Meganium [OU Revamp] (WIP)

[Whydon]

forgot to post this oops

[OVERVIEW] While at first glance Meganium may seem like it is outclassed by Exeggutor, the best Grass-type in the tier, it has a wide variety of utility that can make it a fantastic choice for many teams. Its pure Grass-typing gives it crucial resistances to common offensive types like Water, Ground, and the ubiquitous Electric, and its good bulk of 80/100/100 makes Meganium a solid choice as a mixed wall. It also has a wide array of utility moves available to its disposal, such as dual screens, Toxic, Leech Seed, and Synthesis, allowing it to provide invaluable support to the rest of its team while preserving its own longevity through Synthesis's instant recovery, which is a rare commodity for many Pokemon in the second generation. The potential combination of Leech Seed and Toxic allows for Meganium to force opponents to Rest or switch-out, opening up opportunities for the Meganium user to outstall the opponent or gain a favorable matchup on a predicted switch. And while 82 Attack may seem low, Meganium also has access to the rare Swords Dance, allowing it to pull off a rather effective physical attacking set that can catch many teams off-guard if supported properly.


However, while Meganium’s typing does bring it some extremely helpful resistances, it also gives it a nasty weakness in Ice, which makes it difficult for Meganium to effectively check many Water and Electric Types, such as Suicune and Raikou, as they will often be carrying Ice coverage in the form of Ice Beam and Hidden Power Ice, respectively. Additionally, Meganium’s low attacking stats make it very passive, forcing it to rely on the weak Razor Leaf to do consistent damage, and its inability to phaze often transforms Meganium into setup fodder for Pokemon like Snorlax, Machamp, and Baton Passers like Jolteon and Scizor. Having only 8PP of Synthesis puts Meganium at risk of losing crucial stall-wars against opposing walls and can limit Meganium's ability to comfortably switch in on strong attacks. Its lack of physical STAB forces it to rely on Earthquake and Double-Edge to do reliable damage, which can make Swords Dance sets feel extremely underwhelming. All in all, Meganium is a decent support Pokemon that, when used properly, can effectively wall much of the metagame and give invaluable utility to its teammates, but struggles to cement itself as a metagame staple due to its passivity and the momentum drain it can impose onto teams that use it.

[SET]

Set 1: Standard Utility
Item: Leftovers
Move 1: Razor Leaf / Toxic / Body Slam
Move 2: Leech Seed
Move 3: Synthesis
Move 4: Reflect / Light Screen

[SET COMMENTS]

Set 2: Sword Dance
Item: Leftovers
Move 1: Swords Dance
Move 2: Earthquake
Move 3: Body Slam
Move 4: Synthesis

[OTHER OPTIONS]

[CHECKS & COUNTERS]

 

[Lavos]

You can slash Body Slam with Razor Leaf and Toxic on the first set, though I'd put it last. To explain it, Razor Leaf counters Vaporeon and lets you tickle stuff that doesn't resist you and isn't named Snorlax. Toxic forces things to Rest, which Meganium teams really like, because you see them with stuff like Marowak and DrumLax to take advantage of the status and screens it offers to set up. Body Slam is similar to Toxic but provides para instead, some teams appreciate that more. I'd say the best option in general would be Razor Leaf > Toxic > Body Slam. It's only going to marginally affect Meganium's viability regardless of what you choose, since most of the time you'll be spamming Leech Seed and setting up your screens.

The Swords Dance set is fine, just make sure to mention it's hard walled forever by Skarm, so you need a teammate that can deal with it. It also loses one-on-one to just about every Curse user, so it needs to find room to set up and create a game state where it can't be immediately countered, otherwise its only use is to spread para and put other sweepers in a more favorable position.

Will offer some more feedback once you fill out the set descriptions/OO/C&C. Good job so far!