Am I the only one thinking Good as Gold is really boring? I don't think it is broken at all but games against double Good as Gold teams just don't have the same flavour as against any other team. You know that the only way to win is pure damage and you can not be excited by a clutch poison, burn... I don't encounter those teams that much but yeah, just wanted to get this out here
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Format Discussion Metronome Battle
- Thread starter Ivy
- Start date
Mortal spin still poisons, as well as other moves with secondary effects. Wrap, fire spin, etc. are great sources of residual damage. The only thing really worth being salty about is losing a Perish Song setup due to the foe being immune to it.
But yeah, it's less perceptibly "fun" than, say, magic Bounce—even though a Bounce foe will often screw you over by reflecting moves, it's way more entertaining to witness, lol.
I would like some advice for this team. (Don't mind the nickname.)
https://pokepast.es/1864569da08c97f2
Youmu (Gengar-Mega) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Power Spot
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Metronome
Yuyuko (Ampharos-Mega) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
I don't know what to do with Gengar-Mega's ability.
I'm making it a Power Spot now, but I tried various things. (Example:Hadron Engine, Download, Good as Gold)
https://pokepast.es/1864569da08c97f2
Youmu (Gengar-Mega) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Power Spot
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Metronome
Yuyuko (Ampharos-Mega) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beads of Ruin
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Metronome
I don't know what to do with Gengar-Mega's ability.
I'm making it a Power Spot now, but I tried various things. (Example:Hadron Engine, Download, Good as Gold)
I think Competitive is the most tried and true strategy for special stacking, but here are some other options you could try out in theory. As a ghost, you can go Magic Bounce or Purifying Salt to make it harder to break through, or stack Storm Drain and Lightning Rod for more immunities and Special Attack boosts, though it can also take away your special attacks at the same time. On the other hand, you could try focusing on boosting your defenses, since Gengar's main weak points are being frail and also having low attack, so it could probably see some benefit from reducing the huge hits it usually takes to live at least one more turn and have more chances to counterattack, with immunities to common chip damage so the opponent has to roll more times to try and kill.
252 SpA Mew Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ice Scales Gengar-Mega: 102-120 (31.4 - 37%) -- 76.4% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Mew Shadow Force vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fluffy Gengar-Mega: 100-118 (30.8 - 36.4%) -- 60.1% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Ice Scales Gengar-Mega: 247-292 (76.2 - 90.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Choice Band Heracross-Mega Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Fluffy Gengar-Mega: 256-302 (79 - 93.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
oh duh lol thank you
What are people's thoughts around pokemon to grass terastilise for flower veil teams?
I've been looking at mainly mons like tyranitar, wishiwashi schooled and glastrier that often pair with a flower veil mega venasaur but I was wondering if anyone has been having luck with any other pokemon
I've been looking at mainly mons like tyranitar, wishiwashi schooled and glastrier that often pair with a flower veil mega venasaur but I was wondering if anyone has been having luck with any other pokemon
Not sure it is worth the cost. Best flower veil mons have a good second type and aren't just pure grass. In my eyes you are better of using Good as Gold on your pokemon and terra in a better type. It could work in some situation but in my eyes there are options that are better.
Check my bulk comparison at the top of the page :D
Ttar and glastrier are great, and ting-lu is another worthy contender. I'm also partial to Zygarde (50%), an underappreciated pick for terastelization. They also have good offensive STAB types that are nice to maintain through the tera.
I’ve tried it out a bit, and I don’t like it. Grass is a really weak type, and Flower Veil teams before now have gotten away with the downsides of being Grass by having secondary types like Poison and Ghost that help patch up those weaknesses (and also Mega Venusaur has very, very good stats; it’s significantly bulkier than Diancie with better offenses too). In my opinion, there just aren’t any Pokémon with good enough stats to make Terastallizing to pure Grass worth it except pokemon like Tyranitar, Baxcalibur, and Ting Lu, which have some of the best stat lines in the metagame and base typings so bad that pure Grass is an improvement. There’s also the minor flaw that not being Grass type on switch in means your team is semi-vulnerable to Intimidate, which is especially punishing if your non-Grass is running Simple.
glastrier is great because it's bulkier and slower than most other tera-able mons. tyranitar seems like a good option too but glastrier's speed is really useful for losing to perish song less often. wishiwashi's hp is really low, not sure if the extra spa is worth it.
currently #9 on ladder using only venusaur+glastrier fwiw
The usage stats for January are here as our first look of a mostly Opportunist-less metagame for 2/3rds of the month.
