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This will be in reverse order from teams I used in finals.
Grand Finals vs Iride
G1 - Built this for Iride in Quarterfinals because I noticed she typically didn't load very sturdy Ghost resists, so Dhelmise was good to exploit that and obliterate most teams after an SD. Initially I had Arceus-Fairy and Gliscor for a more bulky version of the team, but I noticed I could pretty easily just make everyone SD so I did because it was funny. Turns out team is also very solid as well. Haxxed pretty hard in the game though.
G2 - I reused my old bulky Ho-Oh team that I built originally for Les2BG, loaded into essentially a perfect MU with no way for opponent to break, so was a fairy simple win.
Quarter Finals vs Iride
G1 - First showing of the all SD team. Dhelmise did its job and Scizor cleaned shop pretty cleanly.
G2 - Built this a while back (I think during AMPL?) as fast Apple is really really good at breaking. Unfortunately the team struggles quite a bit with CM Clefable (Encore Lopunny could be fine?) and so I lost pretty quickly.
G3 - Loaded an old team from PL, def got lucky this game.
Rest of the tour was just me loading old teams from AMPL.
State of the tier is fairly good IMO. Pretty much anything is viable, and though there are quite a few cheesy threats like Sneasler and Annihalape, most things can be dealt with fairly easily in the process of normal teambuilding. Was quite a fun tour, despite quite a few games ruined by luck (see Week 4).
GGs to all that I played, and a special shoutout to Iride for being a great person to chat and play with, as well as AM and about15gals my fellow council members.
Danbear has basically called me out for this and even with seasonal finals turning out the way it did I had a lot of fun exploring different concepts in the meta and would like to share my comprehensive thoughts as a result.
The Metagame
To start, I think something really interesting that summarizes my thoughts on the meta was just simply looking at my god usage, as shown in no particular order below
(2x) (2x) (2x) (2x) (2x) (1x) (1x) (1x)
- Team by Danbear - Team by AM
Decent variety in gods beyond just simple archetype bias aside. I think a sample size like this shows that there is generally a lot of diversity and creativity that can be afforded in teambuilding right now, and I find that this aspect is most readily apparent in how I was using my stat donations. In most cases, I tended to focus the most on the def, spd, and speed slots regardless of the specific god being used, and found a lot of variety in complimenting them between things like scarfers, fairies, ground + hazard mons, regen users, steels, and pivot users all being signficantly more accesible categories which shows that there is a lot of nunance and different approaches compared to most other tiers when it come to filling these fundamental roles right now. Additionally, its also worth noting that the teams I faced throughout the tournament shared a lot of the same sentiment I had as well, with most of them tapping into gods like ho-oh, m2, and kyurem formes that I'll admit to have not explored enough myself. There are enough viable approaches to any broader archetype definition to the extent that I'd argue the teambuilding experience tends to be a lot more personalized than in other formats, which is a good thing and I find it contributes a lot to my own enjoyment of the tier.
I'll admit it can be frustratingly warping at times, but I've definitely come around to a pattern of exploiting it more overtime and landed on some pretty good results with certain techs while just not using it in general. Mainly through z-moves, but also statusing, hazards + knock, and dedicated setup users. Still an integral enabler for many teams and can certainly make some sort of background progress in any game but I think that's more a byproduct of being splashable for its qualities rather than being too good at it and I don't mind seeing mola stay personally.
The other big enabler, it might be a bit of a stretch to say the tier would be better off without it but I can't deny that hsamu's combination of spikes (especially with atk donation) combined with its standalone effectiveness at punishing the tier's anti-hazard measures is legitmately insane and gets big value in a lot of matchups. mainly off a combination of scarf koff + flip and sd in Atk and av with SpD donation I could honestly see it easily being an a+/s tier mon at worst.
The mass Uber unbans crowd, saw most of these guys in the tour a good amount and also considered them lots as well. I think the lack of tera and defensive power creep added to mons like clodsire, clefable, rotom, hydrapple, and steels to name a few does a good job of balancing them out, especially since most like palafin and darkrai don't tend to benefit a lot from most god stats, but they're still notable and just so happen to be one of the things I like the most about the tier too.
This is a broader category that also applies to some of the Ubers I brought up above + gods like ekiller and eternatus from experience, but also on a few regulars like tapu koko, torn-t, and gholdengo that I find pretty dangerous when backed by z-moves too. generally, I think z-moves are quite balanced in this tier due to a combination of increased opportunity cost behind using it and fitting it onto teams (think no boots, for example), as well as a general lack of abusers that are able to consistently elevate the mechanic to undermine their issues in a way that requires action. Given its still z-moves in an OM where everything sits at a higher power level but I'd also like to see how it plays out in the long-term.
