Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread v4

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quziel said:
I'd imagine the increase in Zard-X usage is partly due to the actual sets its answers are running. Toxapex is pretty much going more spdef heavy than it was in early SM, Lando is generally gonna be running an offensive set, which Zard can OHKO with SR damage and a tiny bit of luck, Fini basically doesn't exist, Hippowdon is deader than disco, all of which really favor Zard. Additionally, I'd argue that scarfers in general are getting a lot less common, and some of those that are ran don't even answer it amazingly, with Scarf Greninja doing 48% max, Infernape failing to OHKO, Lele, and other slow scarfers have been getting more popular, and just die. Obviously if you face Scarf Garchomp you're sorta screwed, but that mon's less common than it has been since basically the start of the gen.

It is legitimately probably the best its been this entire gen, as hazard control is sorta possible atm, as well as the 3 attacks set basically barreling through all of its common checks fairly easily, again, due to pex running more spdef heavy spreads, and lando being run almost fully offensively.

Note: Worded horribly, will retype in the morning
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Not to mention that I wouldn't exactly call scarf Garchomp one of the "best" applications of Garchomp in the meta right now. It's good on paper but in a balance heavy meta where switching moves(and having respectable power) is so important, it kinda just falls flat.

It will be interesting to see how Mega Charizard X progresses through this meta, because the current trends are heavily resembling ORAS in terms of supporting X's viability. Funnily enough, I remember the Charizard Y + Duggy combo being hyped up incredibly last year around this same time, and once it kinda fell off then Zard X took its place.

I'm both excited and not excited to see CM + T-Wave Clefable return, mainly because Clefable is a mon that really benefits from its versatile options and, in this kind of meta, can use its fourth move to do whatever it needs to do. I do think that the general power creep, including both Z-moves and fatter stuff like Toxapex, will actively knock it down from being "the" mon, but we'll see what happens. Overall, this is a change that is very exciting for the meta, and I'm interested in seeing how it goes from here.
 
Altervisi said:
Glad to see Arena Trap gone, do we think stall will remain the strongest team build now or will another archetype take over? I think balance should see a rise because you don't have to either choose stall or a stall breaking team... but that is of course depends on how fast someone discovers a new broken mechanic in the vacuum after Dugtrio.
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Stall has not for a single second been the strongest archetype pre-arena trap suspect, if you could stop spreading false Information, or Refrain from posting if you don't understand a certain aspect of the game, that would be great.


Apart from that, I agree with quziel, Char-X is the strongest it's been all gen right now. I could even see old SPD heavy sets with Willo to "Lure" defensive Lando being played again. With how rare Specs and DAzzling Gleam Koko are, it's also a great answer to that if you Need one anyways.

HO will most likely continue its victory crusade and increase in popularity even more. Psyspam has already been getting stronger and stronger, and just benefits a lot from Duggy being gone. Rain has and will always been popular, although it's mostly unaffected by the suspect. Drill and Gren will remain A-class Sash leads because the former is propably the easiest way to get rocks up, while the latter benefits from people's ignorance about MSab EVs. Victini will most likely fall out of favor again, since it's main set relied on the surprise factor, it'll eventually end up in the same category as stuff like Normalium Keld.

Stall is in a god awful spot, obviously, with no valid way of covering all of the plethora of threats the metagame still allows. While there's certain low usage or niche Mons that can answer some of the biggest threats Dugtrio was used to handle, None of those have much value outside of answering THAT ONE EXACT MON, or have other downsides that are undesirable on Stall. With MSab still being mandatory as the only way to Keep Gren from freely spiking on you, you already start with 5 teamslots and no mega Option anyways and have no way of Fitting everything you Need. PP or pure outlast stalling will increase in usage.

Balance will most likely suffer a lot from this suspect in the Long run. People will, justified or not, start using more slower and hard-hitting Wall- and Stallbreakers that were initially Held down by Dugtrio. And with Balance trying to handle the majority of threats with a defensive Backbone of 3-4 Mons, while not even Stall can do that with 6, it's looking dire. The sheer versatility Mons like Mew, MG Clef, Steela etc. offer is still unrivaled though, and it's gonna be far from "dead", especially after the first uproar settles.

