
That's about it! If you have any questions about anything here or want to discuss possible adjustments, feel free to message me on the forums or Discord (@Eve#9876). We hope you enjoy the greater frequency of LGPE tournaments, and don't forget to sign up for the Summer Seasonal (signups should be opened within a few days)!
With the Summer Seasonal underway, here's a less formal post showing off some underutilized/newer sets of varying quality for people looking to try out cool stuff. These aren't really documented anywhere else at the moment so I thought I'd kickstart the discussion on them.
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Stealth Rock
- Roost - Teleport
Teleport Mew is really cool and good as a huge number of mons are slower than Mew and stop you from safely getting frail stuff like Beedrill on the field as often with U-turn. The main drawback is that you lose your ability to deal significant damage to Mega Alakazam or chunk Mega Gyarados while escaping from the 1v1, but Teleport lets your offense teams play at such a pace that those things may not be as much of an issue as you expect.
Careful / Jolly Nature
- Earthquake / Double Iron Bash / Ice Punch
- Toxic - Acid Armor
- Rest
Briefly mentioned by juoean in an above post. This set isn't the consistent game-in game-out performer that standard Melmetal is, but it can be quite potent late-game where it can pretty much entirely deny attempts to weaken it with Earthquake. Easily walls out most utility Mew, Alolan Dugtrio, Aerodactyl, etc.. Each attacking move has pros and cons- Earthquake hits every Toxic immunity supereffective and breaks down opposing Melmetal but leaves you as complete Zapdos fodder, Double Iron Bash hits hard but may be more vulnerable to stalling due to low PP, Ice Punch has great PP but struggles against opposing Melmetal fishing for crits. For those wondering, yes Jolly is purely to avoid the Melmetal Speed tie and yes it is sometimes worth using.
Naive Nature
- Thunderbolt - Sky Attack
- Substitute
- Roost
One of my favorite sets of all time, an insanely fun wallbreaker that nobody sees coming. It uses standard Nidoqueen as setup fodder thanks to Super Fang no longer breaking Substitute at <50%, or happily sets up on one of the huge number of Pokemon that Zapdos threatens out- from there, it's free to fire off an effective 300BP attack with a high crit and flinch chance that can really mess your opponent up. Most teams' only great Flying resist is Melmetal and that pretty much has to immediately switch out after lest it take a huge amount from Thunderbolt. This set obviously means your team loses out on the massive value of Zapdos' Reflect and U-turn, but if you can compensate for that then you gain a whole lot of raw power.
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Sucker Punch - Substitute
A great way to punish Zapdos for ever using any move other than U-turn. Alolan Dugtrio getting to land the right hits on the right targets safely can be devastating, and it's not like it needs its HP for much else anyway. This set is a really strong recent development mainly pushed by SoulWind in the global championships, and it seems set to become a staple.
Careful Nature
- Earthquake - Dragon Tail
- Toxic / Super Fang
- Stealth Rock
Dragon Tail Nidoqueen helps offset the queen's passivity against Pokemon that only really need a turn of setup to get going, like Cloyster and Mega Alakazam. Its main selling point though is how it forces damage onto Pokemon that really don't want to be damaged, like Mew switching in seeking to Roost, Gyarados switching in seeking to Mega Evolve, or Zapdos hoping to stay in the back to preserve its HP.
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb - Psychic / Brick Break / Substitute / Sucker Punch
- Will-O-Wisp
Gengar has been tearing through the metagame recently. Its dual STAB + Will-O-Wisp is hard enough to handle, so when you mix up what else it runs instead of defaulting to Thunderbolt, absolute chaos ensues. Psychic means Nidoqueen is never an answer, Brick Break 2HKOes Chansey which is often over-relied on as Zam counterplay, Substitute also ruins most Chansey sets while helping Gengar land strong hits on the right targets if set up against things it forces out (most Pokemon), and Sucker Punch is a really cool option that can KO Mega Alakazam after Mew's U-turn plus Stealth Rock damage- this one could be deceptively effective, as Alakazam can't really afford to risk going for Calm Mind versus a Gengar in most endgame scenarios. This overview doesn't even mention the likes of Thunder, Hypnosis, Taunt, and Protect (allows for scouting and unanswered status damage).
Sassy / Calm / Modest Nature
- Crunch / Foul Play - Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Toxic
This Muk sacrifices Mega Drain, which is only of huge importance versus the increasingly uncommon Rhydon, in exchange for a STAB move unaffected by Burn damage so you can better pressured Toxic poisoned opponents and generally function after taking a burn from Gengar or Mew. If you opt for Foul Play, Alolan Muk can even afford to run a -Atk Nature to outpace Golem and Alolan Exeggutor; be careful though, as such an Alolan Muk can't OHKO Mega Alakazam.
