Metagame VGC 2019

[zee]

VGC 2019 ​

This thread is a central hub for discussion and general VGC 2019 resources!

Rules Overview

VGC 2019 was split into three separate metagames, referred to as series.

• Sun Series, which banned the use of Mega Stones, Z Crystals, Primal Orbs, and Dragon Ascent
• Moon Series, which allowed Z Crystals (with the exception of Ultranecrozium Z), but still banned Mega Stones, Primal Orbs, and Dragon Ascent
• Ultra Series, which allowed all of the above.

The unique feature of each of these series is the allowance of two restricted Pokemon, which are as follows:

• Mewtwo
• Ho-Oh
• Lugia
• Kyogre
• Groudon
• Rayquaza
• Dialga
• Palkia
• Giratina
• Reshiram
• Zekrom
• Kyurem
• Xerneas
• Yvetal
• Zygarde
• Cosmog
• Cosmoem
• Solgaleo
• Lunala
• Necrozma

Like all VGC formats, matches were played in Bring 6 Pick 4 Double Battles. Games used a chess timer, allowing the player 45 seconds per turn and 7 minutes and 30 seconds total to make their moves each game. Species Clause and Item Clause were the only clauses enforced, with the additional caveat that any Pokemon used in VGC 2019 must be native to a Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, or Ultra Moon cartridge.

Major Tournament Results

VGC 2019 World Championships - Top 8 Teams

VGC 2019 World Championships - All Day 2 Teams

VGC 2019 North American Internationals Teams

VGC 2019 European Internationals Teams

VGC 2019 Oceania Internationals Teams (Moon Series)

VGC 2019 Latin American Internationals Teams (Sun Series)

Ultra Series Viability Ranking

this viability ranking was put together with the help of zeefable, Tagmouse27, Gramgus, Spurrific, Sudoku Masta, WhereDaPuff, maovgc, and treedoodle

S Rank
Groudon-Primal
Incineroar
Xerneas

A+ Rank
Amoonguss
Lunala
Ultra-Necrozma

A Rank
Kyogre-Primal
Rayquaza-Mega
Salamence-Mega
Tapu Fini
Tapu Koko

A- Rank
Kangaskhan-Mega
Metagross-Mega
Gengar-Mega
Tapu Lele
Tornadus
Yveltal

B+
Ditto
Shedinja
Jumpluff
Stakataka
Kartana
Mimikyu
Smeargle
Solgaleo
Umbreon

B
Venusaur
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Nihilego
Landorus-Therian
Crobat
Celesteela
Ferrothorn

B-
Ho-Oh
Lopunny-Mega
Lucario-Mega
Palkia
Whimsicott

C
Aerodactyl-Mega
Gallade-Mega
Kommo-o
Mawile-Mega
Medicham-Mega
Snorlax

Refer to the past gens resource hub for sample teams and speed tiers. Happy posting!

 

[zee]

(yes I'm reposting)

I cannot stress to you how excited I am to play VGC 2019 in a serious tournament setting again. To kill some time and get in the mood I made a tiermaker of my "current" thoughts on VGC 2019 going into the tour. If there are any significant changes post tour I'll make an update :)

I'll be giving a few blurbs of my placements through S and A+ rank because I think that's where the dropoff point comes in and I think you can tell a lot about someone based on how they rank these 7 Pokemon (maybe the two tiers below but I'm not trying to type that much out now). While of course I am not the single best VGC 19 player, I consider myself very proficient in the metagame and I can probably talk about it more than anyone else because I love it so much.

Easily the best Pokemon in this metagame and it's insulting to call it close. PDon has so many viable sets and moves that it can run, I'd argue way more here than in 2016, and gained so many powerful support tools. My personal favorite sets are fat physical roar and fast modest overheat, but you can run it so many ways and on so many teams. If your team cannot handle Groudon well, it is not viable, because Groudon commands that much respect. Ground and Fire is near perfect offensive coverage for the format, and it has the option to run Dragon Claw or HP Ice if you really want to shoot for flawless. It's nearly impossible to oneshot without a Water move, Z Moves, or a Groudon of your own, meaning it will almost always pull its weight when brought to battles.

