Metagame Ubers Metagame and Set Discussion

[Manaphy]

Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Transform

This is Ditto. You know what Ditto does. Ditto is mandatory.

Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

Ditto is not mandatory in the least. Also, there is no reason to run Iron Head, what does it hit that EQ and Rock Slide doesn't? Swords Dance is critical to breaking things like Corviknight.

Anyway, I think I FINALLY may have found a use for Zamazenta-Crowned for non-webs teams. Specifically, it can be useful as a Gyarados switch-in. Regular Zamazenta cannot do this because it's weak to Flying and is less bulky. Gyarados is one of the most prolific sweepers in the tier and theres little defensive options against it, so I think this gives Zamazenta-Crowned some merit.
In general, I would advise saving this thing in the back until a Gyarados tries to set-up on you, as keeping as much HP on Zamazenta is critical to trying to beat back Gyarados. After that, you can use Zamazenta as a general attacker and wallbreaker.

Zamazenta-Crowned @ Rusted Shield
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Behemoth Bash
- Close Combat
- Wild Charge / Thunder Fang
- Howl / Quick Attack / Crunch

156 HP EVs is the bare minimum for Gyarados to not kill you at +2 in Rain..
+2 252 Atk Gyarados Max Geyser vs. +1 156 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta-Crowned in Rain: 298-352 (81.8 - 96.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
(Max Geyser does more in Rain than Max Quake)

However, I put more EVs into HP to add more cushion since there could be some Spikes or chip damage on Zamazenta already.
Zamazenta is naturally slower than opposing Zacian/Eternatus so there really is not much point in running a ton of Speed EVs. This amount used here is to outspeed neutral natured Dugtrio and Jolly Excadrill outside of Sand.

The main thing is that Gyarados can double its HP by Dynamaxing, which is why I put as much as possible into attack power. Wild Charge has the disadvantage of giving recoil, which makes it worse vs Substitute sets, but it does way more damage to a Dynamax Gyarados.

216+ Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def (Roughly Dynamax HP) Gyarados: 516-608 (79.2 - 93.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
216+ Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Thunder Fang vs. 0 HP / 0 Def (Roughly Dynamax HP) Gyarados: 372-440 (57.1 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Most Gyarados sets I've seen seem to be the Substitute and Leftovers set, so realistically you'll probably come in on Gyarados Substituting, Dragon Dancing on your Electric Attack, and then Dynamaxing Max Geyser/Max Quake to try to kill you.

+1 252 Atk Gyarados Max Geyser vs. +1 248 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta-Crowned: 150-177 (38.7 - 45.7%) -- 15.6% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes
If they run Life Orb you still live if they're +1:
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Gyarados Waterfall vs. +1 248 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta-Crowned in Rain: 292-344 (75.4 - 88.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
(thats assuming Rain which would likely not be up in this scenario)

Overall it's not a perfect answer, but I think it's a pretty decent one. Wild Charge is better IMO since it does enough damage to usually OHKO Gyarados.
You have some decent attacking stats still so you can just smack things around after Gyarados is gone or if the opposing team doesn't have one. Last slot is pretty filler, Howl is for the attacking boost, Quick Attack since priority is generally good, Crunch to discourage Gothitelle. Since you have good Defensive stats in general you can also use Zamazenta as an emergency check to random stuff like Zacian. Don't try to think of Zamazenta-Crowned as some supposed-to-be wall and therefore bad, just think of it as a bulky offensive attacker that can be critical to not getting your team swept, keeping it's HP as high as possible like Groudon in the last gens since he can be susceptible to chip damage.

 

[Symphonic Sorcerer]

After experimenting with a few more offensive threats, I've realized that bar Eternatus and a few other frail set up sweepers, the majority of this meta is Physical. To exploit the lack of specially defensive threats, I've been using the following two threats:

Eternatus @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Wave
- Flamethrower
- Dynamax Cannon

Meet the best Choice Specs user in the game. Modest Specs Eternatus hits a whopping Special Attack stat of 640 and can OHKO many of the defensive stops to a potential Zacian-C sweep. Many teams are unprepared for this variant of Eternatus, and the key to using it is prediction. However, should you nail your prediction, you opponent will be losing at least one mon per game. A Modest Nature is preferred over Timid for the increased damage output and since Eternatus gets outsped by almost every relevant Uber even when running Timid - you only outspeed Zamazenta-C, which in all honesty, is just a mediocre choice to put on a team.

Hydreigon @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse
- Fire Blast / Flamethrower

Sub Nasty Plot Hydreigon pairs very well with Eternatus. An unexpected threat, not only is Hydreigon a solid check/counter to metagame threats like Polteageist and Gothitelle and resistant to Prankster, but it can shred through defensive teams by virtue of Nasty Plot and its speed tier. A Modest Nature is preferred over Timid for the increased damage output. Additionally, Hydreigon is not outspeeding any major offensive metagame threats. You could run Timid if you're worried about the rare Jolly Mold Breaker Excadrill, but unfortunately miss out on some much needed power for maximum breaking. Dynamaxing ensures at least one or two kills once behind a sub as well. Finally, Heavy Duty Boots is a clutch item that allows Hydreigon from not taking damage from Stealth Rock, so it can successfully set up behind a sub and wreck havoc.

This core definitely works best on a Sticky Webs team structure. Being able to slow down faster threats and then blow right past them is optimal. I have yet to create a truly great Webs team, but one type of build that has performed fairly well (8-0 on mid-ladder) consists of Shuckle/Eternatus/Hydreigon/Zacian-C/Quagsire/Excadrill. On this type of team, Scarf Excadrill performs brilliantly as a form of both speed and hazard control, as well as a revenge killer, with Mold Breaker being the ability of choice to smack Levitate abusers. It's been fun testing different teams out and hopefully I'll find something metagame defining in the future. But until then, peace out amigos.

https://pokepast.es/8d3210722b80a357

 

[orch]

I've been using Sableye, and I think that it's surprisingly good in this metagame.


Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Recover
- Knock Off / Foul Play

This set is basically stalltwo. It's designed to wall physical threats and stallbreak simultaneously. The added bonus is the spinblocking that ghost typing offers. This is the ideal Excadrill counter. Likewise, you can use this to burn Zacian and sacrifice it to enable a 99.99% Goth trap. Zamz is pretty bad vs this pokemon too. Unfortunately, Eternatus is very strong vs this pokemon, so the best you can do is burn and run away! Unless the Eternatus is running stall set, then just taunt it and pp stall it. The choice between Knock Off and Foul Play depends on if you prioritize the item removal or damage.

 

[Missingno.1998]

Okay so I found an unexpected counter to Zacian:</p><p></p><p>Runerigus: With 58/145 physical bulk, it can take at least one physical hit from Zacian at +1:

+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Runerigus: 178-210 (55.6 - 65.6%)

And has the possibility to survive a +3 physical attack:

+3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Runerigus: 294-348 (91.8 - 108.7%)

With the ability to survive a hit, Runerigus has the ability to then activate Trick Room, Destiny Bond, Haze, Will-O-Wisp or can take advantage of its new ability Intrepid Sword (which gives it an automatic +1 to its attack) and use a STAB Earthquake or Max Quake.

+1 4 Atk Runerigus Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zacian-Crowned: 276-326 (84.9 - 100.3%)

Obviously it isn't a foolproof counter, but it has some great moments and I have enjoyed using it to counter my opponent's Zacian. Having said that, if a fully maxxed out Runerigus can only take one possibly two hits from Zacian without setting up, you know the thing is grossly overpowered.

 

[Manaphy]

upon further reflection the Zamzenta-Crowned set should look something like this..

Zamazenta-Crowned @ Rusted Shield
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Behemoth Bash / Crunch
- Close Combat
- Wild Charge / Thunder Fang
- Metal Burst

Forgot Metal Burst existed lol. I still prefer this over the one in the smogon dex since this has more offensive power and deals with Gyarados better, you have to resort to mindgames otherwise. You lose out on the ability to take a +3 Fire Fang from Zacian but honestly most run substitute and Zamazenta should be on a team with plenty of SD Zacian checks already. Potentially useful on bulkier offensive/stall builds.

By the way...
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 192 HP / 64 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Trick Room
- Shadow Ball

This set seems pretty good, nothing really walls it in the current meta and trick room fucks with the whole tier, not to mention sticky webs and baton pass teams and ditto. It has unresisted coverage and Magic guard so it can do some major damage by dynamaxing and will still take a hit or two.

 

[DemonEyesJoker]

Any reason Baton Pass isn't banned on the Ubers ladder right now? In addition to the old passers like Espeon and Ribombee being available, we have new ones like Polteageist being able to pass Shell Smash and Dubwool being able to pass Cotton Guard. While losing Smeargle and Scolipede definitely hurt Baton Pass teams, it also got some indirect buffs, such as Marshadow being gone (no Spectral Thief to auto-steal boosts) and most good Taunters in Ubers being gone as well (Mewtwo comes to mind, especially with Mega Mewtwo Y having Insomnia to hard counter Smeargle leads). In addition to this, while we don't have Smeargle available, teams are still able to pass Ingrain through Bellossom (which conveniently also comes with Sleep Powder and Quiver Dance, as well as respectable bulk).

Jolly Zacian vs Bellossom
+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 248 HP / 56 Def Bellossom: 295-348 (83.5 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This is the minimum you can run to guarantee survive Jolly Zacian-C's Behemoth Blade, you can run even more bulk to guarantee survive Behemoth Blade from Adamant Zacian. That is assuming you run Bellossom as a lead against Zacian-C to begin with - in practice, you can usually run Ninjask to gain speed first before passing to other threats on the team, which basically serves as the Scolipede replacement on full Baton Pass chains, which is definitely not as good as Scolipede, but still passes speed relatively easily.

