• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Pokémon X & Y's Effect on the Metagame

Status
Not open for further replies.
The fact that it introduces extra luck into the game is reason enough to exclude it from competitive simulators. It's the very same reason we have the OHKO, Evasion, and Moody clauses. Not only that, but this is a very passive form of hax; at least in the case of the Razor Claw, Brightpowder, etc., there's the opportunity cost of giving up a generally better item for the chance for hax. The fact that this is completely passive makes it even more banworthy on the grounds that it will further decrease the competitiveness of the game.
 

T-Bolt

Electrifying.
So, the fairy rumour has turned out to be spot on (take that non believers!) and more importantly, Steel has lost resistances to two types- Dark and Ghost. (it's a shame IMO, my teams were always peppered with steels XD)

Jirachi is now weak to ghost and dark, Ferrothorn doesn't have perfect synergy with Jellicent anymore, and basically nearly every steel gains new counters. I'm definitely interested to see how the Meta will look like in the end, by now it's pretty obvious that there will be drastic differences.
 

jireh the provider

Video Game Designer
So, the fairy rumour has turned out to be spot on (take that non believers!) and more importantly, Steel has lost resistances to two types- Dark and Ghost. (it's a shame IMO, my teams were always peppered with steels XD)

Jirachi is now weak to ghost and dark, Ferrothorn doesn't have perfect synergy with Jellicent anymore, and basically nearly every steel gains new counters. I'm definitely interested to see how the Meta will look like in the end, by now it's pretty obvious that there will be drastic differences.

My poor Jirachi ... (cries in a corner with her). Gengar is now more confident on fighting her gosh darn to heck. She better not be UU. Maybe she'll be steel Fairy like Mawile. Dragon slayer mini? And if Absol just rises in OU, Celebi will follow. Making manaphy, theoretically, fall down to OU. Oh well. At least chandy will be Ubers soon by shadow tag.

But on the case of ferrothorn, yes! I want payback! Kill this B*tch! So I guess now that sun based teams will have an easier time killing this guy.
 

Minedreigon

A monument to all your sins
I deem fairy OP now. It's immune to Dragon. It is only supper effected by poison (rarely used) and steel (barely attacking, unless you count scizor.) It also 4x super effects hydreigon. It's so OP. Im also VERY happy that now jirachi has gained weaknesses, it was so cheap. Now gengar shall CRUSH IT!
 

Barbeller

Scatter Brained
Uhh... Make Steel types weaker? Hell no.

Lets look at Fairy if it was put today's metagame. Sure it's not totally accurate, but it's the best representation we've got. Other than Steel, Fairy is resisted by Fire and Poison. Without a secondary typing, Fire cannot be a credible defensive typing due to its SR weakness. Poison is weak to EQ, Psychic moves, and Fighting is its best resistance, and most good Fighting types have a way to bypass Poison. So, we can conclude that most Fairies will be able to bypass Poison due to its other weaknesses.
So, in conclusion, assuming we get some good Fairy moves and abusers, Fairy looks set to be the offensive power of 6th gen, partly due to the bane of dragon appearing. And guess what its premier counter is? Steel. Take a Fairy resistance for a Ghost and Dark neutrality and day!


In other terms, as a Stall player, I'm not happy with how Gamefreak is gearing towards a more offensive metagame. Everything that is going around seems to be confirming the power creep will continue. And MegaEvolution seems to be offensively supportive. Dark + Steel will become the defensive 'core', and we don't have many defensive Darks. I guess we've got to hope that Chespiñata will evolve into a Dark defensive behemoth, which would pair excellently with Heatran. But now I'm trailing off into mindless speculation...
 