Unless we're missing some Major new Innovation that will help HO skyrocket past it, BO will remain the best archetype, as it, rightfully, has always been. With the single most flexibility amongst all archetypes in Terms of viable mon Options and degrees of offensive/defensive adjusting it would Need a rework of some core mechanics in the game to Change that. Apart from the earlier mentioned Char-X, Magma Storm + Taunt Heatran is borderline broken right now, especially when supporting Mons like SD Knock MZor, Specs Keld and/or Bandtar. See Robopoke's post for crossreference.

Edit: typo
 
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Lando Cant switch Medicham at all due to Ice Punch and Hippo is cleanly 2hkoed by HJK.

Medicham vs Hippo
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 144+ Def Hippowdon: 247-292 (58.8 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 228-268 (54.2 - 63.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Honestly Stall needs to undergo drastic change or face annihilation. Dugtrio's loss means Stuff like Medi + Koko have an easier time, Lele can now use mindplate while powerful breakers SD knock off Mawile and Storm Tran Monster current builds. This not including stuff like Fightium Calm mind Magearna, Diancie and CB Tyraniter who while they wont 6-0 now have better match ups vs the archtype. Random Calm minders and Z moves also make life hard. In the current game I just cant see stall adapting outside of something like maybe regenerater spam semi Stall and even that struggles.

Weavile is a poor substitute for dugtrio, Doublade is laughable in todays game and anything defensive that could cover everything on paper lacks recovery or utility. Stall cant even run alternate megas since that would leave them open to taunters and Hazard spam. We will see in the coming weeks tho.

Bulky offence is definatly the archtype to beat in the post duggy meta now that more options are opened up by Its departures.
 
Stall will be fine as an archetype in the long run.

It may not have the dominance it originally had due to duggy, but the reactionary state of stall usually finds a way to bounce back and maintain some sort of relevance in the end. Anyone who has played or been around in XY watched stall undergo all sorts of revisions to adapt to the metagame shifts. From fingercrosseds Charizard stall (which didnt have dug), branflakes msab stall that pushed the prominence of duggy, ABR stall (no dug either), to TFLs stall that spawned variations of what many know now as tele stall, these were all designed around the metagame at hand and I would like to think nobody thought these were ever poor teams.

From what Ive witnessed looking from the outside in, the tier is plagued with all sorts of problems due to the combination of mons, z-moves, etc. Figuring out how stall is going to "survive" should be the least concern before looking at mons that create radical snowball effects who further emphasize matchup issues and are culprits in certain games being lost Turn 1 or place too much strain to afford a slight mistake.
 
AM said:
Stall will be fine as an archetype in the long run.

It may not have the dominance it originally had due to duggy, but the reactionary state of stall usually finds a way to bounce back and maintain some sort of relevance in the end. Anyone who has played or been around in XY watched stall undergo all sorts of revisions to adapt to the metagame shifts. From fingercrosseds Charizard stall (which didnt have dug), branflakes msab stall that pushed the prominence of duggy, ABR stall (no dug either), to TFLs stall that spawned variations of what many know now as tele stall, these were all designed around the metagame at hand and I would like to think nobody thought these were ever poor teams.

From what Ive witnessed looking from the outside in, the tier is plagued with all sorts of problems due to the combination of mons, z-moves, etc. Figuring out how stall is going to "survive" should be the least concern before looking at mons that create radical snowball effects who further emphasize matchup issues and are culprits in certain games being lost Turn 1 or place too much strain to afford a slight mistake.
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That's the issue though. All the times you mentioned when Stall adapted, were times when we did not have this ridicoulos amount of threats you have to cover. And we also didn't have Z moves making traditional checks complete deadweight vs certain Mons (Skarm - Lando e.g.) or Mons that just quite simply don't HAVE any (non-meme) Counters, like MMaw.

That said, with all the bias I have about the Topic as a mainly Stall Player, Stall (or any archetype for that matter) has no unconditional right to exist. Should Stall die out in OU, that's unfortunate, but nothing that should (or would, as far as I know the council's policies) affect tiering and suspects. I just hope it won't come to that
 
I have also noticed a lot of Zard-X, but I think it's largely due to the fact that most people got so used to splashing Zygarde as their go to ZardY answer, so when they switch in the Zygarde to answer Y, it Dragon Dances and steals a ton of momentum. That, and not having the usual Zard-X answers due to the previous meta of Duggy+ZardY lead to the usage upswing. I fully expect the mets to shift and people will stop using ZardX as much because of it. I think it's really just a temporary trend, but I will admit it's caught me off guard.

