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Tournament NDCL I - Commencement Thread
- Thread starter Murphy Lawden
- Start date
Go easy on me when you hit me, I can give you a guide to Genshin Impact.
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New week? New usage analysis! Let's get to it!
Nobody did any weird BO3s this week so we're back to 16 games/32 teams.
Most Used Pokemon:
Well, Zamazenta didn't get dethroned from the top usage spot necessarily, but some others did at least match it. Landorus-T and Gholdengo both joined Zamazenta at the top spot, with all three coming in at 9 uses apiece. It is also worth noting that Zamazenta had achieved 13 or 14 usages in the last three weeks, so this is a marked decrease in usage for Zamazenta overall. Gholdengo was also used less this week in comparison to last week. Landorus-T continues the turnaround of the century; it had a grand total of 4 uses in the first two weeks, but it has a whopping 18 over the last two. All three also saw great variety in their sets. Z-Move variants for all three of the above were used, as were various Choice Scarf and Defensive sets. The flexibility that all three of these Pokemon show is no doubt part of why they are being used so much. Not a lot changed there from last week, although nobody ran Dual Screens Zamazenta as HO saw comparatively much less usage this week. All three of these also won more than 50% of their games.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Kingambit had seen relatively modest usage up until this point, but it greatly improved its standing this week with 8 usages, coming in just behind the three leaders. The way that these Kingambit were used is also of some interest; only one of them ever got the opportunity to even click Swords Dance, as players preferred to use their Kingambits as early game Knock Off support and offensive checks to common Pokemon like Gholdengo and Mega Latios with Sucker Punch. It is also possible that some of these Kingambit were running the less common Pursuit support set, although its hard to know for sure as none of them used Pursuit. All of Leftovers, Black Glasses, and Air Balloon were used at various times by these Gambits.
Tapu Lele, Terapagos, Zapdos, and Great Tusk were all used 7 times apiece, which is a significant improvement for the latter three compared to previous weeks. Tapu Lele lost all 7 games it appeared in.
Pecharunt led the way for the B ranks with a solid 5 usages, which tied with Glowking and was more than Toxapex. Players clearly value Pecharunt's ability to switch into most of the tier's Fighting-types and keep up momentum with Parting Shot, although we did see the first appearance of the much less common Nasty Plot+Ghostium Z variant. Clefable checked in next with a solid 4 usages. All appearances for Clef this week were utility sets, highlighting the sheer value of its movepool and typing even in spite of its slightly lower standing this gen.
Kartana and Ogerpon-Cornerstone led the way for the C ranks with 2 uses apiece, as players explored the merit of these fringy but occasionally dangerous offensive Grasses. Hydrapple, Excadrill, Tapu Fini, Hoopa Unbound, and Enamorous were all used once.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
It has not been a good tournament for Mega Charizard Y, but this was a new low. Even the high upside of sun bolstering threats like Raging Bolt and Great Tusk couldn't bring this sun boosted nuke into play, probably because this nuke simply isn't good enough at nuking stuff anymore. Checks to this are easy to fit on just about everything, as bulky Dragons like Mega Latios, Garchomp, and Dragonite are as popular as ever. Not to mention the proliferation of other options that teams can use to check this, like Moltres, Toxapex, and AV Alomomola. Even matchups where Yard is theoretically hard to switch into aren't easy, as resists to its moves are common and it often has to predict well to make progress. A middling speed tier and the hyper specific support needed to keep Stealth Rock off are simply hard to justify working around when so many teams can switch into this pretty easily, even if its sun boosted teammates can still be dangerous. The worst part? Mega Charizard X, almost unanimously considered the inferior of the two, was used this week, and it was responsible for winning its game. Ouch.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Zard Y was the only A subranker to not get used once this week, but several others had poor showings. Slowbro, Cinderace, and Tapu Koko continued their trends of disappointing usage, but all three at least appeared this week. A surprising entrant to this club was Volcarona, who only appeared once, ironically less than Iron Moth in addition to several other Pokemon it is generally considered superior to. Tornadus-T also had its first terrible week of the tournament, with only 2 usages.
Iron Treads had its worst week yet with 3 usages. Raging Bolt also had a poor week with 1, which is probably to be expected in a week where nobody brought Zard Y. Moltres also only appeared twice, while Iron Valiant was used once. At least they got used though, as their B+ compatriots Hatterene and Mega Scizor weren't used at all.
Lowest Ranked Pokemon to receive use:
Sinistcha wasn't the only UR Pokemon to see use this week, but it was once again the only UR Pokemon to receive multiple usages. Both Clawed Winter and Ryuji brought it as a spinblocker on teams that aimed to stack Spikes. Clawed Winter's Sinistcha was a Nasty Plot variant, while Ryuji's was a bit more mysterious but was notably running Shadow Ball instead of Hex. This brings Sinistcha up to 5 total usages for the tournament, far more than most UR Pokemon or even C rankers. Impressive stuff so far!
The other UR Pokemon putting together quite the tournament is Cresselia, who keeps appearing and keeps winning. The popular set seems to be a Thunder Wave utility Pokemon that takes neutral hits well and can force out many Ground-types with Ice Beam, therefore making it quite good at spreading TWave. Mega Gallade and Seismitoad also made appearances.
Speaking of...
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Most of the interesting stuff this week came from small moveset edits, such as Ch0ppas running Substitute+CM Raging Bolt without Thunderclap, veti's Howl+Dark Z Zamazenta, and LBN running a Dragon Tail Dragonite. I wanted to highlight some of the UR mons this week, however, so...
Sealoo's Seismitoad
One of many resident derpy Water/Grounds that stuck around in the OU viability ranks for a while, Seismitoad has largely fallen out of usage this gen as powercreep has caught up to it. Seismitoad does still have some cool tools though, most notably Refresh. With Water Absorb and Refresh, this freakish frog completely shuts down Alomomola and had a positive matchup into Galarian Slowking while doing a good job of keeping Stealth Rock up into Iron Treads and Great Tusk. A very cool find indeed. Thanks Sealoo for the information!
clawed winter's Nasty Plot Sinistcha
In fairness, this is not the first time this set has been run this tournament, but I only briefly mentioned it last time. Sinistcha's Grass/Ghost STAB is surprisingly potent, and clawed ran Nasty Plot+Strength Sap to create a bulky sweeper that can seriously irritate bulky teams that rely on offensive pressure from Fightings or Waters that Sinistcha deals with, all while blocking Rapid Spin from Great Tusk to facilitate the Spikes that were also on clawed's team. This sadly ran into a terrible matchup with U-turn Ogerpon-W combined with multiple powerful special attackers and the aforementioned Dark Z Zamazenta, but players clearly see the potential in the matcha cup, and I definitely see the vision with this.
See you all next week!
Nobody did any weird BO3s this week so we're back to 16 games/32 teams.