Passers and Recipients

Obvious recipients include the new Ubers - I'll mainly stick to Zacian-C and Eternatus for the examples below however. You can run basically any good sweeper with Baton Pass and it'll do well however - Gyarados, Hawlucha and Darmanitan-G all come to mind.

There are also some really good passers among the Gen 8's new passers. Looking at the list, we get a pretty wide variety of passers in Generation 8, the most notable including all the starters, Hatterene, Mr. Rime, Dragapult, Dubwool and Polteageist. The last two are of note, since they come with Cotton Guard and Shell Smash respectively - as such, I'll focus on them in this post.

Dubwool basically sets up on anything physical - the one exception being Zacian-C w/ Sacred Sword, which, admittedly, is a pretty obvious answer to it. It even sets up on Darmanitan-G pretty well, which is pretty impressive:

Jolly Choice Scarf Darmanitan-G vs max HP Dubwool (no Def investment)
252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dubwool: 147-174 (42.2 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Dubwool: 138-163 (39.6 - 46.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Then, when you do pass the Cotton Guard to something else, you get stuff like this:

Jolly Zacian-C vs non-invested Eternatus w/ Cotton Guard passed
+1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. +3 0 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 144-170 (34.2 - 40.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Choice Band Darmanitan-G vs non-invested Eternatus w/ Cotton Guard passed
252 Atk Choice Band Darmanitan-Galar Icicle Crash vs. +3 0 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 186-218 (44.1 - 51.7%) -- 10.5% chance to 2HKO

Polteageist can set up a Shell Smash and pass it to something like Eternatus or Zacian-C, both of which have the typing and bulk to survive at least one hit even at -1 Def/Sp. Def (assuming no White Herb). Ubers like Zacian and Eternatus really become obnoxious with any of these passes, especially if Substitute is kept up as well.

Jolly Zacian-C w/ Shell Smash vs max Def. Corviknight
+3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 302-356 (75.5 - 89%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Jolly Zacian-C w/ Shell Smash vs max Def. Toxapex
+3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 302-356 (99.3 - 117.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Black Sludge recovery

Jolly Zacian-C w/ Shell Smash vs max Def. Eviolite Corsola-G
+3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 240-283 (74 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Timid Life Orb Eternatus w/ Shell Smash vs max Sp. Def Zamazenta
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Eternatus Flamethrower vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zamazenta-Crowned: 307-361 (79.3 - 93.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Shell Smash Timid Life Orb Eternatus w/ Shell Smash vs max Sp. Def Toxapex
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Eternatus Dynamax Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 259-305 (85.1 - 100.3%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Black Sludge recovery

These calculations assume max/max spreads, which likely won't happen for some of these Pokemon. For instance, Corviknight almost never runs a fully physically defensive spread from what I've seen on ladder, although I could be wrong on this. In cases where these Pokemon aren't max/max spreads, a lot of this numbers start to reach OHKO thresholds.

Checks and Counters (?)

Unaware counters include basically only Quagsire (who can't do anything vs Baton Pass teams w/ Substitutes and any form of Defense boosts AND dies to Stored Power easily) and Pyukumuku, which just doesn't have ANY presence against a Baton Pass team and just gets stone-walled by Magic Bounce Espeon, which can just Calm Mind up and eventually break past it with Stored Power. Even if Clefable had Unaware (which it doesn't apparently), the amount of Zacian/Zamazenta/Eternatus running around makes it hard to run it against Baton Pass teams running them (which is super easy, considering how they can carry a game after ONE Baton Pass). In addition to this, Clefable actually GETS Baton Pass now, so it's actually part of the problem instead of solving it.

Toxapex can try and Haze against some Baton Pass teams, but dies to Stored Power Espeon and, as you can see from the calculations above, has some difficulty properly checking all Baton Pass teams - it can't run both fully physically defensive for Zacian-C w/ Shell Smash AND specially defensive for Eternatus w/ Shell Smash. From what I've seen on ladder, running both Eternatus and Zacian-C seems to be fairly popular, so Toxapex can definitely be overwhelmed if the two are played correctly.

Corsola-G can check Zacian-C if it is at full health, but can't switch in. It also loses to Substitute Eternatus.

Ditto is actually a decent check, but it's rather hard to transform against Substitute-spamming, especially if things like Dubwool w/ Cotton Guard and Espeon w/ Calm Mind start setting up to make the Substitute extremely hard to break.

Gothitelle is pretty decent if you manage to trick the Choice Scarf past all the Substitute spam.

Dynamaxing definitely works against Protect spam, but fails against Substitute spam. In addition, if passed to Zacian-C or Eternatus, they can hit you with Behemoth Blade/Dynamax Cannon respectively for a 200BP STAB move, even before accounting for any boosts.

Cursola w/ Perish Body is actually pretty good. Haven't tested whether Perish Body activates even if Cursola itself is KOed, but if it does, it ends any Baton Pass chain that has Ingrain active.

Basically, the counter play to Baton Passing just seems to be rather hard to pull off - especially if you consider that teams don't even need to set up a full chain to sweep you. Something like Shell Smash Polteageist passing to Zacian-C can be a game-ending if it carries the correct coverage to one-shot your entire team. It dominates against defensive teams and can run through balance and offense with just one boost, not to mention if there is a full Baton Pass chain ready to set up against the first mistake or miss you make.

I don't want to be mistaken and have people assume that I think all Baton Pass teams can auto-win just from one simple pass. The thing I object to in Baton Pass teams is the ease with which one can set up and win, especially if the opponent is unsure of what set or spread your Baton Pass team is running. Many teams just auto-lose to Baton Pass teams on team preview, and it requires a lot of reads on the opponent's part to outplay the relatively easy set-up and Substitute spam on the Baton Pass team. It can dominate lower to mid ladder, and only at the highest part of ladder do the opponents start to properly play against it. It doesn't seem to be a problem right now, but I can definitely see it being a problem as the generation continues. Even if it isn't banned right now, I hope that this post at least sparks some discussion on what to do about Baton Pass for Generation 8.

TL;DR: wondering why Baton Pass isn't banned yet

 

[orch]

Be the one who gets baton pass banned. You've solved some of the potential problems already.

 

[Lotus]

What do people think about rain teams so far?

I'd have to say it's pretty unexplored tech but so far I don't think it is very consistent, with Pelipper losing 1v1 to a lot of 'mons and Barraskewda needing band to OHKO important targets like Zacian-C. Barraskewda usually ends up being the 'mon that needs to Dynamax to do its job (which I don't think is a big detriment bc one, it's probably the only reliable rain abuser at this moment and two, getting lifted from choice lock and not dying to one retaliation hit is nice).

Thankfully Barraskewda being the only rain sweeper isn't going to hurt as much because it has everything it needs to hit most relevant water resists (psychic fang for Eternatus / Toxapex, CC for Ferrothorn, etc) The bigger issue I see with the structure of the rain team is hazard control and so far Pelipper and Mantine are probably the only considerable options for Defog and I wouldn't call either of those 'mons great. Setters are things like Ferrothorn and Qwilfish and I'd prefer the latter that has more utility coming from having fast Taunt under rain. The rest of the team could probably mimic what OU used in common rain teams but so many of them are gone this gen.

I think rain is going to be nice way to ct sand teams bc type advantage / Pelipper vs Hippowdon matchup and stuff but it's niche at best imo.

 

[absdaddy]

non sand weathers are not great but if we're talking about rain you gotta mention dracovish - if you're lucky enough to run into one of these slow pex goth quag corvi corsola teams then vish can probably solo the game from the second its in. shouldn't be slept on. should also mention it's one mean bp receiver.

Sun however i found to be pretty decent with interesting abusers like solar power boots zard - normal one not gigamax so max flare can reset sun. max airstream is +1 speed which means this thing can actually sweep after one cause of crazy coverage: focus blast, fire move, dragon pulse, hurricane. torkoal as a setter isn't terrible itself, can hard on any zacian with boots and plume it or something. has sr+spin in one mon for role compression too.
ninetales I haven't really tried but it seems to be pretty wack so i think torkoal is the go to. rotom heat is another good support mon to put on sun, chesto rest with wisp, overheat and volt switch can be a nice pivot. Running sun also means you get to use solarblade zacian and delete quags which i find very satisfying to pull off.

 

[Luís Tunes]

https://pokepast.es/fd27bcacd445ad65

Currently on top 10 with the above team which I will review.
I think Zacian-Crowned is the best pokemon this gen, it can sweep or put a lot of pressure each time it enters, and the coverage moves I use, plus substitute and adamant nature is, in my opinion, the most consistent set it has. On the other hand, Eternatus is the best offensive special attacker, being very difficult to switch into. The set is fairly standard, but effective, has great damage output and longevity. Ditto is the premier revenge killer in the metagame, the best user of the mechanic of dynamax on the team, can beat many pokemon one-on-one and even help stalling. The deffensive core of the team is formed by three pokemon. The most important is Quagsire, the team`s mascot. It has two functions, checking Zacian-Crowned and letting our Zacian-Crowned pick up some kills without fear of getting revenged killed by ditto. It is important, in order to function properly, to keep entry hazards out of the field. Toxapex checks most special atackers, stops sweep attempts with haze alongside unware Quagsire and pressures Quagsire and other pokemons with toxic spikes alongside toxic Quagsire, necessary in orther to beat some checks of Zacian-Crowned or Eternatus. The least important pokemon of the team, Corviknight, still complements it well, having defog to clean hazard (Eternatus and most importantly, Toxapex can also clean toxic spikes) and u-turn for momentum bringing the offensive pokemons safely. Body Press pressures Excadrill and Tyranitar more immediately than brave bird, even though the last option can also be used. Corviknight also gives the team an immunity to ground and stall capabilities with pressure ability.

 

[orch]

I've been following the replays in The Kickoff tournament. I've noticed some trends:

Rotom is not countered enough. It's able to dunk on most of these anti-metagame pokemons while being pretty useful vs the big 3.

