What effect did Pokemon have on the metagame?
Once HOME was released and Melmetal was allowed in SwSh, it quickly established itself as one of the most absurdly overpowered mons in OU. In fact, upon its release, it was banned from the tier almost immediately. After being unbanned at the inception of the Crown Tundra metagame, it's no longer the thoroughly broken beast it was back then, but it's still absolutely one of the tier's best mons thanks to its amazing combination of traits. To start, its offensive prowess is completely unmatched - Double Iron Bash is one of the most powerful moves in the game, effectively a 144 BP move when factoring in Iron Fist, tearing through anything that doesn't resist the move and/or have heavy defensive investment. It isn't entirely reliant on DIB, either, as it boasts phenomenal coverage in Earthquake, Superpower, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch, which, alongside DIB, lets it threaten bulky mons like Ferrothorn, Slowking, and Tapu Fini. Melmetal also does well against offensive mons due to its massive bulk - bulk so massive, in fact, that its standard Protective Pads set is only OHKO'd by standard Victini's V-Create 6.3% of the time. This allows it to sponge attacks from offensive mons and threaten them back with its coverage, making it a good emergency check to mons like Dragapult, Bisharp, Tyranitar, Weavile, and several more of the tier's most dangerous offensive threats. Thunder Wave and Toxic can viably be used on Melmetal, which allows it to cripple mons that would otherwise check it such as Buzzwole and Slowbro. In short, Melmetal is a fierce offensive threat whose flexibility allows it to perform consistently.
In what main roles was Pokemon used?
Melmetal was most used on offensive teams, either as a typical slow but powerful threat on bulky offense teams or as a durable wincon on more fast-paced, frailer hyper offense teams. These teams highly value Melmetal's defensive profile with its massive bulk, Stealth Rock resistance, and Toxic immunity, which allows it to reliably threaten stall teams in combination with its support movepool.
What caused it to have a significant impact?
The combination of its monstrous offensive capabilities, defensive profile, and support utilities allowed Melmetal to consistently put in work against many of the tier's best mons. Very few of them could reliable stomach its attacks or had a difficult time breaking through Melmetal themselves, which only allowed it to further take advantage of its traits by forcing teams to utilize multiple mons to threaten it. In addition, its traits make it one of the few Steel types that has a winning matchup against Magnezone.
How do/did you deal with this Pokemon in OU?
Toxapex is probably Melmetal's best check, as it can burn Melmetal with Scald, recover damage with Regenerator and Recover, isn't 2HKO'd by Thunder Punch, and is immune to Toxic. However, it does take quite a bit of damage from Earthquake if Melmetal decides to run it. Even still. Melmetal teams must have mons that can reliably deal with Toxapex. As mentioned before, mons like Buzzwole and Slowbro can check Melmetal if it lacks Toxic. Buzzwole can recover the damage it takes through Drain Punch and Slowbro is similar to Toxapex as can burn it with Scald, recovering damage it sustained with Regenerator. Air Balloon Heatran is a good emergency check as its standard specially defensive set is never OHKO'd by Superpower and can threaten Melmetal with Magma Storm. However, it can't directly switch into Melmetal since otherwise, its Air Balloon will pop.
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