The battle count for this month reaches 71520, dropping off a bit from the new gen's peak but still higher than the ending months of Gen 8.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-01/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-01/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last positions from Gen 8's final November stats:
#1: Mega Ampharos (#6)
#2: Ting-Lu (#1)
#3: Mega Heracross (#5)
#4: Mega Sableye (#13)
#5: Mega Venusaur (#3)
#6: Mega Gengar (#8)
#7: Iron Hands (#4)
#8: Glastrier (#2)
#9: Dusclops (no change)
#10: Dondozo (#29)
Mega Ampharos takes the lead this time with a 25.5% weighted usage, almost doubling Ting-Lu's 13.8% trailing behind it. Meanwhile, Mega Venusaur continues its decline from the top spots despite Opportunist's ban, though still maintaining its highest raw usage of 13397. Heracross slowly rises up again while Mega Sableye and Dondozo return from the depths, showing it can still be viable on its own terms with a Choice Band and Magic Bounce, and surprisingly the same set applies to Sableye. Diancie and Hisuian Zoroark fell off from last time to #31 and #21 respectively, though they still retain their high uses (3436 and 13094), with Zoroark notably still having the 2nd most raw uses as a very common pick.
The dark horse of the month is Keldeo, barely outside of the top 10 at #11 with only 122 uses amongst the other thousands. Other fellow legendaries with high placements for low uses include Volcanion (#15, 730) and Necrozma (#22, 220). It seems like (double) Volcanion has a lot of variety going on with its ability and item choices (Ice Scales, Intimidate, Lightning Rod, Tinted Lens, Power Spot, Choice Specs, Mirror Herb, Normalium Z, Clear Amulet, Weakness Policy all listed and above 13.350% except Weakness Policy at 9.340%), while Necrozma is more straightforward with mostly just Magic Bounce and Normalium Z working out with an Iron Hands partner, which is probably the main carry of the team and the one to tera since Normalium Z prevents terastallization.
Overall I feel like these weighted stats are more developed than last time with more ranked players to base around, so it's pretty interesting to see how things have changed from last month even with the Opportunist ban, with some mons having less raw usage in general but actually rising up quite a bit relatively. Dragonite went from #34/3199 to #16/2358 and Baxcalibur went from #24/5539 to #17/2121. For a specific example of a mon whose archetype was heavily impacted by Opportunist, Mega Abomasnow went from #140/866 to #26/797.
On the other side of the rankings, the bottom 5 mons of the month are Dracovish in #985/10, Hitmontop at #984/27, Ash-Greninja (I think this is just counting Battle Bond Greninja) at #983/143, Maushold at #982/250 uses, and ending off with Flabebe because it is in #981 and only has 1 use, so all these other mons managed to lose harder than a mon that showed up once. For last month it was Kingdra/Silvally-Grass/Dracovish/Hitmontop/Ledyba. Looking back even further, Dracovish and Kingdra were both bottom 2 in Commander November and Shedinja was bottom 6, just above Brute Bonnet, base Wishiwashi, and Zeraora. So far the water/dragons have been the lowest weighted usage mons of Gen 9 somehow, and it's not even that bad of a typing to deserve it. I think Dracovish could be redeemed with a few more wins.
(I probably contributed to Battle Bond Greninja's performance with this moment of friendly fire.)
Over in the moveset file, Ting-Lu and Hisuian Zoroark are the main examples of high mons whose usages are still dominated by Opportunist from the start of the month, while Mirror Herb remains a wild card pick on quite a few mons as well. Overall Good as Gold can be observed as a common variety pick, taking the top ability slot on some different mons like Mega Gengar and Type: Null. Choice Band is actually the #1 weighted item pick on Mega Sableye now as mentioned earlier, though with the default Sablenite still in 2nd.
