Ubers Suspect Coverage: Miraidon 2 Electric Boogaloo

By Lasen. Released:2024/11/28
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Ubers Suspect Coverage: Miraidon 2 Electric Boogaloo Art

Art by uppa.

Introduction

From the moment of their release, it was obvious to anyone playing any type of attention to Ubers that the bike duo, Miraidon and Koraidon, was quite simply a cut above the rest of the competition. Even with the re-addition of old powerhouses such as Zacian-C, Arceus, and Mewtwo (the former of which was even nerfed from its generation 8 power level), very little could contest with the two newest box legends. This was even truer for Miraidon; a blistering base 135 Speed and an equally large Special Attack, which was only further boosted by its signature Ability, Hadron Engine, which effectively gave it a x1.33 Special Attack boost while also further boosting its Electric-type attacks through the Electric Terrain it sets, only to be further accentuated by its beautiful Electric / Dragon typing. What a beast! Its access to U-turn and Volt Switch as well as boosting moves in Agility and Calm Mind made it extremely difficult to effectively guess its set from team preview; would you be able to deal with a Choice-locked set by setting Sticky Web? Or would its Heavy-Duty Boots make Miraidon laugh in your face? Perhaps an offensive check like Zacian-C, able to take a Draco Meteor, outspeed it, and then OHKO it could be the answer—if it wasn't for Choice Scarf sets getting the jump on the poor dog and OHKOing it with an Electro Drift. Even though the first DLC blessed Koraidon with Scale Shot, Miraidon's movepool remained largely unchanged, only gaining access to... Charge. However, Miraidon somehow still remained a huge problem in the teambuilder and in battle alike, leading to its first suspect test and concluding with a narrow no-ban result on March 19, 2024, gathering 62.4% of the votes to ban it but not meeting the necessary 66.6%; this 62.4% would have led to a swift Miraidon ban in any other tier, but because Ubers requires the aforementioned supermajority, it stayed legal. Even so, half a year after its initial suspect, a tiering survey showed that both the overall playerbase and the top-level tournament players both rated Miraidon as overtly problematic, garnering scores just shy of 7/10. As a result, more tiering action was clearly on the table.

What changed since last time?

One of the biggest changes between the two suspects was the ban of Last Respects in April of 2024. With Basculegion-M no longer terrorizing players by making them toss a coin to decide if they'd win or lose based on whether they managed to save their Tera Normal slots to not get swept by the fish or if they had to use their Tera earlier to best one of the bikes, more eyes were now on Miraidon.

Another major metagame development was the discovery of the Tera Stellar Life Orb set, running a set of Electro Drift / Draco Meteor / Overheat and then a choice of either Calm Mind or Agility. This seemingly small difference between the movesets made all the difference when trying to answer Miraidon; can one afford to risk a Speed tie to try and OHKO it with their own Miraidon or Koraidon? Or would one try to answer it defensively with a specially defensive Ground-type such as Ting-Lu, Arceus-Ground, or Clodsire, only to be blown back by a Calm Mind Tera Stellar Draco Meteor?

The final change in the metagame was Solar Beam gaining more and more traction as a way to deal with the aforementioned bulky Ground-types without needing to lower Miraidon's Special Attack with Draco Meteor. While this did necessitate sun being active to use it to its fully potential, Koraidon remained the #1 most used Pokémon in Ubers and was also always paired with any Miraidon opting for Solar Beam.

The straw that broke the camel's back, however, is a problem that Ubers has been plagued by since the very beginning of this generation: people grew sick and tired of the Speed ties. Between Miraidon, Koraidon, Chien-Pao, and Flutter Mane, the playerbase was resoundingly tired of having to stake it all on their 405 Speed creature going first in a tier as power crept as Ubers.

Sets

Pivot

Miraidon

This is the bread-and-butter set for Miraidon, capable of doing a little bit of everything. It can do decently well into stall, it can break common balance cores, and it can even pivot to bring in teammates that can deal with the Ground-types it lures. The Heavy-Duty Boots provides a ton of longevity that one might not think about and also invalidates one of the best counterplay measures to other Miraidon sets: Sticky Web.

Choice Specs

Miraidon

The first "terrifying" Miraidon set. Its STAB options alone were enough to beat the common balance options such as Ho-Oh, Arceus-Fairy, Ting-Lu, Necrozma-DM, and Kyogre. Unlike most of its other sets, it can even beat a dedicated counter such as Iron Treads by locking into Overheat and even has a reliable Dragon-type attack in Dragon Pulse. As a result, it can function as both a fantastic wallbreaker and a late-game cleaner.

Double Dance

Miraidon

Double Dance Miraidon plays a vastly different role than its other sets; unlike the typical Miraidon, which provides good positioning or at the bare minimum forces the opponent to make bold plays, this set fully exploits holes in teams and the opponent's bad positioning in an attempt to sweep. By foregoing any initial Speed, Miraidon's bulk becomes just decent enough to make revenge killing it an absolute nuisance once it's set up. Electric Seed doubles down on that, boosting Miraidon's Defense to make priority moves do pitiful damage, while Parabolic Charge's lackluster Base Power is offset by the reliable recovery it provides.

