Premier League Spotlight: MWP 2

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Introduction

The Monotype Winter Premier League is Monotype's second yearly team tour and follows a snake draft format. Since the first team tour, the Monotype Premier League, features current and old generations of Monotype, this tour focuses on USM Monotype and Monotype's many Other Metas. The Monotype OMs included in this tour are Monothreat, Ubers, Almost Any Ability, STABmons, and LC. This is the same lineup of OMs that Monotype used last year in the first rendition of this tour, as last year went smoothly and there was no reason to change them up this year. Without further ado, let's look at this year's MWP and its teams!

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Teams & Power Rankings

The Power Rankings were written by the Monotype community from the managers, tour players, and Monotype veterans.

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Metagame Trends through the Tour

USM

Metagame trends in MWP II differed a bit from the most recent Monotype team tour, Monotype Premier League IV. During the tournament, several low-tier types such as Ghost, Fighting, and Fire saw exactly no usage at all, as they underperform even in tournament play compared to more viable types in the tier. Other types such as Poison and Dark retained similar attributes between the two tournaments. With the Monotype metagame being as balanced and diverse as ever, type diversity and innovation is key to team tournaments such as MWP, and with that comes metagame trends that move the Monotype metagame forward.

Fairy showcased its status in the Monotype metagame as the best type, being the most used type throughout the entire tournament because of its overall good matchups and reliability when put against the rest of the metagame. Fairy was commonly used in the early to mid weeks of the tournament and performed decently well throughout the entirety of MWP. It showcased a variety of sets such as Substitute + Disable Tapu Bulu for Sludge Bomb Toxapex and Knock Off Clefable for Alolan Muk. Fairy scarcely encountered its traditional bad matchups in Poison, Steel, and Grass, resulting in high consistency. The prevalence of Fairy in MWP caused Dragon's consistency to decrease drastically compared to MPL IV.

Water is another commonly used type in the tournament and in Monotype because of its great diversity, which allowed it to adapt appropriately to the ever-changing metagame. Rain teams also saw a good amount of usage because of their ability to hit hard with offensive Pokémon such as Mega Swampert while also having a defensive backbone in Toxapex to take attacks for the team if needed, resulting in it solidifying itself as a solid bulky offense playstyle, along with traditional balance builds centered around defensive cores, and both made a splash in the tournament. Water retained great consistency during the earlier stages of the tournament but fell off a bit later on.

Psychic's usage is at an all-time low, possibly due to the fact that one of its worst matchups, Dark, was extremely common throughout the entire tournament. Despite this, Psychic showed its flexibility as a top-tier type by showcasing its wide variety of Pokémon and sets along with playstyles ranging from hyper offense and bulky offense teams that aimed to apply pressure using offensive Pokémon such as Swords Dance Mega Gallade to balance teams that were centered around defensive Pokémon such as Celebi and Slowbro while still having offensive Pokémon like Victini to pressure opposing teams. Despite its low usage, Psychic showed its face around MWP as an overall consistent type when it was used because of its flexibility and good matchups across the board in the metagame, along with the fact that it never faced the Dark matchup.

Steel also showed flexibility in its builds, with playstyles such as balance, bulky offense, offensive teams with Klefki's Light Screen and Reflect support, and even hyper offensive teams with the newly introduced Custap Berry Skarmory, and was a fairly consistent type throughout the tournament. Compared to the last Monotype team tournament, MPL IV, Flying's consistency decreased drastically. This could be a reflection of the fact that it was constantly matched up with teams and sets that could apply pressure on its defensive core, such as Substitute + Calm Mind Jirachi, Swords Dance Mega Gallade, Kyurem-B, and Fairy teams with Tapu Koko.

