All Gens Current Metagame Trends / How the metas have changed

[Shadow_Sneak]

Hello! Seeing as how the metas have developed I wanted to make a thread on certain metagame trends seen in play for all old gens instead of making four different trends. I feel as though newer players have trouble learning whats popular at the time they start playing old gens. The "past gen resource archive"s can only teach you so much. So in general I think that newer players to a respective old gen could benefit from this thread.

As for how the metas have changed this is mostly a question to the rby/bw/ maybe adv crowd. Mainly because gsc hasn't changed since the unbanning of hp legends and dpp ou hasn't changed for a while too. ADV and RBY have had some effects on the meta recently with some new mechanics being discovered. (Which probably affected rby more, but hey how did the mechanic change in adv change the meta?) The B/W 2 metagame has changed quite a bit due to the sun ban and the bringing back of a couple of mons. It would be nice to know how the metas have changed and the current trends. (I didn't want to make 5 independent threads for this .)

 

[FNH]

There was a huge change in the transition period of BW1 to BW2 but I wasn't around for that period. BW though has changed a bit with the reintroducing of Excadrill to help beat the dominant style of sand. Excadrill did though begin to bring about the end of the sand offense teams as long as you don't run sand yourself. Yet they still run Breloom who revenge kills him. One of the biggest turns or changes in BW recently is the "re-discovering" of Hydriegon. Him being reinvented really allowed teams to put offensive pressure on slower, bulky sand builds, and dominate stall teams through the usage of taunt. The Air Balloon SD sand rush set really can late game clean and break sand balance builds if played well but most team still run Skarmory Breelom(mach Punch) or Landorus-T (as long as you run Superpower). But overall BW is still dominated by the T-tar/Spikes stack/Reuniclus/Alakazam/Spinblock/Filler.

 

[Apollo.]

BW hasn't changed too much even with the reintroducing of Excadrill.

Excadrill can find himself on rain teams which will be able to be used as rapid spinner for something like Volcarona/Moltres or just for help Tornadus/Thundurus-T and to remove EH from the field (SR,Spikes), SD + Air Balloon is really good because most of time Skarmory (which is the main counter on Sand teams) will be overhelmed by rain team (it can only check Scizor,Tornadus which can u-turn out to gain momentum) which will mean the fact that Excadrill can be used as decent cleaner against defensive Sand Teams. However main Excadrill problem its his bulk,i'll explain myself : Jirachi,Ferrothorn which are common mon in rain teams can all counter Lati@s (and Hydreigon for Jirachi) with ease, Scizor can trapkill Lati@s or just try to get the momentum by using U-turn. Excadrill can't check or even pressure Lati@s (which is really bad for a steel type) and can't be used to take Draco Meteor and this is why he is inferior to other steel types in rain teams.


Offensive Sand Teams have really huge problem with Excadrill since there are anything which can really check him under the sand. Breloom can revenge kill him by using Mach Punch, Rotom-W can check him if he have enough health, Landorus-T can check him if he is using Superpower (but you will loose an important coverage move : Stone Edge which will allow you to hit thing like Dragonite for super effective damage but without it you will be not able to revenge kill him very vell, Hidden Power Ice which will allow you to hit Garchomp,Dragonite and opposing Landorus-T for super effective damage,however,you will not be able to revenge kill very well Dragonite because sometime he is holding the Yache Berry). They have huge problem with him, when Kingdra or Kabutops (rain sweeper) can't be used on a Sand Team for exemple because they don't really have utility on it, Excadrill can work well on rain team and can threat offensive Sand Teams.

Venusaur was an really important mon on Sun teams : Sleep Power,High speed under the sand,good coverage and acces to Growth. Without him, Sun teams are like dead.