Continuing from above. I think booster energy, or just booster spam in general is extremely powerful on things like iron hands, roaring moon, and iron moth all being part of this category. not an overwhelming part for sure but definitely an aspect offense appreciates more than a lot of other things due to its ability to purelessly stack a 1.3x boost alongside z-moves and the raw flexibility it offers these mons to navigate highly difficult to break defensive staples like hp steels, alomomola, eternatus, and ho-oh.
Now, I won't say these two are fraud, but they're definitely in the same category of being a lot more challenging to pull of than in sv. Their high commitment nature in the speed slot aside, the lack of tera is especially deterimental for both since it makes the tier a lot more strict in applying defensive counterplay, and thats not to mention how often find they themselves under the conundrum of wanting more power > survivability through their item slot. I'd say DNB on them for now although I thought both were broken at first.
On the other hand, I definitely think both annihilape and sneasler as recievers both go way over the top for the amount of effort required for them to pull off some pretty ridiculous bullshit in-game. for the cheesy / uninteractive aspects you're forced into to handle them alone i'd personally restrict them since its both frustrating and reduces the skill factor prevalent in a lot of matchups they load into.
Personal Viability Ranking
Following the above. I noticed there was no definitive VR and would thus like to suggest my particular thoughts to be considered given everything else that's happened for it to become feasible to work on in the near future.
Imo, based on my metagame analysis / usage, there's several points that definitely come to mind to me for a VR context specifically. starting with the gods since that's way easier than recievers. my personal takes for these in words being s tier eternatus, a+ tier ho-oh mewtwo-y and arceus (any), a tier kyogre ndm (or un) caly-i and both kyurem formes, b+ tier zacian-c rayquaza and zekrom, and b tier groudon, mewtwo (regular), and giratina. To get into some of these specifically, I feel like I might get a bit of pushback for b+ zacian-c but I genuinely think the mon struggles quite a lot in the current meta between its comparatively lackluster donations across the board since its teams tend to benefit the most from its spd and speed stats and the offensive pairings it has with like fightings samurott and gholdengo tend to appreciate the other stats over hp and atk. its also without mentioning how easily it gets bricked by all of hp rotom, dondozo, corvi/skarmory, twave regeners, and come the transition to nd, also defense slot volcarona, hp mscizor aggron and gholdengo, hp gliscor, and buffed lando-t to name a few more, not saying this in a way that puts the mon in bad faith exactly since its still zacian after all and can get a lot of good milage as a cleaner in the right hands but just that these hurdles mean in reality its not exactly a defining instrument of the offense teams it finds itself on. On the other hand, I noticed a lot that of the higher tier gods like ndm, caly-I, and m2 tend to very effective in part due to donating high defensive stats all around and also how much more room they have to play offensively despite their slower pace, it also helps that unlike in SV some of the mega pairings in calys and ndms cases like aerodactyl loppunny and manectric are all inherently super powerful + fast and make it much easier to compensate for these areas in teambuilding, to also say nothing of the insane normal stuff like koko and darkrai that become newly enabled in this category thanks to z-moves.
S Rank Eternatus (Atk)
A+ Rank Arceus-* (Atk, Def, SpA, SpD) Ho-Oh (Def, SpA, Spe) Mega Mewtwo Y (Def)
A Rank Calyrex-Ice (SpA, Spe) Kyogre (Atk) Kyurem-Black (Spe) Kyurem-White (Def, Spe) Necrozma-Dusk Mane (SpA, Spe)
B- Rank Dialga-Origin (Atk, Spe) Deoxys (HP, Def, SpD) Necrozma-Dawn Wings (Atk, Spe) Palkia (HP, Def) - My personal favourite I never got to bring in-game, has a lot of tools to break defense while not being dead weight into kyogre / ndm offense teams courtesy of its unique typing and power, and I find that having lefties recovery compliments this very well. Pheromosa (Def, SpD) Yveltal (Def, SpD)
This is a section i've been wanting to contribute to for a while now because as far as I can remember the samples are largely outdated following shifts and their lack of accessibility definitely hurt me when trying to get into this tier for the earlier rounds as well. For the sake of quality i'm also going to only submit teams I used in seasonal as well as my thought behind featuring them.
I've mostly used this team for tests and even passed a few versions to a few people in seasonal, but also brought it for earlier rounds so that's a given. Just off my guess its probably the most consistent team I've built. Has tools to navigate almost any defensive matchup with options to do so mostly coming from regen hydrapple with zacian speed's ability to switch around most of the tier, backed by consistent pivoting and band zama + futureport gking to power through most of the tiers hp and def recievers that would wall zacian itself. worst matchups are just a simple offensive ho-oh or etern but you have some leeway in limiting them offensively between 3 offense guys that can outspeed both and statusing support from pdef gking and spd lando respectively to sponge a few hits. I also considered running alternative Zs on gholdengo like steel or electrium to help get around luring these which could be considered for sure to help account for these but never got to exploring it on this specific team in the rounds I would have done so for.
