I had some time to burn yesterday so I decided to try hard at at 1v1 ladder for the first time. I have toyed with the meta in the past but never really made a serious attempt. I went through a solid chunk of games the past two days (this is a fast and active ladder, which I appreciate) and peaked at 8th before tossing me ELO away with a Petaya Berry Overgrow Sceptile meme. I have currently been fluctuating in the 1500/1600 range for the most part; I seriously enjoy this ladder and how this format rewards forethought and creativity.
I have been using WaterShifu a lot. I find that the neutrality to Fighting, access to a Water-type multi-hit move, and only a 2x weakness to Fairy is quite nice. I partner it with stuff like Porygon-Z, Zeraora, and Regieleki to take advantage of Rock, Ground and Steel-types, especially stuff like Crustle and Aggron. A move I really like is Substitute, which is awesome for scouting Counter and helps against stally stuff. I have also experimented with Roseli Berry Poison Jab to improve the MU into non-Specs Sylveon and Primarina. Hasn't worked great against Tapu Fini, the sets I encounter are either faster or too physically bulky.
Togekiss is kinda horseshit LOL. I have picked up some Ws and Ls with and against the mon respectively just by spamming Air Slash from T1. Where Togekiss differs against other gambling strats is it has a lot of safety/tech in its kit too, and it has legitimately decent MUs into some common options. I played around some sets like Assault Vest and Scope Lens Super Luck (this was bad, but not THAT bad) and it still felt okay. I agree with HCTC that this doesn't feel like a glue mon, but more something you build around to force the opp to bring something that isn't prone to dying if it gets flinched once or twice. I think its a psychological thing, where even if the mon needs like three flinches in a row to win vs a mon, some people aren't going to gamble against that ~18.5% chance.
I think Zeraora is the best Pokemon on the ladder. Nothing applies preview pressure (I assume that is the correct term based from its usage) like this monster. Why does it get Outrage? Or Play Rough?? The number of times I have Play Roughed Urshifu into oblivion is easily more than 10. I like Fire/Drain Punch on Band instead of CC, losing to Magnezone more than once got real embarrassing.
Crustle murked me like the first three times I faced it, but now I am prepping for it it I haven't had too many issues. Part of the reason I switched to WaterShifu for some teams. I haven't seen one use Counter yet, but that looks pretty clean. Avalugg is probably the most annoying Sturdy mon for me, I try to build teams I feel like you would NEVER bring Avalugg into, but they always call me out
I have fought a lot of Metagross, but idk I haven't been too impressed with the mon. It feels like the one mon I get right the most often when I think the opponent is going to bring it. That might also be because people are terrified of Porygon-Z, Zeraora, and Togekiss (rightfully so!) Looking at its movepool I can see the appeal. I am always a little scared its going to be something weird like Magnet Rise or Agility, the mon has a lot of weird shit in its movepool. Speaking of Magnet Rise I PP stalled a Landorus locked into EP with Magnet Rise Regieleki; that was pretty cool.
Tapu Fini is always terrifying. Tapu Lele and Tapu Koko are sometimes terrifying. Tapu Rilla is pretty scary. Tapu Bulu seems bleh, I think I lost to one once because I brought Zera. That may be ladder bias tho, going back to look at tournament replays it seems scarier.
When I first started playing the format, I used Counter AV Rhyperior and found it to be a very solid Ground-type for the lower ladder. It fell off a bit once I got to around the 1400s, so I switched things up. I might go back to the Kyurem/Rhyperior/Jellicent team I was using though, it was REALLY fun to pilot.
Overall, enjoying the format and the community in the showdown room/on the ladder. Looking forward to learning more of the meta and to a couple hundred more games.
really good post, it's been a while since we've had an actual good post like this in metagame discussion, and I'm always glad when people get into 1v1 and get to understand it. I wanna give a solid reply to your points from a tournament perspective standpoint, since tours and ladder are like night and day.
First of all, Togekiss is a fucking monster, because flinches are secondary. Its bulk is absolutely insane and it has some great defensive typing, so it can kinda do anything; the most popular set is twave maranga, since not only is paraflinch 70%, but you can simply outstall mons with roost and fish for paras, so matchups like Volcanion become 100% reliable. You can Encore set up moves so those are not reliable, cause you can never just boost yourself to overcome the maranga. This set doesnt even need maranga berry actually, if you run a spread with max hp and 180+ spd you simply always beat volcanion, allowing you to use mental herb to beat mons like lele and spectrier which use taunt to beat it. You can even run 252 hp 176+ physdef and always beat AV Entei which theoretically makes use of inner focus to not get paraflinched. This is only the twave set, then you have scarf, whose main appeal is the fact that you can trick scarf mons like fini and sylveon which usually beat you, not as much the scarf flinches. Two other main sets have popped up this Premier League, being
fast maranga made by
Waylaid which beats mons like fini that win through taunt by simply being faster, and uses mystical fire + maranga to stall most special attackers. This set was about to
beat a fucking zapdos! but unfortunately got insane bad luck. The other big set is
kee charm counter made by
zioziotrip, a lure set that beats a fuckton of physical attackers, since using special attackers to beat togekiss is nigh impossible generally: this set
should've beaten a glastrier! but also got insanely lucked (what a pattern).
