by Doc – Owner, Founder, GET ME A 9-VOLT BATTERY AND A VERY TRUSTING PIKACHU
The third Legends Z-A 1v1 tournament wrapped up last Saturday, and let’s just say there are some very noticeable trends in the top eight team sheets. Fortunately for us, this was the first tournament requiring an open team sheet allowing us to get deep in the weeds on the strategies at play.
Overall, this is the first tournament to not see so much extreme change from week to week – there’s a few small surprises in here, like that Bellsprout that made me laugh when I saw it but actually did see some proper use, but by and large most of what you’ll see in this team sheet is a return customer. Here’s the overall top 8 teams, and here’s the link to the brackets.
Skarmory is Top Tier
Well… that answers that question. Of the top eight, six teams (not seven – count them) ran Skarmory or Mega Skarmory. I would imagine that the primary utility of Mega-ing Mega Skarmory is actually the animation for Mega Evolution itself, as most Skarmory counters only seem to run one move to check Skarmory so if Skarmory reads that a Fire or Electric attack is coming, he can simply Mega Evolve and use Drill Run or Brave Bird to KO his check. That’s just a guess, though.
There’s a surprising amount of variety in what Skarmory is running – the first place Skarmory held the Mega Stone and ran:
- Drill Run
- Swords Dance
- Fly
- Brave Bird
The second place Skarmory held Rocky Helmet and ran:
- Stealth Rock
- Drill Run
- Steel Wing
- Protect
Lower placing Skarmory ran Curse as well, likely to boost stats. This is a pretty wide set of options. It looks to me like Drill Peck is a practically guaranteed move, as that’s what is going to cut down Skarmory counters, but beyond that your choices for a secondary attack seem to be Steel Wing or Brave Bird, the mandatory Protect, and Swords Dance, Curse or Stealth Rock as your final option. And of course, you would want to run the Mega Evolution option or the Rocky Helmet option depending on whether you anticipate your Skarmory being attacked with physical moves like Thunder Punch or Fire Punch, or whether you prioritize keeping your Skarmory alive at the expense of using your one Mega Evolution option to do that.
If there was ever a time for Alolan Raichu to come back and be useful with Volt Switch, Thunder and Thunderbolt…
Infestation is More Top Tier
Having said all that, there’s another pattern that emerges. It ties in very closely with the surge of Infestation users and stall users. If you saw last week’s tournament, you know that Whirlipede was used for an Infestation team, where the opponent was locked into using their Pokémon currently on the field by Infestation, and they couldn’t switch out. Well, it gets worse: running Infestation and Toxic together results in a very short life for the afflicted. The logical solution to this is a Steel type Pokémon, right?
Nope. Let’s say you spot, because of the new open team sheets rule, that your opponent is running an Infestation option. The game begins, they switch to their Infestation option, and you don’t want to get the Infestation and Toxic affliction you’re anticipating, so you throw out a Steel type. Great! You still get hit with Infestation, keeping you from switching, but at least you’re immune to Toxic so you can put up a fight.
This doesn’t work because your opponent has free rein to swap in whatever is going to counter that Steel type (or, if you wanted to avoid Infestation, the Ghost type) you just put up. If it’s Metagross, they’ll throw in a Fire type or Chandelure. If it’s Skarmory, they’ll throw in an Electric type… Or Chandelure. Let’s say you wanted to be a Sigma male and use Excadrill… Chandelure again. This strategy is all Chandelure, all the way down. And even if Chandelure is banned, it’s not hard to find something else to beat Steel types.
Once they’ve defeated your answer to Infestation, it’s dead. It’s done. You don’t have an answer to Infestation, but they probably have a backup (such as Scolipede or Bellsprout) Infester to use on your next Pokemon, so you don’t really have the option to trade your Infestation answer for their Infester, either.
Oh yeah, there’s also three teams running this in the top eight of the last tournament now, so that’s fun. Can’t blame them! It’ll take some time to find a counter for this, if there is one.
And Umbreon Too?
The winner of the tournament, imvash., posted a clip demonstrating how his extra small-sized Umbreon can basically completely dodge physical attacks. The way it works is that he sets up both screens, and as his opponent is trying to use Brick Break, the opponent’s Pokémon has to stop to take the swing. Well, his Umbreon is so small that it simply moves away from the opponent’s Pokémon which has now stopped to take the swing.
You’ve gotta admit this is pretty funny. This is probably the first time in a Pokemon game where your Pokemon’s size rating actually matters, and it’s resulted in Umbreon being able to just ignore what would otherwise be his worst nightmare. Umbreon is a screen setter, weak to Fighting. Brick Break is a Fighting-type attack that breaks screens. Umbreon sticks out his tongue at Brick Break because he’s too dang small!
I’ll admit… I could see a scenario where Umbreon and/or Infestation do end up dominating the meta. If you’re not stalling with an extra small Umbreon that sets up both screens, uses Toxic on its opponent and has Protect, and if you don’t have Whirlipede in the back… you should probably get one. In theory, these options seem like they’d be really good. Of course, most Infestation users have a glaring weakness – Whirlipede is double weak to Fire, for example – and we haven’t had the time to explore that weakness yet, and Umbreon is of course extremely tanky, so I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two counters emerged. There’s been discussions of bans occurring, but this is a new meta and not enough people are relying on these strats exclusively yet. I’m not opposed to ban discussions if it can be demonstrated there’s no counterplay, or that the best counterplay available is garbage, but as a matter of philosophy we should at least get more data so as to avoid a premature conclusion. Let’s at least give it a week to see.