Miror

De-le-le wooooooooooop
Staff member
Moderator
As mentioned above, Fairy has had it's type chart revealed as well as Steel losing two solid resistances to Dark and Ghost. To start off on Fairy, I believe that its weaknesses will actually help bring two less seen offensive types to greater prominence, as Poison and Steel were hardly ever used as coverage before, and only used as STAB moves when absolutely necessary. Poison I think gains the greater boost from Fairy being weak to it, as Pokemon like Gengar and Venusaur suddenly have an alternate STAB that is quite useful, as Fairies will be very prominent in the new metagame (at least at first if not beyond that as everyone will be trying them out for the novelty of using one). Steel on the other hand has not gained too much from being super effective, it just gives Scizor yet another thing to be good at, as well as Scarf Jirachi and such. I do not see too much use of Steel coverage moves used because 1) very few Pokemon actually have Steel coverage that is actually any good and 2) there are so few Steel moves to choose from (unless they remedy that in XY by giving us a nice variety). Being super effective to Fairy though is completely overshadowed by Steel losing its resistances to Dark and Ghost, effectively crippling many solid cores in addition to likely affecting the usage of several Steels.

To start off the list of what is going to become more prevalent in XY competitive, one of the more worrying things will be Gengar. Gengar now has nearly perfect neutral coverage with its two STABs (so does Bisharp but not sure how much he'll be blasting through) and has the toys to abuse it with. Being resistant to the new Fairy type is a great asset as well, and the ability to hit it super effectively with Poison STAB will make Gengar formidable. It also has high Speed and Special Attack, being able to now 2HKO Specially Defensive Jirachi with Shadow Ball, which considering it has a chance of 3HKOing at best currently (and this is with Hidden Power Fire and not even completely guaranteed). This is enormous power to hit Steel types that Gengar did not have before, and may also mean that Gengar will no longer need to run the burdensome Focus Blast. Moving on to our next major threat is Tyranitar. Now that Steels have lost their Dark resistance, this gives Tyranitar the ability to Pursuit many Steels with impunity, with Choice Band Tyranitar being able to OHKO Jirachi with Pursuit if it attempts to switch, and still do enormous damage even if it doesn't (yes, I know Jirachi is getting the brunt of the abuse here, but bear me out lol). Several other Steels will also have some worries about Pursuit/Crunch, including our friend Honedge who used to have the great typing of Ghost/Steel, the typing not being so great anymore. I also see Ghost and Dark coverage becoming a little more common to 1) hit Steels and 2) hit Ghosts which will be a bit more threatening this upcoming generation.

To move on to the Pokemon that took the hardest hits from this announcement, we'll start with the Psychic/Steels. Jirachi, Metagross, and Bronzong now all have two more additional weaknesses, both being easily exploitable and extremely damaging. Jirachi is going to take the hardest blow, as it was an extremely commonly seen Pokemon in OU this generation, whereas next generation it will struggle a little. It does have the advantage of being able to hit Fairy types hard, but I'm not sure this will negate the enormous weaknesses it now has. Metagross, who has been in danger of falling from OU for months, will likely be finally pushed over the edge into either BL or UU, depending on what sort of Pokemon also end up in these tiers. Bronzong will also take quite the blow, not being the great defensive Pokemon with very few weaknesses anymore, and instead having very common ones. The next types on my list should be relatively obvious, and those are the Dragons. The Dragon types have received ridiculous nerfs with the advent of XY, not only being weak to Fairy types, but also having Fairy be immune to Dragon. This quickly will increase the riskiness of using anything resembling DragMag (especially with Steel having been nerfed as well), and Outrage spam will be unwise as any Fairy can switch in and ruin your day. Hydreigon probably takes the hardest blow, being 4x weak to Fairy and having both its STABs be resisted in the case of Dark, and completely blocked out in Dragon's corner. Other Dragons that commonly run a Choice item like Garchomp and Latios will also have to be careful about what move they use. Some honorable mention from the rest of the typing info are that of Fighting types (weak to Fairy, Fairy resists), Bug (Fairy resists) and Fire (resists Fairy). Each of these three types could hold more Pokemon that rise or fall, especially depending on whether any more older Pokemon are reclassified with Fairy type.