Speaking of Stall, I think people will just start splashing Weavile to pursuit trap a lot of the common stall breakers. Heatran DOES have a much better matchup versus the previous iterations, but Stall always adapts really well, and I don't think it's going anywhere because Dugtrio was always a catch-all versus threats to Stall as opposed to being a core member like Sableye/a Defog core. People were successfully using Stall before the trapping trend even caught on, so don't expect it to be a dead strat.
 
Thinking about the state of the Duggy-less meta. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves, but I think Rain teams just got even better. Look:

What benefits from Dugtrio being gone, and are likely to increase in usage?

Magenera
Heatran
Chansey
Toxapex
Muk A
Tyranitar
Nihilego
Mega Diancie
Slower wallbreakers like Kyruem, Tapu Lele and Hoopa
Tapu Koko
Mega Manectric
Raikou
Magnezone
Mega Charizard X

What can be expected to decrease in usage in its absence?

Mega Charizard Y
Mega Latias (good answer for MCY+Duggy)
Volcorona
Tangrowth
Tapu Bulu

Except for Kyruem, Mega Swampert can take advantage of everything Dugtrio hit, and with MCY decreasing in usage, there
may be less competing weather.
Pelliper has to worry about incoming rock types, but it's usually paired with Ferrothorn in a defensive core, which just shrugs off hits and sets hazards on them.
Slower wall breakers will rise to break stall, which fast paced Swift Swimmers can outspeed and hit hard.
Electric types also benefit, more able to spam their STABs without fear of Scarftrio revenging them.

Pack your water resists guys.
 
This might be complete baloney and at best, this thing will only have a niche (I'm talking E ranking here if we wanna do the OU Viability chart deal)....but I think Mega Aggron actually may have a tiny, TINY niche. Emphasis on tiny and the "this might be complete baloney" parts. No replays yet, but I'll be working on that (any help with teambuilding or the like is appreciated).

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Let's get the big obvious downsides outta the way. Sloooooooooow. Base 50 speed is bad unless you're against a Trick Room team or something. Bad HP (base 70) and mediocre SpDef (base 80). No reliable recovery, which sucks because you're slow and will get hit first and your job is to tank stuff. Vulnerable to Spikes. Weak to common attacking types in Fire, Ground, and Fighting, all of which have powerful Special Attackers that hit Aggron first and hard. Doesn't resist Water and Electric, both of which are common attacking types, and you don't even have the benefit of blocking Volt Switch. Mega Slot is very important and Mega Aggron faces obvious fierce competition from stuff like Mega Scizor and Mega Mawile, or even Mega Camerupt.

But Mega Aggron does have a few useful qualities that I feel merit a look at.
One, Stealth Rock. Not a big one, but still nice, especially since Mega Aggron's niche is role compression.

Two, respectable attack (base 140) with a darn good movepool. Fire Punch to 2HKO Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn with 0 investment. Avalanche is better than Ice Punch (which you also have) because it lets you OHKO Landorus-T/Garchomp and do a ton of damage to Mega Pinsir, Zapdos, and other flying types. Thunder Wave for speed control, Roar for phazing, Iron Head for destroying Fairies and Ice-types (over Heavy Slam because Iron Head does way more to Tyranitar, Kyurem-B, and Mamoswine, the former two of which are increasing in popularity).

Three, pure Steel typing, Filter, and monstrous physical defense (base 230 dear god) mean that there is literally nothing in OU that OHKOs you on the physical side, even if the most defensive investment you give is max HP and a positive nature for Defense (and 16 EVs cuz jump point). Adamant Mega Medicham does not OHKO with HJK even after Stealth Rock. Subzero Slammer from Kyurem-B bounces off. +5 DD Mega Tyranitar's EQ doesn't OHKO. +6 Adamant Mega Scizor's Knock Off doesn't 2HKO. Mega Lopunny's HJK doesn't 2HKO. And so on. With hazards, most of those things become more threatening, but you're not weak to Stealth Rock so that's nice. Mind you, being slow hurts like hell because they can just switch out but at least you hit decently hard and threaten to either get up Rocks or cripple something with Thunder Wave (or Toxic). Even on the special side (where you will invest your bulk), you at least avoid the OHKO (and can check to a degree) from stuff like LO Kyurem-B's Earth Power, Mega Diance's Earth Power, Specs Lele Psychic, and so on.

