With HOME's arrival, we all can agree that the metagame has taken a sudden turn of the events with the return of Knock Off and Recycle on certain Pokemon whose niche have improved upon it, and the addition of new faces that will contribute to shape the metagame. In this post I have the intention to go over the relevant newly added Pokemon, as well as the most important moves that certain Pokemon have gotten back the aforementioned attacks or fundamental attacks for their development in metagame. Lastly, I will talk about their impact in the metagame, whether it may be positive or not.
NEWLY ADDED POKEMON
Sun has received Bulbasaur, which after Cherubi's departure has become the best Sun sweeper in the metagame. Thanks to the holy coverage of Grass/Poison/Fire granted to it, Bulbasaur is able to muscle through a lot of the metagame threats with relevant ease (except Litwick), with Life Orb sets 2HKOing many bulky Pokemon such as Timburr, defensive Ponyta and OHKOing most of non-resists with ease. Sleep Powder provides utility to Bulbasaur's offensive nature, allowing it to play around Pawniard's sucker Punch, or sinking the opponent's momentum to fire off strong attacks to the switch-in. Growth sets miss out the inmediate power Life Orb provides, but allows Bulbasaur to get more setup opportunities thanks to Eviolite, turning the initial power into 2HKOs to even resists. I can see this becoming a big issue because of Vulpix's influence.
Ponyta is a quite welcoming addition due to the fact that it has overshadowed Litwick as a Sun check due to an overall better build, coverage options, power and Flame Charge, which allows it to outspeed Diglett and beat it. Defensive sets are easily the best ones with the ability to both check Eject Pack Vulpix + trapper and spreading burns to the opposing team. Coverage can be picked to deal with Mareanie and Fire-types such as opposing Ponyta, Vulpix and Charmander, and Water-types such as Wingull, Krabby and Corphish thanks to High Horsepower and Wild Charge, respectively. However, its offensive role is the most curious one, as the addition of Solar Blade to its arsenal has made it a quite threatening Sun sweeper able to both check sun and beat other Pokemon. Solar Blade/Flare Blitz/Flame Charge/filler is looking quite efficient for Ponyta on these kinds of teams, and checking it may be one of the hardest tasks there will be in the following days.
I know you all have been waiting for this: Alolan Vulpix is back, and so is Veils. Holy shit, you guys don't know how much potential there will be with Veils and many of the abussers that can use it. Dragon Dance Scraggy, Shell Smash Squirtle (see below), Shellder, Nasty Plot Vullaby, Zigzagoon (see below), Quiver Dance Cutiefly, Swords Dance Krabby, even rarer sets such as Double Dance Rufflet will be able to shine in this archetype. What matters though is the amount of abusers there are for this archetype, which many of them are pretty hard to handle.
Squirtle gaining Shell Smash has provided it an okay niche by using its Water/Ice/Fighting coverage to blast through most of the metagame after a boost. Bulkier Pokemon like Spritzee and Timburr get 2HKOed after Stealth Rock and the other Water-types bar Mareanie get easily 2HKOed or OHKOed by Aura Sphere. Nevertheless, trappers are a prominent presence and will allievate Squirtle's issue of not breaking Mareanie. As mentioned above, it is not very resistent even with Eviolite, so Veils gives it the needed boost to actually setup. I can see it being a fine addition.
I hope you are ready to look for decent answers to this, because with the departure of Gastly and the inminent threat of a quickban on Drifloon, Zigzagoon is looking much, muuuch stronger than before under Veils. Needleesly to explain that even resists such as Ferroseed and Pawniard get their Eviolite stolen by Thief and then killed by +6 Extreme Speed. Onix doesn't even check it anymore due to Seed Bomb being run more often, which means this Pokemon has literally no reliable answers.
POKEMON THAT IMPROVED
Drifloon recovering Recycle with HOME's arrival means that the old bread and butter Substitute/Will-O-Wisp/Acrobatics is back on track and it is even better than it was on Gen 7, 1v1'ing most of the metagame's threats with much more ease. Onix and Pawniard are the main Flying-type checks and Drifloon shall be careful with both of them; however, metagame trends are detrimental for those checks as Trapinch is able to take them down. Even Ponyta, which is probably the best check Drifloon has, still must have Diglett in consideration despite having Flame Charge, and even burned Trapinch is an eyesore. Against Sun teams I expect it to excel as 34 Speed outspeed everything relevant in the metagame and Acrobatics deals a ton of damage to many of the abusers. This shit is definitely gone in a few days after implementing the changes or so.