Naughty Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake - Fire Blast
- Agility
Dragonite Fire Blast vs. Melmetal: 118-140 (56.1 - 66.6%). Need I say more? In all seriousness though, Fire Blast also offers a way to pick off weakened Zapdos without having to lock into Outrage, which can be extremely useful. Fire Blast Dragonite is a great set and seems to be preferred by many, including myself, over Roost right now. Dragonite is an extremely underexplored mon overall considering its versatile stats and crazy movepool, interested to see what else is tried out!
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide - Megahorn
- Substitute
This is wayyyy better at making progress than Toxic Rhydon ever was and I really don't know why nobody ever ran it, including myself. Rhydon's Megahorn is stronger than Mega Beedrill's U-turn, dealing 70% minimum to Mew and having good odds to OHKO the cat after two hits from Stealth Rock (or really any attack at all). This not only stops Mew from being something people want to switch in, but also means that once behind a Substitute, Rhydon is just getting a KO in many matchups. It can be hard to avoid letting it get a KO with a free turn in general, assuming the Rhydon player clicks the correct move. This Pokemon is an atrocious Stealth Rock user but this set is kind of ridiculous in how much offense it has while still being defensively useful, give it a go paired with Mega Beedrill and Rocks Mew if you want some inspiration.
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Psychic - Reflect
- Recover
Scald Starmie is really weak and inconsistent at tanking physical stuff, which kinda makes it bad at the entire reason for running it. Decompressing your physical offense neutering and Water STAB from Scald to Hydro Pump + Reflect loses out on a coverage slot but makes Starmie perform far better in most scenarios, actually being able to tank Melm hits, support its team and deal out serious damage to neutral targets. Your dual STAB is... pretty good, so it works quite well overall. Other Starmie sets just sorta feel like a bad Gengar for people really really scared of Alolan Dugtrio.
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss - Sing
- Reflect / Teleport
- Soft-Boiled
Chansey is a deeply flawed Pokemon between its passivity and inability to survive a slap in the face. This set, while inconsistent, helps remedy that a little. Sing allows Chansey to actually exert pressure when facing down any variant of Gengar, and can also threaten Pokemon like Melmetal far better than any other option Chansey has access to. Reflect is pretty cool on Chansey too. You still don't beat most physical attackers with it, but you can at least stay in for a turn or two- the real upside, however, is making it way easier for the rest of your team to respond to the opposing physical attacker looking to exploit Chansey.
Other dumb ideas I've had but never tried to build with:
Reflect Aerodactyl (gives it more defensive utility at the expense of Crunch's 2HKO on Mew, not sure what matchups it really changes in practice though)
Focus Energy Beedrill (100% crit Drill Runs, quite commital though which goes against Bee's usual hit and run playstyle)
Tank Dragonite (maybe w/ Thunder Wave? Also has Dragon Tail!)
I'm interested to see what people think of any of these sets, or what other cool options you can come up with for already established Pokemon!
Oh also, check out our new article about the basics of LGPE OU if you haven't already.
LGPE Master Trainer Challenge(amazing banner i know)
In Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee's postgame, a bunch of brand new trainers known as Master Trainers appear. Each specializes in a single species of Pokemon- there's a Charmander Master Trainer, a Graveler Master Trainer, even a Mewtwo Master Trainer. By fairly popular demand, we're emulating this experience by hosting Mono-Poké Tournaments in the LGPE PS! Room after every 11pm GMT+0 Tour Night concludes, starting from the beginning of the Kanto Pokedex and working our way down. To any European/Asian players who want something a little earlier, we're currently figuring out a second timeslot for our Tour Nights and would appreciate feedback, either in the room or in our Discord. The winner of a tournament is declared the Master Trainer of the tournament's Pokemon and added to the list below. We've already hosted a few, but we hope to see you for the next ones!
Hi! LGPE OU will have a playable ladder on Pokemon Showdown during August as an ROA Spotlight. As such, we'll be hosting an impromptu Ladder Tournament! This will span all four weeks of August, from Monday 2nd to Sunday 29th, with the top 4 players in each weekly cycle obtaining Circuit Points and a spot in the Playoffs Tournament. The placement rewards will be identical to those of the LGPE UU Cup, which is also starting this month- you can check out the LGPE Circuit 2021 Spreadsheet for this information, as well as current Circuit standings. Make sure to join the LGPE Discord or pay attention to the Unoffical Circuits forum to keep notified of when each thread goes live.