Quagsire is everywhere. Some competitors did bring Sun to counter Quagsire, but sun is still very niche anti-meta strat.

Excadrill is overused. It's used a lot and only end up being useful if the opponent chokes.

Ditto usage has gone way down since the beginning of this tier. It still is used, but it seems to be shaky since people are gaming the Ditto weakneses.

Gothitelle/Dugtrio are around, but they are not used as much as I thought they would be. However, the teambuilding choices definitely show strong anti-trapping choices. Also, most teams only feature one of them which is disappointing because I think that trappers are strongest when you stack them up.

Where's baton pass? It *should* be good, but I don't see any BP strategies. Even quickpassing substitutes can be devastating.

 

[Manaphy]

I'm loving bringing back some old school BW mons in this tier.
Heres a potentially viable set:

Conkeldurr @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Payback
- Defog
- Mach Punch

Haven't tested this set out yet but I think it has potential, the tier pretty much only has 2 hazard removal mons atm (exca and corviknight), so this thing could have some niche. I mean if you think about it, the most common hazard mons in the tier atm are Ferro, Ttar, Exca, Hippo, and this set does pretty well against all of them. You're also not Goth bait either since Knock Off smacks her right in the face. Mach Punch provides priority which is actually quite rare in the tier as well, it does a good amount to Zacian and it'll smack Excadrill right out of orbit. Even Corsola can't set-up rocks properly against this thing because knock off will mess her day up, and it's not like you really care about Tspikes either due to Flame Orb and Guts. Normally this would get smacked by fairy-types but luckily the main one in this tier is part steel-type, meaning he really doesn't want to switch into a drain punch. Just don't let Gyara or Eternatus set-up on this thing and I think it could have a viable niche. That being said, I haven't tested it out yet so I could be full of shit but out of pure theorymonning there could be some potential, let me know what you guys think
edit: apparently Conkeldurr doesn't get Knock Off this gen so payback it is

 

[yes ok]

I'm loving bringing back some old school BW mons in this tier.
Heres a potentially viable set:

Conkeldurr @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Payback
- Defog
- Mach Punch

Haven't tested this set out yet but I think it has potential, the tier pretty much only has 2 hazard removal mons atm (exca and corviknight), so this thing could have some niche. I mean if you think about it, the most common hazard mons in the tier atm are Ferro, Ttar, Exca, Hippo, and this set does pretty well against all of them. You're also not Goth bait either since Knock Off smacks her right in the face. Mach Punch provides priority which is actually quite rare in the tier as well, it does a good amount to Zacian and it'll smack Excadrill right out of orbit. Even Corsola can't set-up rocks properly against this thing because knock off will mess her day up, and it's not like you really care about Tspikes either due to Flame Orb and Guts. Normally this would get smacked by fairy-types but luckily the main one in this tier is part steel-type, meaning he really doesn't want to switch into a drain punch. Just don't let Gyara or Eternatus set-up on this thing and I think it could have a viable niche. That being said, I haven't tested it out yet so I could be full of shit but out of pure theorymonning there could be some potential, let me know what you guys think
edit: apparently Conkeldurr doesn't get Knock Off this gen so payback it is

Thank-you for sharing this interesting strategy ! I always appreciate some outside of the boxed thought in my team building.

 

[LowFour]

A dive into Charizard in Ubers
This is my first smogon post after browsing for a long time yay.
This post is crazy long so I’m sorry but it's worth a read as it showcases a Pokemon that is largely discounted. Also bad grammer sorry.
Ok so I know this is going to sound stupid but I’m about to make my case for Charizard being a premier offensive threat is the Gen 8 Ubers metagame. It is also one of the only sweepers in gen 8 ubers that be both physical and special and have them both be viable as well as a more niche but still viable defensive set. I will get into both of the sets specifically but first I’ll go over what the two sets have in common and their defensive value.

Set Commanalites:

All sets run Heavy-Duty Boots this is a necessity as not taking that 50% damage from rocks is the only thing making any of these sets viable. If zard is knocked off either try to get as much damage as you can then or bring it back as a sac. The Item is that important. Without it zard has no survivability at all. The other commonality of all of the sets is a fire move. This should be self explanatory but I will explain anyway. The main reason to use Zard is because of this fire stab as it is one of the most useful stabs in Gen 8 ubers as it hits Zacain-Crowned, Zamazenta-Crowned, Ferrothorn, Drill, and Darm and it has solid neutral coverage. The two offensive sets both have a flying move which is important as it is the only way for zard to increase its speed without Dragon Dance.(The reason why this isn't used comes later)

Defensive Value of Fire Flying:

In other gens fire flying was a decent defensive trying, see Moltres on gen7 stall, however as previously stated it was held back due to the necessities of stealth rocks. However Heavy-Duty Boots gets rid of this weakness. So ones the stealth rock weakness is takes away you have a typing that allows it to come in after a kill or check in the defensive sets case on many of the best mons in Gen 8 ubers. The most prevalent is Zacain-Crowned who’s best damaging viable move is Psychic Fangs which does 90% max with adamant and intrepid sword plus 1 when zard is univested. The only move that can KO zard in one hit is wild charge which is not run due to the need for other coverage moves. The typing also helps vs Zamazenta-Crowned who’s highest damaging viable move is also psychic fangs which does 39% with 32 attack investment(this is the recommended amount) and wild charge on the off chance they are running it does 70%. It completely walls Corvinight as well as making the offensive variants who basically ignore corosla. As well as living many other attacks uninvested like hetternenes psychic and darm’s icicle crash. You get the point the typing helps neutralizes a lot of the tiers bulky mons while taking one hit uninvested from most offensive mons.

The sets:

Physical Set:
Charizard @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz (140) / Fire Punch (130)
- Earthquake (130) / Solar Beam (140) / Thunder Punch (130)
- Fly (130)
- Swords Dance / Belly Drum

IMO this is the best set by quite a bit. It is crazy powerful sweeper who after 2 SD’s, and rocks up can 1 hit ko most of the tier. With max air stream it can out speed everything in the tier that isn’t holding a scarf. It makes your opponents guess the coverage and if guessed wrong it can sweep a whole team. The ability it has to set up in the face of so many mons in impressive and with grass coverage it can beat stall almost by itself. With out T Punch it doesn’t even fear ditto as the moves it carries can’t hit itself. It forces a lot of 50/50’s with your opponent revolving around SD and Belly drum. It has a great place on both balanced offense and screen offense.

The EV’s are self explanatory same with the ability. Nature is Naive if you use solar beam.

Moves:
Fire Stab your 2 options are Flare Blitz and Fire Punch. They both are viable however they are for different teams. Flare blitz is good if you need more power off the jump. Flare Blitz is also better on teams with multiple offensive threats like Zacain-Crowned or offensive Eternatus or it is better on teams with other D-Maxers like DD Gyra or SD Drill. Fire punch is better on slower teams who expect to switch zard out and back it more that 2 or 3 times. It is also very good as recipient of screens.
A couple calcs:
252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 230-272 (70.7 - 83.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (This allows you to Max Flying into Max Fire to KO Zacain without SD)
252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Zamazenta-Crowned: 152-180 (39.1 - 46.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (+2 Max Air into Max Fire Kills and Zama cant hit you back so you can sd in its face)
+4 252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corsola-Galar: 279-328 (86.1 - 101.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (Zard gets 3 hit koed by night shade and you only need 2 sds + rocks to kill)
Flying Stab:
Self Explanatory as you need it to boost speed
Boosting move:
Options are SD and Belly Drum. SD is better IMO as it allows you to use flare blitz and you don’t really need plus 6 to kill most things but belly drum is the better move with screens and you need to use fire punch. Why not Dragon Dance? The reason is that with swords dance Corsola becomes set up fodder as Corsola’s strength sap it only lowers attack by one stage and swords dances raises it by 2 and the speed boost isn't needed as Max Airstream raises speed.
Coverage Options:
Earthquake: In my opinion the best option as it allows you to hit Pex, Ttar, and Eternatus. It also helps with alot of 50/50’s as eq can hit both legends very hard and it is also a great neural coverage in the tier.
Calcs:
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 240 Def Eternatus: 238-280 (49.1 - 57.8%) -- 57.8% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery (2hkos after rocks)
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 264-312 (65.3 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (+4 Kills all variants this is spd)
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 154-182 (50.6 - 59.8%) -- 81.6% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery(Kills with rocks)
Solar Beam: Only hits 2 things and it used only during the Dyna Max or after if the sun is up. It only hits 2.5 mons in the tier those are Quag, Toad and Pyuku(only use on pyuku if in DMax).
Calcs:
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Pyukumuku: 172-204 (54.7 - 64.9%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Quagsire: 612-720 (155.3 - 182.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Seismitoad: 544-644 (131.4 - 155.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Thunder punch: This helps vs rain, gyra, and cloyster that's kinda it.
Calcs:
+2 252 Atk Charizard Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Wacan Berry Gyarados: 262-310 (79.1 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Charizard Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 36+ Def Pelipper: 380-448 (117.6 - 138.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Special Set:
Charizard @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Solar Power
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast (140)
- Solar Beam (140)
- Hurricane (140)
- Dragon Pulse (130)
This is the most memeable set as it allows for you to take advantage over the overwhelming popularity of physical walls due to Zacian-Crowned centralization. It is far from a sweeper set and much more a lure for counters to your own zacain. It also can clean with the speed boost from DMax Air and the power from solar power. It does not live very long which can be a problem but it can usually lure and kill things like Quag, Hippo, Torkoal, and Aegislash. It is rarely a sweeper and works mostly off of surprise factor normally getting one kill and helping clean if you DMax is not used. It is important to know that this needs your DMax to function so the best teams for it are usually one’s with the three legends who can’t Dmax and fat mons like Quag, Ferro, Toad, and Corsola. This set is not great but can be a surprise and helps to deal with some of the counters to you heavy hitters.
Calcs:
None of these calcs include DMax or a potential solar power boost.
252 SpA Charizard Hurricane vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Torkoal: 213-252 (62 - 73.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Quagsire: 656-772 (166.4 - 195.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Pyukumuku: 184-218 (58.5 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash: 118-141 (57.8 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill: 452-534 (124.8 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Darmanitan-Galar: 512-606 (145.8 - 172.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Defensive Set:
Charizard-Gmax @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Flamethrower
- Rest
- Dragon Pulse
Now this set is somewhere perfectly in between hot grabarge and super useful. It really only has one niche and that is checking the two legendary dogs if they don't have wild charge and soft countering if they do. It can help against a few other strong physical attackers also long as they don’t have super effective moves. It does require your DMax to function.
Moves:
Will-O-Wisp: Burning obviously. Halving the attack is always nice but can also at chip to help you get kills.
Flamethrower: Nice move to hit anything when it switches in. Turn into the G-Max Wildfire which is needed as it does ⅛ of the targets health at the end of every turn which helps pick up OHKO’s.
Rest: To heal if need be. If you have a heal bell user zard can stay around for the whole game and be much more of a nuisance.
Dragon Pulse: Only to hit Eternatus so it doesn't get a free switch.
0 SpA Charizard Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eternatus: 138-164 (28.5 - 33.8%) -- 97.5% chance to 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery (Just enough to break sub)
1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 158-186 (43.8 - 51.6%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO)
+1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 334-394 (92.7 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO (After Gmax you live and kill back due to recoil)
0 SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 270-318 (83 - 97.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (This is the GMove that sets up fire spin and sets up the fire spin effect that does ⅛ damage including that chance the min is 95% which is a ko after rocks)
0 SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zamazenta-Crowned: 218-260 (56.1 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Easy 2 hit ko)
32 Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 142-168 (39.4 - 46.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Lives easy)
32 Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 67-79 (18.6 - 21.9%) -- possible 5HKO (Lives super easy)