The viability ceilings for this month top off at 78 with Mega Heracross alone, followed up with Mega Sableye at 77, and Ampharos/Venusaur/Iron Hands/Abomasnow following a bit behind at 74. Ampharos in particular has some variety going for it with Plus/Good as Gold/Beads of Ruin/Hadron Engine all with >10% usage. After that we have Ting-Lu in 73, and we end off the top 10 mons with 72 featuring Keldeo (Minus with Mega Ampharos), Mega Lopunny (Scrappy Normalium Z + Ting-Lu), and Alolan Muk (Poison Touch/Levitate). Alolan Muk in particular achieved a major glow up comparable to Diancie, going from #773 (out of 980) with 309 raw uses, to ooze over 700 spots up to #52 with 325 uses, which I guess says more about the dedication and luck of the player than the mon in this case.
(I noticed that Maushold has a viability ceiling of 0 in the raw usage moveset file. I think there might be a floor to it, because a lot of other mons show the same thing and the lowest real viability ceiling I could find is Unown with 30.)
The battle count for this month reaches 71520, dropping off a bit from the new gen's peak but still higher than the ending months of Gen 8.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-01/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-01/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last positions from Gen 8's final November stats:
#1: Mega Ampharos (#6)
#2: Ting-Lu (#1)
#3: Mega Heracross (#5)
#4: Mega Sableye (#13)
#5: Mega Venusaur (#3)
#6: Mega Gengar (#8)
#7: Iron Hands (#4)
#8: Glastrier (#2)
#9: Dusclops (no change)
#10: Dondozo (#29)
Mega Ampharos takes the lead this time with a 25.5% weighted usage, almost doubling Ting-Lu's 13.8% trailing behind it. Meanwhile, Mega Venusaur continues its decline from the top spots despite Opportunist's ban, though still maintaining its highest raw usage of 13397. Heracross slowly rises up again while Mega Sableye and Dondozo return from the depths, showing it can still be viable on its own terms with a Choice Band and Magic Bounce, and surprisingly the same set applies to Sableye. Diancie and Hisuian Zoroark fell off from last time to #31 and #21 respectively, though they still retain their high uses (3436 and 13094), with Zoroark notably still having the 2nd most raw uses as a very common pick.
The dark horse of the month is Keldeo, barely outside of the top 10 at #11 with only 122 uses amongst the other thousands. Other fellow legendaries with high placements for low uses include Volcanion (#15, 730) and Necrozma (#22, 220). It seems like (double) Volcanion has a lot of variety going on with its ability and item choices (Ice Scales, Intimidate, Lightning Rod, Tinted Lens, Power Spot, Choice Specs, Mirror Herb, Normalium Z, Clear Amulet, Weakness Policy all listed and above 13.350% except Weakness Policy at 9.340%), while Necrozma is more straightforward with mostly just Magic Bounce and Normalium Z working out with an Iron Hands partner, which is probably the main carry of the team and the one to tera since Normalium Z prevents terastallization.
Overall I feel like these weighted stats are more developed than last time with more ranked players to base around, so it's pretty interesting to see how things have changed from last month even with the Opportunist ban, with some mons having less raw usage in general but actually rising up quite a bit relatively. Dragonite went from #34/3199 to #16/2358 and Baxcalibur went from #24/5539 to #17/2121. For a specific example of a mon whose archetype was heavily impacted by Opportunist, Mega Abomasnow went from #140/866 to #26/797.
On the other side of the rankings, the bottom 5 mons of the month are Dracovish in #985/10, Hitmontop at #984/27, Ash-Greninja (I think this is just counting Battle Bond Greninja) at #983/143, Maushold at #982/250 uses, and ending off with Flabebe because it is in #981 and only has 1 use, so all these other mons managed to lose harder than a mon that showed up once. For last month it was Kingdra/Silvally-Grass/Dracovish/Hitmontop/Ledyba. Looking back even further, Dracovish and Kingdra were both bottom 2 in Commander November and Shedinja was bottom 6, just above Brute Bonnet, base Wishiwashi, and Zeraora. So far the water/dragons have been the lowest weighted usage mons of Gen 9 somehow, and it's not even that bad of a typing to deserve it. I think Dracovish could be redeemed with a few more wins.
(I probably contributed to Battle Bond Greninja's performance with this moment of friendly fire.)