So what's the potential niche? Basically a fat Rocks setter that offers a check/counter to most physical attackers in the tier. With the rise of stuff like Tyranitar, Weavile, Pinsir, and other physical threats, Mega Aggron offers a way to check or counter many of these while setting up Rocks, phazing, or spreading the yellow magic (or Toxic) around. It's not a total sitting duck offensively either, and can win the 1v1 versus common hazards setters and removers like Ferrothorn, Magma Trapper Tran (you can't switch in but neither can it), Excadrill, Garchomp, Lando-T, and others.

What else does Mega Aggron need to do any work in OU? Besides reliable recovery and more base HP (MANTINE STYLE BUFF PLEASE), Wishpassers such as Alomomomomomola and Chansey/Clefable are great since Mega Aggron really does not want to run Rest, and Chansey also patches up the special weakness that Mega Aggron has. You also really want to keep hazards off the field since Mega Aggron really wants to be at full to handle the physical threats it'd supposed to.
 
yes, aggron-mega has its tiny niche i agree. but you can use these same strats in uu which it prospers and i think other steel types although they dont have qualities of mega aggron can do its job just as well. examples being celesteela, skarmory, and ferrothorn. outside of matchup crafted teams for like tours i don't really see its place in ou.
 
Heatran is going to be really good with duggy gone. The combination of good typing, ability, and stats make it a terror for bulky teams. With duggy gone the offensive trapper set is becoming popular again. This is truly a great mon for bulky offensive teams. But it isnt limited to this playstyles as even some sets fit on balance and hyper offensive archetypes.
 
NVT_Sart said:
Stall has not for a single second been the strongest archetype pre-arena trap suspect, if you could stop spreading false Information, or Refrain from posting if you don't understand a certain aspect of the game, that would be great.


Apart from that, I agree with quziel, Char-X is the strongest it's been all gen right now. I could even see old SPD heavy sets with Willo to "Lure" defensive Lando being played again. With how rare Specs and DAzzling Gleam Koko are, it's also a great answer to that if you Need one anyways.

HO will most likely continue its victory crusade and increase in popularity even more. Psyspam has already been getting stronger and stronger, and just benefits a lot from Duggy being gone. Rain has and will always been popular, although it's mostly unaffected by the suspect. Drill and Gren will remain A-class Sash leads because the former is propably the easiest way to get rocks up, while the latter benefits from people's ignorance about MSab EVs. Victini will most likely fall out of favor again, since it's main set relied on the surprise factor, it'll eventually end up in the same category as stuff like Normalium Keld.

Stall is in a god awful spot, obviously, with no valid way of covering all of the plethora of threats the metagame still allows. While there's certain low usage or niche Mons that can answer some of the biggest threats Dugtrio was used to handle, None of those have much value outside of answering THAT ONE EXACT MON, or have other downsides that are undesirable on Stall. With MSab still being mandatory as the only way to Keep Gren from freely spiking on you, you already start with 5 teamslots and no mega Option anyways and have no way of Fitting everything you Need. PP or pure outlast stalling will increase in usage.

Balance will most likely suffer a lot from this suspect in the Long run. People will, justified or not, start using more slower and hard-hitting Wall- and Stallbreakers that were initially Held down by Dugtrio. And with Balance trying to handle the majority of threats with a defensive Backbone of 3-4 Mons, while not even Stall can do that with 6, it's looking dire. The sheer versatility Mons like Mew, MG Clef, Steela etc. offer is still unrivaled though, and it's gonna be far from "dead", especially after the first uproar settles.

Unless we're missing some Major new Innovation that will help HO skyrocket past it, BO will remain the best archetype, as it, rightfully, has always been. With the single most flexibility amongst all archetypes in Terms of viable mon Options and degrees of offensive/defensive adjusting it would Need a rework of some core mechanics in the game to Change that. Apart from the earlier mentioned Char-X, Magma Storm + Taunt Heatran is borderline broken right now, especially when supporting Mons like SD Knock MZor, Specs Keld and/or Bandtar. See Robopoke's post for crossreference.