For those not aware, LGPE has it's own damage calculator here https://cantsay.github.io/ , just click LGPE in the top right corner. However the sets for many pokemon are missing or wrong, making you have to change the sets, and costing you valuable timer time in your battle. So I made this: https://pokepast.es/97b2dc62ceb795ac a paste of 30 common LGPE Pokémon and their most common attacking moves, to quickly see who does how much to who with what attacks. It's not perfect, you might still have to change a nature or two, and the damage calculator set import is incompatible with Mega Pokemon, but it still should save you time.
Just copy all of the Pokémon in the paste, paste them in the bottom center of the calc, click OK a bunch, refresh, and it's good to go. THESE ARE NOT REAL SETS OR SET RECOMENDATIONS, THESE HAVE EXCLUSIVELY ATTACKING MOVES FOR CALC PUPOSES
Do you need a team to learn the tier with? Are you playing in a tournament but just can't be bothered to build? Well don't worry, because we've got you covered! The all new Sample Teams post has everything you need to fight with the best of them, and what's more, it's free! Just click on the sprites of the team you want and it's all yours, no strings attached. Try it today!
https://pokepast.es/75adb5b7fa8934a9 Would recommend this team to be added to samples with our lack of Gengar representation, or simply would recommend anyone seeing this to take the team or try it, I’ve been using this 6 this LGPE spotlight and tested out many Mew sets, Dugtrio moves, different Zapdos natures, Gengar coverage, etc, and arrived on this. It’s a very offensive team with little defensive options, and often has to sack least valuable Pokémon to threats like Mega Alakazam, and then revenge kill with Melmetal and aggressively wallbreak in return. I've almost never lost with the team and it leads to fast fun games.
Taunt Stealth Rock mew, while lacking the momentum and defensive pressure that U-turn or Wisp variants would have, dominates the hazard game, shutting down Nidoqueen and slower/speed tie losing other mews, and is not OHKOd by any move in the tier, leaving the option always open for you to get up rocks and heal the damage off later. Scald is Mew's best mono attack, as it has no immunities and is very difficult to switch into when respecting the burn. Scald also synergizes very well with Taunt, lowering attack with a burn and then denying status with taunt, enabling Mew to be sometimes untouchable by Pokémon that could otherwise 1v1 it, like Muk-Alola and Melmetal. Beyond hazards earlygame, Taunt has exceptional utility, my favorite use for it being denying recovery vs opposing Mews and Zapdos, especially the latter. This lets you easily lock these pokemon down into range of Gengar, Mega Alakazam, or Dugtrio-A. It's also notable that this team is absolutely brutalized by Cloyster after it sets up, and to mitigate this, I only let 1 Pokémon on my team be Cloyster bait, and while Scald Mew often has to worry about Cloyster, Mew is not that one pokemon, Taunt conveniently patching this issue.
It would take too much thinking and typing to word whether i think this mon is fair, so we'll just keep it at its pretty damn good. Playing correctly with this Pokémon is key to winning with this team. Make note of what Pokémon you need to damage to win with Alakazam, pay attention to what your opponent gets after you get a kill with Zam, and if that would be favorable to you(For example using a Mega Alakazam to kill a 50% Mew will allow the opposing Melmetal to wallbreak, when using Gengar instead would deny it with wisp and prompt a different response that you might be able to more easily handle. Keep track of what Pokémon your Alakazam can set up a Calm Mind on, how you can force these opportunities (For example sacking your Melmetal into the opposing Zapdos knowing Zam can Calm Mind on the relatively weak U-turn), and how these opportunities can be increased by your Zapdos's Reflect (For example a Mega Aerodactyl confirmed Adamant)
Mega Aerodactyl Crunch vs. Mega Alakazam through Reflect: 61-72 (46.9 - 55.3%)
+1 Mega Alakazam Psychic vs. Mega Aerodactyl: 129-153 (83.2 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
This is enhanced by this next bit of advice, which is to not overpredict with Alakazam. Over the course of a game, 2 attacks from Mega Alakazam will almost always put Melmetal in range of a Shadow Ball. It does not matter if these attacks are Shadow Ball or Psychic, so it is needless to click a worse option because it's technically stronger vs your predicted target. Following this will avoid silly situations such as clicking Shadow Ball on a Nidoqueen and eating an Earthquake for your troubles. 2 troublesome Pokémon are Alolan Muk, and opposing Mega Alakazam. For the former, the key is exploiting its neutrality to Stealth Rock to make it take a lot of damage without any risk, as switching into Alolan Muk is quite hard for this team. For example rather than covering a predicted switch to Muk with Dazzling Gleam on Alakazam, a better overall option might be to double to Dugtrio, which will force it out, meaning it took 12% and is guarenteed to take another 12% later on. Gengar is also important to use correctly vs Muk, as it can force it in and burn it, whittling it down and enabling Mega Alakazam to live an attack from it(or multiple with Reflect from Zapdos). Vs opposing Mega-Alakazam, it is highly important to win the hazard control game, or if this is not possible, play very conservatively with your Alakazam. This is because Shadow Ball has a very high chance of OHKOing Mega Alakazam after 2 rounds of Stealth Rock, and has no chance of OHKOing after 1 round of Stealth Rock. This is why playing your Alakazam slowly and sparingly can win you the game in the endgame without having to win a speed-tie. Obviously opposing priority should be considered.
