Metagame Scootopia

[Scoopapa]

Scootopia V.2

​

Welcome to Scootopia Version 2! This metagame is currently in the Solomod PL. This thread is mostly for me to post about any balance changes that may happen, although anyone is free to post their thoughts on the metagame if they want.

New Mechanic: Super Types

New Mechanic: Super Types

Super types allow a pokemon to replace their secondary type with one of two powerful new types: Crystal or Feral.​

- A pokemon's secondary type will change if they are holding either a Crystal Orb or a Feral Orb.
- This change happens right before the first time they switch in.
- Only one pokemon on a team can gain a Super Type.
- These items cannot be removed in battle. They also boost moves of their corresponding type by 20%.
- Crystal- and Feral-type moves can only be used by pokemon with the matching type.

Type Matchups

Crystal is a defensively inclined type. It shares some matchups in common with Rock, and some of its matchups are based on its light-scattering properties. Water and Ground are resisted because they play crucial roles in forming various kinds of crystals.

Defensive:
Immune to: Burn Status, Sandstorm
Resists: Normal, Water, Fire, Ground, Rock, Dark, Crystal, Feral
Weak to: Electric, Fighting, Steel
Offensive:
Strong Against: Fire, Dark, Ghost
Resisted By: Electric, Fighting, Steel, Crystal

Feral is an offensively inclined type. Its matchups mostly revolve around wreaking havoc on the environment, while being weak to natural hazards and particularly fearsome beasts. The mutual resist between Feral and Ghost references the Normal type.

Defensive:
Immune to: Sleep Status
Resists: Ice, Ghost, Fairy
Weak to: Fire, Poison, Dragon
Offensive:
Strong Against: Normal, Grass, Water, Flying, Bug, Fairy
Resisted By: Fire, Ghost, Dragon, Crystal

Super Type Moves

These moves can only be used by pokemon with the corresponding Super Type.

Crystal Cutter	Physical	50 BP | 15 PP | Always Crits, User recovers 50% of damage dealt	Contact, Slicing
Crystal Tail	Physical	120 BP | 5 PP | 85% Acc. | 20% to Drop Atk	Contact
Crystal Bash	Physical	100 BP | 10 PP | 10% to drop Atk	Contact
Crystal Beam	Special	90 BP | 15 PP | 30% to drop SpA
Crystal Cage	Special	85 BP | 10 PP | 80% Acc. | Traps and damages for 4-5 turns.
Crystal Burst	Special	120 BP | 5 PP | Lowers user's SpA by 1 stage.
Crystal Healing	Status	Cures the team's Status and starts effect similar to Aqua Ring
Crystal Fortification	Status	User gains +1 Def and +1 SpD, clears negative stat changes
Crystal Shard	Status	Sets a layer of Spikes

Feral Bite	Physical	90 BP | 15 PP | 30% chance to Poison	Contact, Biting
Feral Shred	Physical	20 BP | 15 PP | Hits twice, lowers Def by 1 on each hit	Contact
Feral Rush	Physical	120 BP | 10 PP | User takes 1/3 recoil, 20% to drop Def	Contact
Feral Shriek	Special	90 BP | 15 PP | Sound move | 20% to lower foe's SpD	Sound
Feral Power	Special	110 BP | 5 PP | Lowers user's SpD by 1
Feral Breath	Special	80 BP | 15 PP | 60% to lower SpD by 1	Wind
Feral Healing	Status	User recovers 25% HP and heals its status conditions
Feral Spray	Status	Foe: Poisoned, User: +1 Atk, +1 SpA
Feral Resilience	Status	User: Status cured, +1 Atk, +1 SpA

Other Mechanics Changes

Sleep: Sleep-inducing moves only last 1 turn, but are more accurate. Rest and Yawn last 2 turns. Sleeping pokemon have halved Spe. No Sleep Clause.
Freeze: Special variant of Burn, essentially Frostbite from PL:A. Sheer Cold is now a Will-o-Wisp clone that inflicts Freeze.

--Spreadsheet--
(You may find the "Super Type Defensive Combos" page to be quite useful when building)​

 

[Scoopapa]

Reserved for VR

 

[Scoopapa]

--Replays--

Solomod PL
Week 1
Paulluxx vs. Gekokeso
Dex vs. M0onStarr
Beaf Cultist vs. Snak

Week 2
Snak vs. M0onstarr
Gekokeso vs. Beaf Cultist
Dex vs. Paulluxx

Other Replays
Gekokeso vs. Evil Beaf Cultist​

 

[Scoopapa]

Week 1 Recap:

The major takeaway from this week was Soleron being the unequivocal best mon in the format. It appeared on most teams and usually put in a lot of work. However, while Soleron is not easy to deal with, most of its theoretically best countermeasures never hit the field this week. While I consider it suspect-worthy, it's not enough to stray from my plan of allowing 2 weeks between any major patch. I'd like to see how people adapt to Soleron next week before potentially nerfing it. It's not like the tier is stagnant already - it should still be an interesting week.

