How has the new meta affected your teams?

[CrapAtRBY]

So with Crystal's recent discoveries starting to actually take shape in the new meta, how has your go to team(s)/mons been affected?

I think when they were announced the effect they would have was largely relatively underestimated. Right now we have Ice's dominating and Rock's (mainly Rhydon) falling by the wayside, but as Golden Gyarados has pointed out, this could even out when and if Electrics take rise.

The biggest changes for myself would be Snorlax's moveset, the traditional BSlam/Hyper Beam/EQ/Self Destruct doesn't seem to cut it anymore, a full health Chansey can even switch in on you if you're paralysed and outside of an unlikely crit, it can stall you out until you're forced to boom. Mega Kick has higher damage output but is unreliable, I've had success with it on PS but against PO veterans I haven't been able to get it to work, I think Amnesia/Reflect Lax variants are going to become a lot more common.

Rhydon typically occupied the sixth slot on my team but it gets even less chances to come in and wreak havoc, Tauros can switch in on you and win and it's harder to spread the necessary paralysis right now. This slot is typically going to Starmie or Lapras now, mainly the former.

So have your your teams and your playstyle been affected, and where do you see the metagame stabilising?

[Ortheore]

It's funny because I haven't really adjusted my teams, but my approach to battles is quite different- paralysing Chansey is much more significant, not to mention the fact that it counters Golem if it's not para'd, as well as beating almost any physical attacker if it doesn't have to switch in, which is something I still find hilarious. Preserving Tauros is much more important because dittos matter a whole lot more as losing them means you've still got to deal with an unpara'd Tauros, and Snorlax has shifted to being a little more defensive- it's now a good Tauros response, and requires support to bust through Chansey.

On the topic of Lax busting through Chansey, I'd expect to see a lot more Rest variants popping up, since they wall Chansey and don't need no para to beat it. I haven't actually observed this yet though it's just something I'm thinking of utilising more. The para speed drops, whenever they get implemented, will also serve as another point in favour of Rest, via Harden and/or Amnesia. Counter is really cool as well, especially for trolling Tauros.

Other trends I've observed are Jynx leads being popular, and GolDon usage plummeting. ppl have talked about how it being harder to para Chansey has lead to an increased emphasis on freezes which means a more hostile environment for GolDon. Apart from Jynx being all the rage, I haven't noticed this trend in freezes but its effects are clear. Weatherman Orth predicts a small spike in Gengar popularity and a larger spike in Zapdos usage before things begin to approach something resembling stability.

Yeah, just my thoughts

[Raish]

My main team has become MUUUUUCH worse than it used to be because it was all about spreading as much Paralysis as possible as quickly as possible then holding out for a long game and letting the lost turns take their toll with a team that could handle Paralysis better by striking out with Snorlax, Rhydon, and Tauros from behind Reflect SToss Chansey.The new meta is really detrimental to my natural style of defensive aggro, creating momentum and making a big strike at the moment I've found an opening. It seems not to be the correct move to go for Paralysis at every chance possible, which is unfortunate because it was my favorite style.

Lax has become less offensively potent and more defensively potent as a result of the change so I can't use him to pressure like I used to, especially because a Chansey switch can completely negate the pressure from him even better than an old Starmie switch when no one would have taken that risk before. Early game Lax pressure, which used to be a defining aspect of the meta, isn't really that much of a thing anymore. Defensively, his boom as an equalizer is much harder to prevent. However, using Lax in my aggressive style tends to leave him to die as a result of a revenge kill without getting to boom, leaving them with a bomb to make up for whatever advantage my Lax had gained through finding more opporunities to Body Slam than my opponent. I'm seeing a rise in needing to figure out a way for one of your Specialists to do some of the major damage to make up for the lack of pressure from Snorlax. When I've strayed from the standard set, I've been running various Reflect variants mostly or Amnesia Blizzard Lax if I still want to have pressure against Specialists with a setup. The increased Gar usage has kept full Tanklax from being a great option.

Rhydon has almost felt like a BL pokemon to me lately. I can't set up conditions for him to sweep as easily as I can set up for Kingler because lowering my opponent's speed enough takes so much more effort and I can't Body Slam Tauros on a Hyper Beam switch in, which used to be the correct move 90% of the time before.