Edit: typo
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i agree bulky offensive will be the metagame defining strat. This playstyle is so good because you can fit alot of pokemon on this build. It can leaned toward more balance or more offensive demonstrating the flexability stated above. pokemon like lando-t magearna, tran and numerous amounts of more fit perfectly on these builds. Hyper offensive is pretty good and balance as well but bulky offensive is really great because the balance between defensive and offensive parts really run smoothly in this meta.
 
Mega Medicham is crazy in this metagame. Its Psychic Stab gets buffed with Specs Lele around, potential thunder punches get buffed with Koko around.

But one of my favourite sets, Drain Punch + Bulk Up, is also very viable and good in this metagame, especially with being able to live any physical attack weaker than:

252 Atk Tapu Bulu(non-grassium) Wood Hammer vs. +1 0 HP / 24 Def Medicham-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 219-258 (83.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
--> Every physical move weaker than that only guarantees a set-up possibility of Bulk Up. Defensive Teams get destroyed with an combination of Misty Terrain and this Medicham.
OBVIOUSLY the all-out attacker is in general superior, but you'll notice that being able to deal with Scarf Landorus etc. is a huge boon.
 
Very creative set on your point. one thing ill say is yeah medicham is a nuke but mawile-mega is also a strong breaker that doesn't need bulk up since it has access to intimidate. also heracross-mega can setup on plenty of pokemons with its tremendous bulk. but medicham on the other hand has a decent speed tier and hits are enough without the need for bulkup because it already has few counters and lots of checks as well. scarf lando-t doesnt switchin to medicham to well unless your predictions are poor. again, not to discourage you from using a creative set this is just my opinion on bulk up over something like mega kick or other extra coverage.
 
Creator of Chaos said:
Lando Cant switch Medicham at all due to Ice Punch and Hippo is cleanly 2hkoed by HJK.

Medicham vs Hippo
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 144+ Def Hippowdon: 247-292 (58.8 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 228-268 (54.2 - 63.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Honestly Stall needs to undergo drastic change or face annihilation. Dugtrio's loss means Stuff like Medi + Koko have an easier time, Lele can now use mindplate while powerful breakers SD knock off Mawile and Storm Tran Monster current builds. This not including stuff like Fightium Calm mind Magearna, Diancie and CB Tyraniter who while they wont 6-0 now have better match ups vs the archtype. Random Calm minders and Z moves also make life hard. In the current game I just cant see stall adapting outside of something like maybe regenerater spam semi Stall and even that struggles.

Weavile is a poor substitute for dugtrio, Doublade is laughable in todays game and anything defensive that could cover everything on paper lacks recovery or utility. Stall cant even run alternate megas since that would leave them open to taunters and Hazard spam. We will see in the coming weeks tho.

Bulky offence is definatly the archtype to beat in the post duggy meta now that more options are opened up by Its departures.
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I would love to see someone crazy enough to click High Miss Suicide on the face of a team with a Ghost Type, especially considering that the ones that happen to lack Zen Headbutt to make room for BoltBeam can be stalled out by Clefable, and the ones without Fake Out are subpar at best against offensive teams. Hippo and Lando are supposed to be for electric types, especially to waste the Gigavolt Havoc from Tapu Koko. Quagsire, Gastrodon and Swampert also work but Grass Knot is more common than HP Ice on the stallbreaker set so Landorus is the better choice of them. Landorus CAN work perfectly on stall as it works on any other playstyle. It adds extra room for Stealth Rock, it checks certain wallbreakers, it can soften up hits for Chansey, AND it can be used as a revenge killer or cleaner once the enemy team has been worn down enough, assuming the opponent didn't die of boredom first.
 