not much to say here, it's a Zapdos! I fiddled with different moves and natures of Zapdos on this team and this is what I arrived upon to be optimal for this 6. Defensive natured zapdos simply did not provide enough to this team to be worth the merit and necessity of timid Zapdos, I was CONSTANTLY sorely missing timid, whereas a much rarer occurrence was me desperately missing 10% defense. Toxic Zapdos has a place for sure, but I loved the nuance that Reflect provided this team in endgames, it makes Alakazam infinitely harder to deal with when it can now suddenly live Crunch from Mega Gyarados after rocks, and the synergy a physical screen and a special defense boosting move have. This team struggles to switch into many things, and ground types are one of the easier things for it to switch into, so please refrain from mindlessly clicking U-turn, if you click it on a threat you might find yourself losing a mon. Sometimes its better just to tbolt on the ground and then switch into them(obviously priorities can differ depending on situation, such as when hazard control is important).
Gengar doesn't have toooo much set variance, but that didn't stop me from experimenting with its moves a lot. I think that these are the 2 non-STAB moves to go for, as wisp is integral to the Gengar/Zam core, and having the ability to 2HKO(and thus deny rocks on switchin) Nidoqueen was very frequently appreciated and missed when not there Tbolt, Mega Drain, and Brick Break were simply too niche and too select in targeting(however on a different Gengar/Zam team, one without a Sucker Punch Dugtrio, i think Sucker Punch Gengar is a hilarious way to get the opposing Alakazam into your own's Shadow Ball range, while also KOing Dugtrio after a Shadow Ball should it try to switch in). Gengar is mostly used for its massive damage output vs Mew, and its lack of defensive counterplay besides Alolan-Muk on teams possessing it, making Gengar perfect for forcing it in and applying a burn to it. Gengar's speed tier and decent typing lends it quite a few opportunities to wallbreak, and you can also use it early-game vs a predicted mew lead, however Zapdos is a relevant answer when rocks are not up yet so be warned. A specific and obvious seeming piece of advise would be to only click wisp if you have to, just because it will make you live the opponent's attack that does NOT mean it is free to click, if you miss and die you will be in an awful position, if you have the opportunity to cash in free damage, you should usually take it.
Nidoqueen does not fit this team at all, so Alolan Duggy in this spot fills the Zapdos answer slot best while maintaining the speed of the team and providing additional pressure vs Mew and Melmetal. EQ and Rock Slide are mandatory on this mon, and I loved what Sucker Punch does for this team, so that left Toxic or Substitute for my last move. I ended up with sub because while those 4 moves can struggle with reflect Zapdos if it clicks reflect on your Substitute as it can heal and pivot out, I realized it is still left in a quite awful position if i click Rock Slide on the turn it clicks reflect, as this calc is an aproximation of the damage of 1 Rock slide and another Rock Slide under reflect: Dugtrio-Alola Rock Slide vs. Zapdos: 106-126 (64.2 - 76.3%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Accounting for accuracy, crits, and flinches, Zapdos is almost always in a very uncomfortable position from any range but full.
But the real reason for why I'm not running Toxic is Toxic should not be run on Duggys with Gengar teammates. If we take a look at this calc Dugtrio-Alola Earthquake vs. Mew: 58-69 (33.1 - 39.4%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO, we can see that even vs +Defense Mew, and even without rocks, EQ always 3HKOs. This means that the Mew must heal before switching out again or it is no longer a viable switch-in to Dugtrio, which with a lot of teams is a major issue. Normally this is no issue, because Mew has the bulk and the speed and the U-turn to deal with attempts at taking advantage of this, but with Gengar, this becomes a major opportunity, as it can switch-in on the Roost and wallbreak. You might be thinking that A: Mew can nail the Gengar with a U-turn or Psychic on the switch, and B: Mew lives Shadow Ball so it can just tank the hit, but for A this creates a 50/50 wherein Dugtrio can simply EQ again risk-free, and if the Mew does anything except Roost or Wisp it will be in range of the next EQ, and even in the worst case scenario where Gengar is OHKOd by Psychic on the switch, rocks damage + EQ will always put Mew within Alakazam range, meaning you can force it out and get a free damage opportunity, keeping the mew below half for the rest of the game. This is also obviously the case for full health Mew deciding to trade 80% of its health to kill Gengar.