Most Used Pokemon:
Well, Zamazenta didn't get dethroned from the top usage spot necessarily, but some others did at least match it. Landorus-T and Gholdengo both joined Zamazenta at the top spot, with all three coming in at 9 uses apiece. It is also worth noting that Zamazenta had achieved 13 or 14 usages in the last three weeks, so this is a marked decrease in usage for Zamazenta overall. Gholdengo was also used less this week in comparison to last week. Landorus-T continues the turnaround of the century; it had a grand total of 4 uses in the first two weeks, but it has a whopping 18 over the last two. All three also saw great variety in their sets. Z-Move variants for all three of the above were used, as were various Choice Scarf and Defensive sets. The flexibility that all three of these Pokemon show is no doubt part of why they are being used so much. Not a lot changed there from last week, although nobody ran Dual Screens Zamazenta as HO saw comparatively much less usage this week. All three of these also won more than 50% of their games.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Kingambit had seen relatively modest usage up until this point, but it greatly improved its standing this week with 8 usages, coming in just behind the three leaders. The way that these Kingambit were used is also of some interest; only one of them ever got the opportunity to even click Swords Dance, as players preferred to use their Kingambits as early game Knock Off support and offensive checks to common Pokemon like Gholdengo and Mega Latios with Sucker Punch. It is also possible that some of these Kingambit were running the less common Pursuit support set, although its hard to know for sure as none of them used Pursuit. All of Leftovers, Black Glasses, and Air Balloon were used at various times by these Gambits.
Tapu Lele, Terapagos, Zapdos, and Great Tusk were all used 7 times apiece, which is a significant improvement for the latter three compared to previous weeks. Tapu Lele lost all 7 games it appeared in.
Pecharunt led the way for the B ranks with a solid 5 usages, which tied with Glowking and was more than Toxapex. Players clearly value Pecharunt's ability to switch into most of the tier's Fighting-types and keep up momentum with Parting Shot, although we did see the first appearance of the much less common Nasty Plot+Ghostium Z variant. Clefable checked in next with a solid 4 usages. All appearances for Clef this week were utility sets, highlighting the sheer value of its movepool and typing even in spite of its slightly lower standing this gen.
Kartana and Ogerpon-Cornerstone led the way for the C ranks with 2 uses apiece, as players explored the merit of these fringy but occasionally dangerous offensive Grasses. Hydrapple, Excadrill, Tapu Fini, Hoopa Unbound, and Enamorous were all used once.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
It has not been a good tournament for Mega Charizard Y, but this was a new low. Even the high upside of sun bolstering threats like Raging Bolt and Great Tusk couldn't bring this sun boosted nuke into play, probably because this nuke simply isn't good enough at nuking stuff anymore. Checks to this are easy to fit on just about everything, as bulky Dragons like Mega Latios, Garchomp, and Dragonite are as popular as ever. Not to mention the proliferation of other options that teams can use to check this, like Moltres, Toxapex, and AV Alomomola. Even matchups where Yard is theoretically hard to switch into aren't easy, as resists to its moves are common and it often has to predict well to make progress. A middling speed tier and the hyper specific support needed to keep Stealth Rock off are simply hard to justify working around when so many teams can switch into this pretty easily, even if its sun boosted teammates can still be dangerous. The worst part? Mega Charizard X, almost unanimously considered the inferior of the two, was used this week, and it was responsible for winning its game. Ouch.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Zard Y was the only A subranker to not get used once this week, but several others had poor showings. Slowbro, Cinderace, and Tapu Koko continued their trends of disappointing usage, but all three at least appeared this week. A surprising entrant to this club was Volcarona, who only appeared once, ironically less than Iron Moth in addition to several other Pokemon it is generally considered superior to. Tornadus-T also had its first terrible week of the tournament, with only 2 usages.
Iron Treads had its worst week yet with 3 usages. Raging Bolt also had a poor week with 1, which is probably to be expected in a week where nobody brought Zard Y. Moltres also only appeared twice, while Iron Valiant was used once. At least they got used though, as their B+ compatriots Hatterene and Mega Scizor weren't used at all.
Lowest Ranked Pokemon to receive use:
Sinistcha wasn't the only UR Pokemon to see use this week, but it was once again the only UR Pokemon to receive multiple usages. Both Clawed Winter and Ryuji brought it as a spinblocker on teams that aimed to stack Spikes. Clawed Winter's Sinistcha was a Nasty Plot variant, while Ryuji's was a bit more mysterious but was notably running Shadow Ball instead of Hex. This brings Sinistcha up to 5 total usages for the tournament, far more than most UR Pokemon or even C rankers. Impressive stuff so far!
The other UR Pokemon putting together quite the tournament is Cresselia, who keeps appearing and keeps winning. The popular set seems to be a Thunder Wave utility Pokemon that takes neutral hits well and can force out many Ground-types with Ice Beam, therefore making it quite good at spreading TWave. Mega Gallade and Seismitoad also made appearances.
Speaking of...
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Most of the interesting stuff this week came from small moveset edits, such as Ch0ppas running Substitute+CM Raging Bolt without Thunderclap, veti's Howl+Dark Z Zamazenta, and LBN running a Dragon Tail Dragonite. I wanted to highlight some of the UR mons this week, however, so...
Sealoo's Seismitoad
One of many resident derpy Water/Grounds that stuck around in the OU viability ranks for a while, Seismitoad has largely fallen out of usage this gen as powercreep has caught up to it. Seismitoad does still have some cool tools though, most notably Refresh. With Water Absorb and Refresh, this freakish frog completely shuts down Alomomola and had a positive matchup into Galarian Slowking while doing a good job of keeping Stealth Rock up into Iron Treads and Great Tusk. A very cool find indeed. Thanks Sealoo for the information!
clawed winter's Nasty Plot Sinistcha
In fairness, this is not the first time this set has been run this tournament, but I only briefly mentioned it last time. Sinistcha's Grass/Ghost STAB is surprisingly potent, and clawed ran Nasty Plot+Strength Sap to create a bulky sweeper that can seriously irritate bulky teams that rely on offensive pressure from Fightings or Waters that Sinistcha deals with, all while blocking Rapid Spin from Great Tusk to facilitate the Spikes that were also on clawed's team. This sadly ran into a terrible matchup with U-turn Ogerpon-W combined with multiple powerful special attackers and the aforementioned Dark Z Zamazenta, but players clearly see the potential in the matcha cup, and I definitely see the vision with this.
See you all next week!
Week Five is all but over. We got a lot to cover this week, so let's jump right in!
There were 16 games/32 teams this week yada yada
Most Used Pokemon:
Oh my god, Zamazenta is the most used Pokemon this week!?! Who could have predicted this?? It was another great week for Zama, who checked in at 13 uses, which is about 40% usage. It's been largely the same story all tournament for Zama, which has become the most splashable Pokemon in the tier, especially on offensive builds. All the standard Zamazenta sets we have been seeing (various different takes on the 4a variant, IDPress, and Dual Screens) saw use once again, and it had an excellent 8 wins to its name as well. There's not much more to be said, to be honest. The only remaining question is whether another Pokemon will fully dethrone Zamazenta as top dog in the later weeks of the tournament.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Four Pokemon received 8 usages this week. Garchomp and Tapu Lele have been seeing quite a bit of usage as of late, and that didn't change here. Tapu Lele did actually win games that it appeared in this week, however. Tornadus-T recovered from a poor week last week to claim 8 usages itself, while Corviknight became the highest used B ranker with 8 usages. Players are loving what Corviknight offers with its excellent defensive typing and ability to pivot; its downside of not being able to Defog against Gholdengo is clearly not giving players much pause when it can just pivot out to a revenge killer as Ghold comes in. Kyurem also had a great week with 7 uses.