Mainly used this rain in the decider vs AM and if we want to feature more offense teams with a spin on things, I think this is a good one to include. Archaludon with kyogre SpD is a super strong breaker for the archetype, has the typing to trade well vs the things rain struggles to navigate like torn-t tox mola and kyurem forms and even takes as little as 25% defensive lando-t clicking ep which is frankly mind-boggling and hillarious at the same time so there's a lot of potential for it to just have an angle into any matchup. Rest of the team is generally kitted out to have secondary breaking purposes like with CM kyogre and speed mpert being essential to assist vs m2/arc recievers (given mpert legal while swift swim is banned and not following in the same footsteps as things like huge power megas is definitely a little worrywhirl from a tiering basis but i'm not complaining lol), and hp ferro for extra hazards and secondary threat checking as a 2nd steel and zap to serve as fighting answer + removal + momentum respectively.
Reaching out to more experimental stuff here, I used this offense in the finals vs Danbear. To briefly riff off my thoughts on eternatus in general, I think this mon is pretty ridiculous compared to everything else in both the sheer versatility it has on its own and what it also enables in the teambuilder between its gargantuan HP, SpA, and Spe, to everything its able to defensively check with its typing and speed from ogerpons to fightings to numerous arceus formes. only reason its not 'broken' unlike in ss is mainly due to the recover nerf hampering defensive sets and the only slightly below middling Def and SpD slots it gives. Went with eject pack on this team which I found to be a fantastic enabler in conjunction with lando + hsamu for hstacking and is also a great way to use etern's role compression to soft answer a lot of the tier, with it even being a rare tspiker and absorber for these types of teams to boot. Sadly, this didn't work out in the actual game though, with me facing with a tragic miss on the hands combined with other rng factors turning an otherwise perfectly good matchup into something pretty pretty dire.
Overall, I wasn't expecting to enjoy ND Godly Gift as much as I did, but I found it to be an incredibly diverse metagame that has been super rewarding for the enterprising player and an absolute pleasure to learn throughout the course of the tour.
(2x)
(2x)
(2x)
(2x)
(1x)
This is a broader category that also applies to some of the Ubers I brought up above + gods like ekiller and eternatus from experience, but also on a few regulars like tapu koko, torn-t, and gholdengo that I find pretty dangerous when backed by z-moves too. generally, I think z-moves are quite balanced in this tier due to a combination of increased opportunity cost behind using it and fitting it onto teams (think no boots, for example), as well as a general lack of abusers that are able to consistently elevate the mechanic to undermine their issues in a way that requires action. Given its still z-moves in an OM where everything sits at a higher power level but I'd also like to see how it plays out in the long-term.
Continuing from above. I think booster energy, or just booster spam in general is extremely powerful on things like iron hands, roaring moon, and iron moth all being part of this category. not an overwhelming part for sure but definitely an aspect offense appreciates more than a lot of other things due to its ability to purelessly stack a 1.3x boost alongside z-moves and the raw flexibility it offers these mons to navigate highly difficult to break defensive staples like hp steels, alomomola, eternatus, and ho-oh.
Now, I won't say these two are fraud, but they're definitely in the same category of being a lot more challenging to pull of than in sv. Their high commitment nature in the speed slot aside, the lack of tera is especially deterimental for both since it makes the tier a lot more strict in applying defensive counterplay, and thats not to mention how often find they themselves under the conundrum of wanting more power > survivability through their item slot. I'd say DNB on them for now although I thought both were broken at first.
On the other hand, I definitely think both annihilape and sneasler as recievers both go way over the top for the amount of effort required for them to pull off some pretty ridiculous bullshit in-game. for the cheesy / uninteractive aspects you're forced into to handle them alone i'd personally restrict them since its both frustrating and reduces the skill factor prevalent in a lot of matchups they load into.
Mega Mewtwo Y (Def)
Calyrex-Ice (SpA, Spe)
Kyurem-Black (Spe)
Groudon (SpA, Spe)
Giratina (Atk, SpA, Spe)
Mewtwo (Atk, Def, SpD)
Dialga-Origin (Atk, Spe)
Deoxys (HP, Def, SpD)
Necrozma-Dawn Wings (Atk, Spe)
Palkia (HP, Def) - My personal favourite I never got to bring in-game, has a lot of tools to break defense while not being dead weight into kyogre / ndm offense teams courtesy of its unique typing and power, and I find that having lefties recovery compliments this very well.
Pheromosa (Def, SpD)
Yveltal (Def, SpD)
Flutter Mane (HP, Atk, Def)
Mega Gengar (Atk, Def)
Giratina-Origin (Def, SpD, Spe)
Lunala (Atk, Def)
Palkia-Origin (HP, Atk)
Primal Kyogre (Atk, Def, Spe)
Reshiram (Def, Spe)
Zamazenta-Crowned (SpA)
Zygarde-Complete (SpA)