Compared to MPL IV, Ground's consistently faltered despite its usage increasing slightly. Ground teams generally faced matchups such as Water and Grass that they struggled to overcome, while other sets such as Energy Ball + Ice Beam Deoxys-S gave it a hard time. However, sandless Ground teams featuring Mega Steelix as a threatening Curse sweeper made several appearances over the traditional sand Ground, as dropping a passive Pokémon in Hippowdon meant getting another teamslot for another Pokémon, although this meant not being able to take advantage of Sand Stream with Excadrill.

LC

By far the most popular type throughout this tournament has been Rock. Its popularity lies in its plethora of Shell Smashers, historically the combination of Dwebble and Tirtouga. However, Rock teams have branched out from their historical builds in this tournament, as Pokémon like Omanyte and Cranidos have been fairly common on teams due to their niches in covering holes typically found on Rock builds. Omanyte has often been seen replacing Tirtouga, as it acts as a special sweeper, which Rock usually lacks, and Choice Scarf Cranidos has been used very frequently as a great offensive blanket check to many troublesome Pokémon to Rock such as Scraggy and Stufful.

Following Rock's high usage came Water, which may be largely due to its wide flexibility in builds thanks to a huge pool of viable Pokémon alongside the unban of Wingull, which attracts builders. The two glue Pokémon seen on nearly every build have been Chinchou and Shellder thanks to their consistent usefulness. Interestingly, Carvanha has only been used on about half of all Water LC teams in this tournament, being forfeited for tech Pokémon such as Frillish and Kabuto. Frillish has been a new addition to Water teams for this tournament thanks to its ability to act as a spinblocker to further help against Rock teams while also acting as an important Zigzagoon check, which otherwise plows through Water builds. Kabuto, on the other hand, acts as another means of tackling Rock thanks to its access to Stealth Rock, which Water builds lack typically, while offering both Rapid Spin and Knock Off, two other important factors that only Tentacool can match. Finally, there has been a decline in the use of Sticky Web on Water teams compared to historical teams, possibly due to Dewpider proving to be rather lackluster in Monotype.

Ghost has seen a huge surge in usage as compared to the previous Monotype Winter Premier, which goes hand in hand with the rise of Rock and possibly the expectancy of Normal due to its massive usage in the previous tournament. While Ghost is largely inflexible in its build, as it only realistically has six viable Pokémon to use, there have been new sets used on teams as compared to the typical builds. First off would be the huge variety in Misdreavus builds, thanks to its huge movepool and great ability to tech into specific sets. Substitute has been a popular choice, as it often forces switches and pairs extremely well with Nasty Plot. Fairium Z has also been seen, which allows Misdreavus to blast past Fighting-types like Timburr as well as OHKO Carvanha through a Protect at +2 Special Attack. Another newcomer set has been a defensively oriented Z-Trick-or-Treat Pumpkaboo, which finds global usage as a fast and bulky Will-O-Wisp utility Pokémon to take on physically offensive-oriented types like Dark, Rock, and Normal.

Finally, Normal has seen a massive drop in usage as compared to the previous year's tournament, being used nearly half as frequently in this year's tournament. This could likely be a result of people overprepping for types that are perceived as popular, therefore pushing Normal down. For example, a large amount of Rock, Water, and Ghost usage, especially with the popularity of Cranidos and Frillish, can make Normal a risky type to use given the difficulty it faces in those matchups that is further increased by Pokémon tailored to beat it.

Check out some of these replays to see some fun Monotype LC action!

• Water vs. Dark
• Ghost vs. Grass
• Rock vs. Fighting

Ubers

Usage in Monotype Ubers has stayed true to the previous Monotype Winter Premier tournament. However, there have still been some features of note within this tournament. During the early weeks, there was a massive amount of Water usage, which is likely due to players predicting Ground to be used, as it was one of the most popular and consistent types used in last year's tournament. After Week 1, Water's usage quickly died out, although it had more showings mid-tournament and in playoffs.