SJMistery said:
I would love to see someone crazy enough to click High Miss Suicide on the face of a team with a Ghost Type, especially considering that the ones that happen to lack Zen Headbutt to make room for BoltBeam can be stalled out by Clefable, and the ones without Fake Out are subpar at best against offensive teams. Hippo and Lando are supposed to be for electric types, especially to waste the Gigavolt Havoc from Tapu Koko. Quagsire, Gastrodon and Swampert also work but Grass Knot is more common than HP Ice on the stallbreaker set so Landorus is the better choice of them. Landorus CAN work perfectly on stall as it works on any other playstyle. It adds extra room for Stealth Rock, it checks certain wallbreakers, it can soften up hits for Chansey, AND it can be used as a revenge killer or cleaner once the enemy team has been worn down enough, assuming the opponent didn't die of boredom first.
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Neither is Grass Knot common on ANY of the Koko sets (or run on any at all), nor does Lando work on Stall, at all. An archetype this strapped for teamslots, can not include a mon whose only perk is being able to Switch into Bandtar once and dying on the second time. That's as suicidal as clicking HJK against a Ghost type. Lando's ground immunity doesn't matter when you're pretty much bound to have a ground immunity from your defogger(s) already. Rocks aren't an Argument on an archetype that aims to have them off the field as the Primary Goal compared to having them UP, and has, in past iterations, even gotten away with not running rocks at all. Intimidate softening up attackers for other teammates is a "nice to have Thing", never something justifying a full teamslot, especially considering that both lando AND the mon you intimidate for, have to take a hit before reacting to it, and then your Opponent can simply solve it by switching out. And that's ignoring the fact that Lando brings nothing to the table that Stall usually wants to have, like reliable recovery, Utility moves (not counting SR for the above reasons), Defog, Haze/PHaze, a Cleric move, Unaware, Status bar Toxic, etc.
 
Gonna remind you, Duggy being banned freed the "electric immune pokemon" teamslot.
U-turn is always nice to have, you have wishers to spare on stall anyway, it can take hits from SpamGarde so Clefable does not have to risk an Iron Tail, it can take out certain boosters, it can actually threaten the majority the ground pokemon he can switch in, like Garchomp and Excadrill, something Skarm can't really do outside of spamming WhirlWind and pray the boosted Rock Slide fails to flinch every single time...
Also, if you really wanna dig up, he has some niche stuff like Gravity for extra Spikes Damage, Smack Down to troll enemy Landorus and Dragonite that like to spam Fly (remember, Whirlwind no longer hits mid-fly as it used to in gen 2), Imprison, and you can also go YOLO and try a Block moveset with EQ, Fly and some other coverage Heatran-style if you miss Dugtrio's ability to trap THAT much.
 
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SJMistery said:
Gonna remind you, Duggy being banned freed the "electric immune pokemon" teamslot.
U-turn is always nice to have, you have wishers to spare on stall anyway, it can take hits from SpamGarde so Clefable does not have to risk an Iron Tail, it can take out certain boosters, it can actually threaten the majority the ground pokemon he can switch in, like Garchomp and Excadrill, something Skarm can't really do outside of spamming WhirlWind and pray the boosted Rock Slide fails to flinch every single time...
Also, if you really wanna dig up, he has some niche stuff like Smack Down, Imprison, and you can also go YOLO and try a Block moveset with EQ, Fly and some other coverage Heatran-style if you miss Dugtrio's ability to trap THAT much.
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Just about everything you just said is wrong. U-Turn is a momentum move which is completely irrelevant on Stall, now more than ever without a Trapper to take Advantage of it. Iron Tail on Zygarde is about as common as Grass Knot on Koko, aka nonexistant. An Electric immunity is nice to have, nothing else, and if Dugtrio used to be your "electric immunity", aka Switchin, then I have some bad News for you. Skarmory has fallen out of favor for Stall for ages now, because it can't handle the Things it used to, thanks to the absurdity that Z-moves are, but it is most definitely able to handle Excadrill with Counter. Let alone the fact that Excadrill as a non-suicide-lead is nonexistant too. Garchomp is easily handled by Clef if you're not an idiot and Moonblast on their Firium Z turn. And I'm not even gonna comment on Block and Imprison.

Well-meant advice, with all due lack of respect: You might want to check some of the up to date usage stats and moveset stats, as well as watch the occassional high class tournament, because nothing you mentioned is relevant outside of maybe the 1,7k range on the ladder
 
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yeah the recent ban of duggy's ability does free up some electric types, fire types and other miscellaneous pokemon. i see tapu koko's specs and z wild charge sets become better than they were originally. houndoom-mega doesn't get trapped anymore and is boon to stall using taunt and nasty plot to break it. mega charizard-x doesn't get much from this ban but doesn't fear being revenged by duggy. ttar is now free to run mega and band sets without getting trapped and is a consistent trapper in the tier as well as a good volc check from full. charizard-y isn't that affected by this because while duggy trapped chansey, it still is a good standalone wallbreaker. Diance-mega is getting better and better. And other pokemon that were trapped by duggy still face problems that make them an ineffective team choice.
 