1 quick tip, dugtrio alola is the only mon on the team that Cloyster can set up on without screens or status support, do NOT get a kill with this Pokémon or let your opponent sack a mon while it is on the field, you will always be put in a horrible situation or possibly even lose if your Melmetal has taken any chip. Sack the Dugtrio earlier on, getting as much damage as you can, or never use it until the Cloyster is dead, either way it's not much of a sacrifice from you, as it means the opponent has 1 slot that is almost completely useless, only capable of firing an unboosted attack at Melmetal.
It is my and juoean's (i think? correct if im wrong) opinion that this is the best Melmetal set in the tier as of right now. Jolly and Impish have both been explored thoroughly by 2 separate players and they have proved viable but lacking in the face of Adamant. Thunder Punch is an option for some teams but it's main targets my specialspam team cares very very little about so it is not worth considering, that means mandatory DIB, EQ, and Ice Punch. The deliberation for the final slot is which status to bring, and my opinion is that Toxic Melmetal has fallen off hard. Wisp Mew is increasingly less common, meaning your optimal move for it is almost always DIB, and Reflect Zapdos, while it CAN beat Ice Punch Mel, requires multiple turns of butt clenching prediction, and I don't think Toxic is a good solution to the confrontation at all, as the huge drop off in damage from the turn you click Toxic gives the opponent the momentum they need to save their mon and force you out, and they can capitalize on this. I think any situation where the Melmetal gives up on trying to get the EQ vs Ice punch play correct on the Zapdos, you are always better off switching into something else rather than clicking Toxic. When I'm finding Toxic not the right option for most Mews and Zapdos, i struggle justifying running it, as you'll do more to water types with EQ than they ever will take from Toxic all game.
Meanwhile twave has pseudo boltbeam coverage with Ice Punch; any Pokemon that would like to switch into twave is covered by Ice-punch. The move is far more immediately threatening, it can't be mitgated by pivoting around and keeping ticks low, and it can't be accurately played around or have a gameplay be formed around how to deal with by the opponent, because it's completely random and is threatening to fuck the game up for you every turn because paralysis is an awful mechanic.
Twave Mel also has the very notable achievement of having the odds in its favor in the full health Melmetal ditto, which is very important and relevant in many games, and is something you will sorely miss when running toxic.
Lastly the speed control is quite relevant, as it lets Melmetal 1v1 Mvenu with ease with the speed drop+paraflinch, make things dicey for opposing Mgyara as they struggle to 3hko you through DIB paraflinch, and lets Melmetal not be setupbait vs Omastar, Cloyster, Kingler, Mega Alakazam, or hell even Mega Pinsir, when these aforementioned Pokémon have Reflect Support (as many should), another situation where you can lose for running toxic.
As for usage tips for this mon on this team, I would avoid switching your Melmetal directly into Pokémon like Mega Alakazam and Mega Aerodactyl, with the frail nature of the team, if Melmetal is weakened you could lose on the spot. It is often better to choose the Pokemon that serves the least purpose, sack it, and then force out these threats with Melmetal afterwards. This way you force them out without your Melmetal taking anything more than 6% from rocks, and you still get to wallbreak with it.
read me ^.^ Even if you do not intend on using this team I encourage you to open and read this post, I cover many aspects and interactions of the meta and you likely could benefit from it either way
Hi! With our final open tournament of the year quickly approaching, we thought it would be a good time to put out a short Google Forms survey to gauge public opinion on the current metagame. Your feedback will likely influence tiering decisions in the near future, so please take a look if you have interest in the tier. You can take the survey here!
Let's take a look at the responses to the survey! While we recieved only 15 responses, of which 7 were qualified, this has still proved useful in learning what our playerbase thinks about the tier, especially as our total playerbase is quite small anyway. Regardless, take these results with a grain of salt- most of the people who took the time to respond to this survey will be those with significant prior involvement in the tier.
On a scale of 1-5, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? See: do you enjoy playing it?
The average of every response is 4.2/5, which is high and suggests players overwhelmingly tend to enjoy the metagame.
From qualified responses, the average response was 4.286/5, proving effectively zero difference in opinion between qualified players and everyone else.