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, Ground's usage has been much lower than what would be expected coming out of last year's tournament. While it was used consistently at least once every week of the tournament, it was only the 4th most used type. Due to the general inflexibility in team options, most teams look extremely similar on paper. However, the stars of Ground, namely Primal Groudon, Zygarde, and Arceus-Ground, have a huge selection of sets that could be used between them. Their finals slots are dedicated to tech Pokémon, of which there have been some interesting choices. While Krookodile is a very popular choice due to its usefulness against Psychic and Ghost, there have been showings of other more unexpected Pokémon such as Nidoqueen, Rhyperior, and Mega Steelix due to their potential niche uses in certain matchups.

Even given the popularity of Water and Ground, Steel came out as the most used Ubers type in the tournament. This could largely be due to the wide array of great Pokémon to choose from, all of which have sets that help amazingly with individual difficult matchups. For example, Kartana is extremely overwhelming for both Ground and Water alongside specially oriented Genesect. Teams are typically supported by other generally good Pokémon including Aegislash, Dialga, and Mega Lucario, all of which tend to do well in most matchups and serve their individual functions wells. However, Steel's popularity lies in Necrozma-DM, which has proven to a very overwhelming force with a wide array of sets. While the two typical sets are either Double Dance with Solganium Z or Weakness Policy, some teams have opted to use Weakness Policy alongside Trick Room as a means of pulling off an unexpected sweep, as most Ubers teams do not prepare for Trick Room at all.

The aforementioned high usage of Steel could also be in preparation for Fairy, which many people consider heavily when building a team, namely due to the powerful force of Xerneas. Xerneas has the potential to auto-win against many unprepared teams, especially given the nature of Monotype. This leads to many teams overly preparing for Xerneas, with dedicated checks to remove its stat boosts or phaze it completely. Because of the overpreparation, Fairy itself didn't even make the list of top 5 most used types, and types that would struggle very heavily with it, such as Dragon, saw very high usage in the tournament, while other types like Dark and Electric were used a few times each as well.

Check out some of these replays to see some fun Monotype Ubers action!

• Steel vs Psychic
• Dragon vs Ground
• Water vs Dragon

AAA

Monotype AAA has been fairly well balanced in terms of type usage throughout this tournament. Access to a large pool of abilities solidly fills in holes that many regular Monotype teams tend to have, which allows many types to be viable and still threatening enough to be used in tournament play. The most used types in this tournament were Water, Psychic, Normal, and Electric, with Flying and Dark not too far behind, while most other types were used a couple of times each as well. This is much better distributed compared to the first MWP tournament, which saw massive usage of Psychic followed by Steel, Water, Flying, and Dark, with essentially no other types used. This can largely be attributed by the bans of both Psychic Surge and Magearna, both of which were very restricting factors to teambuilding.

Moving into this tournament, aside from individual type usage, one of the most prevalent abilities seen was Triage, commonly on Pokémon like Tapu Bulu, Gallade, Toxicroak, and Golisopod. When paired with boosting moves like Swords Dance, these all have proven to be very limiting factors when building teams, hence their popularity. Additionally, Minior has proven to be extremely threatening in the metagame, warranting specific teambuilding to counter. Two defensive abilities that have become extremely common in Monotype AAA teams are Dazzling and Unaware in order to tackle these aforementioned threats; some teams even opted to run both of these defensive abilities on the same team. Types that are weak to common priority moves' types, such as Psychic and Dark, essentially find it mandatory to run a Dazzling Pokémon in order to not simply auto-lose against teams with heavy priority. Alternatively, some types that have Pokémon that can afford to use Unaware instead to take on these threats have proven to do well such as Skarmory on Steel and Gligar on Ground.

Furthermore, Poison Heal has proven to be a very popular ability on defensive teams in this tournament. This has very commonly been seen on Snorlax, which is extremely daunting to take down for some types on its own, but also on some more interesting Pokémon such as Tapu Fini and Seismitoad. In order to punish Poison Heal specifically, there has been some use of Gastro Acid, which isn't too commonly utilized.

