posting since Nayrz was complaining about how no-one is posting about Gen 4 finals rn lol
I'm not amazingly familiar with the gen 4 ubers meta but I did get to the finals so I think I can speak at least a little bit about the Arceus-Meta.
I basically only had 3 teams for the entire tour and so I didn't save replays publicly so as to not get counterteamed, now for transparency and metagame development I'll share all of them:
Arceus-Electric Offense:
I think Highlord is underrating how effective Arceus-Electric is in the current meta, I think it's one of the best Arceus forms. It works very well off the popularity of Arceus-Steel as in a head-to-head matchup Steelceus can't do shit to Eleceus. Groudon and Garchomp are supposed counters but Groudon does like 70% to Eleceus and gets 2HKO'd while Chomp can't OHKO but gets OHKO'd from Ice Beam. The strongest counter to Eleceus is Blissey, and this team tries to take advantage of that. The combo of Wobbuffett + Scizor is extremely effective for taking Blissey out; you can switch Wobb into Blissey and use Tickle a few times to lower her defense; then switch to Scizor and kill or significantly weaken Blissey with a Pursuit. Scizor can also pursuit Lati@s which can be annoying by going into a CM war with Eleceus. Scarfogre is there for rain + revenge killing + breaking with water spout, and Giratina is the designated spinblocker and Groudon check.
I think the match that best shows this team is when I beat Staxi with it, i don't know if there's a way to upload a downloaded showdown replay so I'll just post the raw into a pastebin for now, if someone knows a good way to upload them I'll fix it later:
But basically I do a lot of what I described above, staxi takes an affirmative lead in the early game so I had to catch up by making some strong double switch plays. I learnt that he has a Blissey, and so I bring out my Kyogre in order to get him to switch in Blissey and I double switch to Wobbuffett, Tickle him twice before dying, switch in Scizor to do a shitton of damage. After, I kill all of my other mons off, and reveal my last mon to be Eleceus; this is so that I can't be phased. After that, Eleceus just outright beats the rest of this team, including Groudon and Steelceus. Honestly, Eleceus has very few counters besides getting Toxic'd or Blissey.
Arceus-Ghost HO:
Nothing too much to say here, this is just a standard HO team I made while theorizing on what the Farceus meta would look like. SubCM Arceus-Ghost was chosen; this is because I wanted a spinblocker, but I also wanted a mon that was more offensive than Giratina-O is. Arceus-Ghost has perfect neutral coverage with just Judgement and Focus Blast, so I chose the SubCM set since it was the most offensive version and Sub helps ease prediction and stops status. SubCM Ghostceus is a fairly decent wallbreaker due to his perfect neutral coverage, of which Focus Blast nails Arceus-Steel, his ability to completely ignore Blissey, and not really being weak to much common of the STAB of the common mons in the meta. The rest of the team is fairly straightforward, Groudon was chosen as he's a strong physical sweeper and would work well in a Steelceus meta; Wobbuffett does wobb things, Darkrai is just super good, and Dialga because Scarf Dialga has good bulk while being a solid revenge killer.
Also to note, both of the teams above use Colbur Berry Deoxys-S, this was actually taken from the lead guide by Iris, which is ANCIENT but still has applicable advice even in the Farceus meta of today.
A lot of people were using Tyranitar leads, which were dealt with quite well by this mon, and the other most common lead I faced, Tentacruel, could be beaten solidly by Taunting and then switching to Wobb (shown in the replay above). It was also chosen since DPP lacks team preview, and so players might think I was using the same team twice when they play me again and see the same Deoxys-S set, and make some bold (and hopefully incorrect) plays on the assumption I was using the same team. The focus on Deoxys-S came back to haunt me when I played highlord as his leads did very well vs. Deoxys-S.
Battle vs. Mysterious M:
Nothing too much to say about this battle, I was put in a very favorable position in the beginning because my Deoxys-S lead completely beat his Mew lead, letting me get two hazards for free. From there, every mon did their part, usually taking down at least one mon with them. I got Wobb to take out Latios without too much damage, which worked out perfectly as it put me in Custap Berry range for a priority Destiny Bond to take out his Mewtwo. I actually wasn't sure if I would win because I had no idea what his last mon was; I knew it was an Arceus-form but that was it. It turned out to be CM Arceus-Ground, which had the potential to be very dangerous but thankfully my Groudon was still alive, so I could double dance and get significant damage on Groundceus before Dialga could go in for the kill.