Many other B rankers had good weeks. Hatterene was the second most used B subranker at 6 usages. Many offense teams used it as their preferred mode of hazard control, with both Nuzzle utility and Calm Mind sets seeing use. An interesting innovation was an Air Balloon set that Micaiah used, which lets Hatterene more reliably switch into several Ground-type hazard setters, most notably completely shutting down many variants of Gliscor and Garchomp. Pecharunt also checked in with a solid 5 usages, while Treads had 4; a little less than some previous weeks, but still a solid showing for a B+ ranked mon.
Only one C rank Pokemon got used more than once this week, and it certainly was an interesting one. Dondozo made two appearances for the first time this tournament. Usually Dondozo is paired with other C subrankers that make up traditional hard stall teams, such as Chansey, Clodsire, and Mega Sableye. However, hard stall was only used once. The other Dondozo usage came from Fleance who brought a fat balance-ish build with Dondozo completing a double water defensive core with Toxapex. A very nontraditional use of Dondozo to be sure. Full rain and full sun also saw appearances, which gave several weather mons an appearance this week, as were the aforementioned set of C rank stall mons.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
For the first time all tournament, every single Pokemon in the A subranks was used at least once, so we had to go down to B+. Clefable was the only B+ ranked Pokemon to not see use this week, as teams simply preferred other answers to their Fighting-types. There were a lot of offensive builds this week, and those teams highly preferred options such as Tornadus-T, Hatterene, and Pecharunt thanks to their additional hazard control utility and/or ability to keep momentum with pivoting moves. There simply weren't many teams that could have even conceivably made Clef work this week, as many of them just preferred to move their game at a faster pace than Clef preferred. Even the slower paced teams this week trended towards Toxapex as their Fighting answer and running a different Stealth Rocker. Not a good week at all to be sure, although I think this is more an artifact of the immense amount of offense that was run this week rather than Clef being bad.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Every A subranked Pokemon was used this week, although there were a few surprisingly terrible weeks. In a somewhat shocking turnaround from recent trends, both Dragonite and Hisuian Samurott received a paltry one usage. This is very surprising, especially considering that these Pokemon are generally good choices on the sort of offensive builds that permeated this week, and they had been having fairly solid tournaments up until this point. Offenses this week trended away from using Pokemon such as these to answer threats like Ogerpon-W, Mega Charizard Y, and Gholdengo, instead preferring to pack multiple revenge killers for the aforementioned threats. Mega Charizard Y, Tapu Koko, and Slowbro continued their trends of poor usage, while Volcarona and Terapagos had paltry usage as well.
At this point every Pokemon in B+ and above has been used at least once. The only two Pokemon anywhere in the B ranks that haven't been used yet are Victini and Blaziken. Blaziken is the more straightforward of the two, in my opinion; its job as an all or nothing Swords Dance game-ender for offense has largely been taken by Ceruledge thanks to its better STAB combination making it harder to handle defensively and the overall efficacy of its Endure shenanigans making it hard to reliably revenge kill. On the other hand, Victini still being completely absent is somewhat surprising. Victini offers teams an interesting defensive profile with its typing, and it has several sets that can be used on a variety of different teams. Players clearly do not believe that what Victini offers (most notably being a pivoting Fire-resist that also checks Tapu Lele, Z-Happy Hour potentially being useful on offense, and being a nuke ffor sun teams) is valuable enough to bring to these high stakes games. The role Victini plays defensively isn't entirely replicable, in particular, so maybe someone will find some use for it, but its clear that opinions are not high on the Victory Pokemon right now, and that a drop down the VR may be in order.
The UR Pokemon:
No UR Pokemon was used more than once this week, but that's ok because a lot of the ones that were used were super interesting! Mega Houndoom, Mega Aerodactyl, Iron Boulder, Terrakion, Galarian Moltres, and Amoonguss all saw some use. Of these, only Galarian Moltres has previously appeared in the tournament, which gave several Pokemon their first appearance of 2026. I will discuss a couple of these more in depth later, but fun sets like Swords Dance Terrakion, Dragon Dance Mega Aerodactyl, and Double Dance Galarian Moltres were some of the many off the wall boosting sweepers that players used to try and get a leg up on their competition, while Amoonguss gave us our first look at a Sleep Move in the tournament. Fun stuff to be sure!
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Lots of cool stuff this week, including a few things that I mentioned above! However, there are two that I found most interesting of all...
Metallica's Mega Houndoom
The mega slot on full sun has always been an interesting case. While Mega Charizard Y may look like the poster boy of sun at first glance, it often isn't preferred on full sun as they want the extended sun turns that a dedicated, non-mega sun setter can give, usually Torkoal. This lets sun teams try out different megas that may benefit from the sun. Ironically, this is usually Zard X, which gets jacked up to insane levels when its powerful Flare Blitzes are sun boosted, but Metallica went another route entirely by pulling out the much rarer Mega Houndoom. Mega Houndoom's increased speed tier off the jump is a point in its favor, as it critically jumps past several Pokemon that Zard X doesn't outrun unboosted, most notably Garchomp and the various residents of the important base 110 speed tier. It also has a STAB move that immediately forces out Mega Latios and chunks other Dragon- and Fire-types well, which is hugely important for the default Chlorophyll Venusaur to wreak havoc. This sadly didn't quite work out as Metallica ran into a screen protected Volcarona, but the innovation here is commendable! Chili Dewd was shedding a tear somewhere, I'm sure.
Micaiah's Electrium Z Gholdengo
Ah, Z move lures. Where would Natdex be without you? Hide your Moltres and AV Alomomola as Micaiah's Gholdengo is ready to blast those apart with powerful Electric-type coverage that can be further boosted by Nasty Plot. This may be strictly inferior outside of those two matchups, but those two are super important for checking Ghold on the teams that they appear on, so specifically targeting them can benefit both teammates that enjoy having those removed and Gholdengo itself should teams be unprepared to deal with it outside of having those specific checks. In this case, unboosted Gigavolt Havoc badly dented a Specially Defensive Alomomola, helping Micaiah take victory. Good stuff!
I really appreciate y'all who are reading these. I plan on doing these every week and a big wrap up post at the end of the tournament that will probably coincide with a VR nom dump. See you all next week!
There were 16 games/32 teams this week yada yada
Most Used Pokemon:
Oh my god, Zamazenta is the most used Pokemon this week!?! Who could have predicted this?? It was another great week for Zama, who checked in at 13 uses, which is about 40% usage. It's been largely the same story all tournament for Zama, which has become the most splashable Pokemon in the tier, especially on offensive builds. All the standard Zamazenta sets we have been seeing (various different takes on the 4a variant, IDPress, and Dual Screens) saw use once again, and it had an excellent 8 wins to its name as well. There's not much more to be said, to be honest. The only remaining question is whether another Pokemon will fully dethrone Zamazenta as top dog in the later weeks of the tournament.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Four Pokemon received 8 usages this week. Garchomp and Tapu Lele have been seeing quite a bit of usage as of late, and that didn't change here. Tapu Lele did actually win games that it appeared in this week, however. Tornadus-T recovered from a poor week last week to claim 8 usages itself, while Corviknight became the highest used B ranker with 8 usages. Players are loving what Corviknight offers with its excellent defensive typing and ability to pivot; its downside of not being able to Defog against Gholdengo is clearly not giving players much pause when it can just pivot out to a revenge killer as Ghold comes in. Kyurem also had a great week with 7 uses.