On a scale of 1-5, how good do you find the current metagame? See: do you find it competitive?
The average of every response is 4/5, which suggests players overwhelmingly find the metagame competitive.
From qualified responses, the average response was 4.143/5, which shows that qualified players similarly find the metagame competitive.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Mega Alakazam in LGPE OU?
From every response, 8/15 respondents oppose a Mega Alakazam suspect test:
1 person strongly opposes a Mega Alakazam suspect test,
7 lightly oppose it,
4 lightly support it,
2 strongly support it,
and 1 chose to abstain.
From qualified responses, 4/7 respondents oppose a Mega Alakazam suspect test:
4 people lightly oppose a Mega Alakazam suspect test,
and 3 lightly support it.
Overall, the playerbase seems to slightly tend towards wanting to keep Mega Alakazam in the tier at this time. In fact, the proportion of people that support and oppose a Mega Alakazam suspect test is identical between all responses and qualified responses. A Mega Alakazam suspect test is not entirely off the table at this point, but don't be surprised if you don't end up seeing one.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Mega Gengar's ban from LGPE OU?
From every response, 9/15 respondents agree with Mega Gengar's ban:
3 people strongly support Mega Gengar's ban,
6 lightly support it,
1 strongly opposes it,
and 5 chose to abstain.
From qualified responses, 5/7 respondents agree with Mega Gengar's ban:
2 people strongly support Mega Gengar's ban,
3 lightly support it,
and 2 chose to abstain.
Overall, the playerbase seems to approve of, or at least be fine with, Mega Gengar's ban at this time. As such, no action will be taken here.
Is there anything else you would like to see us look into in the near future / any other thoughts, suggestions or concerns?
Nothing recieved significant support here, but here are some responses of note:
Two players requested a PL. uhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'll look into it
3 players mused on the possibility of a Melmetal suspect test, but still seemed to think the tier is better off with it around.
Mew similarly recieved 2 half-hearted mentions.
One voter mentioned that they believe Mega Gengar could potentially end up balanced with the tier's development towards more fast-paced offensive strategies that handle it a bit better, but they weren't confident that it would be a worthwhile enough addition to the tier to risk its combination of powerful traits, and they therefore support its ban.
One voter finds Mega Alakazam's effect on the current meta imbalanced, but they consider its rise recent enough and the meta freshly changing enough that a suspect test would be premature.
Finally, one other player posited the idea of a Stealth Rock suspect test, which is unlikely to happen but could very well spawn a unique side-meta for those interested.
That concludes our first player survey! Thank you to everyone who took part, and I hope the results were informative or interesting or something. Feel free to share your thoughts on anything mentioned here in this thread or in our Discord.
Welcome to the new hub for our main format! With almost every available Pokemon allowed, Let's Go OverUsed provides a balanced and surprisingly diverse, yet simple, competitive experience unlike any other. This thread will be the place to talk about the tier as a whole, share teams, and discuss tournaments and potential (albeit very unlikely) suspect tests.
Rules Mechanics: Pokemon are set to Level 50. Pokemon do not have EVs, Abilities, or Items other than Mega Stones*. IVs and Natures still apply. Clauses:Smogon-Wide Clauses. Banned Pokemon: Gengar-Mega, Mewtwo *Disclaimer: The option to choose between X and Y Mega Evolutions mid-battle is not implemented on Showdown
Drill Peck Zapdos is making a little resurgence! It's a very anti-meta choice right now and can play into some unique synergies.
So how is it anti-meta? Well, let's consider how people are playing around Zapdos right now:
: This guy, especially with Substitute to turn Zapdos into offensive progress, is by far the most popular anti-Zapdos option in the current meta. Needs no introduction at this point (yes he will be getting a dedicated video though).
: My double Grass + Chansey team that I've been using a lot has gained some traction, and it handles Zapdos primarily with Venusaur, while Exeggutor-A and Chansey both handle it well if Zapdos is burned to weaken its U-turn.
Drill Peck really picks apart these options. It doesn't sound that useful against Dug on the surface, but it vitally busts the mole's Substitute in a single hit, preventing Zapdos from becoming setup fodder. With really good luck, Drill Peck Zapdos can even potentially win the 1v1 against Alolan Dugtrio. The same is true for the less popular but still present Nidoqueen, who takes practically identical % from the move. Against my Venu Egg Chansey team, well, it just shreds through all three, no questions asked.
