★ VGC 2023 Metagame Discussion: Regulation E

[Choruto]

Played a few rounds of bo3 on showdown and got obliterated almost every time. Really struggling to teambuild in this meta. Anyone have any good Metagross cores?

Also haven’t tried it yet but I like the idea of Decorate Smeargle.

isen't something you can really build around. Its weak to a lot of the meta (Off the top of my head it doesen't really like , , , , , etc), and while steel/psychic is nice it doesen't hit much very effectively and its movepool is pretty limited and doesen't hit nearly as hard as you think.

252+ Atk Metagross Psychic Fangs vs. 44 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid Strike: 164-194 (90.6 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Like, seriously? Not even a clean OHKO. just teras anyways and now your screwed

I think it could be nice as a MU patcher against balance stuff but honestly its quite underwhelming and I dont see its usage picking up very much steam

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

isen't something you can really build around. Its weak to a lot of the meta (Off the top of my head it doesen't really like , , , , , etc), and while steel/psychic is nice it doesen't hit much very effectively and its movepool is pretty limited and doesen't hit nearly as hard as you think.

252+ Atk Metagross Psychic Fangs vs. 44 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid Strike: 164-194 (90.6 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Like, seriously? Not even a clean OHKO. just teras anyways and now your screwed

I think it could be nice as a MU patcher against balance stuff but honestly its quite underwhelming and I dont see its usage picking up very much steam

That’s a shame, sucks when one of your favourite mons is bad. Oh well. What about Archaludon? On paper that looks pretty promising.

 

[Choruto]

That’s a shame, sucks when one of your favourite mons is bad. Oh well. What about Archaludon? On paper that looks pretty promising.

I mean, doesen't suck its not a throw pick but its pretty underwhelming.

Archaludon is fun, Im not so sure but I have seen it do pretty well on the bo3 ladder. If you cant handle it fast enough and let it set up your kinda screwed, and who doesen't like 1 turn +1 140 bp moves in rain. I think on rain teams its very nice and I can see it going maybe B or B+ tier, but no higher than that.
At least in my experience, it is too easy to pivot around it. For example if you have a or your opponent are stuck playing a game of hot potato where they have to constantly juggle the Arch around the threat which kinda limits its viability, and while electric coverage is nice offensively its pretty mid and it doesen't have the coverage or sheer damage of or Raging bolt.
I think its kinda neat though we'll have to see in the next weeks how well it does

 

[TheEeveeAnimations]

isen't something you can really build around. Its weak to a lot of the meta (Off the top of my head it doesen't really like , , , , , etc), and while steel/psychic is nice it doesen't hit much very effectively and its movepool is pretty limited and doesen't hit nearly as hard as you think.

252+ Atk Metagross Psychic Fangs vs. 44 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid Strike: 164-194 (90.6 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Like, seriously? Not even a clean OHKO. just teras anyways and now your screwed

I think it could be nice as a MU patcher against balance stuff but honestly its quite underwhelming and I dont see its usage picking up very much steam

I’m going to push back on this a little bit.

I think is one of the best abusers of Tera we’ve gotten. It’s a big stat stick with a decent defensive typing, and its physical movepool is quite nice! Getting things like Ice Punch and Stomping Tantrum allows it to box with a decent amount of the format. I can see it working on screens teams, damage control stuff, and acting as an Assault Vest button presser. I don’t expect it to ever hit A in the current metagame. I think it’s a solid B, B+ mon and will see some decent use.

In terms of building around it, you did a good job of picking out the problem parts of the metagame for dear old , and then there’s ! It would really benefit from some strong Water type and Fighting type friends like and to help handle quite a few of these threats (you could also run next to it). I think it just straight up needs damage control or redirection to function, so you can probably get away with or for that extra survivability. There’s always good old MetaMence ( + ) for that sweet sweet bulldoze weakness policy. Once again, not an A level mon, because it needs a lot of support to function. What it does do is really get going when it’s on a roll. I will not stand for slander.

 

[Choruto]

I’m going to push back on this a little bit.

I think is one of the best abusers of Tera we’ve gotten. It’s a big stat stick with a decent defensive typing, and its physical movepool is quite nice! Getting things like Ice Punch and Stomping Tantrum allows it to box with a decent amount of the format. I can see it working on screens teams, damage control stuff, and acting as an Assault Vest button presser. I don’t expect it to ever hit A in the current metagame. I think it’s a solid B, B+ mon and will see some decent use.

In terms of building around it, you did a good job of picking out the problem parts of the metagame for dear old , and then there’s ! It would really benefit from some strong Water type and Fighting type friends like and to help handle quite a few of these threats (you could also run next to it). I think it just straight up needs damage control or redirection to function, so you can probably get away with or for that extra survivability. There’s always good old MetaMence ( + ) for that sweet sweet bulldoze weakness policy. Once again, not an A level mon, because it needs a lot of support to function. What it does do is really get going when it’s on a roll. I will not stand for slander.

Thing with is that it needs a lot of support like screens or follow me to really shine, or even yeah extra damage like MetaMence, but is that worth it now? The power level is pretty high and doesen't do anything that much special compared to other steel types like and . It has clear body which is a great ability, but that doesen't help it in comparison to the other strong steel types as they are mostly special. It doesen't have nearly as good typing/damage as or Arch, or as good coverage/utility as .
It does benefit from tera, but so do the other steel/psychic types and its really weighed down by its only main stab aside from steel being psychic, which basically only hits ( ignores it anyways), and and for not much at that.
You put a ton of investment into getting it rolling but its quite easy to stop it, and even then there are much better mons for that job like
I mean, who needs ice coverage when

124+ SpA Choice Specs Tera-Steel Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 68 HP / 28 SpD Landorus-Therian: 180-212 (104 - 122.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
124+ SpA Choice Specs Tera-Steel Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Arcanine-Hisui: 188-222 (109.9 - 129.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Smh (Im joking but like still)

I like , I played with it early reg but It was always doing less damage than I think it needed to, forced a tera pretty much every game it was in and was pretty underwhelming. I think B tier is fine for it, maybe B+ tier.
Ofc this is all early meta stuff, I'll have to see later on but these are my opening thoughts

 

[Choruto]

Alright so, a few weeks ago I made a post with a few graphs on the usage stats for mons past day 2 in tournaments. Well, now that Reg E has ended I've compiled another graph and here it is. I've also linked the final spreadsheet as well.

Tada! If I missed anything please tell me, but I think that should be it
Regulation E was certainly a format. The gap between the top 15 mons and the rest is pretty crazy, Its a pretty hard drop from to , which lend credence to the idea that Reg E was centralized. Speaking off , theres some pretty cool stuff you can see like how it had a peak in the middle of the format, near LAIC before dropping in usage. saw the opposite, where it had high usage at the start, before dropping and having a resurgence near the end of the format.

Theres a bunch of other points like that, but this honestly took way too long and its pretty late so I'll leave it at that. I'll try to do something like this in Reg F, and I have some other ideas like comparing it to overall meta usage or average performances of the mons, but thats for later when I get better with spreadsheets. Anyways thats all. See you guys in Reg F