Moving on to the newer Mega Evolutions, I will just briefly cover Mega Mewtwo X as we have very little information on what it actually does. We do know it's Psychic/Fighting, which could be very useful depending on the stat spread it receives, as STAB Aura Spheres would become very useful coverage in Ubers. Unfortunately, we don't know too much beyond that besides the fact that it gets Steadfast for an ability, but to be honest there really isn't anything out there that will flinch Mewtwo anyhow. We also don't know what stats are getting boosted, so we have no idea which way to speculate. Mega Garchomp is the real beauty that we want to discuss. Receiving Sand Force is extremely useful for Garchomp, as it means its Earthquake becomes immensely more powerful. In fact, at +2, Sand Force Garchomp with its current stats can basically 2HKO the whole of OU, mostly OHKOs. And this isn't even factoring in the likely stat boosts to Attack or Speed (or both) that Garchomp will receive in its Mega form. Unfortunately, Mega Garchomp has been born into the era of Fairies, meaning hitting things with Dragon attacks won't work nearly as well as it used to, but the huge boost to Earthquake will likely make up for it.

I would discuss the starter evolutions as well as the new Fossil Pokemon and just all the other new Pokemon, but we really do not have much to go on with them, no stats, no movepools, not even complete evolution lines. Speculation based solely off the typing and ability just doesn't work, so I will forbear (wait, didn't I do this with Mewtwo :$). In my opinion, as Barbeller was saying, it looks as if Gamefreak is gearing us towards an even more offensive metagame than 5th generation. Yikes. To be honest, I really don't mind that much, but the death of Stall is pretty sad to see, unless Gamefreak releases the defensive behemoth known as Mega Skarmory (hey, we can always hope). As the last batch of Corocoro that releases before XY, the news is going to be slow so there really won't be too much to discuss after Pokemon Smash airs on Sunday meaning there are actually going to be quite a few surprises waiting for us in the games, unlike this generation where the whole Pokedex got leaked before the games. It will be very interesting to see how the Pokemon we already know about end up, as well as seeing all the new ones and how they'll fit in on a competitive level, but until then, this is basically all we have to work off of.

tl;dr: Steel got smashed, Fairy will be a mixed bag, Gengar will be god (Bisharp may end up a demigod), goodbye HaxRachi, Pursuit everywhere, GARCHOMP HAS SCYTHES, and let the slow news period begin.

Lol, I didn't realize how long this thing was until I posted it, maybe you should all just stick with the tl;dr XDXD
 

Ísjaki

Flood Of Red
well since this is the 5th gen competitive discussion section I highly doubt that any of this new stuff will change the metagame at all.
instead of leaving as that i'll speculate a little.
Bisharp imo is already a very overlooked pokemon and i look forward to him being mroe viable in XY maybe even mega bisharp.
If that amie crap isn't banned i'm not playing.
If smogon bans a pokemon because its mega evolution is broken because of the whole complex ban thing i wont play (like when blaziken was banned because of speed boost instead of banning speed boost blaziken)
with dark no longer weak to steel i have hopes that mega sharpedo will kick ***.
spamming crunch with banded ttar will be easier.
fairy and ground seem cool together, i could see fairy spam teamed up with duggy being used (or maybe mega duggy)
sorry for the mess, have fun with my stream of consciousness
oh garcomp and fairies seems cool too
 
Last edited:
If smogon bans a pokemon because its mega evolution is broken because of the whole complex ban thing i wont play (like when blaziken was banned because of speed boost instead of banning speed boost blaziken)

There's a huge difference between a complex Blaziken + Speed Boost Blaziken ban and a simple ban on MegaBlaziken or the Blazikenite, though. If a Mega form is broken, you can institute a simple ban to get rid of it.
 

Azulart

Shiny Hunter
The new chart on steel is fine with me.

Steel gets an new Super effective, which means it gets a new x2 option
while it loses two half damage's, which results eventually to an +0 benefit sitaution.

They probably tried to avoid that Steel will be an over powerd type.
I think now that Fairy hits Fighting hard too, everything is pretty balanced now considering the type charts.
Although I fear that poks like Gengar will be extremely popular in the next competive metagame making them sort of overpowerd with the type advantages.

But we'll see.
 

Connor™

Showstopper
Miror, there was a little problem with your statement "Gengar has unresisted STAB coverage". Amusingly, Bisharp resist Gengar's STAB coverage. Dark resists Ghost, while Steel still retains it's immunity.