I remember when I won my first GS cup competition in 2018 and my twitter followers asked me why I was using Incineroar in a format dominated by Groudon and Kyogre. The answer of course is very simple: utility. Incineroar hardly ever clicks its stabs but the universal value of Fake Out, U-Turn, and Intimidate, further backed by customizable options such as Roar and Snarl, gave every team so much control for so little opportunity cost. It was a great way for Groudon-less teams for hit steels, it was a great Z-Move user on Groudon/Xerneas teams, and it provided many teams a key Ghost resist.

Cover for Geomancy or you lose. Anyone who played 19 knows the feeling of winning seemingly-impossible gamestates with Incineroar + Xerneas + Amoonguss because really that's all you need to enable its potency. When Bronzong and Gengar/Groudon aren't on every top team it's pretty easy for Xerneas users to find a way with their supports and their second restricted, the most deadly ones accepted to be Groudon and Lunala.

Salamence is the best Mega and the best Ground immunity in the format. Even Dragon Claw Groudon variants don't outright check it. It provides teams with a useful Tailwind in a metagame where speed tiers are ridiculously crowded between 90 and 130, an additional Intimidate, and a faster Pokemon than the deadly Mega Rayquaza. Specially Defensive variants that could live Scarf Tapu Lele's Moonblast were very very good at and after worlds. Soft Checked a ton of other minor Pokemon too such as Amoonguss, Kangaskhan, Kartana, and Venusaur.

Unironically if Rayquaza had the slightest amount of synergy with any restricted Pokemon it would be the best Pokemon in the format. Bulky Figy Berry Swords Dance sets pretty much never died unless eating a Fairy move, making it pretty much the most destructive win condition in the metagame behind Xerneas. Also "enables" Kyogre fwiw.

Lunala has three very good sets that make it potent in different ways. Tailwind / Wide Guard / Roar is a supportive god that enables whatever it's paired with extremely well, while still having the nuclear option in its Z-Move that so few Pokemon resist. Psych Up is a sick Xerneas partner for increasing your offensive pressure since the duo is usually more reliant on supports than other cores. Trick Room is another set that works really well on fatter teams like LunaDon.

I might be a bit bold with POgre at 7th but this ranking always felt right to me. Kyogre's really scary if it hits the field at a good time but sometimes it's forced in too soon, takes too much damage, or just otherwise struggles if it can't just click Spout. I'm a bit biased because I played Lunala almost all season which naturally has a good Ogre matchup, but I think if we did a proper survey/ranking it wouldn't be much better.

I will be back post VGCPL for some more VGC 19 analysis/discussion. I encourage those who are playing oldgens to use this thread to share your thoughts and adventures :)

 

[Evelyie]

I just wanted to suggest to tell what Pokémon Ultra Necrozma comes from, eg. Put Ultra Necrozma based off NDM in A+, but Dawn Wings, lower.

maybe something like
- Ultra Necrozma (based off Necrozma Dusk Mane)
- Ultra Necrozma ()

because of my interpretation:
Ultra Necrozma is way better then NDM and NDW, maybe misleading someone to ultra burst instantly (probably me a few months ago LOL)
NDM without its Z-Move it's a B tier

 

[zee]

I just wanted to suggest to tell what Pokémon Ultra Necrozma comes from, eg. Put Ultra Necrozma based off NDM in A+, but Dawn Wings, lower.

maybe something like
- Ultra Necrozma (based off Necrozma Dusk Mane)
- Ultra Necrozma ()

because of my interpretation:
Ultra Necrozma is way better then NDM and NDW, maybe misleading someone to ultra burst instantly (probably me a few months ago LOL)
NDM without its Z-Move it's a B tier

the base forms are too similar in viability for this to really matter. NDW gives you moongeist beam but most NDM that wanted similar coverage ran dark pulse by the end of the year. they also typically did ultra burst early on unless they were keeping the steel type to trick room on Xerneas, but again it's so minor that there's really no need to split the two, both had plenty of results and were equally threatening