That said, Kingler has had a 100% win rate for me so far this season (although I've only brought him out when I've been counterteaming) and could become the new Rhydon in my opinion, even if he's not as good as old Rhydon was. He requires much less Paralysis and requires only chip damage on Eggy and Starmie or medium damage on Lax/Lapras/Slowbro to sweep. Crabhammer and Swords Dance let him beat any RestLax if he comes in on the predicted Rest, and if Lax is left with fewer offensive moves, Kingler can set up on Lax like it used to set up on Rocks. The increased Starmie and Gar usage are problems for him, but if they tend to be Asleep, it's less of a problem.

Leech Seed Eggy has also been doing great for me as things have slowed down because it can generally stall out Chansey and Lax, especially without HBeam, and can heal members of your team who don't normally have access to healing moves. Leech Eggy also lets itself or Chansey stall Surf Slowbro, gives Chansey a much better shot against Psychic Slowbro so PP stall becomes a legit strategy against Psychic, and deals with that pesky few % that normally keeps Slowbro out of HBeam range if it manages to take out Chansey. However, if Kingler and Leech Eggy become popular as responses to more mons trying to set up, I think that'll lead to a balance point where sets start to get more aggressive again.


Also the increased importance of Tauros dittos has made it super hard to close out games with incremental damage (a la SToss Chansey) unless you have a tremendous lead before losing the ditto. A Specialist who can do well against Tauros like Lapras/Slowbro or a super fast mon like Starmie/Reflect Zam is the best way I've found so far to negate the effects of losing that coin flip, but that's a style I'm not trained in much yet except with my stall team. I'll start learning it now out of necessity most likely.

I've found that the new form that aggro has taken seems to be a team with a lot of booms. My most potent aggro team has been running 4 of them! You get a minor lead then trade mon for mon until you end up with an extra mon in the late game then carry that advantage to the finish. Zapdos seems to be the other option for aggro because of the lack of Rocks. These 2 changes will probably bring Rocks back at some point, but they're both going to play like old Golem more than like old Rhydon or might find some completely different role.

I'm pretty sad that my favorite style of play is no longer considered an optimal one, but I'm also very excited that after 4 years of playing this game competitively and feeling like I had things mostly figured out, I get to start experimenting so much again!

Edit: Just to clarify because a lot of people have been asking, I don't think Leech Seed Eggy will surpass Stun Spore or Mega Drain Eggy as standards. I think either Sleeper Leech Eggy or Sleepless Stun Leech Rest Eggy will become viable options about equal with Hyper Beam Eggy if the trends that people say they expect to see in the meta actually come to fruition.

[piexplode]

I'm enjoying reading so far
posting so I'm notified of new posts

[Golden Gyarados]

The new meta has been extremely rough on my favorite team of 2014.  You all know it.  It was no longer any good in tournaments because of the predictability, but it was still pretty reliable on the ladder - I'd topped the ladder several times with it throughout the year.  Now, it just gets thrashed.  It relied way too much on Tauros Body Slam paralysis in the back half of the game, and Golem Body Slamming was a common move (like Raish said, switching the Rock into Tauros or Snorlax Hyper Beam and then Body Slamming used to be a pretty good plan ... now, not so much).  And Chanseys are just BEASTS now - I'm definitely feeling that. 

Luckily, I'd always planned to develop some new teams this year, and I'm using more Ice.  Freezes are more common, as well.  The name of the game used to be sleep something, then spread paralysis, but I'm definitely noticing paralysis isn't getting spread the way it used to, which opens you up to more freeze opportunities.  I remarked on the rise of the Jynx lead a little bit ago, and now it seems every other team on the ladder has a lead Jynx.  I'm interested to see February's PO stats to see what the actual rate shakes out to be.  For now, I'm riding the lead Jynx train and I'm shifting things around to see what I like.  I had a Leech Seed Eggy I used a lot last year, and then as the year wound down I switched it to a double powder ... but I'm thinking of bringing LS back. 

[Isa]

You can always check usage stats on PO in real time:

stats.pokemon-online.eu/RBY%20OU/index.html

I'll make a longer post later on, but my thoughts are mostly the same as the others here and I posted on PO about it as well, so don't expect anything groundbreaking.

[piexplode]

metapod being used more than my beloved raichu ;_;

actually so is pikachu lol

usage stats are always so dumb lmao