Some Emergency stuff we have to talk about.
Pokemon Home is here which means unreleased Pokemon are finally legal. Here are my initial thoughts on some threats I consider relevant to the meta.
After 3 generations of being an Box Art Legendary stuck in OU, Kyurem-Black is back with a vengeance. With access to DD and a physical Ice STAB in Ice Spear (though very inconsistent BP), we have a terrifying sweeper on our hands. There are fairies and steel-types to help curb its onslaught but still this is scary.
Set: Oh dear god it has DD
DD
Fusion Bolt
Outrage/Dragon Claw
Icicle Spear
EV: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Speed
Item: LO/Heavy-Duty Boots
Btw, have thought of mixed DD set by changing some EV and replacing Icicle Spear and Outrage for Ice Beam and Earth Power/Focus Blast. I think Earth Power is def worth considering because with Spear+Fusion, you have bolt beam coverage and the only Pokemon who resists that is Rotom Heat. To bad Heat is slammed by Earth Power because Teravolt nullifies Levitate. EP also helps against Equilibra because of Teravolt which is nice. Also, here is a calc of Kyurem-Black against Argonaught (the best Unaware mon in CAP).
252 Atk Teravolt Kyurem-Black Fusion Bolt vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Arghonaut: 246-290 (59.4 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
CAP TR has great setters but not the best abusers which held the play style back a bit.
is here with Double Iron Bash which is a 144 BP (thanks to Iron Fist), multi-hit STAB move with a 51% of flinch. Its coverage is also pretty good with Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Superpower, and EQ. I wish it had Drain Punch and BP, and I think its a bit one of a one trick pony as far as move pool is concerned but Melmetal is still a beast.
It has Shell Smash, Spout Spam, and great coverage options. No mega sucks though.
Imagine 135 SPA at +2 with Mega Launcher. Disgusting. Also imagine if Blastoise learned Orign Pulse and had Mega? Also disgusting.
But due to having no mega, I don't think Blast can make it work in CAP. Still a fun toy to play around with.
Good status clerics are hard to come by in CAP, so this is nice. Plus all the other things Celebi can do.
Celebi and Jirachi makes Jumbao really want to start running shadow ball now.
On the one hand, a meta with Dug and fairies seems bad to Terrakion. But it can still be a great scarf user or wallbreaker.
and
wreck it. Hard. But its still Keldeo. OU 100% and can handle the ground and steel types like Drill and Equil really well.
Aurora Veil Hyper offensive teams are back. This + Kyurem-Black seems like a scary combo. To bad a bunch of Pokemon got Defog.
Its Jirachi and its back. Obnoxious 60% rate of flinch and para, solid typing, jack of all trades stats, and nice range of support moves. Even though Clef has Fire Blast, it has to tank an Iron Head, not flinch, and not miss Fire Blast. Same thing with Jumbao though Jumbao usually goes with Focus Blast or Shadow Ball. Kerfluffle will try to kill with Focus Blast or run away with Parting Shot making Jirachi a good check to the fairies with proper prediction. Mollux wants nothing to do with Zen Headbutt but Jirachi has to fear fire moves. Dug still wrecks it unless you run away with U-Turn. Fire Punch does decent against Corviknight.
Didn't think to much of it, until I discussed it with some other CAP players and faced one. Excellent offensive and defensive typing, a solid 126 SpA, and great coverage in Hydro Pump, Moonblast, Ice Beam, and Psychic that hits a lot of the top tiers for super effective damage. Its speed stat is the same as Clef and its physical bulk isn't that good, but this is a threat teams should be prepared for.
I first wrote this off as not a big deal because there is no permanent weather, but after some thought and testing, Venu is quite scary.
First, CAP has way better Sun setters than OU in the form of Jumbao. Sidenote Venu gave me flashbacks to Gen 5 CAP where some would run EQ to beat my
. Metagame wise, being a fast poison type gives you a great revenge killer against the fairy types. Finally, it got some big move pool buffs. While it lost HP Fire, it got the weather dependent but otherwise superior Weather Ball. Also, it got EP so it doesn't need to be mixed to wreck
anymore as well as some other things.
This is a Pokemon that has great potential but had some issues that stopped it from being OU last gen. But in SwSh, it has a lot of promise. First, it has a similar stat distribution to Dragapult. Same HP and Def, but while Drag has 8 more Atk, Zera has 2 more SpA, 5 more SpD, and 1 more point speed. That last bit means Zera is the fasted unboosted Pokemon in the meta. Zera has great coverage options on both sides, can get free switches with Volt Absorb, and has boosting moves in CM and Bulk Up. Based on its design and move pool, I really wanted Zera to be a electric/fighting with Iron Fist as a hidden ability but it does not. Oh well.
PLS Read Edit: OU Council just sent Kyurem-Black and Melmetal to Ubers. Def can understand Kyurem-Black, Melmetal not so much. Which makes me pretty sad because I really wanted to do a lot of testing and abusing these 2 beasts. CAP Council, can we test and see if Melmetal is to broke for CAP?
:krillowatt:
)
( 
+ 
though.
Kyurem is the most powerful special attacker of the tier. Its main advantage is that once Clef has lost his leftovers, he has no switchin. Every time he comes it's a 50/50 in favor of its user. 
(which has no switchin), 
(idem), 
(same), 
, and others. I'm looking forward to see how that evolves in the next tournament.
volkraken is a monster on sun, ive been using it a lot and it is the sun equivalent of banded dracovish except much faster and with some key switchin opportunity like vs clefable, jumbao, jirachi, and provides a team a very useful 4x ice resist. fire blast is happily 2hkoing the monstrous bulky waters like even Toxapex and Argho because they are all investing hard into physdef, and ohkoing smaller resists like physdef seismitoad, dragapult, hydreigon and rotom-h with overheat. you can even 2hko band dracovish with rocks, which is neat. it also makes other weather matchups much easier, as pelipper and tyranitar will be ohkod by hydro pump if they try and predict a fire move or lead vs you. i think this is one of the best mons to use on sun right now because the metagame is completely unprepared to take hits from it. when it comes to non-sun teams, i would definitely recommend to use something else as your breaker like kyurem.