Of course, Drill Peck comes at a cost. You lose out on Reflect, making Zapdos a worse answer to the likes of Melmetal and Mega Gyarados, or Toxic to help wear down stuff like opposing Mew. So what can you put with this set? I think the ideal partner is Jolteon. Jolteon loves Drill Peck Zapdos coming in on, and wearing down, the opposing Ground and Grass-types, as it typically becomes a really potent offensive threat with those out of the way. It also helps compensate for the slightly higher vulnerability to Melmetal and Mega Gyarados as it puts solid offensive pressure on both, and can effectively run Reflect of its own to shore up its team a little. It even does decent damage to Mew with Shadow Ball and can force setup variants out with Yawn in a pinch. Drill Peck Zapdos + Jolteon is a cute little core and hope to see it in the Fall Seasonal!
Opening this post by saying that we're currently preparing to vote on Mega Alakazam remaining in the tier. You can read more about that here.
This is basically a follow-up to my post above, as well as this 2021 post. Some people in the Discord were interested in some cool stuff that has been popping up and doing well in semi-recent times, and I felt like writing!
Gengar
Level: 50
Hasty Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb - Sucker Punch
- Self-Destruct
With Nidoqueen basically stopping existing in high level play and generally being a pushover for common Zam structures regardless, Psychic isn't overly necessary on Gengar anymore. I don't quite recall the origin of this set (feel free to remind me) but it maximizes Gengar's value into most common opposing teams as a partner for Mega Alakazam. Sucker Punch is almost solely for helping to pick off other Zam, and can do so from slightly under half health- not an uncommon range for Zam to reach, given its tendency to take Stealth Rock damage and Mew U-turns. Self-Destruct, meanwhile, is used to chunk special walls (especially Chansey who faints 43% of the time after Stealth Rock) and it provides an immediate switch into typically Zam. Very cool set, somewhat overshadowed due to the Pokemon below though.
While not the only popular Starmie set right now, this one was the one that really got me persuaded that Starmie is on par with the likes of Zapdos and Alolan Dugtrio in terms of sheer metagame impact. This set is basically the ideal Mega Alakazam partner. It can help in responding to the Melmetal often thrown in against Zam, owns Alolan Dugtrio in most cases, and isn't really defended against by much other than the special tanks. Even Mew is pretty shaky for walling it, as average paralysis luck while trying to heal with Roost can leave it as good as dead. Thunderbolt covers for opposing Starmie, Mega Blastoise, and Mega Gyarados, the most common Water resists which can generally shrug off other options like Psychic. Thunder Wave covers the blind spots fantastically, especially when paired with your own Melmetal. Mega Venusaur sounds awkward? Paralyzing that leaves it outsped by your Melm, making it far harder to get value out of Venu. The same is true for Alolan Exeggutor, who has to pre-empt a Melmetal switch with Flamethrower or Dragon Tail at all times, lest it gives free entry with a STAB move. Chansey's consistency as a Zam answer is totally ruined by Paralysis, and Alolan Muk doesn't like it either- of course, the same Melmetal issue applies for Muk, too. Starmie has generally fantastic matchups for a Zam team, and even if you don't execute on your game plan perfectly, you can always just get bailed by full paras lol. Starmie's excellence makes the Mega Alakazam problem so much worse.
Snorlax
Level: 50
Careful / Jolly Nature
- Body Slam
- Earthquake - Reflect
- Rest
In my search for counterplay to these new, ultra-offensive Zam + Starmie + Dug + Zap teams, I stumbled across Reflect + Rest Snorlax. This thing is such a pain to take down and makes Starmie basically insignificant when played with half a braincell, which is nice. The idea is simple- throw it in versus Mie or Zam, spend some turns doing things including setting up Reflect, and then take a nap during the Reflect turns. These Zam comps can often only threaten you with Melmetal, and you don't mind fishing for Body Slam paralysis on that or chipping it down with Earthquakes- plus, Reflect makes it so much easier for your teammates to handle Melmetal anyway. This is a nice anchor for more balanced squads that appreciate its longevity compared to Muk, and its fewer exploitable weak points and status resilience compared to Chansey. Of course it has issues, like often kinda getting Rest looped or crit and the fact that Snorlax is slower than Melmetal, but these are workable. Jolly is an option to let you outspeed neutral Speed Melmetal. Also, using this with Starter Eevee can be funny, screen support actually gives the critter some opportunities to switch in and use more than a single move and help wake Lax back up again in a pinch.
Melmetal
Ability: No Ability
Level: 50 Jolly Nature
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Thunder Wave
Jolly Melmetal has been gaining popularity constantly in recent times, and is now by far my preferred Melmetal nature. With Melmetal being on every single serious team, the mirror matchup is often more regularly a factor than things other natures can influence, especially in endgame scenarios- getting the Earthquake first, or being more favoured to steal a game with DIB flinching into EQ range, can be absolutely massive. Jolly also guarantees you outspeed any Snorlax (and Slowbro), and allows you to outrun paralyzed +Speed Mega Venusaur and Mega Gyarados, the former of which is rather common for helping improve reliability in the Mega Blastoise and Gyarados matchups.