The variety seen in this tournament has kept most games very exciting to watch and we definitely recommend checking out some of the following replays:

• Water vs Steel
• Ground vs Fairy
• Dark vs Dragon

STABmons

With no comparison, the most popular type in Monotype STABmons has been Water throughout the tournament. This is likely due to how flexible the type is given its wide array of secondary typings on Water-types as well as the difficulty most types have dealing with strong oncoming attacks such as from the likes of Water Spout Keldeo under rain. Water teams have varied a lot throughout the tour, due to the aforementioned flexibility. However, there have been a few common themes. Cloyster has been extremely prevalent on Water teams thanks to its immense use in the mirror match due to Freeze-Dry as well as its general usefulness against Flying. The tournament has also shown a huge variety of different Rotom-W sets, as it has access to moves from all Rotom forme types. This aids in the unpredictability of teams, as playing against a defensive pivot Rotom-W takes different considerations than an offensive coverage Rotom-W, which has also been a bit popular in this tournament. Additionally, defensive Water builds have become more popular through this tournament, featuring Pokémon like Roost Gyarados and Shore Up Mega Swampert, which can prove difficult for certain types.

Aside from Water, no type was used more than 5 times, with a mostly even distribution among all other types. This is an interesting departure from last year's tournament, which saw fair usage of both Flying and Normal as well. Although it is not a trend, some more interesting types have been used in this tournament, including Fighting with Sticky Web to take advantage of the overwhelming force of Mega Medicham alongside Breloom's ability to take on Water, as well as a fair amount of Electric, likely also trying to target Water teams. As mentioned earlier, the much-lowered usage of Flying and elevated usage of Water in this tournament has also led to a decrease in Rock in this tournament, which otherwise is a rather solid choice against most types due to its great move pool and Pokémon.

Check out some of these replays to see some fun Monotype STABmons action!

• Electric vs Water
• Water vs Dragon
• Flying vs Normal

Highlight Matches

Chaitanya vs Wanka

This match between Chaitanya and wanka was a fast-paced battle between two offensive types, Electric and Fairy, that ultimately ended with Zeraora's Z-Bounce lure.

The first few turns of the game were centered around Chaitanya's desire to wear down Wanka's Tapu Bulu check, Zapdos, so that Tapu Bulu could do loads of damage later on in the game. Chaitanya accomplishes this, as Wanka constantly uses Zapdos's Volt Switch to grab momentum instead of taking the time to use Roost; as doing so could put Zapdos in a bad position if Chaitanya ever decided to switch to Diancie. With Zapdos weakened, it's no longer a switch-in to Tapu Bulu, so Wanka is forced to send in his Tapu Koko to end Tapu Bulu's Grassy Terrain and therefore stiffle the power of Tapu Bulu's Horn Leech. Wanka then sacks his Alolan Golem to another Horn Leech and sends in Zapdos to possibly recover off some damage using Roost, but Tapu Bulu's Horn Leech unfortunately crits and knocks Zapdos out. Wanka then finds a way to set up his wincon, Zeraora, and lure in Tapu Bulu and KO it with Z-Bounce, successfully knocking it out and sweeping the rest of Chaitanya's weakened team, despite his original Tapu Bulu check in Zapdos being knocked out.

Paleo vs Arifeen

The game between Paleo and Arifeen showcased how Gastrodon could quickly turn the tide and relieve pressure for Water teams in the Electric matchup.

The matchup at hand was a Arifeen's bulky Water team versus Paleo's Electric team. Gastrodon was a huge threat to Paleo's team, as it was able to take attacks and recover off the damage from all of Paleo's Pokémon bar Magnezone. Paleo tries to play around Gastrodon by trying to aggressively bring in Choice Specs Hidden Power Grass Magnezone, the only thing that could hit bulky Water and Ground-type Pokémon hard on the team. Despite being able to trap Empoleon and knock it out with Thunderbolt, Arifeen's Water team was easily able to exploit the fact that Magnezone was Choice locked and kept Gastrodon safe throughout the entire match, leaving Paleo's team at a disadvantage. In the endgame, Paleo sent his Magnezone into Gastrodon's Earth Power, leaving it KO'd and Gastrodon uncheckable, ending the game with Arifeen as the winner.