Many other B rankers had good weeks. Hatterene was the second most used B subranker at 6 usages. Many offense teams used it as their preferred mode of hazard control, with both Nuzzle utility and Calm Mind sets seeing use. An interesting innovation was an Air Balloon set that Micaiah used, which lets Hatterene more reliably switch into several Ground-type hazard setters, most notably completely shutting down many variants of Gliscor and Garchomp. Pecharunt also checked in with a solid 5 usages, while Treads had 4; a little less than some previous weeks, but still a solid showing for a B+ ranked mon.
Only one C rank Pokemon got used more than once this week, and it certainly was an interesting one. Dondozo made two appearances for the first time this tournament. Usually Dondozo is paired with other C subrankers that make up traditional hard stall teams, such as Chansey, Clodsire, and Mega Sableye. However, hard stall was only used once. The other Dondozo usage came from Fleance who brought a fat balance-ish build with Dondozo completing a double water defensive core with Toxapex. A very nontraditional use of Dondozo to be sure. Full rain and full sun also saw appearances, which gave several weather mons an appearance this week, as were the aforementioned set of C rank stall mons.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
For the first time all tournament, every single Pokemon in the A subranks was used at least once, so we had to go down to B+. Clefable was the only B+ ranked Pokemon to not see use this week, as teams simply preferred other answers to their Fighting-types. There were a lot of offensive builds this week, and those teams highly preferred options such as Tornadus-T, Hatterene, and Pecharunt thanks to their additional hazard control utility and/or ability to keep momentum with pivoting moves. There simply weren't many teams that could have even conceivably made Clef work this week, as many of them just preferred to move their game at a faster pace than Clef preferred. Even the slower paced teams this week trended towards Toxapex as their Fighting answer and running a different Stealth Rocker. Not a good week at all to be sure, although I think this is more an artifact of the immense amount of offense that was run this week rather than Clef being bad.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Every A subranked Pokemon was used this week, although there were a few surprisingly terrible weeks. In a somewhat shocking turnaround from recent trends, both Dragonite and Hisuian Samurott received a paltry one usage. This is very surprising, especially considering that these Pokemon are generally good choices on the sort of offensive builds that permeated this week, and they had been having fairly solid tournaments up until this point. Offenses this week trended away from using Pokemon such as these to answer threats like Ogerpon-W, Mega Charizard Y, and Gholdengo, instead preferring to pack multiple revenge killers for the aforementioned threats. Mega Charizard Y, Tapu Koko, and Slowbro continued their trends of poor usage, while Volcarona and Terapagos had paltry usage as well.
At this point every Pokemon in B+ and above has been used at least once. The only two Pokemon anywhere in the B ranks that haven't been used yet are Victini and Blaziken. Blaziken is the more straightforward of the two, in my opinion; its job as an all or nothing Swords Dance game-ender for offense has largely been taken by Ceruledge thanks to its better STAB combination making it harder to handle defensively and the overall efficacy of its Endure shenanigans making it hard to reliably revenge kill. On the other hand, Victini still being completely absent is somewhat surprising. Victini offers teams an interesting defensive profile with its typing, and it has several sets that can be used on a variety of different teams. Players clearly do not believe that what Victini offers (most notably being a pivoting Fire-resist that also checks Tapu Lele, Z-Happy Hour potentially being useful on offense, and being a nuke ffor sun teams) is valuable enough to bring to these high stakes games. The role Victini plays defensively isn't entirely replicable, in particular, so maybe someone will find some use for it, but its clear that opinions are not high on the Victory Pokemon right now, and that a drop down the VR may be in order.
The UR Pokemon:
No UR Pokemon was used more than once this week, but that's ok because a lot of the ones that were used were super interesting! Mega Houndoom, Mega Aerodactyl, Iron Boulder, Terrakion, Galarian Moltres, and Amoonguss all saw some use. Of these, only Galarian Moltres has previously appeared in the tournament, which gave several Pokemon their first appearance of 2026. I will discuss a couple of these more in depth later, but fun sets like Swords Dance Terrakion, Dragon Dance Mega Aerodactyl, and Double Dance Galarian Moltres were some of the many off the wall boosting sweepers that players used to try and get a leg up on their competition, while Amoonguss gave us our first look at a Sleep Move in the tournament. Fun stuff to be sure!
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Lots of cool stuff this week, including a few things that I mentioned above! However, there are two that I found most interesting of all...
Metallica's Mega Houndoom
The mega slot on full sun has always been an interesting case. While Mega Charizard Y may look like the poster boy of sun at first glance, it often isn't preferred on full sun as they want the extended sun turns that a dedicated, non-mega sun setter can give, usually Torkoal. This lets sun teams try out different megas that may benefit from the sun. Ironically, this is usually Zard X, which gets jacked up to insane levels when its powerful Flare Blitzes are sun boosted, but Metallica went another route entirely by pulling out the much rarer Mega Houndoom. Mega Houndoom's increased speed tier off the jump is a point in its favor, as it critically jumps past several Pokemon that Zard X doesn't outrun unboosted, most notably Garchomp and the various residents of the important base 110 speed tier. It also has a STAB move that immediately forces out Mega Latios and chunks other Dragon- and Fire-types well, which is hugely important for the default Chlorophyll Venusaur to wreak havoc. This sadly didn't quite work out as Metallica ran into a screen protected Volcarona, but the innovation here is commendable! Chili Dewd was shedding a tear somewhere, I'm sure.
Micaiah's Electrium Z Gholdengo
Ah, Z move lures. Where would Natdex be without you? Hide your Moltres and AV Alomomola as Micaiah's Gholdengo is ready to blast those apart with powerful Electric-type coverage that can be further boosted by Nasty Plot. This may be strictly inferior outside of those two matchups, but those two are super important for checking Ghold on the teams that they appear on, so specifically targeting them can benefit both teammates that enjoy having those removed and Gholdengo itself should teams be unprepared to deal with it outside of having those specific checks. In this case, unboosted Gigavolt Havoc badly dented a Specially Defensive Alomomola, helping Micaiah take victory. Good stuff!
I really appreciate y'all who are reading these. I plan on doing these every week and a big wrap up post at the end of the tournament that will probably coincide with a VR nom dump. See you all next week!
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As we enter the final week of the regular season, it is once again time to talk about the previous weeks usage trends! Let's get into it.
Micaiah and Leni did not play an OU game in their BO3 game, so there are 15 games/30 separate teams this week.
Most Used Pokemon:
Well, if any Pokemon was gonna dethrone Zamazenta as the most used Pokemon in a week, it was surely going to be the role compression aficionado themselves. With 13 usages, Gholdengo clocked in at around 43% usage this week, and its set variety was on full display. Nasty Plot wallbreaker sets (with both Ghostium and Steelium Z), bulky Nasty Plot, Thunder Wave, and Choice Scarf sets all saw various appearances. There wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary in terms of the Ghold sets run this week (although a few of them had unrevealed items so there may have been some funny business that just didn't get a chance to be used), although the almost complete lack of Focus Blast (again, as far as we know based off of revealed movesets) was certainly worth noting. Most builds went with STABs+Recover as their moves of choice. This has been a trend for a while, but it is certainly interesting to see how many teams are ok with Gholdengo being walled by Kingambit and are instead choosing to blast away with the powerful neutral coverage that its STAB moves provide. Fortuitously, both Kingambit and Hisuian Samurott had bad usage weeks, so the Gholdengo's lacking Focus Blast weren't missing out on much.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Alomomola checked in as the next highest used Pokemon with 9 usages. The majority of these uses were the Assault Vest set, as players looked for ways to check the myriad of dangerous special attackers in the tier and keep up momentum for their teams. We also saw an example of the moveset variance that this set can run, as Aqua Jet and Play Rough saw use as players used their AV Mola's to handle specific threats that their teams were weak to. The more traditional WishTectFlip variant also saw a couple of uses.
