Hey guys, I played quite a lot lately (didn't really played seriously since Gen6, like little after ORAS I think), with different playstyles and I just wanted to share some thoughts about it. Started off with "obviously broken things" without thinking much about what i putted in my team, just slashing some gyarados, excadrill, ditto, dragapult and stuff to have a first view of the metagame. Back then I already realized substitute would be an amazing move in this meta and gave it to gyarados to really great success. I also realized that the meta would be awfully physically centered, and although I did start the Dragapult moveset with DD/DD, I finally gave it a special movepool which is much more diverse, so definitely Dragapult is a special attacker to me (we already mainly see special sets for him on the ladder).
Then I tried to make use of other allegedly broken things such as Hawlucha, but as I expected it didn't have that high of usage, I think it was a bit overrated at first. I mean sure it's great but not THAT great in my opinion.
After gaining all that information I thought, yeah this meta is really screwing with stall, especially those pesky substitute users like gyarados or hydreigon, so let's build a stall team with a ferropex core. I also wanted to try some new stuff so I played an Avalugg with a similar set than one previously mentioned (Boots, Rapid spin, avalanche, body press, recover). And to deal with sub hydreigon I just tried out a Whimsicott Infiltrator set, becuase evryone expects prankster and infiltrator is such a god ability right now. I have to say it was quite satisfying koing them hiding behind their sub, it may be the most satisfying kills i have done in the past few weeks. Anyway, I found myself to a dead end because I had to play ditto in the team to prevent dynamax abusing, so I was screwed by everything that could BU or CM like Corviknight, Hatterenee, Clefable and so on. I actually tried to play Encore on Whimsicott to avoid that problem, but Dynamaxing removes the encore restriction which is dumb. And anyway, LO Clefable destroys stall, and Galarian Darmanitan is sometimes barely manageable.
At that time I had a pretty clear idea of what the meta would look like and I tried some stuff posted here lie the RK9 team that was brought up (it had some success but really lacks defense against ghost types which are running rampant right now, and also lack some real offensive electric/grass presence to deal with most common stuff).
The usage stats were quite predictible, but are still quite impressive. Top6 pokemon being present in more thant 1/4 of the teams is just absurd in my opinion. I will not argue about Dynamax, I personnaly think it should be banned as soon as possible but actually some abusers of the mechanic should also be banned, and may be they are the one giving the impression the mechanic is broken (galarian darmanitan is such a pain). Now it seems like the best pokemon right now are those that can "counter" ditto in some way, like Hydreigon having dark pulse/flash cannon or Dracovish having sometime no dragon move, sometimes outrage, in order to "not being able to kill themself" (or being locked in the case of outrage).
Now I wanted to speak about some pokemon I didn't even see any mention even though I saw them used by people reaching top10 of the ladder which is quite impressive. First of there is Sigilyph played by Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh which I guess is running something like that :
Sigilyph @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Air Slash
- Roost
- Heat Wave
Not sure about HP/Speed though. First off, this thing is a pain for stall, as if stall didn't have enough trouble. It also is a set up sweeper that can "counter" ditto by virtue of using Calm Mind/Roost. When dynamaxing it will boost its speed and Max flare can kill resists (mainly steel). I also noticed there isn't much good electric types in the meta right now : Rotom-Wash is the n1 choice if you need an Electric type. Rotom-Heat is really good now that boots exists. Other than that, there may be dracozolt (which is really not that good imo, you can miss so many times in a critical moment when you would have just use a 100% accuracy move with another pokemon) and toxictry, the latter having really little usage compare to what I would expect because it can actually be really good, but that's it. So spamming Air Slash can easily lead you through victory, it's not a shitty coverage move like bounce (and flinch can also be winning you games). So yeah surprised this has never been brought up.
I also wanted to hightlight a pokemon I've seen used once or twice and can actually be really good : Sirfecth'd. With a Choice Band it can really break teams and when Dynamaxing it becomes even more impressive. I guess the one I saw was this one :
Sirfetch'd @ Choice Band
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Brave Bird
- Poison Jab
- Knock Off
Obviously you can run jolly instead of adamant, i didn't check speed tiers. With the ability to have scrappy, I think this is a true power house. It does insane damage to the main physical wall right now, namely ferrothorn, Mandibuzz, Corsola-G, Rotom-W, Corviknight. You don't even need to predict anything if opponent has like aegislash because Close Combat will rip through him. Poison Jab is really great coverage against fairies (which means against Hatterenee and Clefable) and it also has brave bird to boost speed when dynamaxing. I don't think you can ask for much more. I'm actually quite unsure about knock off, may be another coverage would be better like leaf blade for Seismitoad and Rotom-W but I think they take enough damage already from Close Combat. He also has access to First Impression as a priority move but you will be forced out after that.
Lastly I want to talk about Conkeldurr. I really think it will rise in usage in the near future because it really has the ability to shine. I'm not even sure what is best set could be, but for sure it revolves around flame orb/guts + drain punch. Aside from that you have a myriad of possibility, Mach Punch gives you a good priority and I really think having priority is awesome in this gen because so little pokemon have access to it. You can run facade to abuse the burn, you can run ice punch, EQ, fire punch, , thunder punch, Poison Jab, Bulk up to screw dittos. It even got defog for whatever reason. So I think it can be quite unpredictable and it will be quite good. If you take into account Dynamax, I think it becomes even better. I'm pretty sure Conk could be a decent check to most common things out there such as hydreigon.
Talking about Hydreigon, I really think this thing is busted. Like, it was decent in previous gen and I loved to play it, but right now I think it is totally nuts. Like you don't even need dynamax at all. In a lot of scenario you just sub (like on a seismitoad), then proceed to NP and sweep a whole team. I really think this thing is insane, and that it will be suspected at some point. To be quite fair, i feel like Hydreigon is more of a problem than most busted things in the meta rn like Dracovish. Dracovish is really good at what it does but in all honesty i never felt I insta-lost if it ever entered the battlefield and it can not come on scald which is kind of the "passive move you always use on a defensive mon". Plus there is so much things rn to keep it in check like ferro, pex, rotom or seismitoad imo. And it get a little screwed by ditto because you can just give a free win sometimes to your opponent just by killing something with dracovish and letting ditto copy it. Hell it even "checks itself" in a way. But Hydreigon, there is no easy countermeasure against it. If it comes, you HAVE to assume it is sub-NP which it is most of the time, and switch into something that can break the sub, and either survive a hit and outspeed or survive a +2 hit. For the record, 98 speed tiers was underwhelming in previous generation but right now it is really good. Like you get outspeed by Hawlucha, Gengar, Cinderace, Dragapult mainly and none of them are a safe switch in to a Hydreigon ever. Dragapult is really appealing thanks to inflitrator (and also the sub disable recent set) but really in which world are you switching dragapult in Hydreigon. So you have to survive a +2 hit and still being able to break that sub and be threatening enough. Apart from the Whimsicott set I brought up earlier which can be fucked up by multiple flash cannon on the switch I really can't think of any completely safe switch in to Hydreigon (and it will be even more true when dynamax disappears and double HP will not be a thing anymore). You can still sac something just breaking the sub but then ditto isn't even a great answer, aforementioned fast pokemon can kill it but heh you can not realistically sac a mon each time hydreigon enters the battlefield. I can't think of a healthy metagame with Hydreigon in it right now.