Post Week 1 Balance Patch:

-Corundell gains Lightningrod

I don't expect this to be a major change, but as I said before, I'm not looking to make a major change at the moment. This should give another way of blocking Volt Switch, though, on a Pokemon that walls Soleron's other moves. Nobody used this pokemon this week (it simply doesn't look that good on paper) but with a good matchup vs. the best Pokemon in the tier, I think it will be worthy of consideration now. It has good Special Rock-type moves (Meteor Beam and Revelation Dance) if you're wondering what to do with it.

Other Options to check Soleron:

SpD Cinnastar:
While it can't block Volt Switch, it will not get chipped down by it thanks to Regenerator. Cinnastar offers Stealth Rock and Mortal Spin support. It also has a good coverage and utility if running Assault Vest.

SpD Electangle:
Although it doesn't appreciate Heat Wave and doesn't block Volt Switch, it's won't get 2HKOed by Heat Wave and takes nothing from the other moves. Electangle has been very consistent as a defensive pivot in my experience, so it shouldn't be a drag on your team and will improve your matchup. It also sets Stealth Rock. Despite its low offenses, attacks like Gyro Ball, Body Press, and Volt Switch serve it well.

Wind Rider Zeploom:
Another Pokemon that people understandably didn't go for, but it hard walls Hurricane, Heat Wave, and Electric moves. It may seem toothless but it has slow U-turn, a signature move with percentage-based chip damage, and Toxic. It also provides Stealth Rock or Defog support. In my experience it is much better in practice than it looks on paper, and can certainly be slotted into a bulkier build.

Elemadillo:
Elemadillo is not a safe switch-in, despite walling Soleron's STABs, but it's here because it outspeeds both forms. Specs is viable, but if you're really trying to punish Soleron, Feral Elemadillo will OHKO it and in general should make for a strong Feral type, having good coverage alongside Feral in STAB Flash Cannon for Crystal types and Earth Power for Fire and Poison types. It can also boost SpA while Poisoning the opponent with Feral Spray.

None of these are perfect counters. They either have flaws in their ability to deal with Soleron (Electangle, Elemadillo, Cinnastar) or are pokemon you might not otherwise run (Zeploom, Corundell), but I think the tools may be there to build teams that aren't walked all over by Soleron. At any rate I want to see what preparing for Soleron looks like before I decide what needs to change.

 

[Scoopapa]

Edit: These changes are pending for Week 4. They won't be active in week 3.

Week 2 Recap:
If I'm honest no particular trend was spotted. Soleron didn't really pop off, and when talking to players, opinions on it are mixed. I've gotten pretty different opinions on other specific pokemon (such as Crystal Krachiten) and some players have called out pokemon that nobody else seems to have noticed. I don't want to say too much about those pokemon but these changes should (slightly) mitigate most concerns I have.

Post Week 2 Balance Patch:
All that being said I had a Pokemon in the wings that addresses almost every public and private concern that me or others have had. That plus a couple small buffs seeks to address the issue with Ground-type options. I hope this isn't too much to drop in a mid-tour patch but here it is anyway:

New Pokemon: Eleqwil
Type: Electric / Ground
Abilities: Mold Breaker / Iron Barbs | Bulletproof (HA)
Stats: 78 / 101 / 91 / 45 / 108 / 37
Notable Moves: Earthquake, Wild Charge, Volt Switch, Knock Off, Dragon Tail, Slack Off, Spikes,

There was just an issue with the Ground-type options we had, specifically when it came to dealing with the available Electric types. There are some other Pokemon on my radar that this helps against as well. If this bricks Soleron I could roll back some other changes, but I want to try it for now.

Nunopod

Typing is reordered to Ground/Bug

Allows it to run Ground/Crystal or Ground/Feral.

Zeploom

Energy Siphon Duration increased to 5 turns.

I just want to see this move used :(

 

[Scoopapa]

I've decided not to do the above changes, for a few reasons:
- Opinions are heavily split on anything considered a suspect.
- Some Pokemon or sets have gone crazy in a game or two but none have been consistently crazy (although some made their first showing in Week 3)
- I don't want to shake things up if it's not necessary.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Hello fellow Scootopians. Gonna do a tour breakdown post now that Suicunes have been knocked out (we were robbed!!) I'm pretty happy with my record overall. I think Scoot was easily one of the most stacked metas in the tour player-wise, so going 3-2 in a meta I had no prior experience with (and building all my own teams, too!) was a very acceptable result for me. Anyway, let's get into the games.

