As the year is coming to an end and the next 3 days frankly will have no significant changes that would outdate the information I'm providing in this post, I will display my overall thoughts on the current meta and what I believe we should be doing moving forward. I'll separate this post into the following 3 sections:
- Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it, with sub-points delving into the main issues I have.
- How to solve said issues and pushing for tiering action.
- Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the community.
1.) Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it
I believe that NatDex Mono is
not in a good spot at the moment and DLC2 has exacerbated the issue to even worse degrees. Us NatDex Mono players like to take pride that the increased variety and better type viability is a good reason why some of us have preference to this over current SV Monotype but that type viability we hold onto so well is being put at risk of just not existing and the tier has certainly delved into a "centralisation state". What do I mean by "centralisation state"? Well, take a look at SV Monotype. In past iterations of the meta, that meta was certainly centralised if you look back at Post-HOME meta or even DLC1. Dark was a dominant type (and still somewhat is) because it just had the best pokemon in the game and hardly lost against any types. Flying is the most used type currently in MWP (a high-level team tour) because again, it has such strong matchups in the meta. The reasoning behind the centralisation state of SV Monotype and the centralisation state I'm proposing in NDM are completely different. The former has many types in the metagame that just lack options to bring them into relevancy and they will just fold to the top types. NDM's issue isn't that the average type (a statistical average, not average in terms of viability) is lacking options, you have every non-banned mon in the game + cut moves, it's that the power level that certain types reach just eclipses its fellow types and that type will just dominate, and nothing is more apparent to me right now that this is the case than with Dragon.
1.1.) Dragon is centralising and arguably overcentralising at this current moment
I've made a point that Dragon is quite strong in SV and some responses were "Dragon is bit overhyped" or "Dragon isn't
that strong". Ok, I will yield to that in
SV but in NDM, I will not yield on this point. Dragon is surely the best type in the format and it's not even close. Dragon was always a good type in NDM, its fast pace offence could overwhelm a good number of types thanks to the multitude of setup sweepers like
and
while providing good hazards with
. This gen was good for Dragon because of the fact it had
when Pokemon HOME came out in June. One of Dragon's hardest matchups were against Fairy and Dragon finally having quite a bulky Dragon/Steel mon helped alleviate one of its toughest matchups, +1 to its viability. Now fast forward to DLC2 and we got some new additions to the type:
,
,
and
. Hydrapple and Raging Bolt weren't really relevant additions for Dragon but Archaludon and especially Gouging Fire are. Archaludon is a good alternative to Goodra-Hisui and I think it's a slightly better fit for Dragon. It's basically the opposite of Goodra-H, with high physical defence and is much faster with Stamina to wall physical attackers even more, that in conjunction with Body Press, makes Archaludon much less passive than Goodra albeit it's worse at handling Fairies thanks to its much lower spdef stat. That doesn't matter too much in the long run because we got another Fairy answer in
.
1.2.) is an unhealthy presence and its effect on Tournament Play.
Gouging Fire ticks all the boxes for a pokemon I think that does a bit too much in this tier. It's bulky, hits hard and has reliable recovery. Its expansive movepool with Morning Sun allows it to not even have to run 252atk 252spe sets because you'd want to invest in its defensive capabilities to have an easier time setting up DD. All it really needs is Fire STAB (Flare Blitz/Heat Crash/Raging Fury) and EQ and it hits most of the tier. It has defensive answers sure, like every offensive pokemon ever, but there are so far and few between that it feels like anytime you're building, you gotta bring a specific type vs Dragon to even try to handle it defensively. This has had an effect on tournament play greatly for the format, as over the past 2 weeks of games coming from MWP and NDFL, 6 out of 8 replays I've found include Dragon teams with 2 of them being mirror matchups, Gouging Fire was also on 5/6 of these teams. There's a reason why Dragon is seeing this much usage and I genuinely believe Dragon is a 18 type beater atm.
