Teamsheets Come Down to Leadsheets (Legends: Z-A 1v1 Meta Analysis)

by Doc – Owner, Founder, Bets You Dollars to Donuts There’ll Be More Metagross Leads Next Go-Round

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the top 8 teamsheets from the last Legends: Z-A 1v1 tournament that we’ve been covering these last few days.

“Lead” Pokemon

We don’t know what each individual mon ran for movesets, but we can at least identify trends and patterns from what we have here. The first Pokemon on the left is the “lead”, by the way. That one comes out first every time. The lead Pokemon is kind of a big deal, because you can build your team around how you expect your opponent will respond to your lead, or because you anticipate someone else running a lead that you want to have an upper hand against. It’s a bit of rock-paper-scissors right off the bat.

Notice anything about the leads? That’s right, there’s nothing to notice. Each one is different and most of them aren’t well-prepared against something like Metagross, who has only a few proper responses. Meganium, Ampharos, Pikachu and to a lesser extent Whirlipede aren’t going to fare well against a Metagross lead, nor would they against one of the other top tiers if they were around. (Noticeably, the only other top tier lead is Umbreon). Maybe they have one or two moves to answer a top tier (I’ll bet you that Ampharos had Fire Punch, for example) but they’re not going to stand up long past the first hit even if they do have an answer. I conclude based on this that there’s some optimization of lead selection to be had, and that’ll take time and experience to figure out.

Let’s look at that Whirlipede option next, as that’s probably the most interesting development on this list.

Whirlipede and Chandelure

You’ll notice that in three of the four Chandelure teams on this list, they’re paired with a stallmon. Umbreon is paired in two of them, and the third is Whirlipede. Here’s how that works, paraphrasing from Vinc2612’s strategy dex submission:

1. Whirlipede runs Infestation, Toxic, Protect, Agility or Spikes
2. Infestation prevents switching and does damage over time, and unlike the main games doesn’t go away when switching out Whirlipede. Toxic also does damage over time.
3. Hit the opponent with both, and watch for Fire-type moves. If you see one coming, you have to land Protect with correct timing.
4. Chandelure cleans up the carnival as needed.

There’s a few caveats to this, primarily focusing on the types that can’t be trapped (Ghost) or poisoned (Steel, Poison) but those options are still workable with a proper Chandelure.

I just want to say that this is probably the smartest use of the new battle formats that I’ve seen yet. Timing the Protect will be hard, but if that “fighting game skill” is properly executed here (almost as if it’s a parry of some kind) then you gain access to what sounds like a pretty innovative trapping formula. I don’t know how viable this will be in the long term, especially because of Whirlipede’s weakness as a Pokemon, but man this is a good idea.

The Tea with Gallade

Gallade’s making a bit more sense now that I’ve asked around about what the ploy was with him. He can pull duty with Swords Dance if the trainer so desires, and has access to a killer set of Boltbeam-type coverage with:

• Thunder Punch
• Ice Punch
• Brick Break
• Shadow Claw

Thunder Punch covers Gyarados and Skarmory, Ice Punch covers Garchomp, and Drampa, Shadow Claw covers Metagross and Gardevoir, Brick Break covers Umbreon, Drampa, etc. It’s an extremely wide-ranging moveset that has at least some kind of threat towards most of the other options in the meta, so it stands to reason that you’d want Gallade as a “safe switch” if you know your opponent is switching but you’re not sure to what.

Gallade doesn’t have an answer for Clefable though, and so long as Mega Cleffy doesn’t appear Clefable can shut him down hard. And if Gallade is needing to be decisive with his kills, he may swap out one of these moves for Swords Dance… but which threat do you decide not to cover? His attack stat is fine but some threats like Umbreon, Metagross and Skarmory aren’t going to be budged much thanks to immense physical Defense, so do you give up the STAB Brick Break? That’s something the meta will have to shake out for itself, I can’t predict it here.

