Obviously early meta is kinda just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, but some early takes:
- I think the Arceus forms are the coolest part of this meta; you really rely on them for defensive synergy since the meta really lacks good defensive staples otherwise, and while none of the forms the meta actually has are real immediate threats, the raw stats make them incredibly dependable. Yes, it's kind of a GSE Lax situation where the main thing keeping them in check is the fact that you need them to run glue sets in large part because of each other, but I will say that the lack of immediate power on any of the early variants make them feel super manageable. I think right now you more or less need your Arceus to be a Fairy check so that really limits your options, but once that frees up I'm really excited to see how it develops.
- Zacian is stupid and probably needs to go. It's basically just Fireceus and Poisonceus that beat it (and Crocolor ig?) because it outspeeds everything, it's absurdly strong, and it covers essentially everything it needs with Fairy STAB + Tera Ground. This thing was banned from Ubers last gen and you can tell why.
- Mag's in the same boat where I feel like it forces you to use your Arceus to beat it, but unlike Zacian, Mag doesn't break through its difficult Arceus matchups as easily because it gets phazed out. It was disgusting in OU because the things that could take its hits generally got set up on, but there's too much immediate power in this meta for that to work so well. I'll try it out and see.
- Palkia's everywhere, super fast and super strong. It's always stronger than I think it is, but being outsped by Zacian really limits its ability to run through a team. We'll see.
- Weather's something. Sun has Chi-Yu, Rain has Palafin, and Sand has Houndstone, the former two blow through teams and the latter I think forces really linear counterplay approaching the late game. I think there's definitely innovation to be had in the meta to improve on checking these things.
The thing that's really nice about this meta compared to OU is that the power level is incredibly high, but the raw stats on both offense and defense mean that you have a ton of initial power to really punish passivity and a ton of ways to limit any one thing from instantly carving through your entire team. There's some stupid stuff, for sure, but I definitely think there's a distinct meta here.