My game vs Big Chungus irl for NDFL Week 6 highlights this issue of centralisation the most. DLC2 was freed and pretty much everyone knows that Dragon is strong asf. I literally didn't want to bring anything else because Dragon could beat anything that the type is not weak to (Non Fairy, opposing Dragon and Ice teams) so I decided to bring Fairy. This game here, ignoring hax, was prepped
solely for the purpose of countering Dragon, which was won. I could not use Fairy's standard of play with screens because Klefki is just Gouging Fire fodder and had to run 2 Water/Fairy pokemon just to make sure Gouging didn't go out of hand.
Toasterboi420 vs Uta The Clown is also a Dragon vs Fairy mu, which the Fairy team was unable to win because guess what? Gouging got setup opportunity and 1 Water/Fairy type clearly wasn't enough because Gouging Fire set up on Klefki and had max hazards up. Next week as well, assuming tiering action hasn't happened, I will still just have to worry about facing Dragon because it is able to beat the majority of types and I don't find this particularly competitive.
1.3.) Ursaluna-Bloodmoon
So the meta is struggling with the overcentralisation of Dragon and Gouging Fire is a contributor to why Dragon got to even stronger heights. However, Gouging Fire is not the only egregious pokemon in this metagame, and Ursaluna-BM is something I've wanted gone since DLC1 dropped. Something with its insane damage output and bulk without even having to invest that much into Spatk is just silly and should not be in this tier. Z-Blood Moon is 200BP and no other realistically has a nuke this powerful and unable to be walled as Ursaluna-BM has. Revenge killing this mon is also just an annoying task. Max physdef doesn't even die to Close Combat from Fighting types from full and if they don't kill it, they die back in return. Great. Blood Moon's issue of not being able to be clicked consecutively? Z move basically ignores that so you can click a 140BP STAB option into a 200BP STAB option then click a 140BP STAB option again. What defensive pokemon is handling this not named Blissey or Chansey and even then, let Ursaluna-BM get a few boosts and Blissey starts folding.
2.) How to solve said issues
I don't think we have to do much to get this meta back on track, since I think we almost reached an ideal in DLC1 and it would've been nice if Ursaluna got booted and I believe there's only a few changes we need to reach a much more balanced and varied metagame.
2.1) Quickban Ursaluna-BM and Possibly Gouging Fire (idm a suspect)
First of all, get rid of Ursaluna-BM. This pokemon again nothing beneficial to the tier other than obscene breaking power that gives 2 already good typing even more leverage in the metagame. Banning Ursaluna-BM will be a net benefit for every type in the game. If any tiering action were to happen against Gouging Fire, I doubt it would be a quickban but that would save us some time if it was. And seeing how I think it probably won't be a quickban, a suspect would be on the table because I
have seen some users say "Is Gouging that bad?" which opens up the conversation of whether it's too strong or not in the format. Obviously, I would participate and vote ban if that were the case and implore anyone else to do the same. Banning Gouging Fire will lower Dragon's power level back to a state where you know, smth like Fairy doesn't have to run both Fini and Azu to fear not losing after giving it one turn of DD and bulkier types like Steel and Poison don't just get 6-0d (though Dragon Kommo-o already gives Steel a tough time and Poison is still just kinda eh).
Other than these two blatantly too strong pokemon
imo, nothing else seems to be overbearing in my eyes. I, as well as many others have always kept their eyes on
since it was banned last gen and it still does the same old Z-Fly set with Agility but it got some more checks in
and
and offensively, it's certainly a bit more pressured this gen.
with Nasty Plot scared everybody but again, Landorus's speed tier gets worse every gen and most types have smth faster to revenge kill it. Finally, I've heard some conversation regarding
but I already thought Ogerpon-H wasn't that bad so its worse forme certainly isn't banworthy in my eyes rn.
3.) Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the Community
Before we do any unbanning, please please please deal with what we currently have and let the tier stabilise for a little bit. We have all the time in the world to try and test some stuff. Anyway, after we
do ban certain pokemon, these were some pokemon talked about.
3.1.) Do not unban
I don't get this one personally. Don't use this point I'm about to say as an argument to not unban Giratina but y'all really want Dragon to thrive or smth? Regardless, Giratina is just too bulky even in this gen 9 power level with Z moves to warrant bringing down. It offers a lot of utility with Defog yes, but I just think you make Dragon too centralising again with this drop and ik Ghost is in the trenches rn and it would love
anything at this point but Giratina is not it.