Conclusion:
I am not claiming that it is the most useful mon in the tier. I do believe that it is the second best DMaxer behind drill. This mon has a combination of things that allow it to have a very successful niche in which it functions as a way to deal with Zacain and Zamaenta Crowned. The variability and of its sets allow it to be unpredictable and to fit on most teams. The downsides are that it has a lot of trouble with sand which is unfortunate as one of the best cores as of right now is sand. However zard is able to hold its own in many different which is why I think it is severely underrated mon as of right now. If people want I can showcase teams in another post.

 

[orch]

I mentioned that I thought that rotom wasn't countered enough, so I decided to try out Rotom-M. I've found that being able to directly threaten the sand/ground archetype is a huge favor for Rotom-M's viability. Rotom-W is able to do similar thing, but it is not super effective against Quagsire which is what really matters for breaking these cores imo. Wisp is very useful vs the big 3, so it's never a dead weigh in any given game. But yeah, it's mostly on my team to beat the Quagsire teams which is very popular now. Dracovish is starting to emerge as a viable threat, and Rotom-M is able to directly switch in and threaten it.

252+ Atk Choice Band Dracovish Fishious Rend vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Mow: 84-99 (34.8 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Here's a game that shows what a Rotom-M is capable of:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1027852645

This is the set that I use:


Rotom-Mow @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 92 Def / 168 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Leaf Storm
- Will-O-Wisp
- Rest

 

[earl]

252+ Atk Choice Band Dracovish Fishious Rend vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Mow: 84-99 (34.8 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Strong Jaw Dracovish Fishious Rend vs. 248 HP / 92+ Def Rotom-Mow: 209-246 (68.9 - 81.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I wouldn't recommend directly switching in on Dracovish, as you will still take the full 170 damage. It does 1v1 if Rotom can come in safely though

 

[Hack]

I wanna chime in since I read the thread and played a fair number of ladder games myself. Some mons I wanna comment on are:

Goth - is a beast but I'm not sure if I like trick or NP. NP beats CP Eternatus and has more potential for sweeping. Also sometimes you don't have time to trick. Trick ruins Corviknight to an extent though, which can be good for mons like Exca.

Quag - is trash even though I think it can get around Goth weakness somehow without running shed... Tox+encore+recover+eq should be able to force Goth out if you can tox it from full and then encore (Goth can't rest at full) and spam EQ (unaware ignores def boosts). My issue is that it's just a do-nothing mon. Ubers has progressively had less and less space for niche mons due to power creep and usually you had to have a great utility move or something (think spikes) to get around the fact you were awfully passive. Gen8 should help in this regard but Quag has 0 moves. It is also quite bland as a Zac check since its passive and hazard bait and stuff.

Zard - is pretty legit since HDB+dynamax basically. I don't understand why I'd run full physical though I think brick break can be worthwhile to get past TTar with.

Sab - is amazing as Orch noted. It gets 2 new utility moves in disable and encore this gen. Both have niches, encore I find generally better but disable can stop ditto countersweeps among other things. You can toy around with any of disable/foul play/encore/recover/wisp quite freely I think.

Corviknight - is a nice pivot but has 0 damage output of its own. But it doesn't really matter, pressure defog and uturn with key resists makes this mon a staple.

Other random thoughts
- I've yet to really see the use for rain. Tried a few swimmers but nothing too impressive. Maybe Seis is the best as it can get around Eternatus the easiest.
- Many teams I've seen here and on ladder are way too passive... It's incredibly easy to build up momentum from bulky pivots like Corviknight and use this to constantly put pressure on opponents but it's also a bit lazy when most teams end up with mons like Corsola or Quagsire.

 

[EternumTagerMain]

I'm gonna be posting the full versions of my teams from the other thread:

SS Basic Stall

theres some slashed moves/items so be careful if copy/pasting lol

Quagsire @ Shed Shell / Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Stockpile
- Recover

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Whip / Protect
- Gyro Ball
- Spikes
- Leech Seed

Corsola-Galar @ Eviolite
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Night Shade
- Will-O-Wisp
- Stealth Rock / Haze
- Strength Sap

Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 52 Atk / 204 SpD /
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave

Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Rapid Spin

Zamazenta @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Wild Charge
- Psychic Fangs
- Fire Fang

example replays

same as from last thread
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1015198265
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1015210704
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1015202840

Same as last thread but I'll explain in more detail. Essentially Quagsire is your main answer to Zacian, he can come in and ignore and stat boosts he has and stockpile up. The main thing is Shed Shell, unless you want to play it fast and loose and expect your opponent to not be the one to carry Gothitelle, you have to run Shed Shell since Quagsire is critical to the teams defensive backbone. Honestly Gothitelle is once again making this meta more match-up reliant than it already was so I'm definitely not a fan of that. but anyway. Ferrothorn is your way of laying down Spikes, the thing about Ferrothorn is that he's not really critical to checking the top ubers threats, and he absolutely needs Leftovers for recovery, so in the way that I see it, if they come in with Gothitelle on your Ferrothorn, they take out your Ferrothorn in exchange for you getting up a full set of spikes, which isn't a bad trade imo. Since Tyranitar is Dark type, Gothitelle cannot sweep the team as long as Tyranitar is alive since her only attacking move is Stored Power. Corsola is the best way to spinblock atm, the only relevant spinner here is Excadrill and Corsola does the best job at trying to block him. I went with a physically bulky set here to best take on Excadrill and random physical attackers. Tyranitar is your way of setting up Sand, acting as a stop to Eternatus with his special bulk, setting up Rocks and spreading around Paralysis. Excadrill is your spinner, with Air Balloon he ignores Sticky Webs and Spikes and has a lot of offensive presence. You can often checkmate offensive teams by damaging down their one Ground resist until Excadrill can sweep, since so many teams run Zacian/Ditto/Eternatus; Rock Slide (or Rock Tomb) is mandatory IMO for setting up Sand for surprise sweeps, which can often be done due to Air Balloon providing you an opportunity. The last slot is honestly the most flexible, I originally was using Aegislash for priority, but I realized I was Power Whip Gyarados weak so I switched it to Scarf Zamazenta as an all-around bulky revenge killer, I think Eternatus would be very solid in this Pokemon slot too however, since he can absorb Toxic Spikes and provides a decent matchup for Gyarados.
With this team you have to be careful about Choice mons like Band Zamazenta or Specs Eternatus, since if they predict right they can blast some good holes in the team. Don't let things carelessly set-up Substitute either, assume that basically most offensive mons have it atm just in case.