It was a three way tie for the next highest usages. Iron Treads, Zamazenta, and Zapdos all checked in with 8 uses. It was largely business as usual for these three in terms of sets run, although a bunch of different Iron Treads ended up running Air Balloon over the classic Leftovers. Mega Lopunny also had a surprisingly excellent week with 7 uses, which goes starkly against trends of low usage up until this point. Corviknight was the second most used B ranker with 4 usages.
Lots of C subrankers got used this week, although only a couple got more than one use. Both Celesteela and Excadrill were used twice this week. Interestingly, these were both used on Sand teams with Mega Tyranitar, although the other three teammates on both teams differed. One of the Excadrills was also an unorthodox Air Balloon set, which goes against the Z-Move grain that most Excadrills follow. One of these teams was also victorious in a 200 turn marathon, which I will not be analyzing any further since there's no way I'm wasting my free time watching that. Base Venusaur was also used twice, more than its mega form. While one of the Venusaurs was used on a full sun team, but the other was used on a Zard Y sun team, where it is far more unusual do to the limited sun duration and amount of support that Zard Y needs. Hydrapple, Kommo-o, Primarina, Clodsire, Mega Sableye, Dondozo, Ogerpon-C, Enamorus, and Iron Hands were the other C subrankers to see use.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
Every A subranker was used once again, so we must delve into the B+ rank, where Mega Scizor is the odd one out. Sciz has a ton of great traits, but the meta is not particularly kind to it and it hasn’t been for a while. Mega Sciz is undoubtedly very bulky, and it checks some cool stuff like Kyurem, but both offensively and defensively it is currently an awkward fit onto most teams. Scizor lacks key resistances to Fighting-, Water-, Ghost-, and Ground-type attacks that leave it overwhelmed by many common attackers, and it has to Roost frequently thanks to its vulnerability to all entry hazards and inability to hold Leftovers. It is also not a great switch in to many common Psychic- and Fairy-types, as many of them carry Fire coverage. Offensively, it finds itself struggling in many late game scenarios thanks to a plethora of defensive Pokémon that deal with it, such as Zapdos, Toxapex, Moltres, and Corviknight, all of which have very reliable recovery. Not a great spot for this metallic bug, but maybe it’ll find use next week.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Whilst every A subranker was used, a bunch of them had overall poor weeks of usage. An influx of Iron Treads and Ting-Lu usage had negative effects on most of the other Ground-types, but Gliscor and Landorus-T lost out big, returning to their week one/two “glory” with only 2 uses apiece. Mega Charizard Y, Kingambit, and Ogerpon-W were all only used 2 times as well, while Slowbro, Cinderace, Heatran, Tapu Koko, Mega Latios, Volcarona, and (most surprisingly) Galarian Slowking were all used just once.
Iron Valiant and Melmetal continued their trends of poor usage, with just one usage apiece. The dichotomy between the current B+ ranked Pokemon has been one of the more interesting trends to watch. While Iron Treads and Pecharunt have great amounts of usage, and others like Clefable and Hatterene are inconsistently used but overall strong, there are some B+ rankers that clearly don't stack up. Melmetal continues to be unpopular thanks to its deficiencies when compared to the other meta Steel-types, as it lacks a secondary typing and simply cannot hit everything it needs to in order to be consistent thanks to a pronounced case of 4MSS, and it lacks the utility that makes other Steels useful even in games where they don't contribute much offensively. Iron Valiant is suffering from the unpopularity of Tapu Koko, while it too suffers from the blight of not being able to consistently threaten everything it needs to if it doesn't have the right moveset, which is problematic for such an all-or-nothing offensive Pokemon.
Victini and Blaziken remain unused. Will anyone try them before the tournament ends?
The UR Pokemon
No UR Pokémon was used more than once this week. Cresselia, Alolan Ninetales, Mega Gallade, and Terrakion returned this week, while Glastrier, Tyranitar, and Ninetales made their first appearances for of the tournament.
Speaking of…
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Stories’s SubSD Glastrier
I’m very sad this didn’t win, because the idea behind this is quite cool. Stories put the ice horse behind Aurora Veil with Snow beefing it up further to create a very bulky trade machine. With Ice/Ground coverage, this has the beef to trade well into most offenses while finding Substitutes on passive Pokemon like Alomomola, Toxapex, and the many Grounds that it forces out. Stories got very unlucky this game (I will not hear otherwise Molly) but the concept behind the set is very cool nonetheless!
Suuicuneee's Choice Band Tyranitar and Ryuji's Rest IDPress Zamazenta
Alright, remember how I said I wasn't gonna watch the 200 turn marathon? (I wrote the first bit about 6 hours before this) Well, the way I usually check sets is by skipping to the end of the replays to see what was used, and then I will rewatch replays I didn't catch live if I need a further understanding of something. Unfortunately, both of these sets caught my eye, and both were used in this slugfest that was by far the longest game of the tournament so far. So you get a double feature, since there's no way I'm just choosing one after going through that. Suuicuneee decided to party like it was Gen 3 with a classic Choice Band Tyranitar. This set jacks up Tyranitar's power way past even its Mega Form and gives it an ultra powerful Pursuit to chip most neutral Pokemon trying to flee from it. While much less consistent than even its Mega Form thanks to the Choice restriction and significantly worse speed tier and bulk, Choice Band Tyranitar can make up for it by being very hard for some teams to switch into. Sadly, Ryuji did not bring one of those teams. In fact, Ryuji brought possibly the worst matchup possible in the form of a Toxapex and Excadrill backed up by the ultimate coup, a ChestoRest IDPress Zama. This set shrugs off status and can potentially snowball versus both bulky teams and offense teams by fully healing after they have attempted to chip it down. In the end, this ended up resting six times, as Suuicuneee's offensive core was incapable of breaking Toxapex, Zamazenta, Excadrill, and Celesteela pivoting around the CB TTar and a burned Gholdengo. Eventually Suuicuneee's Gholdengo ran out of Recovers, the CB Tar also got burned, and Ryuji stalled out Suuicuneee to take a well earned victory.
See you all in week seven! Good luck to all teams!
Micaiah and Leni did not play an OU game in their BO3 game, so there are 15 games/30 separate teams this week.
Most Used Pokemon:
Well, if any Pokemon was gonna dethrone Zamazenta as the most used Pokemon in a week, it was surely going to be the role compression aficionado themselves. With 13 usages, Gholdengo clocked in at around 43% usage this week, and its set variety was on full display. Nasty Plot wallbreaker sets (with both Ghostium and Steelium Z), bulky Nasty Plot, Thunder Wave, and Choice Scarf sets all saw various appearances. There wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary in terms of the Ghold sets run this week (although a few of them had unrevealed items so there may have been some funny business that just didn't get a chance to be used), although the almost complete lack of Focus Blast (again, as far as we know based off of revealed movesets) was certainly worth noting. Most builds went with STABs+Recover as their moves of choice. This has been a trend for a while, but it is certainly interesting to see how many teams are ok with Gholdengo being walled by Kingambit and are instead choosing to blast away with the powerful neutral coverage that its STAB moves provide. Fortuitously, both Kingambit and Hisuian Samurott had bad usage weeks, so the Gholdengo's lacking Focus Blast weren't missing out on much.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Alomomola checked in as the next highest used Pokemon with 9 usages. The majority of these uses were the Assault Vest set, as players looked for ways to check the myriad of dangerous special attackers in the tier and keep up momentum for their teams. We also saw an example of the moveset variance that this set can run, as Aqua Jet and Play Rough saw use as players used their AV Mola's to handle specific threats that their teams were weak to. The more traditional WishTectFlip variant also saw a couple of uses.