3.2.) deserves a second chance
Some have looked back at the Spectrier ban and really wonder if it was that bad? I, for one, wouldn't mind a resuspect for Spectrier. Its Speed is good but there are still some faster threats that can outrun it or speedtie (
,
,
etc), its coverage is still relatively dire (literally just Shadow Ball + Draining Kiss). I do feel like we wouldn't have to overly prep for this pokemon and Ghost is severely lacking in wincons outside of SD Mimikyu or Z Happy Hour Zoroark.
3.3.) The Z-Move Debacle
No conversation regarding this metagame is as controversial as the debate to potentially test Z-Moves in NDM. Before I get into it, I just want to preface that I think banning Z-Moves is a terrible idea and if we were to ban it, it would have catastrophic, long-term effects on our tier, no I'm not exaggerating. Anyone that has an investment in this topic for either side can respond to this agreeing or disagreeing or if I missed something out.
The ban Z-Move side's main arguments from what I've seen is that it's pushed many pokemon to the edge and without Z-Moves they would be allowed back into the tier. Ursaluna-BM is probably one of the main causes for this point because it makes Z-Moves seem very very strong. My response is this argument is a simple one. Z-Moves have hardly pushed most of our banlist to the edge. If you comb over the pokemon banned from our format (ignoring obvious bans), the
only one you can say that was made broken mostly by Z-Moves is Dragapult. I would love Ghost to have Dragapult back but it's not as if I can forget that DD Ghostium sets exist and not like we can complex ban Z-Moves on Dragapult, or else we could complex ban water moves on Kyogre. We never want to reach complex ban territory and Dragapult is simply a victim of a natdex format that allows previously allowed mechanics. It's an unfortunate shame. That doesn't mean we should ban Z-Moves now. Other than Dragapult, some have argued that things like
,
,
and
would've been fine if Z-Moves and I'll have to say "what??" Chien Pao with its team support would've been an egregious pokemon still since it's so fast and breaks everything. Flutter Mane is probably the closest one to maybe have been fine without Z Moves but the increased support from its Fairy buddies would've led to increased set variety outside of a Choice Specs. Chi-Yu should never been entertained seriously and Baxcalibur wasn't even broken by Z-moves. It got Scale Shot, had veil support and Shed Tail is legal.
The other main argument is that "
It gives mons insane breaking power to get past their checks and that crumbles defensive integrity" and "
it makes prepping harder because you don't know what's going to be running a Z-move and what Z-move specifically". I'll answer this sequentially. For the first point, why is this an issue? Competitively or even going off of tiering policy, nothing is problematic here. No one back in Gen 7 and no one last gen ever pushed for Z-moves to be banned in any non-OM format to my knowledge. A lot of rebuttals here you'll probably realise can be applied to a lot of anti-tera sentiments and I feel like they can apply here. Running a Z-Move and deciding when to use it, or what sort of Z-move you're using is simply an expression of skill. You
do remember that Z-moves can only be used one time unlike tera which is a long-term change. Attacking Z-moves can also be blocked by Protect moves which fair enough aren't that common but it is still sufficient counterplay to not letting your defensive or any mon by that matter die from 100 most of the time.
I'm a stickler for the Tiering Policy Framework and looking at the overall goals of the tiering policy below:
- To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.
- To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowd are catered to regarding 1.
- To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.
It is quite hard to suggest and imply that Z-Moves as a whole affect the metagame where the more skilled player is not winning the majority of the time and according to Point III of the Tiering Policy Framework "
The onus of providing justification is on the side changing the status quo", you really have your work cut out for you because those who want to keep the status quo don't really have to do much in terms of arguing to keep Z-Moves, you have to explain why they're needed to be banned for the high ladder and tournament level and get a majority to agree. It also won't help the growth of the tier in my eyes if we're the
only natdex format that has Z-Moves banned while also lacking this gen's mechanic. I hate having to use that argument but the reality is that's how the players of competitive pokemon at the casual level think and even though tera has no place in mono, having less of what natdex has to offer is not ideal. We can certainly reach a good level of competitiveness with Z-Moves in the picture.