Sand Bulky Offense

once again some slashed moves so be careful with the copypasta

Zacian-Crowned @ Rusted Sword
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Fire Fang / whatever
- Swords Dance
- Psychic Fangs / whatever

Zamazenta @ Choice Band
Ability: Dauntless Shield
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Psychic Fangs / Iron Tail
- Crunch / Iron Tail
- Wild Charge

Eternatus @ Black Sludge
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe (You can put less in Speed)
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Toxic / Sludge Wave / Dynamax Cannon
- Cosmic Power
- Recover

Hippowdon @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
- Slack Off

Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Rapid Spin

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- King's Shield
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Sneak

example replays

same as from last thread
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1013802964
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1013866036
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1013729125
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1013877097

I wanted to create a team that featured all of the legendary mons and this is what I came up with. Zacian is the standard set, you can run Substitute but in practice I found the extra coverage to be quite nice for this team. Choice Band Zamazenta is NASTY, it breaks through team cores very easily, is fast and bulky and just generally good; together with Zacian they can beat down each other's checks. Eternatus is the stalling set I came up with, Cosmic Power up and watch your opponent freak out and try to figure out a way to kill this thing. Fast, bulky, with Recover and Pressure means you can boost up and kill most things in this meta, Toxic lets you stall out some random stuff like Quagsire, Flamethrower takes care of Steels, the main thing to take out for a sweep is an opposing Eternatus or Toxapex. You can run Sludge Wave or Dynamax Cannon if your want more offensive presence. Hippowdon is to set up sand for Excadrill, set-up Rocks and act as a Zacian and all-purpose physical check. The Smooth Rock has saved me quite a few times and I generally don't think Hippowdown needs Leftovers, but I suppose you could run something else. Excadrill is Excadrill, he spins and is good, I'm still going with Air Balloon here as I like being Ditto-proof and I don't think you need the power of Life Orb in particular. Aegislash is another Zacian check, priority, and all-purpose bulky mon, he can also set-up sweeps pretty often as many teams don't expect a SD Boosted Aegislash to ram through their team with priority. this team is pretty fun to play with so give it a shot!

some general thoughts about the meta:
-ditto is undeniably a very good mon but I personally feel like it's lazy teambuilding, and it makes the metagame more matchup reliant than it should be I think. In general when I see a metagame where ditto is extremely common i think it's not a good sign for the health of the game. That being said I do like SS ubers quite a bit for the time being but we'll see where it goes.
-gothitelle is really dumb and I want it gone
-zacian is really good but not gamebreaking like people hyped him up to be. the fact that the 3 legendaries can't dynamax gives a unique feeling to this tier in comparison to OU. also the fact that you can't run 6 680 BST pokemon and have a cohesive team unlike the last two generations is imo pretty neat as well.
-has anyone found a good use for Fighting/Steel Zamazenta yet? I've seen the howl and dual screens versions on webs teams but it seems a bit underwhelming at the moment.

Put Whirlwind on Hippo, Roar can be blocked with Soundproof.
Which Kommo-O has access too and Clangerous Soul with it.

 

[Jaajgko]

A dive into Charizard in Ubers
This is my first smogon post after browsing for a long time yay.
This post is crazy long so I’m sorry but it's worth a read as it showcases a Pokemon that is largely discounted. Also bad grammer sorry.
Ok so I know this is going to sound stupid but I’m about to make my case for Charizard being a premier offensive threat is the Gen 8 Ubers metagame. It is also one of the only sweepers in gen 8 ubers that be both physical and special and have them both be viable as well as a more niche but still viable defensive set. I will get into both of the sets specifically but first I’ll go over what the two sets have in common and their defensive value.

Set Commanalites:

All sets run Heavy-Duty Boots this is a necessity as not taking that 50% damage from rocks is the only thing making any of these sets viable. If zard is knocked off either try to get as much damage as you can then or bring it back as a sac. The Item is that important. Without it zard has no survivability at all. The other commonality of all of the sets is a fire move. This should be self explanatory but I will explain anyway. The main reason to use Zard is because of this fire stab as it is one of the most useful stabs in Gen 8 ubers as it hits Zacain-Crowned, Zamazenta-Crowned, Ferrothorn, Drill, and Darm and it has solid neutral coverage. The two offensive sets both have a flying move which is important as it is the only way for zard to increase its speed without Dragon Dance.(The reason why this isn't used comes later)

Defensive Value of Fire Flying:

In other gens fire flying was a decent defensive trying, see Moltres on gen7 stall, however as previously stated it was held back due to the necessities of stealth rocks. However Heavy-Duty Boots gets rid of this weakness. So ones the stealth rock weakness is takes away you have a typing that allows it to come in after a kill or check in the defensive sets case on many of the best mons in Gen 8 ubers. The most prevalent is Zacain-Crowned who’s best damaging viable move is Psychic Fangs which does 90% max with adamant and intrepid sword plus 1 when zard is univested. The only move that can KO zard in one hit is wild charge which is not run due to the need for other coverage moves. The typing also helps vs Zamazenta-Crowned who’s highest damaging viable move is also psychic fangs which does 39% with 32 attack investment(this is the recommended amount) and wild charge on the off chance they are running it does 70%. It completely walls Corvinight as well as making the offensive variants who basically ignore corosla. As well as living many other attacks uninvested like hetternenes psychic and darm’s icicle crash. You get the point the typing helps neutralizes a lot of the tiers bulky mons while taking one hit uninvested from most offensive mons.

The sets:

Physical Set:
Charizard @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz (140) / Fire Punch (130)
- Earthquake (130) / Solar Beam (140) / Thunder Punch (130)
- Fly (130)
- Swords Dance / Belly Drum

IMO this is the best set by quite a bit. It is crazy powerful sweeper who after 2 SD’s, and rocks up can 1 hit ko most of the tier. With max air stream it can out speed everything in the tier that isn’t holding a scarf. It makes your opponents guess the coverage and if guessed wrong it can sweep a whole team. The ability it has to set up in the face of so many mons in impressive and with grass coverage it can beat stall almost by itself. With out T Punch it doesn’t even fear ditto as the moves it carries can’t hit itself. It forces a lot of 50/50’s with your opponent revolving around SD and Belly drum. It has a great place on both balanced offense and screen offense.

The EV’s are self explanatory same with the ability. Nature is Naive if you use solar beam.

Moves:
Fire Stab your 2 options are Flare Blitz and Fire Punch. They both are viable however they are for different teams. Flare blitz is good if you need more power off the jump. Flare Blitz is also better on teams with multiple offensive threats like Zacain-Crowned or offensive Eternatus or it is better on teams with other D-Maxers like DD Gyra or SD Drill. Fire punch is better on slower teams who expect to switch zard out and back it more that 2 or 3 times. It is also very good as recipient of screens.
A couple calcs:
252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 230-272 (70.7 - 83.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock (This allows you to Max Flying into Max Fire to KO Zacain without SD)
252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Zamazenta-Crowned: 152-180 (39.1 - 46.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (+2 Max Air into Max Fire Kills and Zama cant hit you back so you can sd in its face)
+4 252 Atk Charizard Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corsola-Galar: 279-328 (86.1 - 101.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (Zard gets 3 hit koed by night shade and you only need 2 sds + rocks to kill)
Flying Stab:
Self Explanatory as you need it to boost speed
Boosting move:
Options are SD and Belly Drum. SD is better IMO as it allows you to use flare blitz and you don’t really need plus 6 to kill most things but belly drum is the better move with screens and you need to use fire punch. Why not Dragon Dance? The reason is that with swords dance Corsola becomes set up fodder as Corsola’s strength sap it only lowers attack by one stage and swords dances raises it by 2 and the speed boost isn't needed as Max Airstream raises speed.
Coverage Options:
Earthquake: In my opinion the best option as it allows you to hit Pex, Ttar, and Eternatus. It also helps with alot of 50/50’s as eq can hit both legends very hard and it is also a great neural coverage in the tier.
Calcs:
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 240 Def Eternatus: 238-280 (49.1 - 57.8%) -- 57.8% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery (2hkos after rocks)
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 264-312 (65.3 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (+4 Kills all variants this is spd)
+2 252 Atk Charizard Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 154-182 (50.6 - 59.8%) -- 81.6% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery(Kills with rocks)
Solar Beam: Only hits 2 things and it used only during the Dyna Max or after if the sun is up. It only hits 2.5 mons in the tier those are Quag, Toad and Pyuku(only use on pyuku if in DMax).
Calcs:
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Pyukumuku: 172-204 (54.7 - 64.9%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Quagsire: 612-720 (155.3 - 182.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Seismitoad: 544-644 (131.4 - 155.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Thunder punch: This helps vs rain, gyra, and cloyster that's kinda it.
Calcs:
+2 252 Atk Charizard Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Wacan Berry Gyarados: 262-310 (79.1 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Charizard Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 36+ Def Pelipper: 380-448 (117.6 - 138.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Special Set:
Charizard @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Solar Power
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast (140)
- Solar Beam (140)
- Hurricane (140)
- Dragon Pulse (130)
This is the most memeable set as it allows for you to take advantage over the overwhelming popularity of physical walls due to Zacian-Crowned centralization. It is far from a sweeper set and much more a lure for counters to your own zacain. It also can clean with the speed boost from DMax Air and the power from solar power. It does not live very long which can be a problem but it can usually lure and kill things like Quag, Hippo, Torkoal, and Aegislash. It is rarely a sweeper and works mostly off of surprise factor normally getting one kill and helping clean if you DMax is not used. It is important to know that this needs your DMax to function so the best teams for it are usually one’s with the three legends who can’t Dmax and fat mons like Quag, Ferro, Toad, and Corsola. This set is not great but can be a surprise and helps to deal with some of the counters to you heavy hitters.
Calcs:
None of these calcs include DMax or a potential solar power boost.
252 SpA Charizard Hurricane vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Torkoal: 213-252 (62 - 73.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Quagsire: 656-772 (166.4 - 195.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Charizard Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Pyukumuku: 184-218 (58.5 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash: 118-141 (57.8 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill: 452-534 (124.8 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Darmanitan-Galar: 512-606 (145.8 - 172.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Defensive Set:
Charizard-Gmax @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Flamethrower
- Rest
- Dragon Pulse
Now this set is somewhere perfectly in between hot grabarge and super useful. It really only has one niche and that is checking the two legendary dogs if they don't have wild charge and soft countering if they do. It can help against a few other strong physical attackers also long as they don’t have super effective moves. It does require your DMax to function.
Moves:
Will-O-Wisp: Burning obviously. Halving the attack is always nice but can also at chip to help you get kills.
Flamethrower: Nice move to hit anything when it switches in. Turn into the G-Max Wildfire which is needed as it does ⅛ of the targets health at the end of every turn which helps pick up OHKO’s.
Rest: To heal if need be. If you have a heal bell user zard can stay around for the whole game and be much more of a nuisance.
Dragon Pulse: Only to hit Eternatus so it doesn't get a free switch.
0 SpA Charizard Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eternatus: 138-164 (28.5 - 33.8%) -- 97.5% chance to 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery (Just enough to break sub)
1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 158-186 (43.8 - 51.6%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO)
+1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 334-394 (92.7 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO (After Gmax you live and kill back due to recoil)
0 SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 270-318 (83 - 97.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (This is the GMove that sets up fire spin and sets up the fire spin effect that does ⅛ damage including that chance the min is 95% which is a ko after rocks)
0 SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zamazenta-Crowned: 218-260 (56.1 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Easy 2 hit ko)
32 Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 142-168 (39.4 - 46.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Lives easy)
32 Atk Zamazenta-Crowned Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Charizard: 67-79 (18.6 - 21.9%) -- possible 5HKO (Lives super easy)

Conclusion:
I am not claiming that it is the most useful mon in the tier. I do believe that it is the second best DMaxer behind drill. This mon has a combination of things that allow it to have a very successful niche in which it functions as a way to deal with Zacain and Zamaenta Crowned. The variability and of its sets allow it to be unpredictable and to fit on most teams. The downsides are that it has a lot of trouble with sand which is unfortunate as one of the best cores as of right now is sand. However zard is able to hold its own in many different which is why I think it is severely underrated mon as of right now. If people want I can showcase teams in another post.