Besides – there’s no agreement on the optimal Umbreon set. Here’s what all of the Umbreon were running:
Imvash:
- Rocky Helmet
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Snarl
- Moonlight
Viathan:
- Rocky Helmet
- Knock Off
- Moonlight
- Taunt
- Toxic
Nilouuu:
- Sitrus Berry
- Toxic
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Wish
One wonders if banning screens for Umbreon might solve the Umbreon issue? Or perhaps even requiring Umbreons to be Alpha Pokemon, though how that would be verified would have to be on the honor system. I’m generally coming from a place where the minimum necessary bans are appropriate, so banning a Pokemon outright shouldn’t be the first option.
Is Metagross Still Meta?
Well… I’m not really sure of the answer to that question. He’s definitely good, and he will continue to be good until the DLC drops at least. But if everyone is running Skarmory, and they’re also prepared to run a counter to their opponent’s Skarmory, does Metagross have as much of a place as a Steel type?
I think he does, but he’s not the number one best Steel type anymore, and it’s not clear to me what role he plays besides just having good stats as a generalist. The fact that the top two teams weren’t running Metagross seems like a good indicator of that, and you’ll notice that much of the rest of top eight came prepared with a Garchomp (and that three teams ran both Garchomp and Metagross). So you’ve already got people packing to kill Skarmory, and they’ve got Garchomp to kill Metagross and any Fire and Electric types that are coming after their Skarmory… This doesn’t look too good for Metagross.
I do get a kick out of everyone packing Garchomp now; it’s like the meta just accepted that Garchomp is a requirement for one reason or another so it’s gotta be somewhere in the teamsheet.
Chandelure Counters
Curiously, the “old guard” of the meta that seemed to be popular 3 weeks ago does still have a place. Both Garchomp and Gyarados can function as hypothetical effective counters to Chandelure, or at least checks on it, so I don’t think they’re completely counted out. Garchomp is probably the more effective overall between the two in a hypothetical matchup.
Right now a lot of the focus/ire of the meta is on Infestation and Umbreon stall, but if those options get banned/countered I think Chandelure does become Public Enemy #1 eventually, so long as the DLC doesn’t come before that happens.
What’s up with Delphox?
Well, we didn’t really see anything from Delphox. We saw just the one by Oliwier, who incidentally is a pretty consistent good player. There was speculation that Mega Delphox wouldn’t actually amount to anything, but noticeably, he did run Mega Delphox. I don’t know if he used it… But hey, it’s there. He ran:
- Flamethrower
- Nasty Plot
- Psychic
- Dazzling Gleam
No doubt to capitalize on forcing a switch if any Skarmory or Metagross or Whirlipede were running as lead Pokémon. And if they ran Garchomp, Dazzling Gleam takes care of that.
I think the newfound prevalence of Infestation and Skarmory, both weak to Fire, puts Delphox (or at least, any good Fire type, including Chandelure) in a unique scenario as a potential check on many of the best threats in the meta. They don’t cover Umbreon, which we will discuss in a second, but they cover most everything else. I don’t see Delphox being particualrly consequential in the meta, at least no more than Chandelure or another generic Fire-type, but if this meta does turn into an Infestation + Steel-type focused meta then having a providence of useful Fire-types will keep both those options from getting too popular, hopefully.
Galarian Slowking
Curiously there were two Galarian Slowking users, both running very different sets. The first one was Oliwier, with a Sitrus Berry, running:
- Surf
- Psychic
- Sludge Wave
- Toxic
The second one being Nilouuu who ran Assault Vest with:
- Sludge Bomb
- Flamethrower
- Psyshock
- Ice Beam
I’ve not had the chance to ask them why they ran those sets, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the general thought process was as a catch-all, BoltBeam-type role much like what we discussed with Gallade last week where the intention is to switch to something that can be super effective against whatever you throw it at. I’m not convinced that Galarian Slowking is better than other discussed options for that role like Drampa or Gallade but hey… it’s worth a shot.
Gyarados Isn’t Sunk
Look, I’m really attached to the notion that Gyarados is going to be a top tier in this meta forever. I’m biased. I’ll own it. But you’ve gotta admit… It sure looks like he’s at least relevant here. I’m not entirely sure why, but he is. In top eight there are three Gyarados that are being ran – they all run Waterfall and Bounce as moves, and two of the three were holding the Expert Belt, and between Ice Fang, Iron Head, Bounce, and Crunch there were several other options that he could surprise the opponent with. He seems like he’s presenting as a glass cannon option, he just doesn’t have an obvious target in the meta to fire on now that Garchomp is taking a back seat to Infest and Umbreon.
Gyarados is kind of weird because he’s obviously massively weak to the Electric type, so most people packing an Electric answer to Skarmory will have an answer to Gyarados… But the ones only packing a Fire type answer will find themselves suffering from Gyarados. I don’t have much to add after making that point, as I just don’t know specifically what he adds besides being a Water type. But I’m happy for him.
Overall
I’m noticing that these roles are starting to emerge:
- Skarmory is on every team as the go-to switch for Infestation
- Umbreon is the survivalist who stalls out a match once the trainer has the point advantage
- Whirlipede/Scolipede are the Infestation users who force a lead to switch to their anti-Infestation option
- Garchomp is the definitive best Ground type
- Gyarados is most likely the best Water type, we’ll see how Clawitzer turns out
- Ampharos is the only Electric type in top eight, so he’s the best Electric type
- Bellsprout is there as the game winning, meta defining, tournament deciding, all important extremely powerful secret top tier that puts hair on your chest and makes you very hunky
- Chandelure is anti-Infestation option #1
- Curiously, no lead has yet been defined as being the best option
Of course no team matches this pattern perfectly, as even the winners used some unusual off meta choices (Hippowdon?), but I do think this core set is the set to keep an eye on until either DLC drops or, like what happened with Diancie this week, a new Pokémon is released that changes this. If the base game of Legends Z-A is going to have a meta, it’s going to start with these guys.
Amiibo Doctor 