The big deal about togekiss in tournament is that it is insanely hard to find reliable counters to it, since relying on 70%s in a game where the turns last single digits is horrible (reason why no one uses moves like focus blast).
The other mon that you've mentioned you think is bad is Tapu Bulu, I don't know how you came to this conclusion but this mon is fucking broken, nothing beats it. It has three main sets:
taunt disable which tanks half the fucking tier physically. With how bulu's typing is, generally most mons will only have one good move to hit it with, and if it tanks it can just disable it and horn leech back health, for example
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Poison Jab vs. +1 128 HP / 188+ Def Tapu Bulu: 244-288 (77.9 - 92%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
and then grassy terrain + horn leech does its job so nothing else from it kills (not struggle nor like life orb wicked/cc do the job)
Other than that you also just beat nearly every stall mon by taunting then disabling the only attack move they have, you beat fairies like fini lele which is huge and then being a fairy instantly shuts down regidrago. You also beat zeraora and like celesteela which are two huge threats that are hard to cover together.
The 2nd set is
sub disable which is like taunt disable but instead of tanking hits now you dont get hit at all so you beat shit like magnezone or band metagross LOL
Alternatively I like running
this since Protect allows you to beat mons with multihits like icicle spear and also gives you more leech seed / grassy terrain recovery between turns. You also beat scarf steel beam magnezone (which is forced if you dont wanna lose to sub disable)
The third set is like scarf cause you beat band darmg and naga which are two of the most reliable counters bop and also some other stuff I don't know.
Beating this thing is super difficult
I agree with Zeraora being insane, that mon can tech everything besides some ground types and the grounds in this meta are literally Landorus and Rhyp (rhyp is only ran cause you beat zera and kiss and darmg in the same mon (unheard of)). It has a fuckton of options besides the typical band or av sets with stuff like life orb or bulk up sitrus or taunt etc but I think it struggles cause no single set really stands out. It can cover a lot but it really wishes it had 5 moves cause you can't drop plasma and a lot of MUs require stuff like taunt + bulk up + coverage to reliably beat then you dont have space for much else. Other than that taunt and bulk up both run in crazy 50/50s that are hard to take at tournament level if you're not confident your opponent is gonna play in a certain way. Over-all Zera is one of those mons that is much scarier to face than strong to use, in my opinion. I think it's very similar to Dragapult in a way, another mon that is super broken on paper but also you have a hard time building with it and you can be fucked if you're not the right set.
I agree with Urshifu Water being good cause you're a water type that can actually beat volcanion (unless they run scarf solar beam then just say gg you got outplayed). The fire types we have are kinda shit but forced bc a lot of the top threats are grass/steel/ice types, reason why Entei is actually kinda busted right now, no competition.
Same deal with Metagross, really not a great pokemon but since the other steels we have are fuckin Celesteela Ferrothorn and Magnezone then it becomes really good. It can run a variety of sets between band av scarf custap wp and other variations of each, the appeal is indeed the fact that you can beat zera pz togekiss darmg bulu with the same mon which is crazy! And it's all reflected in its winrate in PL
| 4 | Metagross | 59 | 9.67% | 61.02% | (ranked 4th place with 59 usage it has a 9.67% usage rate and a 61.02% winrate)
Sturdies are also broken yeah, Crustle can run lum / mental herb which gives mons like Spectrier a big setguess to deal with, mental herb allows you to beat tapu fini unless its scarf trick. Generally +2 wrecker just kills shit kek + rock type is great for normals and for fires. Counter is rarely seen nowadays cause not that reliable and you need x-scissor for zarude and cresselia. Avalugg is also one of those mons that is harder to deal with than it is strong to use simply bc of the move mirror coat which makes breaking sturdy unreliable for special attackers, and other than that the setguess between band and id press makes it more awkward to play against.
I hope this was a good read and I hope that you'll play 1v1 more in the future. If you wanna try a set I've been liking a lot throughout PL it's
Band Ferrothorn, I just really like it right now because of the stuff it beats and the surprising options it has. Payback is for Metagross, Heavy Slam is for Aromatisse, Bullet Seed is for counter mons like crustle or pp stallers like raikou and generally just more accuracy. Revenge is big fighting move (it does more than bpress and if they hit you its 120bp so basically a free cc), bulldoze just ground coverage idk what you'd beat honestly and Steel Roller is funny because you beat taunt disable bulu (usually you'd lose cause disable but if you remove terrain then struggle does enough and they cant really touch you), if they sub you cry though. You can run Iron Head over Gyro if you are a psychopath.
have a good one