 

[zee]

Today I went and added sample sets to the Smogon Dex for everything on the VR! These sets are hyperlinked. For everything A- and above, we're actually doing proper mini analyses in the VGC analyses subforum

 

[Sole Survivor]

So as the tiering and explanations on how restricteds work have already been done, I thought why not share a cool team I built that I'm having fun with? First off, I'm a huge fan of Dialga and I've been trying for months and months to make it work in Ultra Series. I've always started with the DialOgre core since if I use any other restricted with Dialga I autolose to Groudon teams. I knew Dialga could have a Trick Room mode but Trick Room Kyogre just felt...wrong. I experimented with Dialga + Koko + TornOgre + Hitmontop as it can provide Wide Guard support but the results weren't very satisfying. Then I just gave up since I had tried every possible mode I could think of except TR. I left it for two months or so out of frustration after that. Then, it struck me that I should just try TR Kyogre and I wish I'd tried it earlier. I understood that having just a TR mode wouldn't get me all the wins I wanted so I EVed Kyogre to have just enough Speed to operate both in Tailwind and in Trick Room. As for Dialga, I wanted it to be extremely Specially defensive as I would move on to have two Intimidators on the team. The 4 EVs with the Modest Nature are all it really needs to dish out some solid damage.



Moving on, two restricteds I was scared of were Groudon (obviously) and Xerneas. Seeing how it was nigh impossible to beat both with a single Pokemon, I decided to split the roles in such a way that they wouldn't make me weak to other archetypes. The first obvious Pokemon I thought of was Salamence. It has Intimidate, immunity to Precipice Blades, resistance to Fire Punch and can also offer me Tailwind so that sounded like a very hard thing to deny and it was immediately taken onto the team. I gave it Crunch to improve the matchup against Lunala as I don't have a very high need for Hyper Voice or spread damage in general.

As for Xerneas counters, I found Mawile, Ferrothorn and Stakataka very appealing. However, I went with Ferrothorn as it even gave me an immediate win condition against opposing Kyogre teams which tend to have little to no Ferrothorn answers apart from Incineroar. It also beats Tapu Fini and Tapu Koko which the team could struggle with. As an added bonus, Ferrothorn and Dialga support each other well by forcing the opponent to respect one or the other, thus baiting moves like a pseudo Follow Me. They also perform extremely well in Trick Room. I wanted it to be as bulky and offensive as possible. I was two-thirds of the way to a complete team and I was feeling much, much more confident than I originally was.

At this point, I was feeling a little weak to other Steel types like ta-da, Ferrothorn so I decided to add everyone's favorite cat Incineroar as it is a religious law to add Incineroar onto every VGC team especially in Ultra Series without thinking. It offered Fake Out to aid Dialga in setting up Trick Room and could U-turn out to a teammate such as Ferrothorn and also got another Intimidate down on Groudon to boot.

The final member was hard to think of because I had covered pretty much all my bases but after some research and testing, I found that Tapu Koko fits seamlessly onto this team as it beats Kyogre outside Trick Room if I'm unable to set Trick Room up or if Ferrothorn can't be brought to that matchup. "That's so niche!", you may say, and honestly, I wouldn't blame you but Tapu Koko also sets up Electric Terrain which blocks incoming Spores from Amoonguss and Smeargle onto 4 out of my 6 Pokemon excluding Ferrothorn since it's a Grass type which is absolutely crucial if I was to set TR up which was the case in probably 90% of my games. It would also help boost Kyogre's 100% accurate Thunders which would usually end up in most opposing Kyogre take at least 75% of damage which surprised me a lot since it's not very offensive. Tapu Koko also greatly improved the Yveltal matchup which this team is scared of. I was satisfied with this 6 a lot. P.S. it won me a room tour so I thought I should share it here. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7vgc2019-1380009885

All in all I'm proud of this team and that I'm able to make Dialga work right now. I've tried to keep this as short as possible for the convenience of newcomers and experienced players alike. Thank you for reading and feel free to try out this team if you'd like. Have fun! ^^