Over in the moveset file, Ting-Lu and Hisuian Zoroark are the main examples of high mons whose usages are still dominated by Opportunist from the start of the month, while Mirror Herb remains a wild card pick on quite a few mons as well. Overall Good as Gold can be observed as a common variety pick, taking the top ability slot on some different mons like Mega Gengar and Type: Null. Choice Band is actually the #1 weighted item pick on Mega Sableye now as mentioned earlier, though with the default Sablenite still in 2nd.
The viability ceilings for this month top off at 78 with Mega Heracross alone, followed up with Mega Sableye at 77, and Ampharos/Venusaur/Iron Hands/Abomasnow following a bit behind at 74. Ampharos in particular has some variety going for it with Plus/Good as Gold/Beads of Ruin/Hadron Engine all with >10% usage. After that we have Ting-Lu in 73, and we end off the top 10 mons with 72 featuring Keldeo (Minus with Mega Ampharos), Mega Lopunny (Scrappy Normalium Z + Ting-Lu), and Alolan Muk (Poison Touch/Levitate). Alolan Muk in particular achieved a major glow up comparable to Diancie, going from #773 (out of 980) with 309 raw uses, to ooze over 700 spots up to #52 with 325 uses, which I guess says more about the dedication and luck of the player than the mon in this case.
(I noticed that Maushold has a viability ceiling of 0 in the raw usage moveset file. I think there might be a floor to it, because a lot of other mons show the same thing and the lowest real viability ceiling I could find is Unown with 30.)
I think that the kings rock thing for me is embarrassing to be thrown around the thread, so I'm going to bring up a new team that's more defensive
Order (Zygarde) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Fluffy
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
ber (Ursaring) (M) @ Eviolite
Ability: Protean
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Zygarde is the terastalizer, just as something that resists fire. Also, having stab on every first move on Ursaring, and eviolite protects it pretty well.
Order (Zygarde) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Fluffy
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Metronome
ber (Ursaring) (M) @ Eviolite
Ability: Protean
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Brave Nature
- Metronome
Zygarde is the terastalizer, just as something that resists fire. Also, having stab on every first move on Ursaring, and eviolite protects it pretty well.
Here's what I would recommend changing about the team.
1. Give Zygarde Ice Scales with possibly Brave (you still can keep Sassy) instead, to compensate for worse physical bulk you can give Ursaring Tablets of Ruin or Friend Guard
2. Give Zygarde tera ghost (99% of the time you want tera ghost, and you should be running it here)
3.Give Ursaring Minimum Speed to try and win perish song, also give it one of the two abilities I mentioned in 1. (Protean is useless I think)
4. If you want Ursaring to be more offensive you can run Ursaluna + Band with Brave + Min. Speed, and either Magic Bounce or Defiant/Intrepid Sword.
I've been running ice scales tera ghost, ursaring with protean has given me a higher win/loss than ursaring with anything else. Ice scales is undoubtedly better than fluffy, but the problem with tablets is it lowers zygarde's attack too. Finally, I don't think weakness policy pops enough with tera ghost, so I'm looking for a different item on zygarde.
You can also tera after getting weakness policy activated but if you want an item while still using tera turn 1, use band.
Also use friend guard on ursaring to get better bulk for zygarde but not sacking it's own attack stat. As I said, I think protean is useless since ursaring is already a normal type, and protean just makes you a normal type if you already are one, so what are you trying to accomplish by using protean on a normal type?
If you're already the correct type then Protean doesn't even fire; this is particularly relevant given that it now only fires once per switch in. (Although Protean isn't supposed to fire for calling moves such as Metronome anyway; that's a known server bug.)
The protean doesn't fire when it's a normal move, and it's a bit more random with a luckier typing such as electric or steel, but there doesn't seem to be a bad type to be changed into on average
I didn't know that about protean in metronome battles, but there is more consistent abilities out there, like what if you get a bad defensive typing like rock or grass when you could be running something more consistent.
Even though with those flaws, I would like to make a team about protean and fixing it with tera if something goes wrong
The sheer percentage of grass and rock moves pales in comparison, to say fighting, flying, or psychic. Having experienced many games of protean, the most common types are probably water, fighting, or dark.