It was a three way tie for the next highest usages. Iron Treads, Zamazenta, and Zapdos all checked in with 8 uses. It was largely business as usual for these three in terms of sets run, although a bunch of different Iron Treads ended up running Air Balloon over the classic Leftovers. Mega Lopunny also had a surprisingly excellent week with 7 uses, which goes starkly against trends of low usage up until this point. Corviknight was the second most used B ranker with 4 usages.
Lots of C subrankers got used this week, although only a couple got more than one use. Both Celesteela and Excadrill were used twice this week. Interestingly, these were both used on Sand teams with Mega Tyranitar, although the other three teammates on both teams differed. One of the Excadrills was also an unorthodox Air Balloon set, which goes against the Z-Move grain that most Excadrills follow. One of these teams was also victorious in a 200 turn marathon, which I will not be analyzing any further since there's no way I'm wasting my free time watching that. Base Venusaur was also used twice, more than its mega form. While one of the Venusaurs was used on a full sun team, but the other was used on a Zard Y sun team, where it is far more unusual do to the limited sun duration and amount of support that Zard Y needs. Hydrapple, Kommo-o, Primarina, Clodsire, Mega Sableye, Dondozo, Ogerpon-C, Enamorus, and Iron Hands were the other C subrankers to see use.
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
Every A subranker was used once again, so we must delve into the B+ rank, where Mega Scizor is the odd one out. Sciz has a ton of great traits, but the meta is not particularly kind to it and it hasn’t been for a while. Mega Sciz is undoubtedly very bulky, and it checks some cool stuff like Kyurem, but both offensively and defensively it is currently an awkward fit onto most teams. Scizor lacks key resistances to Fighting-, Water-, Ghost-, and Ground-type attacks that leave it overwhelmed by many common attackers, and it has to Roost frequently thanks to its vulnerability to all entry hazards and inability to hold Leftovers. It is also not a great switch in to many common Psychic- and Fairy-types, as many of them carry Fire coverage. Offensively, it finds itself struggling in many late game scenarios thanks to a plethora of defensive Pokémon that deal with it, such as Zapdos, Toxapex, Moltres, and Corviknight, all of which have very reliable recovery. Not a great spot for this metallic bug, but maybe it’ll find use next week.
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
Whilst every A subranker was used, a bunch of them had overall poor weeks of usage. An influx of Iron Treads and Ting-Lu usage had negative effects on most of the other Ground-types, but Gliscor and Landorus-T lost out big, returning to their week one/two “glory” with only 2 uses apiece. Mega Charizard Y, Kingambit, and Ogerpon-W were all only used 2 times as well, while Slowbro, Cinderace, Heatran, Tapu Koko, Mega Latios, Volcarona, and (most surprisingly) Galarian Slowking were all used just once.
Iron Valiant and Melmetal continued their trends of poor usage, with just one usage apiece. The dichotomy between the current B+ ranked Pokemon has been one of the more interesting trends to watch. While Iron Treads and Pecharunt have great amounts of usage, and others like Clefable and Hatterene are inconsistently used but overall strong, there are some B+ rankers that clearly don't stack up. Melmetal continues to be unpopular thanks to its deficiencies when compared to the other meta Steel-types, as it lacks a secondary typing and simply cannot hit everything it needs to in order to be consistent thanks to a pronounced case of 4MSS, and it lacks the utility that makes other Steels useful even in games where they don't contribute much offensively. Iron Valiant is suffering from the unpopularity of Tapu Koko, while it too suffers from the blight of not being able to consistently threaten everything it needs to if it doesn't have the right moveset, which is problematic for such an all-or-nothing offensive Pokemon.
Victini and Blaziken remain unused. Will anyone try them before the tournament ends?
The UR Pokemon
No UR Pokémon was used more than once this week. Cresselia, Alolan Ninetales, Mega Gallade, and Terrakion returned this week, while Glastrier, Tyranitar, and Ninetales made their first appearances for of the tournament.
Speaking of…
Some Cool Sets that I wanted to Highlight
Stories’s SubSD Glastrier
I’m very sad this didn’t win, because the idea behind this is quite cool. Stories put the ice horse behind Aurora Veil with Snow beefing it up further to create a very bulky trade machine. With Ice/Ground coverage, this has the beef to trade well into most offenses while finding Substitutes on passive Pokemon like Alomomola, Toxapex, and the many Grounds that it forces out. Stories got very unlucky this game (I will not hear otherwise Molly) but the concept behind the set is very cool nonetheless!
Suuicuneee's Choice Band Tyranitar and Ryuji's Rest IDPress Zamazenta
Alright, remember how I said I wasn't gonna watch the 200 turn marathon? (I wrote the first bit about 6 hours before this) Well, the way I usually check sets is by skipping to the end of the replays to see what was used, and then I will rewatch replays I didn't catch live if I need a further understanding of something. Unfortunately, both of these sets caught my eye, and both were used in this slugfest that was by far the longest game of the tournament so far. So you get a double feature, since there's no way I'm just choosing one after going through that. Suuicuneee decided to party like it was Gen 3 with a classic Choice Band Tyranitar. This set jacks up Tyranitar's power way past even its Mega Form and gives it an ultra powerful Pursuit to chip most neutral Pokemon trying to flee from it. While much less consistent than even its Mega Form thanks to the Choice restriction and significantly worse speed tier and bulk, Choice Band Tyranitar can make up for it by being very hard for some teams to switch into. Sadly, Ryuji did not bring one of those teams. In fact, Ryuji brought possibly the worst matchup possible in the form of a Toxapex and Excadrill backed up by the ultimate coup, a ChestoRest IDPress Zama. This set shrugs off status and can potentially snowball versus both bulky teams and offense teams by fully healing after they have attempted to chip it down. In the end, this ended up resting six times, as Suuicuneee's offensive core was incapable of breaking Toxapex, Zamazenta, Excadrill, and Celesteela pivoting around the CB TTar and a burned Gholdengo. Eventually Suuicuneee's Gholdengo ran out of Recovers, the CB Tar also got burned, and Ryuji stalled out Suuicuneee to take a well earned victory.
See you all in week seven! Good luck to all teams!
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The tournament is over for me, I only got to showcase a few weeks, but still glad I got the opportunity to play formats I've always known that I am able to play but others may not have believed, ending 3-0.
I built the teams I used myself, which admittedly I don't often do, feel free to take a look and see if you like them.
https://pokepast.es/0f532fe400175541
https://pokepast.es/c00b722234569837
https://pokepast.es/42d8accdbebd0b39
Hopefully more people reach out in future!
I built the teams I used myself, which admittedly I don't often do, feel free to take a look and see if you like them.
https://pokepast.es/0f532fe400175541
https://pokepast.es/c00b722234569837
https://pokepast.es/42d8accdbebd0b39
Hopefully more people reach out in future!