Imo Wild Charge is almost always the best coverage options with Close Combat on Zacian so idt Charizard is helpful against it. Excadrill should also always have Ground Rock coverage so it doesn't check much in the meta besides bulky steels. Offensively it has a hard time time setting up and even then beating Tyranitar, Eternatus and Toxapex is still complicated. On top of that, its sun boosts can be removed by sand, while also being weak to the very popular Ditto. If you want a flying type Dragon Dancer I recommend Gyarados, if you want a great special breaker that uses fire type moves I'd recommend Eternatus and kf you want to remove Quagsire for your Zacian Toxic Spikes + Trapping is a better option, Charizard's niche is just too small atm.

 

[Jaajgko]

I wanna chime in since I read the thread and played a fair number of ladder games myself. Some mons I wanna comment on are:

Goth - is a beast but I'm not sure if I like trick or NP. NP beats CP Eternatus and has more potential for sweeping. Also sometimes you don't have time to trick. Trick ruins Corviknight to an extent though, which can be good for mons like Exca.

Quag - is trash even though I think it can get around Goth weakness somehow without running shed... Tox+encore+recover+eq should be able to force Goth out if you can tox it from full and then encore (Goth can't rest at full) and spam EQ (unaware ignores def boosts). My issue is that it's just a do-nothing mon. Ubers has progressively had less and less space for niche mons due to power creep and usually you had to have a great utility move or something (think spikes) to get around the fact you were awfully passive. Gen8 should help in this regard but Quag has 0 moves. It is also quite bland as a Zac check since its passive and hazard bait and stuff.

Zard - is pretty legit since HDB+dynamax basically. I don't understand why I'd run full physical though I think brick break can be worthwhile to get past TTar with.

Sab - is amazing as Orch noted. It gets 2 new utility moves in disable and encore this gen. Both have niches, encore I find generally better but disable can stop ditto countersweeps among other things. You can toy around with any of disable/foul play/encore/recover/wisp quite freely I think.

Corviknight - is a nice pivot but has 0 damage output of its own. But it doesn't really matter, pressure defog and uturn with key resists makes this mon a staple.

Other random thoughts
- I've yet to really see the use for rain. Tried a few swimmers but nothing too impressive. Maybe Seis is the best as it can get around Eternatus the easiest.
- Many teams I've seen here and on ladder are way too passive... It's incredibly easy to build up momentum from bulky pivots like Corviknight and use this to constantly put pressure on opponents but it's also a bit lazy when most teams end up with mons like Corsola or Quagsire.

Idt think Quagsire's passiveness is a big problem, as you're gonna fit on bulky offense or stall along with an Eternatus check. And I don't think it's even that passive, if it doesn't need to recover it can punish with a scald burn or force the Eternatus to recover, and it can actually sweep teams with setup since a lot of teams have 4 physical attackers and a Ditto so once you get rid of the special attacker it can win with Cosmic power or Curse. You can also run hazard stacking + yawn to force switches and prevent the Corviknight from defogging. Overall I think Quagsire is a staple on bulky teams and Offense needs to prepare well against it.

 

[HanSoloIndie]

Hi everyone, just curious if you guys would like to read this, but I posted an analysis of Zacian-C as part of an essay in the Nadex AG forums. However, I have a section of the text that sums up my thoughts on Gen8 Ubers and Zacian-C.
(If you want to read the entire essay, it's on https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ag-metagame-discussion.3656779/post-8311683 but be aware it encompasses multiple formats, and will not be entirely on topic on this forum)

The Impact of No Natdex and the Meta

Now that Gamefreak has implemented the most controversial decision in a Pokemon game, this is where the Power Vacuum theory comes into play. A power vacuum is a condition that exists when someone has lost control of something and no one has replaced them. In this case, a lot of viable USUM mons like the Weather Trio, the Creation Trio, literal Pokemon god, Megas, the Tower duo, and the Aura Trio are gone. So who would take their place, “authority”, and power in the Gen8 Uber and AG meta? How well will these Pokemon fulfill the void and roles? It’s why the Gen8 Uber and AG games are ironically more of a sandbox realm more than Natdex AG. And despite begin relatively new, at least normally we would have veterans returning, and base it off of them. Smogon users must use and experiment new Pokemon and Pokemon that would NEVER be considered seriously viable (or at least justified).

How Zacian-C Takes Advantage of this Meta

This is further exacerbated with Zacian-C’s mere presence, and having only 3 legendaries available (and one of them is utter trash). Teams must have a BARE minimum of 3 Zacian-C “checks” (ex. Excadrill, Hippodown, Arcanine (really?!?), Galar Cursola, Ditto, Toxapex, Dugtrio) to be considered viable, and explains the rise of sand teams. Yet these “checks” only work under certain circumstances. For Exadrill, sand must be up and relies on Tyranitar (which invites Zacian-C). Sand is hard to set up and maintain in a meta where Dynamaxing moves rapidly change the weather left and right. Ditto has to copy it safely and avoid being exploited into one move (also, it copying of Zacian’s boost needs to be fixed, I think?). Dugtrio is pathetically frail and can’t OHKO, and the rest of these Pokemon must avoid chip damage, switching-in, and hazards, as a +3 Adamant (or Jolly) Zacian 2HKOs or OHKOs with any of its coverage. These forced choices onto teams stales the growth of a new meta. The WHOLE current meta revolves around stopping Zacian-C. As detailed above, many of these checks stack weaknesses in teams (ex. passivity, type weakness-stacking, exploitability), which would not be normally considered acceptable in viable teambuilding. This is not like Primal-Groudon or Landorus-T. If I were to build a team right now, my team would be considered unviable if I didn’t carry at least 3 Pokemon with specialized (offensive and defensive) sets and spreads to counter it. At least for Primal Groudon and Landorus-T, all you needed was a couple checks, and such checks could be flexible in their sets.

Examples of How Mons Struggle to Check Zacian-C, Compared to Their Cut Predecessors

For example, you could run Calm Mind, Defensive, or Physical Swords Dance spreads of Arceus-Ground, and still check almost any variant of Primal Groudon. Same for Primal Kygore, as I could run Calm Mind + Water Spout, Defensive Sleep, or Physical Wallbreaker spreads to check Primal Groudon. Yveltal checks it with Foul Play Choice Scarfs, Stallbreaker sets, Life Orb Sets, and Charti Berry sets. You could stack Pokemon with Ground-weaknesses and be alright. Even Necrozma-DM can offensively check Primal Groudon, with a combination of Trick Room + Weakness Policy. On the other hand, checks like Arcanine must always be Impish with 252 HP / 252 Def and hold Heavy Duty Boots to avoid the 2HKO. Galar Cursola and Hippodown must also be Impish 252 HP / 252 Def with Evolite and Leftovers. The same applies for Toxapex , and yet are still 2HKO’d or OHKO’d. Keep in mind that for Mega Rayquaza, Pokemon had to do the same, except we had more Pokemon with higher Base stats. Sand Rush Excadrill (no Life Orb or Choice Band) must be Adamant to secure the OHKO and not force 50/50s like Jolly would (which in turn makes Excadriil even MORE reliant on sand to hit crucial speed benchmarks). With a Life Orb, it cleanly OKHOs. Eternatus is not a reliable check to Zacian-C, considering that Choice Specs are easily exploitable and usually doesn’t want to run Modest (and still struggles OHKO with Flamethrower), and Speedy Defensive sets are also 2HKO’d. Dugtrio can’t afford to run a bulky set (Choice Scarf Trapper), and struggles to obtain the OHKO. You could argue that Prankster users like Sabelye and Grimmsnarl can paralyze or burn it, but they are still defeated by a Play Rough, and rely on Gothitelle or another check to finish it.