Indigo Plateau said:
I know it's fallen off a bit, but I've been testing out 3 atks Zard-X with Fini and the core's been doing pretty decently. Fini lures in grasses (Tangrowth, Bulu, Ferro, Venusaur) and electrics (Zapdos, Koko) which Zard-X enjoys being in vs. Fini is actually good at shutting down things like Toxapex & Ash-Ninja and provides Defog & terrain support. It also eases the stall mu a bit since Nature's Madness + Taunt is so good vs that. The two have nice synergy together and Fini is good vs a lot of teams nowadays since no one preps for it. Thoughts?
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The problem with this is that Misty Terrain can make Zard X awkward to use, as it needs both STABs to do well in this metagame. In addition, it's not honestly gaining much from the terrain sans being immune to Toxic as paralysis isn't used anymore and it's immune to burns. But other than that, the core does seem pretty good.
 
Well, Zapdos is a Fini switch in so with the Misty Terrain now Zard X cannot be Discharge paralyzed. Though Dragon Claw getting weaker sux, do not forget that it only applies to targets on the ground. Damage against Landorus-T, Lati, Zapdos is still the same and I feel like people forget about this. Still annoying against mons you would like to use Dragon Claw against like Zygarde and Kyurem-B, but the core itself sounds pretty good overall.

Do you guys use any bulkinvestment on 3 Atks Roost Zard X or just max Speed max Atk Jolly? I think you need that 328 Speed 100% and Roost should be enough for longevity.
 
Zard X also can run SpDef/Def sets like it did back in ORAS, and they still work decently enough.

Credit to Lemon Ginger for this set (I just tweaked some EVs and gave some optional spreads).

charizard-megax.gif
Charizard @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 248 HP / 244 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
or
EVs: 248 HP / 72 Def / 172 SpD / 16 Spe
Impish Nature

- Roost
- Thunder Punch / Earthquake
- Fire Punch / Flare Blitz
- Will-O-Wisp / Swords Dance

16 Speed lets you outspeed neutral nature base 70's (big one is probably Adamant Bisharp), so you can hit stuff like Band Tyranitar and Bisharp with Wisp before they hit you and cripple them. IMO that's the minimum speed that should be run. Next benchmark is probably stuff like Jolly Tran, but you need 72 Speed EVs with a Jolly nature and that really cuts into your bulk (plus they do a ton with Earth Power and if Grassy Terrain is up, EQ doesn't even come close to OHKO'ing).

The first spread is a full-on SpDef spread, which lets you handle stuff like Specs Koko and Zard Y really nicely, which is...nice, as shown in this post with more calcs.

The second spread sacrifices some amount of SpDef (you still handle stuff like Zard Y really well though) so that you can better handle physical threats. Offensive Garchomp almost never OHKOs with Outrage, CB Zygarde doesn't usually OHKO with Thousand Arrows, you outspeed and burn BandTar and then tank the Edge, and so on.

As for moveset....running SD lets you be a threat, and Dragon STAB on either set is....well, the only thing it'd really be good for hitting is Mega Latias, but you're only a check to CM Stored Power versions anyways, not a counter. Fire Punch over Flare Blitz because you need to be at full to check the threats you're supposed to, and Fire Punch still 2HKO's most important stuff (Celesteela, Magearna, etc.), but Flare Blitz does get important OHKOs on Magearna mostly (with SD, Blitz is great). EQ is great for destroying Heatran and Tyranitar, both of which are rising in usage, but Tapu Bulu is a great partner for Zard X and Grassy Terrain is awful with EQ. Thunder Punch nails Toxapex (especially after boosts) and Pelipper too, and Tapu Koko being everywhere is great because (a) Defensive Zard X eats Koko for lunch and (b) Electric Terrain and Tough Claws boosted Thunder Punch hurts (2HKO on standard Pex). Wisp is amazing IMO because Landorus-T and Tyranitar (and Zygarde/Chomp, to an extent) are good/common switchins to Zard X and hitting them with Wisp on the switch makes them very sad.
 
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