Last edited:
The regular season is over. Congrats to all the teams that made semis! Now let's talk about the last full week of usage stats!
There were two deadgames this week, bringing the total number of games/teams down to 14 and 28, respectively. This is statistically more significant than it sounds at first, (in previous weeks 4 uses was 12.5% usage, for reference) so a lot of Pokemon had lower usage across the board this week. Just keep that in mind as you read this.
Most Used Pokemon:
Zamazenta is so back. After a "bad" week by this dog's standards with 8 usages last week, Zamazenta came roaring back with 13 uses to lead all Pokemon by a comfortable margin once again. This was actually its highest individual percentage of usage due to the reduced number of games, giving it an excellent 46% usage. It was business as usual for the sets as well. We did only see one dual screen setter this week, as well as one IDPress build. The rest were standard 4a sets, although the item variation that this set has become known for was on full display, with Boots, Life Orb, Fightinium Z, and Darkinium Z all seeing usage. There's not much to be said here that I haven't already talked about with Zama; the Pokemon really hasn't changed that much as the tournament went on, and different items fluctuated in popularity frequently as folks kitted out their Zamazenta's to get better matchups into their opponent. A dominating regular season for Zama, and it seems poised to keep this up going into the playoffs.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Alomomola had its second great week in a row, once again being the second most used Pokemon. It only had 7 usages compared to 9 last week, however. Both Assault Vest and WishFish saw use, although it is hard to exactly tell what Alomomola set it is in some of these games since a lot of times the only used move is Flip Turn. Mola was another Pokemon that really didn't change much this tournament outside of small moveset optimizations to cover specific threats that teams were weak to, and we didn't even see much of that this week.
The next highest usage Pokemon all had 6 uses, with Gholdengo, Great Tusk, and Ogerpon-W all checking in with this number. This is actually a modest showing for Ghold, but both Waterpon and Great Tusk will definitely welcome this usage in what has been a relatively inconsistent tournament for them. Raging Bolt and Iron Treads led the way for the B ranks with 5 uses; a significant improvement for Raging Bolt, who had been having a disappointing tournament thus far, although this was largely business as usual for Treads.
Quite a few C rankers were used this week, although the only one to be used twice was Kanto Slowking, which is almost as much as its Galarian form achieved. Although Kanto King is largely not used in deference to its Galarian Form, certain teams appreciate its specific defensive profile, most notably its resistances to Water-, Fire-, and Psychic-types alongside its Ground neutrality making it better into certain offensive threats than its Galarian Form doesn't love taking on. There were generally too many C rankers to individually highlight, but I do wanna point out a couple interesting ones, such as Ryuji giving Dondozo its second surprise usage off of stall this tournament on top of giving the much maligned Mega Latias some time to shine, while Iride bucked some trends by running Ribombee+Manaphy webs. Both of these builds also got the win!
Anecdotally, this was a fun week to look at because a lot of Pokemon fell into the sort of "modest amount of use" category that is 5 to 3 uses. I usually consider "low usage" as two usages or less for A and B subrankers, while I don't generally highlight any A or B subrankers that has less than 6 usages (unless they are the highest used B ranker). This week, however, a huge amount of Pokemon fell into this usage bracket that I tend not to highlight. I won't talk about any of them specifically, and part of this is definitely on the slightly lower amount of games played this week, but this does indicate that players believe that there is significant variance in what can work in the meta right now. Which is cool!
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
Well, this was unexpected. Zamazenta has been the most popular form of speed control all tournament, but that direct competition had not generally affected Urshifu-RS's usage that much, as many teams appreciated the pivoting ability, higher speed, and Water STAB that Choice Scarf Urshifu-RS provided, not to mention the occasional appearance of other sets that could put in work when not expected. For whatever reason, that just didn't happen this week. Teams clearly wanted the versatility that Zamazenta and Great Tusk offer, while a few teams looking for alternative Fighting-types went with options like Mega Lopunny or Mega Medicham. Additionally, many teams didn't run any Fighting-types at all this week, instead choosing to run different Dark-resists. To be clear, I believe this to be an aberration more than anything; Shifu had been having a fine tournament thus far, and there are a lot of viable Fighting-types, so weird usage quirks like this happen on occasion by no fault of the Pokemon itself. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to talk about though!
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
While a lot of the A subrank was used in that 5 to 3 usage bracket that I discussed earlier, there were a few who were left out to dry, including some real surprises. While Pokemon such as Cinderace, Mega Charizard Y, Volcarona, Slowbro, and Cinderace continued their trends of low usage, a few A subrankers who had strong usage previously fell down into this tier. Garchomp, Mega Diancie, Tapu Lele, and Kyurem all had only 2 uses this week, while Hisuian Samurott and Zapdos were only used once. Hisuian Samurott has really fallen off in the last couple weeks, with this being its second week of very poor usage in a row. Again, though, the lower usage stats could be pinned on the lower number of games this week, but its still worth highlighting as so many of these Pokemon have had weeks of much, much higher usage than this.
Victini and Blaziken went the entire regular season without being used.
The UR Pokemon
Only two UR Pokemon were used this week, both on HO. Devin brought out the Galarian Moltres alongside a Meat Beam Glimmora in his BO3 match, while purbaj felt the nostalgia for Generation 3 with a Salamence on his team. It will be interesting to see if players will continue to bring Ur Pokemon as the stakes get higher in the playoffs.
I already highlighted some cool stuff that I won't be talking about here above, as y'all brought a lot of cool stuff this week. That being said, here are two fun sets that I wanted to further discuss...
Iride's Will-O-Wisp Mega Charizard X
Zard X has made sporadic appearances all tournament, with most of its uses being some variation of Dragon Dance or Swords Dance wallbreakers or sweepers. While there's been considerable variance in how that concept is acually executed, the general goal of these sets is relatively similar. Iride's Zard X still had a boosting move in Dragon Dance, but it also used one of its critical moveslots, which usually goes to Roost or an extra coverage move, on Will-O-Wisp. A lot of offenses will try to stave off Zard X in the interim with bulky midgrounds like Zamazenta and Landorus-T, so Will-O-Wisp let Iride catch these teams out with a surprise crippling of one of their important glue mons. Both of the aforementioned Pokemon tend to really annoy the Webs playstyle that Iride was running, which may be part of the idea. This did end up ruining Sealoo's Landorus-T, although it did admittedly need a Stone Edge dodge to actually live the interaction. Cool stuff nonetheless.
Ineros's Choice Specs Primarina
You ever have one of those moments where the headcalc just doesn't add up to what you just saw?
Full disclosure, I first watched this trying to figure out whether Isza's Alomomola was AV or not, so I looked at the next turn to figure out what set the Prim was and...yeah. Torrent+Choice Specs turned this Primarina into a trade just waiting to happen, as Ineros blasted through as Sun protected Zard Y with an 80 BP move. More broadly, Primarina has an excellent STAB combination on top of Flip Turn and coverage in Psychic Noise, which would let this set harrass most of the metagame should it click well. Also lets be honest, if anyone was gonna run a cool Primarina set this tournament you knew it was gonna be Ineros.
I haven't quite decided what next week is going to look like. The significant reduction in games will definitely skew the data, so I'm not sure if I want to follow the same formula I've been doing for Semis. I definitely won't for finals, and I will instead do a full tournament wrap up post, likely in the Metagame Discussion thread for visibility. Thank you all for reading, and best of luck to those still in the tournament!