Been having some recent success using this team, don't know if thats down to luck or it just works well against the other players teams going around when I was playing lol. Any advice to clean up the rough edges would be appreciated, for example I was thinking about changing Ursaluna's ability to something like Intrepid Sword.
Ursaluna @ Choice Band
Ability: Scrappy
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Donbozo (Dondozo) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Ursaluna @ Choice Band
Ability: Scrappy
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Donbozo (Dondozo) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
The usage stats for February are here as our first look into a full new month of a metagame without Opportunist. Before that though, I have to cover some recent additions to the metagame since a few days ago on Pokemon Day, Scarlet and Violet version 1.2.0 released with some new content and even more to come in future DLC updates.
Walking Wake: Water/Dragon (99/83/91/125/83/109) 590 BST
Water/Dragon is a type combination with very few weaknesses (Fairy, Dragon) and resistances (Fire x2, Water x2, Steel), with both types cancelling out their usual resistances and weaknesses for better or for worse. Of the Water/Dragons, Walking Wake boasts the new highest BST of them all and has solid stats all around with having the highest HP, SpA, and Speed of them all. Will it be enough to redeem the type? BST-wise it still has a lot of competition among Dragons and other viable Water types with less speed, feeling similar to Keldeo in its stat spread.
(For some reason Dracovish shows up as illegal in Gen 9.)
Iron Leaves: Grass/Psychic (90/130/88/70/108/104) 590 BST
Iron Leaves brings another natural Flower Veil user to the table. Grass/Psychic has 7 weaknesses including an unfortunate double Bug weakness, but also a fair share of 6 resistances. The most notable trait of Iron Leaves is its specialized 130 Attack, being tied for the 3rd highest among Grass types while also being the fastest choice of its competitors. I feel like Iron Leaves is in a similar state to Zarude as a high BST fast and physical Grass type, but Zarude's higher HP and Def may be more preferable in general, and Brute Bonnet also rivals both of them in stats other than Speed.
Hisuian Zoroark and Kleavor got their old PLA stat spreads back. From now on Zoroark will have 55 HP/100 Atk/125 SpA/110 Speed and Kleavor has 135 Atk/70 SpD. For Zoroark I think it feels like a net loss to trade off HP and Attack for SpA and Speed that it already had plenty of, while Kleavor is in the same situation going for more Attack and less SpD, which is probably more preferable of a tradeoff to go all in for but Mega Heracross would probably do it better anyway.
Overall the most interesting change this update brings is introducing the new signature moves Hydro Steam and Psyblade, which are 80 BP Water/Psychic and get a boost in Sun/Electric Terrain, with Hydro Steam notably ignoring the usual water move in sun damage reduction for a niche but interesting new interaction to play around with. Surprisingly, these new signature moves are actually callable by Metronome. Thank you game freak.
The battle count reaches 58320 this month, declining but still relatively high.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-02/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-02/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Ting-Lu (#2)
#2: Mega Venusaur (#5)
#3: Mega Ampharos (#1)
#4: Blissey (#12)
#5: Mega Heracross (#3)
#6: Glastrier (#8)
#7: Tyranitar (#28)
#8: Ursaluna (#18)
#9: Iron Hands (#7)
#10: Mega Gengar (#6)
The top spots are still shuffling around and Ting-Lu barely becomes the king of the hill once again with 7744 raw uses and 36.7% weighted usage, while Mega Venusaur also makes a big rise back up the spots by dominating in pure numbers in 23123 raw uses and following with 27.6% weighted usage, double of Heracross's 10523 uses in the next best spot and also way ahead of Ampharos's 10.9% raw usage. Blissey, Tyranitar, and Ursaluna rise back up to the top 10 with their common traits of bulk and power. The dark horse of the month is Keldeo, once again barely outside of the top 10 in #12 with 438 uses, with other water types following similarly below like Toxapex (#29, 501) and Suicune (#31, 288). For all the recent Ursaring talk in the thread, it's done surprisingly alright at #36 (529 uses). Despite only existing for the last 2 days of February, Walking Wake managed #85 with 235 uses and Iron Leaves hit #157 with 208 uses.
