by Doc – Owner, Founder, Just Glad Gyarados Crunch Made It In Life
The 5th and likely final Legends Z-A 1v1 tournament before the DLC releases in 2 weeks just concluded, and it’s easy to say that I think this is as far as this meta goes until we get the DLC. However… I’m not so sure about that! While the tournament itself was pretty small, having been a five-person round robin, there were a handful of interesting innovations occurring inside the existing meta framework that are worth mentioning, and I hope the content I’ve produced on this so far is revisited when the DLC comes out and this meta is largely revived.
Here’s the tournament bracket:
Mega Gyarados
Yes, Gyarados made it! Mega Gyarados was the Water type of choice in the winner’s team, running:
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Crunch
Let’s just say I am a very happy camper.
I’ll get on my soapbox for a second and talk about Gyarados Crunch – while Gyarados does have access to Earthquake, and his limit to four move slots does result in having to consider trade-offs between moves, Gyarados Crunch allows him an opportunity to cover certain threats that otherwise he couldn’t cover. While Earthquake allows him to cover Metagross and Chandelure which Crunch would allow him to cover anyway, he can also hit just about anyone else for neutral type coverage… Including Skarmory. Skarmory resists everything else Gyarados can throw at him, if I remember correctly, so that’s really his one lifeline when he’s stuck in that matchup.
Gyarados Crunch is kind of a meme for me, but honestly I think it’s worth running.
Ampharos Fights For His Life
Ampharos is of course still the prime Electric type in the meta, but two other Electric types have been ran. The first is Raichu, taking point in Angel’s team sheet as the lead, running an extremely wide moveset:
- Dig
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
It’s a BoltBeam setup but it specializes in countering Skarmory with two Electric type moves, so even if Skarmory protects against the first one the second one will still hit and threaten him. And of course Dig and Surf are there for coverage. It’s quite fitting considering Angel won the first tournament with Alolan Raichu, a Pokémon I have been interested in ever since.
The other Pokémon is Eelektross. Eelektross runs:
- Charge
- Bulk Up
- Wild Charge
- Outrage
I’m not entirely sure why this moveset was chosen aside from it possibly being intended as a direct challenge to both Skarmory and Garchomp in one move slot. A setup like this allows it to sweep if one or both of its moves will connect, as well. Eelektross will certainly need to be looked at for future Electric usage if it proved useful here.
Sylveon
Sylveon made it to first place as well, having held the Assault Vest and run the moves:
- Moonblast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
Of course this moveset focuses extremely heavily on the special attack side of things, and it seems intended for anything not beefy on the special defense side. I’d be curious to see how well it worked for that team.
Gallade is a Bro
Gallade makes his prominent return in two of the five teams, having run:
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Stone Edge
- Teleport
…in the fifth place team and swapping Teleport for Double Team in the third place team.
I’m curious to see whether Gallade continues to be a useful BoltBeam attacker down the line, as previous iterations of him ran:
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- Brick Break
- Shadow Claw
There’s clearly a lot of variety here and, like Clefable, he can probably cover everything one way or another.
At the end of the day
At the end of the day this meta is still largely pinned down by Skarmory, Metagross, Garchomp, and Chandelure, with Ampharos and Chandelure acting as a check on a good chunk of the meta. While I don’t think this meta would ever be close to solved, we don’t have that kind of time – the DLC releases in about 3 weeks or so! Even with the large number of legendaries coming our way, I’d imagine this will be a colossal shake up.
Amiibo Doctor 