Pidgeot-Mega @ Pidgeotite
Ability: No Ability
Level: 50
Timid Nature
- Air Slash
- Heat Wave
- Roost
- U-turn
The set isn't exactly new or creative, but the way it's applied now and the current state of the metagame make Mega Pidgeot a surprisingly effective choice with some strong synergies. It's a fantastic Alolan Dugtrio answer, for one- it outspeeds, immunes Earthquake, threatens an OHKO, that kinda stuff. It can also pick off weakened Starmies, and can switch in on Water STAB in a pinch. It does more to Melmetal than Mega Aerodactyl, its most obvious competition, and can cover for its offensive blind spots quite effectively with U-turn. Full health Zapdos causing problems? Pivot to Dug. Healthy Mew? U-turning into Alolan Muk can change that healthiness fast. It's sort of like a Mega Beedrill that actually has switchin opportunities and does 70% to Melm, at the cost of struggling to break through Mew and Zapdos on its own. Here's by far my favourite Pidgeot team, has done me well in friendlies so far since building and on the temp ladder.
Honourable mentions go to Self-Destruct Melmetal and Hyper Beam Omastar for being awesome. The former helps versus Zapdos in endgames by guaranteeing Zapdos to be on low health versus Melm's teammates, and the latter lets Omastar blast through Water-types that could otherwise take its hits- sure, it faints afterwards, but better it faints after knocking out the Water-type instead of just fainting to the Water-type! Also shoutouts to Mega Aerodactyl for being cool as always.
The tier definitely feels a bit more constricted than it used to, though still plenty fun and competitive- I'm interested to see whether that changes if MZam gets banned.
Rules
Resources
Let's Go OU Speed Tiers
Tier 1 (+Spe Base 115 to >+Spe Base 80)
Tier 3 (Neutral Base 65 and slower)
LGPE Tournament Circuit 2021
not much to say here, it's a Zapdos! I fiddled with different moves and natures of Zapdos on this team and this is what I arrived upon to be optimal for this 6. Defensive natured zapdos simply did not provide enough to this team to be worth the merit and necessity of timid Zapdos, I was CONSTANTLY sorely missing timid, whereas a much rarer occurrence was me desperately missing 10% defense. Toxic Zapdos has a place for sure, but I loved the nuance that Reflect provided this team in endgames, it makes Alakazam infinitely harder to deal with when it can now suddenly live Crunch from Mega Gyarados after rocks, and the synergy a physical screen and a special defense boosting move have. This team struggles to switch into many things, and ground types are one of the easier things for it to switch into, so please refrain from mindlessly clicking U-turn, if you click it on a threat you might find yourself losing a mon. Sometimes its better just to tbolt on the ground and then switch into them(obviously priorities can differ depending on situation, such as when hazard control is important).
Gengar doesn't have toooo much set variance, but that didn't stop me from experimenting with its moves a lot. I think that these are the 2 non-STAB moves to go for, as wisp is integral to the Gengar/Zam core, and having the ability to 2HKO(and thus deny rocks on switchin) Nidoqueen was very frequently appreciated and missed when not there Tbolt, Mega Drain, and Brick Break were simply too niche and too select in targeting(however on a different Gengar/Zam team, one without a Sucker Punch Dugtrio, i think Sucker Punch Gengar is a hilarious way to get the opposing Alakazam into your own's Shadow Ball range, while also KOing Dugtrio after a Shadow Ball should it try to switch in). Gengar is mostly used for its massive damage output vs Mew, and its lack of defensive counterplay besides Alolan-Muk on teams possessing it, making Gengar perfect for forcing it in and applying a burn to it. Gengar's speed tier and decent typing lends it quite a few opportunities to wallbreak, and you can also use it early-game vs a predicted mew lead, however Zapdos is a relevant answer when rocks are not up yet so be warned. A specific and obvious seeming piece of advise would be to only click wisp if you have to, just because it will make you live the opponent's attack that does NOT mean it is free to click, if you miss and die you will be in an awful position, if you have the opportunity to cash in free damage, you should usually take it.
It is my and 
: My double Grass + Chansey team that I've been using a lot has gained some traction, and it handles Zapdos primarily with Venusaur, while Exeggutor-A and Chansey both handle it well if Zapdos is burned to weaken its U-turn.