Over in the moveset file, we can see that Pickup Mirror Herb has pretty much replaced Opportunist with having some usage all around, mainly on Ting-Lu but also Mega Gengar, Mega Sableye, Hisuian Zoroark, Cresselia, and Pokestar Giant among other mons have major usage of the ability and item. For Ting-Lu, Unaware still reigns with the items being split closely between Mirror Herb and Weakness Policy. Mega Ampharos favours Plus (42.7%) much more than Minus (12.5%). Heracross is back to Intrepid Swording most of the time now, while Glastrier has taken on the Sword of Ruin and Ursaluna is now the prime Defiant user. Tyranitar's sets are actually pretty varied with high usage of Simple, Defiant, and Solid Rock among Mirror Herb and Weakness Policy as the common items.
The viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player using the mon) for this month cap out at 79 with Blissey and Iron Hands. Blissey's sets are 90% Imposter-based as expected while Iron Hands actually has some variety going on with Flame Body, Magic Guard, Magic Bounce, Defiant, and Galvanize all with at least 10% weighted usage and a fair divide between Choice Band and Mirror Herb. The next highest ceiling is 77 with Ting-Lu and Ursaluna, and we end off the top 10 on a 6-way tie for 75 with Mega Venusaur/Mega Gengar/Necturna/Pokestar UFO/Zapdos/Alolan Muk for a pretty interesting combination of classic strong picks while Muk is still on the grind since last month. Thanks for your reading.
Walking Wake: Water/Dragon (99/83/91/125/83/109) 590 BST
Water/Dragon is a type combination with very few weaknesses (Fairy, Dragon) and resistances (Fire x2, Water x2, Steel), with both types cancelling out their usual resistances and weaknesses for better or for worse. Of the Water/Dragons, Walking Wake boasts the new highest BST of them all and has solid stats all around with having the highest HP, SpA, and Speed of them all. Will it be enough to redeem the type? BST-wise it still has a lot of competition among Dragons and other viable Water types with less speed, feeling similar to Keldeo in its stat spread.
(For some reason Dracovish shows up as illegal in Gen 9.)
Iron Leaves: Grass/Psychic (90/130/88/70/108/104) 590 BST
Iron Leaves brings another natural Flower Veil user to the table. Grass/Psychic has 7 weaknesses including an unfortunate double Bug weakness, but also a fair share of 6 resistances. The most notable trait of Iron Leaves is its specialized 130 Attack, being tied for the 3rd highest among Grass types while also being the fastest choice of its competitors. I feel like Iron Leaves is in a similar state to Zarude as a high BST fast and physical Grass type, but Zarude's higher HP and Def may be more preferable in general, and Brute Bonnet also rivals both of them in stats other than Speed.
Hisuian Zoroark and Kleavor got their old PLA stat spreads back. From now on Zoroark will have 55 HP/100 Atk/125 SpA/110 Speed and Kleavor has 135 Atk/70 SpD. For Zoroark I think it feels like a net loss to trade off HP and Attack for SpA and Speed that it already had plenty of, while Kleavor is in the same situation going for more Attack and less SpD, which is probably more preferable of a tradeoff to go all in for but Mega Heracross would probably do it better anyway.
Overall the most interesting change this update brings is introducing the new signature moves Hydro Steam and Psyblade, which are 80 BP Water/Psychic and get a boost in Sun/Electric Terrain, with Hydro Steam notably ignoring the usual water move in sun damage reduction for a niche but interesting new interaction to play around with. Surprisingly, these new signature moves are actually callable by Metronome. Thank you game freak.
The battle count reaches 58320 this month, declining but still relatively high.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-02/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-02/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Ting-Lu (#2)
#2: Mega Venusaur (#5)
#3: Mega Ampharos (#1)
#4: Blissey (#12)
#5: Mega Heracross (#3)
#6: Glastrier (#8)
#7: Tyranitar (#28)
#8: Ursaluna (#18)
#9: Iron Hands (#7)
#10: Mega Gengar (#6)
The top spots are still shuffling around and Ting-Lu barely becomes the king of the hill once again with 7744 raw uses and 36.7% weighted usage, while Mega Venusaur also makes a big rise back up the spots by dominating in pure numbers in 23123 raw uses and following with 27.6% weighted usage, double of Heracross's 10523 uses in the next best spot and also way ahead of Ampharos's 10.9% raw usage. Blissey, Tyranitar, and Ursaluna rise back up to the top 10 with their common traits of bulk and power. The dark horse of the month is Keldeo, once again barely outside of the top 10 in #12 with 438 uses, with other water types following similarly below like Toxapex (#29, 501) and Suicune (#31, 288). For all the recent Ursaring talk in the thread, it's done surprisingly alright at #36 (529 uses). Despite only existing for the last 2 days of February, Walking Wake managed #85 with 235 uses and Iron Leaves hit #157 with 208 uses.