Rain Balance:
This team is actually based off of some ancient RMT made back in like 2010 or something, except updated for the Farceus meta. Originally, the team had a SubCM Giratina as the spinblocker, so my idea for SubCM Arceus-Ghost came from simply replacing this Giratina set for Arceus-Ghost. The rest of the team is fairly similar or the same, with ScarfOgre as the revengekiller + breaker with spout, Frosslass for free spikes, Jirachi for it's resists, access to Stealth Rock, and to spread paralysis, Latias as the ogre and don switchin (with Grass Knot replaced for Thunder to smack Arceus-Steel better), and Manaphy (!!!) as the stallbreaker. The team worked fairly well in part because at least one of the 3 CM users would eventually get a chance to sweep, Latias and Ghostceus had more upfront power and defense, but a Manaphy in Rain with a CM up is extremely difficult to deal with. Overall though, this team was not as effective during this tour as the two above teams.
Not from this tour but I thought this (actual) replay was fun lol, vs terra:
Overall thoughts: IDK I don't think the Arceus meta is too ridiculous so far?? It honestly doesn't feel too too different from the previous gen 4 Ubers meta to me, so I really don't see the big deal with keeping arceus legal. There aren't really many mons that have, like, became completely unviable thanks to Arceus, at least not that I can think of. Take my opinion lightly though since I'm no pro at the tier and the decision should be made by the players.
I'm not amazingly familiar with the gen 4 ubers meta but I did get to the finals so I think I can speak at least a little bit about the Arceus-Meta.
I basically only had 3 teams for the entire tour and so I didn't save replays publicly so as to not get counterteamed, now for transparency and metagame development I'll share all of them:
Arceus-Electric Offense:
I think Highlord is underrating how effective Arceus-Electric is in the current meta, I think it's one of the best Arceus forms. It works very well off the popularity of Arceus-Steel as in a head-to-head matchup Steelceus can't do shit to Eleceus. Groudon and Garchomp are supposed counters but Groudon does like 70% to Eleceus and gets 2HKO'd while Chomp can't OHKO but gets OHKO'd from Ice Beam. The strongest counter to Eleceus is Blissey, and this team tries to take advantage of that. The combo of Wobbuffett + Scizor is extremely effective for taking Blissey out; you can switch Wobb into Blissey and use Tickle a few times to lower her defense; then switch to Scizor and kill or significantly weaken Blissey with a Pursuit. Scizor can also pursuit Lati@s which can be annoying by going into a CM war with Eleceus. Scarfogre is there for rain + revenge killing + breaking with water spout, and Giratina is the designated spinblocker and Groudon check.
I think the match that best shows this team is when I beat Staxi with it, i don't know if there's a way to upload a downloaded showdown replay so I'll just post the raw into a pastebin for now, if someone knows a good way to upload them I'll fix it later:
But basically I do a lot of what I described above, staxi takes an affirmative lead in the early game so I had to catch up by making some strong double switch plays. I learnt that he has a Blissey, and so I bring out my Kyogre in order to get him to switch in Blissey and I double switch to Wobbuffett, Tickle him twice before dying, switch in Scizor to do a shitton of damage. After, I kill all of my other mons off, and reveal my last mon to be Eleceus; this is so that I can't be phased. After that, Eleceus just outright beats the rest of this team, including Groudon and Steelceus. Honestly, Eleceus has very few counters besides getting Toxic'd or Blissey.
Arceus-Ghost HO:
Nothing too much to say here, this is just a standard HO team I made while theorizing on what the Farceus meta would look like. SubCM Arceus-Ghost was chosen; this is because I wanted a spinblocker, but I also wanted a mon that was more offensive than Giratina-O is. Arceus-Ghost has perfect neutral coverage with just Judgement and Focus Blast, so I chose the SubCM set since it was the most offensive version and Sub helps ease prediction and stops status. SubCM Ghostceus is a fairly decent wallbreaker due to his perfect neutral coverage, of which Focus Blast nails Arceus-Steel, his ability to completely ignore Blissey, and not really being weak to much common of the STAB of the common mons in the meta. The rest of the team is fairly straightforward, Groudon was chosen as he's a strong physical sweeper and would work well in a Steelceus meta; Wobbuffett does wobb things, Darkrai is just super good, and Dialga because Scarf Dialga has good bulk while being a solid revenge killer.
