Hello, Rosey here! I'm excited to work as part of the brand-new council! We're hard at work ironing out the metagame and there's a lot of things we're keeping an eye on, so any feedback from the community is highly appreciated!
I figured I'd do a quick post highlighting the threats of the metagame mentioned at the very top of our watchlist. Mostly talking about the common roles they perform and/or what makes them so powerful.
The master of spikes itself, Deoxys-Defense. Similar to Deoxys Speed in its short tenure in the metagame, this can use a fast
hazard lead set with ghost STAB, taunt, spikes, and its 4th slot can be all sorts of incredible utility moves. It can allow powerful breakers into favorable positions with Teleport, it can set the extra hazard with Stealth Rock, it can stifle Magic Bounce with Skill Swap, it can cripple opponents by Knocking Off their crucial item or paralyzing them with Thunder Wave. The
pivot is also fantastic, using Teleport as a defensive tool to stomach hits for its teammates while having many opportunities to set spikes, This typing while amazing defensively also allows it to parry many hazard removers as one of the premiere spinblockers and also can deal with defoggers by virtue of Pressure. The only depressing story is that it cannot run the Colbur Berry alongside items that increase its longevity like Leftovers or Heavy-Duty-Boots. But still, being in the conversation for best spikes user in Camo is a fine place to be when spikes are so powerful in this meta.
Surviving the Booster ban is Iron Boulder. Even without Booster speed, its regular speed is fantastic, and in this metagame it can trade out its defensively mediocre base typing for types like
or
, giving it a much more palatable defensive typing that can stomach a lot of common priority moves and hand Boulder free setup opportunities, and both of these types are quite impressive offensively as well. It won't turn down STAB Close Combat + a STAB move that hits fairy for big damage very often. Though weaker than a lot of potential fighting types, it's still deceptively powerful with Swords Dance, Life Orb, and great coverage like I mentioned before.
Debatably one of if not the best pokemon in the tier right now. Excellent speed, tons of power, so many types/sets it can be that I could put them all into its own separate post. It even got some buffs in the form of a much more powerful Luster Purge that now makes Psychic STAB worth running as well as gaining Flip Turn. And unlike when it was banned in gen 8 Camo, it has access to Calm Mind. (For now, anyway.) Its excellent at forcing progress and can sometimes be genuinely difficult to deduce at team preview with its movepool and set variety. The only thing that remains consistent about Latios no matter what hat it wears is that it'll hit fast and hit hard, the question remains whether its balanced or not, however.
Palafin hardly needs an introduction, while most of the pokemon near the top of the threats list are Indigo Disk additions or got buffs from either DLC wave, Palafin was a terror from day 1, earning itself a ban, and now recently reintroduced into the tier. While many additions have been made that should slow Palafin down on paper, it has remained a top threat and at the top of the watchlist. It has all the
moves it needs with Jet Punch, Wave Crash, and Flip Turn. It also makes incredible use of it's secondary STAB slot, being able to take any type that bolsters it offensively, defensively, or parries counters to common sets like its Choice Band set. Palafin recently has been utilizing its expansive movepool to turn pokemon like Alomomola and
Necrozma to its advantage, turning them into setup fodder with
Bulk Up or making them switch out of alternative takes on the band set with an uncommon STAB move that hits them hard. Before it got banned as a one-trick pony with a really good trick but remains on the watchlist now because of its ability to change its gameplan.
The strangest, most unorthodox pokemon at the top of the watchlist at a first glance, but quick to see why it's so deserving of this spot. A simple
set with Adaptability is its flagship, constantly throwing out powerful moves with few resists to this combination in sight. The biggest buff it's received in the new gen is so unassuming, but deadly. With the buffs from Hail to Snow, and that weather condition being set by an excellent pivot in Slowking (Or it's Galar form) just using its signature pivoting move. This allows Porygon access to an excellent new STAB with perfect accuracy Blizzards, Adaptability turning up their power to the extreme, and often using Choice Specs or Nasty Plot to add a capital E to that Extreme. If that wasn't enough, its near perfect coverage and power allows it a lot of access to support moves, like using Trick on the Choice Specs set or using Substitute on a non-choice-locked set to take advantage of passive walls that might be inclined to switch into Porygon's powerful STABS, these moves lowering Porygon's check counter even further. Its one of the harder pokemon here to use because its desire to run ice type can leave it open defensively and make it weak to hazards, but when it goes off it's so incredibly suffocating offensively that it's earned it's place on the watchlist.
There are many pokemon under the microscope of the new council, but these are probably among the most dominant and currently pressing within early Indigo Disk testing. I encourage the playerbase to use these pokemon themselves and give further feedback on how they feel to play with and against.
I figured I'd do a quick post highlighting the threats of the metagame mentioned at the very top of our watchlist. Mostly talking about the common roles they perform and/or what makes them so powerful.
There are many pokemon under the microscope of the new council, but these are probably among the most dominant and currently pressing within early Indigo Disk testing. I encourage the playerbase to use these pokemon themselves and give further feedback on how they feel to play with and against.