Skarmory is Getting Noticed, and Prepared For

There’s a healthy number of Electric-types available in this teamsheet, with Ampharos, Jolteon and Pikachu (curiously not Raichu, I’d imagine he’s holding Light Ball) all present, they seem to have kept Skarmory out of the top 2 teamsheets. Actually, aside from Clawitzer I don’t think there’s anything in the top 2 that is weak to Electric. There’s quite a bit outside it, though; a few Gyarados and several Skarmory, and a Greninja somewhere in there too.

This may just be a coincidence, but it may not be. I wouldn’t be hard pressed to conclude that in preparation for an abundance of Water-types and Skarmory, many trainers packed Electric options to counter them, and did so successfully. While the top 2 sheets didn’t have an Electric type, they likely both ran Thunder Punch on Gallade to compensate for that. This teamsheet reads to me, given the common usage of Water-types in the FFA meta and the anticipation of Gyarados, like trainers came prepared for what they expected to fight, even though it wasn’t necessarily what they did fight. You’ll notice that both the Gyarados and the Greninja are on teams that have an Electric type – I figure that’s because they anticipated needing one if there’s a Skarmory response to their Water type.

Metagross as a Lead

I’ve been turning over in my head the question of who the best lead options are in this meta – Garchomp? Metagross? The Gigachad Machamp? Ideally a lead option is one that forces your opponent to either have an option to contend with it through their lead option, or to switch, allowing you to change tactics from the upper hand. So theoretically this would be a Pokemon that is as close to the condition of “no weaknesses, super effectiveness against everything, able to KO in one hit or achieve setup so the next Pokemon can KO in one hit, and immune to status effects” as possible. Of course no such Pokemon exists, but what options might be out there?

Well, Metagross is a good choice. Metagross is weak to Ground, Fire, Dark and Ghost, and those types are mostly easily covered for with a switch. He can shut down stall leads by being immune to poison (though not trapping) so Umbreons hoping to lead have to pack a Dark-type attack or Shadow Ball, which isn’t a huge nerf to their ability to stall but it does shut down some options.

And boy can he shut down options! Metagross resists Normal, Rock, Ice, Grass, Dragon, Fairy, Poison, Psychic, Flying and Steel. If your lead option isn’t packing ammo specifically for him, you’re not going to cut it with neutral typing. You only get Fighting, Bug, Water, Electric neutrals on him (technically Stellar too, which would be wild DLC), and at present it looks like only Water and Electric are of any real usage in the current meta. There’s precious few options that will even go neutral with him should you shrug off those four types.

I’m not 100% certain that Metagross is the best lead pick in this meta, but the winner of the last tournament did start off with him and he does seem pretty incredible on paper. If I’m playing to win, I’m starting off with Metagross and having backup plans for each typing my opponent brings out.

Everyone Agrees on the Water Type, But Not Which One

Clawitzer. Gyarados. Greninja. Slowbro. Starmie. Of the six times the Water-type is represented, the only one that appears twice is Gyarados. Nearly every team has a Water-type specifically, though there’s precious few Ground, Rock, Fire types to beat and plenty of available Electric types being thrown around.

I think the thought process here is that a lot of these Water types are good in their own right for one reason or another, and the Water typing brings great defensive utility to the table since it need only worry about the Electric type (save for that Meganium and Trevenant, I don’t see the Grass-type anywhere). If an Electric type appears, most of these teams pack something specifically designed to deal with it or at least resist it.

Conclusion

Having analyzed this tournament across three posts now, I think I can safely say I’ve learned a few things:

1. Obviously the meta is still figuring itself out.
2. Typings matter, and leads matter. How you respond to both likely determines much of your performance.
3. What everyone brings is not as important as what the winners bring, so pay more attention to Top 8 than overall top usage.
4. There’s a lot of strategies left to be experimented with.

Alright, that wraps that up. See you next Saturday!