Over in the moveset file, we can see that Pickup Mirror Herb has pretty much replaced Opportunist with having some usage all around, mainly on Ting-Lu but also Mega Gengar, Mega Sableye, Hisuian Zoroark, Cresselia, and Pokestar Giant among other mons have major usage of the ability and item. For Ting-Lu, Unaware still reigns with the items being split closely between Mirror Herb and Weakness Policy. Mega Ampharos favours Plus (42.7%) much more than Minus (12.5%). Heracross is back to Intrepid Swording most of the time now, while Glastrier has taken on the Sword of Ruin and Ursaluna is now the prime Defiant user. Tyranitar's sets are actually pretty varied with high usage of Simple, Defiant, and Solid Rock among Mirror Herb and Weakness Policy as the common items.
The viability ceilings (highest GXE of a player using the mon) for this month cap out at 79 with Blissey and Iron Hands. Blissey's sets are 90% Imposter-based as expected while Iron Hands actually has some variety going on with Flame Body, Magic Guard, Magic Bounce, Defiant, and Galvanize all with at least 10% weighted usage and a fair divide between Choice Band and Mirror Herb. The next highest ceiling is 77 with Ting-Lu and Ursaluna, and we end off the top 10 on a 6-way tie for 75 with Mega Venusaur/Mega Gengar/Necturna/Pokestar UFO/Zapdos/Alolan Muk for a pretty interesting combination of classic strong picks while Muk is still on the grind since last month. Thanks for your reading.
i'd say swap scrappy for defiant on ursa, intrepid sword/defiant are pretty interchangeable but i'd say the bulkier a mon is, the more it wants defiant compared to intrepid.
you don't need minimum speed for ursa since dozo is slower and is already your low speed mon.
you also should use band instead of WP on dozo since having 2 weaknesses isn't really worth running WP
swap out relaxed for brave on both, you could also go for sassy on dozo but i think brave would still be better
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flower veil with tera is kind of insane this gen, i've run two teams with it so far
this is the stall team
now that type: null can tera grass, you have an incredible option for a wall
flarelm is the best defensive grass imo, 90/95/70 defenses with eviolite is very hard to pass up
with flower veil protecting from most effects, and unaware protecting from stat boosters with intrepid sword and defiant, it's very hard to break type: null, and even if you do you still have to get through flarelm who is very bulky and has flower veil still up
this team is much more offensive
ttar kind of sucked last gen cause of its type, but with tera grass it can become an amazing pokemon for veil teams
ttar's stats are perfect across the board, making it a great candidate for wp, and with mold breaker it ignores common abilities like unaware and good as gold
mvenu also runs weakness policy and is also a pokemon with great stats across the board. i don't really like using mirror herb on it since it's very unreliable and you can easily copy something stupid like meditate
Flarelm @ Eviolite
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Type: Null @ Eviolite
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Type: Null @ Eviolite
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
this is the stall team
now that type: null can tera grass, you have an incredible option for a wall
flarelm is the best defensive grass imo, 90/95/70 defenses with eviolite is very hard to pass up
with flower veil protecting from most effects, and unaware protecting from stat boosters with intrepid sword and defiant, it's very hard to break type: null, and even if you do you still have to get through flarelm who is very bulky and has flower veil still up
Venusaur-Mega @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Tyranitar @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Ability: Flower Veil
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
Tyranitar @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Metronome
this team is much more offensive
ttar kind of sucked last gen cause of its type, but with tera grass it can become an amazing pokemon for veil teams
ttar's stats are perfect across the board, making it a great candidate for wp, and with mold breaker it ignores common abilities like unaware and good as gold
mvenu also runs weakness policy and is also a pokemon with great stats across the board. i don't really like using mirror herb on it since it's very unreliable and you can easily copy something stupid like meditate