As far as the new Pokemon goes, the Rock/Dragon fossil Pokemon is very interesting. Rock/Dragon is a fantastic attacking typing, so there should be high hopes for that at least. The other one ... not so much. Rock/Ice is horrendous no matter how you look at it.
 

jireh the provider

Video Game Designer
Uhh... Make Steel types weaker? Hell no.

Lets look at Fairy if it was put today's metagame. Sure it's not totally accurate, but it's the best representation we've got. Other than Steel, Fairy is resisted by Fire and Poison. Without a secondary typing, Fire cannot be a credible defensive typing due to its SR weakness. Poison is weak to EQ, Psychic moves, and Fighting is its best resistance, and most good Fighting types have a way to bypass Poison. So, we can conclude that most Fairies will be able to bypass Poison due to its other weaknesses.
So, in conclusion, assuming we get some good Fairy moves and abusers, Fairy looks set to be the offensive power of 6th gen, partly due to the bane of dragon appearing. And guess what its premier counter is? Steel. Take a Fairy resistance for a Ghost and Dark neutrality and day!


In other terms, as a Stall player, I'm not happy with how Gamefreak is gearing towards a more offensive metagame. Everything that is going around seems to be confirming the power creep will continue. And MegaEvolution seems to be offensively supportive. Dark + Steel will become the defensive 'core', and we don't have many defensive Darks. I guess we've got to hope that Chespiñata will evolve into a Dark defensive behemoth, which would pair excellently with Heatran. But now I'm trailing off into mindless speculation...

As for your last statement, I hope and feel that majority of the kalos Pokemon will be defensive focused. Like, maybe some bulky offensive ones, some bulky supportive types, and just plain bulky pokemon. Chespin's line is currently giving me the Torterra vibe (competitively, Torterra is a bulky offense and bulky support pokemon). Inkay and Malimar gives me the reuniclus kind of vibe thanks to topsy turvsy. I mean, if one has to use that move, you've got to be bulky in my opinion. I just hope that there will be fewer glass cannons on this gen. Give us more defensive titans. Like, what if some of the mega evolutions that are not yet announced are currently defensive titans from this generation (Aggron, Blissey, Mandibuzz, and a few moer come to mind)

Aside form my Jirachi dillemma, could Kalos be the generation where Manaphy might fall down to OU? If it does, at least it just might make up for my Jirachi's competitive downfall. I hate seeing Manaphy trying to survive Ubers alone you see.
 

Ísjaki

Flood Of Red
There's a huge difference between a complex Blaziken + Speed Boost Blaziken ban and a simple ban on MegaBlaziken or the Blazikenite, though. If a Mega form is broken, you can institute a simple ban to get rid of it.

i know it's a big difference and it probably won't happen, but it isn't impossible because smogon is really dumb sometimes
 

T-Bolt

Electrifying.
Aside form my Jirachi dillemma, could Kalos be the generation where Manaphy might fall down to OU? If it does, at least it just might make up for my Jirachi's competitive downfall. I hate seeing Manaphy trying to survive Ubers alone you see.

As long as Drizzle Politoed exists, Manaphy probably isn't coming down to OU.

As for the thread title, it seemed good at the time......

Anyway, one thing I don't get is the Bisharp hype. So what if it has unresisted STAB coverage, Scrafty had it too, but didn't really turn out to be extremely powerful. Or am I missing something?
 

Ísjaki

Flood Of Red
As long as Drizzle Politoed exists, Manaphy probably isn't coming down to OU.

As for the thread title, it seemed good at the time......

Anyway, one thing I don't get is the Bisharp hype. So what if it has unresisted STAB coverage, Scrafty had it too, but didn't really turn out to be extremely powerful. Or am I missing something?
don't worry about the title i was just being an *** :3
also doesn't bisharp resist his own STAB?
 
To be precise, of the currently existent Pokemon, Tyranitar, Bisharp, Krookodile, Skuntank, and Drapion all resist Gengar's STABs. I have no doubt that Tyranitar will still be popular in 6th Gen, and Bisharp might rise due to its newfound STAB coverage. Drapion and Skuntank have the advantage of not being weak to Focus Blast, so they might be rise a little if given some new toys, but I don't have as much hope for those two. Either way, Gengar should still have a few solid defensive checks, but it'll still be a crazy good offensive Pokemon.
 