There were two deadgames this week, bringing the total number of games/teams down to 14 and 28, respectively. This is statistically more significant than it sounds at first, (in previous weeks 4 uses was 12.5% usage, for reference) so a lot of Pokemon had lower usage across the board this week. Just keep that in mind as you read this.
Most Used Pokemon:
Zamazenta is so back. After a "bad" week by this dog's standards with 8 usages last week, Zamazenta came roaring back with 13 uses to lead all Pokemon by a comfortable margin once again. This was actually its highest individual percentage of usage due to the reduced number of games, giving it an excellent 46% usage. It was business as usual for the sets as well. We did only see one dual screen setter this week, as well as one IDPress build. The rest were standard 4a sets, although the item variation that this set has become known for was on full display, with Boots, Life Orb, Fightinium Z, and Darkinium Z all seeing usage. There's not much to be said here that I haven't already talked about with Zama; the Pokemon really hasn't changed that much as the tournament went on, and different items fluctuated in popularity frequently as folks kitted out their Zamazenta's to get better matchups into their opponent. A dominating regular season for Zama, and it seems poised to keep this up going into the playoffs.
Other High Usage Pokemon to Highlight
Alomomola had its second great week in a row, once again being the second most used Pokemon. It only had 7 usages compared to 9 last week, however. Both Assault Vest and WishFish saw use, although it is hard to exactly tell what Alomomola set it is in some of these games since a lot of times the only used move is Flip Turn. Mola was another Pokemon that really didn't change much this tournament outside of small moveset optimizations to cover specific threats that teams were weak to, and we didn't even see much of that this week.
The next highest usage Pokemon all had 6 uses, with Gholdengo, Great Tusk, and Ogerpon-W all checking in with this number. This is actually a modest showing for Ghold, but both Waterpon and Great Tusk will definitely welcome this usage in what has been a relatively inconsistent tournament for them. Raging Bolt and Iron Treads led the way for the B ranks with 5 uses; a significant improvement for Raging Bolt, who had been having a disappointing tournament thus far, although this was largely business as usual for Treads.
Quite a few C rankers were used this week, although the only one to be used twice was Kanto Slowking, which is almost as much as its Galarian form achieved. Although Kanto King is largely not used in deference to its Galarian Form, certain teams appreciate its specific defensive profile, most notably its resistances to Water-, Fire-, and Psychic-types alongside its Ground neutrality making it better into certain offensive threats than its Galarian Form doesn't love taking on. There were generally too many C rankers to individually highlight, but I do wanna point out a couple interesting ones, such as Ryuji giving Dondozo its second surprise usage off of stall this tournament on top of giving the much maligned Mega Latias some time to shine, while Iride bucked some trends by running Ribombee+Manaphy webs. Both of these builds also got the win!
Anecdotally, this was a fun week to look at because a lot of Pokemon fell into the sort of "modest amount of use" category that is 5 to 3 uses. I usually consider "low usage" as two usages or less for A and B subrankers, while I don't generally highlight any A or B subrankers that has less than 6 usages (unless they are the highest used B ranker). This week, however, a huge amount of Pokemon fell into this usage bracket that I tend not to highlight. I won't talk about any of them specifically, and part of this is definitely on the slightly lower amount of games played this week, but this does indicate that players believe that there is significant variance in what can work in the meta right now. Which is cool!
Highest Ranked Pokemon to not be used:
Well, this was unexpected. Zamazenta has been the most popular form of speed control all tournament, but that direct competition had not generally affected Urshifu-RS's usage that much, as many teams appreciated the pivoting ability, higher speed, and Water STAB that Choice Scarf Urshifu-RS provided, not to mention the occasional appearance of other sets that could put in work when not expected. For whatever reason, that just didn't happen this week. Teams clearly wanted the versatility that Zamazenta and Great Tusk offer, while a few teams looking for alternative Fighting-types went with options like Mega Lopunny or Mega Medicham. Additionally, many teams didn't run any Fighting-types at all this week, instead choosing to run different Dark-resists. To be clear, I believe this to be an aberration more than anything; Shifu had been having a fine tournament thus far, and there are a lot of viable Fighting-types, so weird usage quirks like this happen on occasion by no fault of the Pokemon itself. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to talk about though!
Other low usage Pokemon to highlight
While a lot of the A subrank was used in that 5 to 3 usage bracket that I discussed earlier, there were a few who were left out to dry, including some real surprises. While Pokemon such as Cinderace, Mega Charizard Y, Volcarona, Slowbro, and Cinderace continued their trends of low usage, a few A subrankers who had strong usage previously fell down into this tier. Garchomp, Mega Diancie, Tapu Lele, and Kyurem all had only 2 uses this week, while Hisuian Samurott and Zapdos were only used once. Hisuian Samurott has really fallen off in the last couple weeks, with this being its second week of very poor usage in a row. Again, though, the lower usage stats could be pinned on the lower number of games this week, but its still worth highlighting as so many of these Pokemon have had weeks of much, much higher usage than this.
Victini and Blaziken went the entire regular season without being used.
The UR Pokemon
Only two UR Pokemon were used this week, both on HO. Devin brought out the Galarian Moltres alongside a Meat Beam Glimmora in his BO3 match, while purbaj felt the nostalgia for Generation 3 with a Salamence on his team. It will be interesting to see if players will continue to bring Ur Pokemon as the stakes get higher in the playoffs.
I already highlighted some cool stuff that I won't be talking about here above, as y'all brought a lot of cool stuff this week. That being said, here are two fun sets that I wanted to further discuss...
Iride's Will-O-Wisp Mega Charizard X
Zard X has made sporadic appearances all tournament, with most of its uses being some variation of Dragon Dance or Swords Dance wallbreakers or sweepers. While there's been considerable variance in how that concept is acually executed, the general goal of these sets is relatively similar. Iride's Zard X still had a boosting move in Dragon Dance, but it also used one of its critical moveslots, which usually goes to Roost or an extra coverage move, on Will-O-Wisp. A lot of offenses will try to stave off Zard X in the interim with bulky midgrounds like Zamazenta and Landorus-T, so Will-O-Wisp let Iride catch these teams out with a surprise crippling of one of their important glue mons. Both of the aforementioned Pokemon tend to really annoy the Webs playstyle that Iride was running, which may be part of the idea. This did end up ruining Sealoo's Landorus-T, although it did admittedly need a Stone Edge dodge to actually live the interaction. Cool stuff nonetheless.
Ineros's Choice Specs Primarina
You ever have one of those moments where the headcalc just doesn't add up to what you just saw?
Full disclosure, I first watched this trying to figure out whether Isza's Alomomola was AV or not, so I looked at the next turn to figure out what set the Prim was and...yeah. Torrent+Choice Specs turned this Primarina into a trade just waiting to happen, as Ineros blasted through as Sun protected Zard Y with an 80 BP move. More broadly, Primarina has an excellent STAB combination on top of Flip Turn and coverage in Psychic Noise, which would let this set harrass most of the metagame should it click well. Also lets be honest, if anyone was gonna run a cool Primarina set this tournament you knew it was gonna be Ineros.
I haven't quite decided what next week is going to look like. The significant reduction in games will definitely skew the data, so I'm not sure if I want to follow the same formula I've been doing for Semis. I definitely won't for finals, and I will instead do a full tournament wrap up post, likely in the Metagame Discussion thread for visibility. Thank you all for reading, and best of luck to those still in the tournament!
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