Calcs (Jolly Zacian-C)

• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 192-228 (63.1 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 130-154 (40.1 - 47.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
  • +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 216-255 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 320-378 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 282-333 (66.9 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Eternatus Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 282-334 (86.7 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO (Timid Choice Specs Eternatus)
  • 252+ SpA Choice Specs Eternatus Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 310-366 (95.3 - 112.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 313-369 (64.6 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Hippowdon: 214-253 (50.9 - 60.2%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 193-228 (45.9 - 54.2%) -- 50.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• +2 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 266-313 (69.2 - 81.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop after a Swords Dance)
• +2 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 199-235 (51.8 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop after a Swords Dance)
• 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 133-157 (34.6 - 40.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop and Heavy Duty Boots)
• 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 100-118 (26 - 30.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop and Heavy Duty Boots)
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aegislash: 102-121 (50 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 266-314 (81.8 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Adamant Choice Scarf Dugtrio)
  • +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dugtrio: 466-550 (220.8 - 260.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• 252 Atk Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 300-354 (92.3 - 108.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO (Jolly Sand Rush Excadrill. no LIfe Orb)
  • +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 544-640 (150.2 - 176.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• 252+ Atk Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 326-386 (100.3 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Adamant Sand Rush Excadrill, no Life Orb)
• 252 Atk Life Orb Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 390-460 (120 - 141.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The Only Mons that Can Counter It

The only Pokemon capable of CONSISTENTLY walling and countering Zacian-C (which we will define as avoiding the 2HKO) is Unaware Quagsire and Pyukumuku. But putting these stall and passive Pokemon on a team in a meta where such playstyle is unviable right now calls serious opportunity questions. Besides, Zacian-C puts a wrench into the matchup if it gets a critical hit:

• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Pyukumuku: 109-129 (34.7 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Pyukumuku on a critical hit: 163-193 (51.9 - 61.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire: 144-171 (36.5 - 43.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire on a critical hit: 217-256 (55 - 64.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Based on all of the above, we could conclude that Zacian-C should have at least a suspect test in Gen8 Ubers. Pokemon that is not Zacian-C is forced to run specialized sets to beat it. Pokemon that would be able to check it is beaten by its sheer brute force, or is obliterated by its coverage. If you were trying to check it by scouting for its coverage, expect at least one or two members of your team to be heavily damaged or OHKO’d. According the November 2019 Usage Stats, Zacian-C is used over 90% of the time (weighted) on Gen8 Ubers teams.(usage does not conclude to viability, but this is somewhat concerning).

Special Pokemon Mentions

I wanted to mention that there is one Pokemon in Gen8 Ubers and AG that fully reap the benefits of Zacian-C. That is Bulky Choice Scarf Gothitelle. Gothitelle traps Zacian-C's defensive checks, and Zacian-C weakens Gothitelle's checks. This helps Gothitelle set up Cosmic Powers that hit like nukes against weakened Pokemon. She could even use Trick, cripple a wall, and then send in Zacian-C if needed. The core of Zacian-C + Gothitelle + Ditto is extremely centralizing, and barely needs to pick its counters. If anything, Shadow Tag Gothitelle is just as centralizing as Zacian-C! (I might cover that another day)

Feel free to leave any feedback, and ask!

 

[Jaajgko]

Hi everyone, just curious if you guys would like to read this, but I posted an analysis of Zacian-C as part of an essay in the Nadex AG forums. However, I have a section of the text that sums up my thoughts on Gen8 Ubers and Zacian-C.
(If you want to read the entire essay, it's on https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ag-metagame-discussion.3656779/post-8311683 but be aware it encompasses multiple formats, and will not be entirely on topic on this forum)

The Impact of No Natdex and the Meta

Now that Gamefreak has implemented the most controversial decision in a Pokemon game, this is where the Power Vacuum theory comes into play. A power vacuum is a condition that exists when someone has lost control of something and no one has replaced them. In this case, a lot of viable USUM mons like the Weather Trio, the Creation Trio, literal Pokemon god, Megas, the Tower duo, and the Aura Trio are gone. So who would take their place, “authority”, and power in the Gen8 Uber and AG meta? How well will these Pokemon fulfill the void and roles? It’s why the Gen8 Uber and AG games are ironically more of a sandbox realm more than Natdex AG. And despite begin relatively new, at least normally we would have veterans returning, and base it off of them. Smogon users must use and experiment new Pokemon and Pokemon that would NEVER be considered seriously viable (or at least justified).

How Zacian-C Takes Advantage of this Meta

This is further exacerbated with Zacian-C’s mere presence, and having only 3 legendaries available (and one of them is utter trash). Teams must have a BARE minimum of 3 Zacian-C “checks” (ex. Excadrill, Hippodown, Arcanine (really?!?), Galar Cursola, Ditto, Toxapex, Dugtrio) to be considered viable, and explains the rise of sand teams. Yet these “checks” only work under certain circumstances. For Exadrill, sand must be up and relies on Tyranitar (which invites Zacian-C). Sand is hard to set up and maintain in a meta where Dynamaxing moves rapidly change the weather left and right. Ditto has to copy it safely and avoid being exploited into one move (also, it copying of Zacian’s boost needs to be fixed, I think?). Dugtrio is pathetically frail and can’t OHKO, and the rest of these Pokemon must avoid chip damage, switching-in, and hazards, as a +3 Adamant (or Jolly) Zacian 2HKOs or OHKOs with any of its coverage. These forced choices onto teams stales the growth of a new meta. The WHOLE current meta revolves around stopping Zacian-C. As detailed above, many of these checks stack weaknesses in teams (ex. passivity, type weakness-stacking, exploitability), which would not be normally considered acceptable in viable teambuilding. This is not like Primal-Groudon or Landorus-T. If I were to build a team right now, my team would be considered unviable if I didn’t carry at least 3 Pokemon with specialized (offensive and defensive) sets and spreads to counter it. At least for Primal Groudon and Landorus-T, all you needed was a couple checks, and such checks could be flexible in their sets.

Examples of How Mons Struggle to Check Zacian-C, Compared to Their Cut Predecessors

For example, you could run Calm Mind, Defensive, or Physical Swords Dance spreads of Arceus-Ground, and still check almost any variant of Primal Groudon. Same for Primal Kygore, as I could run Calm Mind + Water Spout, Defensive Sleep, or Physical Wallbreaker spreads to check Primal Groudon. Yveltal checks it with Foul Play Choice Scarfs, Stallbreaker sets, Life Orb Sets, and Charti Berry sets. You could stack Pokemon with Ground-weaknesses and be alright. Even Necrozma-DM can offensively check Primal Groudon, with a combination of Trick Room + Weakness Policy. On the other hand, checks like Arcanine must always be Impish with 252 HP / 252 Def and hold Heavy Duty Boots to avoid the 2HKO. Galar Cursola and Hippodown must also be Impish 252 HP / 252 Def with Evolite and Leftovers. The same applies for Toxapex , and yet are still 2HKO’d or OHKO’d. Keep in mind that for Mega Rayquaza, Pokemon had to do the same, except we had more Pokemon with higher Base stats. Sand Rush Excadrill (no Life Orb or Choice Band) must be Adamant to secure the OHKO and not force 50/50s like Jolly would (which in turn makes Excadriil even MORE reliant on sand to hit crucial speed benchmarks). With a Life Orb, it cleanly OKHOs. Eternatus is not a reliable check to Zacian-C, considering that Choice Specs are easily exploitable and usually doesn’t want to run Modest (and still struggles OHKO with Flamethrower), and Speedy Defensive sets are also 2HKO’d. Dugtrio can’t afford to run a bulky set (Choice Scarf Trapper), and struggles to obtain the OHKO. You could argue that Prankster users like Sabelye and Grimmsnarl can paralyze or burn it, but they are still defeated by a Play Rough, and rely on Gothitelle or another check to finish it.

Calcs (Jolly Zacian-C)

• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 192-228 (63.1 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 130-154 (40.1 - 47.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
  • +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 216-255 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 320-378 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 282-333 (66.9 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Eternatus Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 282-334 (86.7 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO (Timid Choice Specs Eternatus)
  • 252+ SpA Choice Specs Eternatus Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 310-366 (95.3 - 112.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eternatus: 313-369 (64.6 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Hippowdon: 214-253 (50.9 - 60.2%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 193-228 (45.9 - 54.2%) -- 50.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 288-340 (68.5 - 80.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
• +2 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 266-313 (69.2 - 81.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop after a Swords Dance)
• +2 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 199-235 (51.8 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop after a Swords Dance)
• 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 133-157 (34.6 - 40.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop and Heavy Duty Boots)
• 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 100-118 (26 - 30.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO (Assuming the Intimidate drop and Heavy Duty Boots)
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aegislash: 102-121 (50 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 266-314 (81.8 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Adamant Choice Scarf Dugtrio)
  • +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dugtrio: 466-550 (220.8 - 260.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• 252 Atk Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 300-354 (92.3 - 108.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO (Jolly Sand Rush Excadrill. no LIfe Orb)
  • +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 544-640 (150.2 - 176.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• 252+ Atk Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 326-386 (100.3 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Adamant Sand Rush Excadrill, no Life Orb)
• 252 Atk Life Orb Excadrill Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zacian-Crowned: 390-460 (120 - 141.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The Only Mons that Can Counter It

The only Pokemon capable of CONSISTENTLY walling and countering Zacian-C (which we will define as avoiding the 2HKO) is Unaware Quagsire and Pyukumuku. But putting these stall and passive Pokemon on a team in a meta where such playstyle is unviable right now calls serious opportunity questions. Besides, Zacian-C puts a wrench into the matchup if it gets a critical hit:

• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Pyukumuku: 109-129 (34.7 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Pyukumuku on a critical hit: 163-193 (51.9 - 61.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire: 144-171 (36.5 - 43.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
• +1 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire on a critical hit: 217-256 (55 - 64.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Based on all of the above, we could conclude that Zacian-C should have at least a suspect test in Gen8 Ubers. Pokemon that is not Zacian-C is forced to run specialized sets to beat it. Pokemon that would be able to check it is beaten by its sheer brute force, or is obliterated by its coverage. If you were trying to check it by scouting for its coverage, expect at least one or two members of your team to be heavily damaged or OHKO’d. According the November 2019 Usage Stats, Zacian-C is used over 90% of the time (weighted) on Gen8 Ubers teams.(usage does not conclude to viability, but this is somewhat concerning).

Special Pokemon Mentions

I wanted to mention that there is one Pokemon in Gen8 Ubers and AG that fully reap the benefits of Zacian-C. That is Bulky Choice Scarf Gothitelle. Gothitelle traps Zacian-C's defensive checks, and Zacian-C weakens Gothitelle's checks. This helps Gothitelle set up Cosmic Powers that hit like nukes against weakened Pokemon. She could even use Trick, cripple a wall, and then send in Zacian-C if needed. The core of Zacian-C + Gothitelle + Ditto is extremely centralizing, and barely needs to pick its counters. If anything, Shadow Tag Gothitelle is just as centralizing as Zacian-C! (I might cover that another day)

Feel free to leave any feedback, and ask!