Miror

De-le-le wooooooooooop
Staff member
Moderator
Miror, there was a little problem with your statement "Gengar has unresisted STAB coverage". Amusingly, Bisharp resist Gengar's STAB coverage. Dark resists Ghost, while Steel still retains it's immunity.

As far as the new Pokemon goes, the Rock/Dragon fossil Pokemon is very interesting. Rock/Dragon is a fantastic attacking typing, so there should be high hopes for that at least. The other one ... not so much. Rock/Ice is horrendous no matter how you look at it.

Ah, I forgot to clarify, I meant unresisted in OU lol...welp nevermind, Tyranitar exists, let's just say he has an extremely broad range of what its STABs hit now thanks to Steel getting hit my Ghost :$

And @Montresor, Bisharp does resist its own STAB, but it does come pretty much as close as you can get to having completely unresisted coverage (same with Gengar)
 

Ísjaki

Flood Of Red
Ah, I forgot to clarify, I meant unresisted in OU lol...welp nevermind, Tyranitar exists, let's just say he has an extremely broad range of what its STABs hit now thanks to Steel getting hit my Ghost :$

And @Montresor, Bisharp does resist its own STAB, but it does come pretty much as close as you can get to having completely unresisted coverage (same with Gengar)

but we haven't seen all of the new pokemon yet, there could be new dark/steels!
though that point is even more speculation than the rest of this speculation what i was trying to say is that though atm bisharp has basically unresisted STABs there is a type combination that resists it so it could get knocked down a little as we learn about more new pokemon :3
 

Minedreigon

A monument to all your sins
You know what I'm thinking? The rise of the Sun. It looks like fairy is going to become a very offensive type, super effecting fighting and Dragon, two very dangerous types. Fire, however, resists it. Since Sun teams get a few fire types,(heatran will RUIN fairy) it may cause the rise of the Sun and the fall of rain. (Lol dat joke) Also, Sun teams get venusaur, who will be great against fairy with its sludge bomb. Is this possibly a weather change?
 

Miror

De-le-le wooooooooooop
Staff member
Moderator
You know what I'm thinking? The rise of the Sun. It looks like fairy is going to become a very offensive type, super effecting fighting and Dragon, two very dangerous types. Fire, however, resists it. Since Sun teams get a few fire types,(heatran will RUIN fairy) it may cause the rise of the Sun and the fall of rain. (Lol dat joke) Also, Sun teams get venusaur, who will be great against fairy with its sludge bomb. Is this possibly a weather change?

Despite Fire resisting Fairy, it really won't help that much as 1) Fairy types still have coverage moves and are not stuck exclusively to using Fairy moves and 2) most Fire types have thin defenses. Heatran isn't going to ruin Fairy types anymore than it ruins Fire types, as coverage moves actually do exist, plus with the extra weaknesses due to STeel getting nerfed, Heatran has more to worry about than usual. It's really nonsensical to declare what playstyles will be good in a metagame (including what weathers will be good) until we know exactly how they're going to be affected by the XY metagame. We don't know whether some really improved weather sweepers will get thrown in, new abilities that are good in weather, etc. This is also beside the point that current Fairy types like Azumarill have a cake walk with Fire types, and MegaMawile certainly doesn't do Venusaur any favors. Just with the few new things we do know, the examples you listed already have decent counters, and we haven't even seen the majority of Pokemon that will be released, which could easily hold many more as well as many game changing factors.

To be honest, hypothetical discussion is relatively pointless in this thread as we have no idea what changes will be brought in the games. Since this really isn't an XY speculation thread, I'd suggest staying away from the more hypothetical arguments and stick with the facts that we already have and make posits off of those. Making the jump from Fires resisting Fairy to saying Sun is going to outclass Rain is trying to bridge a gap that is in noways implied by the single fact of a type resistance and one sweeper having a super effective STAB move.

To sum this all up, it is still far too early to tell whether any playstyle or weather will outshine another due to the lack of information that we currently have.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top