Late Weeks

Pak vs Wincon

The battle between Pak and Wincon is a good example of adaptations of the current metagame in order to fit a team's needs. As a type, Fairy teams generally revolve around the same few Pokémon but are able to innovate and adapt to the current metagame using its limited teamslots, in this case, using Substitute + Swords Dance Tapu Bulu carrying an unique move, Disable.

Pak used a Klefkiless Fairy team against Wincon's rain team with Toxapex as a defensive backbone, which can be extremely painful for Fairy teams to defeat due to its ability to to efficiently lay down Toxic Spikes. The game starts off with Wincon playing aggressively and setting rain early and using offensive Pokémon such as Greninja and Keldeo to constantly pressure Pak's team. After every other Pokémon fainted and Tapu Bulu is his last Pokémon, Pak positions it extremely well, allowing it to set up effectively and sweep Wincon's team. Tapu Bulu's Disable capitalized on the fact that Wincon's check to the offensive behemoth was Sludge Bomb Toxapex. The fact that Toxapex did not lay down Toxic Spikes earlier on in the game punished Wincon now, as he had no choice but to allow Tapu Bulu to set up and sweep the rest of his team, while it could easily render Sludge Bomb Toxapex useless by Disabling the move.

Havens n_n vs Eien

At Team Preview, for the matchup at hand, sandless Ground vs an offensive Psychic team could go either way for our average spectator.

The game kicks off with Havens leading Mega Steelix in order to get off an early-game Curse or Heavy Slam. Eien leads with his Mega Gallade. Due to the fact that Havens's Ground team lacks a Choice Scarf user to revenge kill Mega Gallade, he has no choice but to use Heavy Slam with Mega Steelix to weaken Mega Gallade for Mamoswine's Ice Shard to pick off. Eien then finds a way to use his first Healing Wish user, Latias, to replenish Mega Gallade's health, after it takes out Gliscor using its boosts, and gets weakened in the process. Eien then uses Mega Gallade to put a huge dent in Mega Steelix, which is a huge threat to the rest of his team due to its ability to sweep with Curse, but it is knocked out by Victini's V-create the next turn. With Mega Steelix fainted, Eien is able to successfully clean the rest of Havens's team with his Deoxys-S, which has the appropriate coverage in Ice Beam and Energy Ball to sweep Ground teams, along with Celebi's Healing Wish support to restore it back to full health if it does get weakened.

Final Standings

1. Sootopolis Sealeos (6 - 1 - 0, 12 Points)
2. Good Civ Goodras (4 - 1 - 2, 10 Points)
3. Croissant Copping Chikoritas (3 - 3 - 1, 7 Points)
4. Native Natus (3 - 3 - 1, 7 Points)
5. Ever Grande Eevees (3 - 3 - 1, 7 Points)
6. Rascal Ralts (3 - 4 - 0, 6 Points)
7. Rustboro Raptors (2 - 3 - 2, 6 Points)
8. Dauntless Dewgongs ( 0 - 6 - 1, 1 Point)

Playoffs

Many teams that were projected to make the playoffs from the Top 4 teams in the Power Rankings made it, with exception of the Rustboro Raptors, which were projected to be the best team in the tournament; instead, a dark horse in the Croissant Copping Chikoritas made it into the finals in their place. The semifinal matchups were Sootopolis Sealeos vs. Native Natus and Good Civ Goodras vs. Croissant Copping Chikoritas. The Croissant Copping Chikoritas was able to muscle past and win the week with a score of 5-3, securing their place in the finals. However, the Sootopolis Sealeos and the Native Natus went into a tiebreak, with the Natus opting to add a USM spot to the tiebreak and the Sealeos adding in AAA to secure a win, with their undefeated 1 True Lycan. The Sealeos were able to win the tiebreak in a close series, coming down to Paleo vs Star, and claim their place in the finals, though the Natus were able to pull an upset win as Ssalbap defeated 1 True Lycan in the AAA match.