First I'd like to correct you on some points. Pyukumuku isn't a consistent answer as it gets 2HKO'd by Wild Charge which is a great coverage move on Zacian. Excadrill doesn't need a Life Orb, giving it a Soft Sand is enough, and it's not like you're gonna want to run another item anw besides Leftovers, and Scarf sets have 87.5% chance to OHKO Zacian after rocks, which is not something the Zacian user is gonna want to risk often. Dugtrio can run Focus Sash to take a hit from Zacian and kill it with Adamant EQ + Sucker Punch + Rocks or simply Dynamaxing. Also, you haven't mentioned the biggest threat to Zacian that much which is Ditto, with its 50% usage in November it is the biggest threat for Zacian as it really dislikes giving it a +2 boost on top of its +1 speed from Choice Scarf. I personnally pair it with U-Turn Corviknight to bring it in more easily. Offensive team have a really hard time checking a +2 Zacian even if choice locked into one move and often have to restrain from bringing Zacian in without being able to click sub because of that. Don't see it as me nitpicking at your arguments, you summed up well the list of mons being able to check Zacian or counter it in the case of Quagsire and Arcanine.

Now regarding the metagame as whole, I think when you said that the metagame was about checking Zacian and making the most use out of it, I think it's a pretty accurate description of the current metagame. But is extreme centralisation necessarily bad ? On the long term yes, but on the short term not. At the moment, the Ubers tier consists of 6 actual Ubers mons (Zacian-Crowned, Zacian, Zamazenta-Crowned, Zamazenta, Eternatus and Shadow Tag Gothitelle), but you can count Zam-Crowned and Zacian out since they are heavily outclassed. So the Ubers tier doesn't have much more mons than the OU metagame, only 4 of them, which changes a lot the way Ubers is supposed to work. The Ubers metagame should not only have threats banned from the OU metagame but also new defensive options to check the added threat, which make them less broken, but in this generation it's not the case. It's the OU mons that deseparately try to check the 3 legendaries, the lengendaries can only soft check themselves at best. So from a tiering perspective we should ban all of the ubers mons since we don't have any new tools allowing us to check them. If we ban Zacian, Eternatus is gonna be even better and it's already broken anw. If the two aforementioned get banned, Zacian-hero is gonna be the new top threat and both Zamazenta forms are also gonna be super good, so the way it is, it's not gonna go anywhere through banning the mons. Instead, I think the very centralised meta makes it very unique and quite enjoyable atm, finding a way of handling Zacian can be done both offensively and defensively, and Zacian can get great support both offensively and defensively. Trying to come up with strategies to bypass Zacian's check has been really fun atm and the meta feels competitive and requires good game planing like in LC, which is really important and a bit neglected I feel. However, players will relatively quickly run out of ideas and the meta will start being stale and won't have room for innovation anymore, which is where the second part of the metagame starts, the part where the old legendaries come back to end Zacian's reign. Among them are Mewtwo, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Lunala, Necrozma and Melmetal. The most interesting ones regarding checking Zacian seem to be Reshiram, Zekrom and Necrozma-Dusk-Mane which can take pretty well the current Zacian set with Behemoth Blade Close Combat and Wild Charge, so it will have more trouble having an optimal set. Play Rough and Crunch are gonna be mandatory to touch these 3 effectively so it narrows down the options Zacian has, and even with the adjustments, Scarf Reshiram and bulky Necrozma-DM are going to be great against it.

tlrd : the metagame is fine rn, its uniqueness makes it interesting and it's still very competitve. Options are going to run out at some point and teambuilding creativity will be difficult, but thankfully we are going to have old legendaries coming back from the old games to fix that, hopefully not too late nor too soon.

 

[HanSoloIndie]

First I'd like to correct you on some points. Pyukumuku isn't a consistent answer as it gets 2HKO'd by Wild Charge which is a great coverage move on Zacian. Excadrill doesn't need a Life Orb, giving it a Soft Sand is enough, and it's not like you're gonna want to run another item anw besides Leftovers, and Scarf sets have 87.5% chance to OHKO Zacian after rocks, which is not something the Zacian user is gonna want to risk often. Dugtrio can run Focus Sash to take a hit from Zacian and kill it with Adamant EQ + Sucker Punch + Rocks or simply Dynamaxing. Also, you haven't mentioned the biggest threat to Zacian that much which is Ditto, with its 50% usage in November it is the biggest threat for Zacian as it really dislikes giving it a +2 boost on top of its +1 speed from Choice Scarf. I personnally pair it with U-Turn Corviknight to bring it in more easily. Offensive team have a really hard time checking a +2 Zacian even if choice locked into one move and often have to restrain from bringing Zacian in without being able to click sub because of that. Don't see it as me nitpicking at your arguments, you summed up well the list of mons being able to check Zacian or counter it in the case of Quagsire and Arcanine.

Now regarding the metagame as whole, I think when you said that the metagame was about checking Zacian and making the most use out of it, I think it's a pretty accurate description of the current metagame. But is extreme centralisation necessarily bad ? On the long term yes, but on the short term not. At the moment, the Ubers tier consists of 6 actual Ubers mons (Zacian-Crowned, Zacian, Zamazenta-Crowned, Zamazenta, Eternatus and Shadow Tag Gothitelle), but you can count Zam-Crowned and Zacian out since they are heavily outclassed. So the Ubers tier doesn't have much more mons than the OU metagame, only 4 of them, which changes a lot the way Ubers is supposed to work. The Ubers metagame should not only have threats banned from the OU metagame but also new defensive options to check the added threat, which make them less broken, but in this generation it's not the case. It's the OU mons that deseparately try to check the 3 legendaries, the lengendaries can only soft check themselves at best. So from a tiering perspective we should ban all of the ubers mons since we don't have any new tools allowing us to check them. If we ban Zacian, Eternatus is gonna be even better and it's already broken anw. If the two aforementioned get banned, Zacian-hero is gonna be the new top threat and both Zamazenta forms are also gonna be super good, so the way it is, it's not gonna go anywhere through banning the mons. Instead, I think the very centralised meta makes it very unique and quite enjoyable atm, finding a way of handling Zacian can be done both offensively and defensively, and Zacian can get great support both offensively and defensively. Trying to come up with strategies to bypass Zacian's check has been really fun atm and the meta feels competitive and requires good game planing like in LC, which is really important and a bit neglected I feel. However, players will relatively quickly run out of ideas and the meta will start being stale and won't have room for innovation anymore, which is where the second part of the metagame starts, the part where the old legendaries come back to end Zacian's reign. Among them are Mewtwo, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Lunala, Necrozma and Melmetal. The most interesting ones regarding checking Zacian seem to be Reshiram, Zekrom and Necrozma-Dusk-Mane which can take pretty well the current Zacian set with Behemoth Blade Close Combat and Wild Charge, so it will have more trouble having an optimal set. Play Rough and Crunch are gonna be mandatory to touch these 3 effectively so it narrows down the options Zacian has, and even with the adjustments, Scarf Reshiram and bulky Necrozma-DM are going to be great against it.

tlrd : the metagame is fine rn, its uniqueness makes it interesting and it's still very competitve. Options are going to run out at some point and teambuilding creativity will be difficult, but thankfully we are going to have old legendaries coming back from the old games to fix that, hopefully not too late nor too soon.

You have a good point! I hope the other legendaries can come available soon too! It's just in my opinion, as a USUM Ubers and a current Natdex AG player (you can look me up on the ladders, I think I am at least decent), I think keeping at least an eye on stuff like Zacian-C and Gothitelle should at least be considered. Also, just wanted to point out that Zekrom is not a check to Zacian-C, as a STAB play rough demolishes it (and Zacian-C always runs play rough 95 percent of the time), but everything else you listed is. Dugtrio personally prefers to not run focus sash, as it misses out on killing Eternatus and Excadrill, and hazards are everywhere (this is my opinion).

 

[Manaphy]

My last team I posted here was literally the most used team in the last tournament so I'm glad people are seeing these lol

I'm gonna be posting a Hyper Offense team since I've been having fun with it:

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Zacian-Crowned @ Rusted Sword
Ability: Intrepid Sword
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance
- Psychic Fangs

Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Encore
- Disable
- Recover

Mew @ Focus Sash
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Fire Blast

Eternatus @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dynamax Cannon
- Flamethrower
- Substitute
- Recover

Hatterene (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Draining Kiss
- Trick Room
- Mystical Fire

Dugtrio @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Memento

Basically Sabeye is dumb good on hyper offense, he gets disable so any ditto or choiced mon you face, you can come in and disable them and make them stuck on struggle. he also gets encore which means you have a ton of set-up opportunities and can force opponents to encore and then disable them, if they're an opponent that's a little scary to switch-out of, this is a great way to do it. spinblocking is also cool. Mew is a pretty cool lead since he gets both rocks and spikes, taunt prevents shenanigans and fire blast takes care of excadrill and corviknight. Hatterene further is critical to the team, since magic bounce provides a lot of utility and her ability to trick room really messes with ditto and opposing offensive teams. Once Hatterene is set-up, he can pretty much OHKO almost the entire tier with it's dynnamax moves. Draining Kiss might seem like an odd option, but's only 30 BP less than Dazzling Gleam and it heals 75% of the damage done which is really nice with life orb and other random damage in mind. Zacian and Etern do what they do, adding good speed and type synergy to the team as well. Dugtrio is for trapping opposing Zacian which can be troublesome for the team, but you can also use him in tandem with Sableye, or pop him with Memento to allow one of the three sweepers to set-up. don't forget that things that dynamax get past encore, so try not to let things like gyarados set-up too easily. ditto might be neat over dugtrio, not sure. the team is fun to play tho which is why I'm posting it for everyone else

 

[Dilwar]

Is Zacian good