Wallbreaker

Miraidon

The newest addition to Miraidon's arsenal, the wallbreaking set trades some of the immediate firepower that the Choice Specs has for the ability to change moves on the fly while still being an absolute hassle to switch into. The ability to pick and choose its own checks by a mere switch of the setup move makes this set truly scary.

Choice Scarf

Miraidon

Choice Scarf Miraidon works off the surprise factor. It's usually paired with a Koraidon, which is a much more common Choice Scarf user, letting the Miraidon net some surprise KOs as early as the lead. Foes like Zacian-C and Choice Scarf Koraidon can fall victim to this set; a Timid nature lets it Speed tie with Choice Scarf and +1 Speed Scale Shot Koraidon, but a Modest nature allows Miraidon to OHKO Zacian-C. This Miraidon also catches opposing uncommon Choice Scarf users unprepared, such as Kyogre and Landorus-T.

Sample Team

Ribombee Koraidon Miraidon Zacian-Crowned Lunala Arceus-Fairy

This SCL team perfectly encapsulates the state of the metagame and Miraidon's terrifying power right before its ban. With Sticky Web support from Ribombee, Miraidon only has to worry about Speed tying at worst with any given foe, unless it faces an already Speed-boosted one or a Heavy-Duty Boots Iron Bundle. Between Calm Mind Life Orb Miraidon and Life Orb Koraidon, very little few defensive cores can remain staying without perfect predictions. Zacian-C covers an opposing Zacian-C matchup, especially so if it's a Sticky Web mirror, while Lunala is an emergency check to any given threat the opponent may have, making sure that even after the Koraidon + Miraidon duo is thoroughly chipped, nothing can sweep. Double Dance Arceus-Fairy ties it all together, matching opposing setup sweepers and providing a solid check to both of the Dragon-type bikes.

Pro-ban Reasoning

Miraidon's mere presence put a lot of pressure in the teambuilder. Necessitating both a defensive and an offensive check or two of one category meant that one quickly became susceptible to Miraidon's teammates. The playerbase also believed that its flexibility was far too much; Choice Specs sets forced offense and balance teams to guess correctly or risk getting a team member OHKOed or close to it, while the pivot set could escape the ever-so-popular Sticky Web, come in and out against foes that were trying to recover their HP, and shut them down with Taunt or simply use U-turn on the forced switch. This culminated into the metagame trending mostly towards hyper offense mirror matchups on the ladder and SCL matches alike, meaning a lot of matches were decided to some extent before they had even begun. Said hyper offense and in general offense structures barely had to make any concessions in order to fit Miraidon. Not only did it fit like a glove, but it could also adapt in order to beat Uber-specific sets and foes—pun very much related. Miraidon's defensive checks were also deemed terrible against any team that wasn't running the bike from the future. While Ting-Lu provided some extra use against Miraidon thanks to having access to phazing, Spikes and Stealth Rock, and Ruination, other Pokémon such as Iron Treads and Clodsire were seen as mostly deadweight if they weren't facing Miraidon. All of the above, alongside the rise of Scale Shot and Life Orb Koraidon leading to even more Speed ties than ever before, resulted in a very frustrated playerbase.

Anti-ban Reasoning

While the strengths of Miraidon were easy to define, its biggest fans argued that the negative effects of its presence were exaggerated. The rise of offense did lead to more mirror matches of offense vs. offense, but seeing a balanced, bulkier team was by no means rare. Miraidon may have adapted, but so did balance teams in order to counter it and the rest of its teammates. Specially defensive Iron Treads quickly rose in popularity, being able to stonewall most sets as they opted not to run Overheat. Tera Fairy and Ground both became much more prevalent on balance staples such as Necrozma-DM and Ho-Oh, with Tera Ground Earthquake easily OHKOing Miraidon. Offensive answers were also easy to find; Zacian-C started opting for Play Rough to be able to KO Miraidon after it had been chipped, even after it had Terastallized. Uncommon Choice Scarf users such as Kyogre, Landorus-T, and even Miraidon itself were also seeing more and more usage. A Pokémon checking itself was never the sign of an unhealthy Ubers metagame, and this feeling remained true for Scarlet and Violet. There was also a feeling that was echoed throughout the community that the metagame was overall stable. While a lot of people didn't appreciate it as much as [insert old gen] Ubers, few would argue that the tier was in a state of disarray, as every playstyle from stall to hyper offense was seeing play and success. This also tied in with a feeling of Miraidon feeling that it simply "did not belong" in Anything Goes. That is to say that the burden it put in teambuilding wasn't nearly as pronounced as Pokémon like ORAS and SM Mega Rayquaza, SS Zacian-C and its base forme, and SV Calyrex-S.

Verdict & Final Thoughts

Unfortunately for Miraidon but fortunately for the playerbase and the writer of this article, its suspect test concluded on October 20, 2024, with 82.9% of the qualified voters voting for it to be banned. This makes it the second Pokémon banned from SV Ubers alongside Calyrex-S. The vast majority of players believed that it constrained teambuilding and was played far too much for it to be deemed healthy and thus, it was banished to Anything Goes. The ban also has driven discussion towards a potential Koraidon suspect test, but that is too far in the future to predict within this article. May you bike ever so electrically in the banlist of banlists, Miraidon.

HTML by Steorra.
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