1. Sootopolis Sealeos (5) vs. 3. Croissant Copping Chikoritas (3)

• USM: 1 True Lycan vs. Waszap
• USM: Balto vs. Dahli
• USM: Bitana vs. -Tsunami-
• LC: obii vs. Nailec
• Ubers: Star vs. Mysterious M
• AAA: rozes vs. Racool
• STABmons: Funbot28 vs. Trichotomy
• Monothreat: Vodoom vs. Nexecutioner

The finals were between the Sootopolis Sealeos and the Croissant Copping Chikoritas; with the Sealeos having held the top seed for pretty much the entire tour, it wasn't a shocker to see them getting there. A highlight match of the final was 1 True Lycan vs. Waszap, as the two are very strong current generation Monotype players. However, this game was riddled with hax, as on turn one, Waszap got a critical hit with Metagross on Tornadus-T, completely changing the pace of the game. The Sealeos were able to use their momentum from early on in the round and win the second iteration of Monotype Winter Premier. Balto vs. Dahli took place after the Sealeos had won the tour and both players were subbed in, allowing them to play one last game. Bitana vs. Tsunami saw Dark vs. Calm Mind Keldeo Water. This should have been in -Tsunami-'s favor; however, he sacked Swampert early-game to set up Stealth Rock, carving a path for Mega Sharpedo to come in and sweep, letting Bitana win the game. In obii vs. Nailec, everyone was fully expecting Nailec to clutch another win, being 8-0 in Monotype LC; however, he missed a High Jump Kick mid-game, which ended up costing him his wincon and allowing obii to clutch a game their team was fully expecting to lose. Monotype Ubers again saw very familiar types in Steel and Psychic for the finals matchup. Star ended up being able to clean late-game with Mega Mewtwo X and win the deciding game for the Sootopolis Sealeos. Racool vs. rozes was Bug against hyper offensive Steel; rozes was able to set Stealth Rock early-game and keep up the pressure between Lucario and Jirachi, allowing him to pick up the win. Funbot vs. Trichotomy was a clean match between Water and Psychic STABmons teams, where Trichotomy was able to win the match by constantly pressuring Funbot's team with Mega Medicham and Celebi and eventually closing it out with Alakazam. Vodoom vs. Nexecutioner was the Monothreat game, and Vodoom was able to eventually win with Blacephalon; however, everyone was confused by Nexecutioner's choice to bring Arcanine, which only hindered him through the match, as it is not a particularly useful Pokémon in Fire Monothreat. This was a close-knit final, literally coming down to the very last game to decide the outcome. While the Sealeo's started with a very strong 3-0 lead, the Chikoritas were able to bounce back and claim three wins. Overall, this was a very interesting final packed with a ton of great matchups.

Manager Interviews

After seven grueling weeks of battle, the Sootopolis Sealeos and Croissant Copping Chikoritas were able to surpass all of their opponents and advanced to the finals, where one of these teams came out as the MWP 2 champions. We got the inside scoop from the finalist managers and their overall thoughts about their tournament experiences before they faced off. Here are their experiences.

Closing Thoughts

After many long weeks of prepping and battling, the Sootopolis Sealeos have been crowned champions of the second edition of the Monotype Winter Premier League. The tour ran smoothly; however, as the tour progressed, it was very obvious which metagames people enjoyed playing more and which were less savory, either because of the playerbase or the actual metagame. The question will be whether the same metagames will be reintroduced in MWP 3, due to the lack of interest in some of them such as Monotype LC and Monotype Ubers, or replaced with different and possibly more diverse metagames. Only time will tell; overall, though, MWP 2 was a successful tour that saw competition between the teams and crowned a new MWP Champion!

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