Also to note, both of the teams above use Colbur Berry Deoxys-S, this was actually taken from the lead guide by Iris, which is ANCIENT but still has applicable advice even in the Farceus meta of today.
A lot of people were using Tyranitar leads, which were dealt with quite well by this mon, and the other most common lead I faced, Tentacruel, could be beaten solidly by Taunting and then switching to Wobb (shown in the replay above). It was also chosen since DPP lacks team preview, and so players might think I was using the same team twice when they play me again and see the same Deoxys-S set, and make some bold (and hopefully incorrect) plays on the assumption I was using the same team. The focus on Deoxys-S came back to haunt me when I played highlord as his leads did very well vs. Deoxys-S.
Battle vs. Mysterious M:
Nothing too much to say about this battle, I was put in a very favorable position in the beginning because my Deoxys-S lead completely beat his Mew lead, letting me get two hazards for free. From there, every mon did their part, usually taking down at least one mon with them. I got Wobb to take out Latios without too much damage, which worked out perfectly as it put me in Custap Berry range for a priority Destiny Bond to take out his Mewtwo. I actually wasn't sure if I would win because I had no idea what his last mon was; I knew it was an Arceus-form but that was it. It turned out to be CM Arceus-Ground, which had the potential to be very dangerous but thankfully my Groudon was still alive, so I could double dance and get significant damage on Groundceus before Dialga could go in for the kill.
Rain Balance:
This team is actually based off of some ancient RMT made back in like 2010 or something, except updated for the Farceus meta. Originally, the team had a SubCM Giratina as the spinblocker, so my idea for SubCM Arceus-Ghost came from simply replacing this Giratina set for Arceus-Ghost. The rest of the team is fairly similar or the same, with ScarfOgre as the revengekiller + breaker with spout, Frosslass for free spikes, Jirachi for it's resists, access to Stealth Rock, and to spread paralysis, Latias as the ogre and don switchin (with Grass Knot replaced for Thunder to smack Arceus-Steel better), and Manaphy (!!!) as the stallbreaker. The team worked fairly well in part because at least one of the 3 CM users would eventually get a chance to sweep, Latias and Ghostceus had more upfront power and defense, but a Manaphy in Rain with a CM up is extremely difficult to deal with. Overall though, this team was not as effective during this tour as the two above teams.
Not from this tour but I thought this (actual) replay was fun lol, vs terra:
Overall thoughts: IDK I don't think the Arceus meta is too ridiculous so far?? It honestly doesn't feel too too different from the previous gen 4 Ubers meta to me, so I really don't see the big deal with keeping arceus legal. There aren't really many mons that have, like, became completely unviable thanks to Arceus, at least not that I can think of. Take my opinion lightly though since I'm no pro at the tier and the decision should be made by the players.
Kyogre
Dialga
Arceus-Steel
Darkrai
Giratina-Origin
Arceus-Fighting
Palkia
Groudon
Garchomp
Latias
Latios
Arceus Ghost
Mewtwo
Deoxys-Speed
Tyranitar
Rayquaza
Skarmory
Jirachi
Deoxys-Attack
Tentacruel
Arceus-Ground
Blissey
Bronzong
Forretress
Giratina-Altered
Heatran
Ho-Oh
Wobbuffet
Froslass
Kingdra
Ludicolo
Scizor
Shaymin-Sky
Arceus-Dark
Arceus-Grass
Cloyster
Kabutops
Manaphy
Mew
Azelf
Cresselia
Gliscor
Heracross
Salamence
Arceus-Ice
Arceus-Poison
Celebi
Deoxys-Defense
Gyarados
Shiftry
Starmie
Deoxys
Omastar
Qwilfish
Arceus-Psychic
Wynaut[/hide]