Both Spritzee and Mareanie recovering Covet means that Spritzee will become once again the best Knock Off Absorber and a much better check to Fighting-types and Flying-types than it already was, providing much further utility than before. Mareanie, while not as prominent as Spritzee in this regard, can take advantage of Regenerator to take Knock Offs and keep itself healthy throughout a match.
Rufflet is probably the second biggest winner of this transition behind Drifloon, as the return of Aerial Ace and Roost enabled a set that was stupidly hard to deal with in SM and a bit matchup fishy: Bulk Up + Roost. Knowing that Cutiefly is still around, slapping this Pokemon on Webs is going to be oh so easy, as its insane bulk of 25/21/21 allows it to take many attacks while being able to outspeed any non-Scarf threat and setup even in front of Onix despite having Head Smash and take it out. Once Webs are up, if your Defogger is gone, I definitely can assure you that Rufflet is 6-0ing most of the unprepared builds thanks to the simple combination of Aerial Ace + Superpower. It may not look strong right now, but once metagame settles down prepare yourselves for a wild ride.
WIngull got Defog back, meaning that aside from blasting the metagame with its STABs it can also force switches to take hazards away. Not sure how would this affect it since it doesn't get too many chances with Pawniard around and Vullaby being much better Defogger, but I guess it could get a niche.
All of these Pokemon got Knock Off back, increasing their offensive capabilites by a far lot and providing further utility.
Pawniard has recovered its old Stealth Rock set and is a much more efficient Defog deterrent on Webs now as it does not have to run Night Slash anymore.
Timburr with Knock Off and Defog coupled is able to provide utility and force many switches. It can now run all out attack sets with Knock Off to improve its offensive presence.
Although not as big as the previous two, Croagunk's mixed sets enjoy the return of Knock Off being able to weaken several Pokemom that is able to check such as Corphish and Mareanie.
Scraggy getting Knock Off puts Crunch out of scene and enables its Dragon Dance and Choice Scarf sets to work on offensive and hyper offensive teams.
Pancham is now able to take advantage of the switches it causes to Knock Off the target, which coupled with Parting Shot has enough to offer.
Mareanie getting Knock Off has further improved the utility it provides, knocking off the switch-in's item.
IMPACT ON THE METAGAME
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Sun has now a wider array of abusers that can complement each other, but I would like to pinpoint the next combinations:
1. Fire-type + Sun sweeper
Consists in a Fire-type like Sunmander or Ponyta coupled with one of the Sun sweepers, be it Bulbasaur or Growth + Strength Sap Oddish. Sunmander excels a lot coupled with Bulbasaur as it weakens most of the check for Sunmander and Bulbasaur puts targets that Sun cannot easily deal with to sleep. In exchange, Sunmander deals with other Fire-types thanks to Solar Power Ancient Power, forming a powerful duo able to crack teams with many resists. Ponyta, on the other hand, boasts many coverage options that can help the sun sweepers in a pinch, specially High Horsepower removing other Fire-types and Mareanie.
2. Sun sweeper Spam
Both Bulbasaur and Oddish have amazing traits that distint each other's capabilities, with Oddish handling Munchlax, Timburr and Mareanie to force them out, and Bulbasaur thanks to the forced switches, is able to spam Life Orb boosted attacks and remove Pawniard and Ferroseed, which Oddish would be unable to beat otherwise.
And even so, Eject Pack Vulpix is still able to become these Pokemon very dangerous and enable trappers to take Pawniard, Munchlax and Ferroseed out for them.
The sheer effectiveness of the archetype would be enough reason to focus on the cause of this: Vulpix. As such, I would warrant looking it over. Would it be that it ends up gone Cherubi would come back to the metagame.
Veils is probably going to be the counterpart to literal brokeness in this metagame state. Partially as a Sun answer, the effectiveness of these Pokemon under Veils is going to overwhelm most of the teams there are right now. As mentioned above, the most worthy of a suspect were it to happen would be Zigzagoon, which despite only working under Veils, has no answers and justifies the way to become Veils less threatening without fully removing the archetype.
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and some other possible sweepers around
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sprite is bugged but its kanto meowth)