Week 1 vs Snak [W]
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9scootopia-3148-ejzk47yl2z7jagq6nrtqf0skpip6w91pw

MuabBoa was the first mon that stood out to me upon opening the builder. Originally, I had intended on bringing a Feral Orb set, but I didn't realize Feral Orb & Crystal Orb shared the same "one per team" restriction, so I swapped it out for a Life Orb set (equally unwallable). Soleron ended up stealing the show on both sides this game tho, with Snak's almost running away with the game only to be stopped by an unlucky speed tie with my own. Forgive my insane Jaegorm set - fsr I was dead set on pairing Future Sight with Muab.

Week 2 vs Gekokeso [L]
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9scootopia-3304-12hr8gvrqe2q3diu7pnbi3o69g0twp4pw

Coming off the Soleron hype from Week 1, I was pretty confident that everyone would be prepping for it, but my mistake was assuming that my Super Heat Tech of running U-Turn over Volt Switch would be enough to get past Geko's Soleron cteam. Without offensive pressure from Soleron, my team had no real way of handling Krachiten, so the game was pretty much decided on preview. This was also the game that convinced me Cinnastar is a shitmon.

Week 3 vs Paulluxx [L]
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9scootopia-3429

Not too much to say about this week. I wanted to build stall, but the team I made was untested and ended up being pretty shit, so Feral Platypad (brokemon btw) cleaned me up pretty handily.

Week 4 vs M0onstarr [W]
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...pia-3533-26cxvokp04kv7yvm34fr8vrb1u1juv2pw?p2

After two losses in a row, I wasn't feeling very willing to experiment, so I threw together a nice, simple screens HO team, featuring the Feral MuabBoa set I'd had to drop from my Week 1 team. Moon ended up bringing a Snow offense squad, and the offense mirror went about how you would expect it to (with Muab once again doing jack shit!!!) This game was super close, and I definitely feel like my opponent could've won with just a few different plays, but finally taking another dub helped buoy me into Week 5.

Week 5 vs dex [W]
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9scootopia-3869-l74rmt6rdal2psvbqbd8h7tg78vezfvpw

The stall player in me felt absolutely horrible about my performance in Week 3, and I really wanted to revisit that squad at some point in the future. Well, dex pretty much exclusively runs offense, so this week gave me the perfect opportunity for that! After some test games and a few movepool tweaks, the squad felt much better put together, and I was able to pilot it to victory against dex's Snow offense squad (what is it with folks bringing these teams against me?) Leech Seed Cobracotta was a super last-minute addition but ended up being hugely useful, so shoutouts to that mon.


That's all I've got for my performance, but I also wanna rattle off some quick-fire thoughts on the meta as a whole, and some particular mons that caught my attention, so here's that.

- Soleron and Elemadillo are probably broken. Electric resists are few and far between and both of these mons pretty much mandate hard counters on every team in order to prevent them from making progress. This also isn't helped by the fact that much of their more reliable counterplay (Cinnastar, Electangle, etc.) are either pretty terrible mons or are locked to bulky playstyles.

- The one exception to the above is Zeploom. Mon isn't nearly as passive as you would expect and is also the most consistent counterplay for both of the above, so you can generally just slap it on a team if you're struggling with the Electrics.

- Jaegorm is a very good mon, and anyone who says otherwise just isn't running it right.

- Brawnkey is stupid, mainly for how it completely invalidates mons like Cinnastar. Would be very open to a nerf for this mon in the future.

- I couldn't get it to work, but MuabBoa is absolutely broken, and I'm waiting for the right player to come along and prove it so I can brag about being the first guy to discover it.

- Crystal Orb Kodokai is a CRAZY good defensive mon. Mon hard carried my stall squad to the point where I literally don't know if stall would be usable in the meta without it (Feral Orb moment).

- Rantler is absolutely terrifying. Snow offense in general seems very consistent and Rantler is by far the best abuser, with its perfect coverage - and Slush Rush when weather wars are essentially nonexistent - being extremely hard to prep for.

- There are a lot of mons that seem pretty subpar in my opinion. I think post-tour if there was interest in a big meta shakeup, these are some mons I think have underperformed and could use a buff: Aurorowl, Blunderbusk, Carapex, Fenreil, Flocura, Lumoth, Minillow, Pythos, Roscenti.


In conclusion, I enjoyed playing Scootopia a lot! There are definitely some things I think could be changed from a balancing standpoint, but overall I had fun both building teams and playing matches, and I'd definitely be willing to play more Scoot in the future. If other Solomods are this good I might seriously consider giving them a try lol.