Happy Friday and February. Both the full December stats and January's usage stats are out, which marks the first usage stats of 2024. Since Terapagos ended up banned midway on January 11, these still don't paint a complete picture of what was happening in the month, but as recent posts have shown I think people have a general idea of what successful teams look like at this point anyway, so the analysis will be a bit briefer with more to cover.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-12/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
For the sake of keeping track and full comparison for January, here are the stats for the full month of December. The complete battle count is
30554, a relatively smaller dip from November.
December 2023 (full): 1630-weighted top 10 + last month (November) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Ting-Lu (no change)
#3: Mega Heracross (no change)
#4: Terapagos (new)
#5: Blissey (#4)
#6: Mega Ampharos (#5)
#7: Pecharunt (new)
#8: Mega Gengar (#10)
#9: Mega Sableye (#8)
#10: Mega Slowbro (#7)
Compared to the stats since DLC2's release, Terapagos and Pecharunt naturally drop a few places in a time without their existence. Ting-Lu and Heracross maintain their top spots officially, while Baxcalibur doesn't quite make it into the top 10 this time, but still hangs in #17. Once again, Venusaur has a dominant 50% weighted usage rate and 12678 raw appearances, almost double that of Heracross's 6847 second to it. Despite their frequent pairing, Ting-Lu only manages 3rd in raw usage with 5555 appearances. Some unique dark horses in the full month's stats include Mega Pinsir making #19 with 516 uses and Wishiwashi-School in #23 with 183 uses, with Pinsir using the typical Aerilate Band offense set while Wishiwashi participates in Pickup Mirror Herb passing with Ting-Lu.
Viability ceilings for December are pretty similar to what we saw with the DLC, but Blissey and Dragapult also make it to the peak of 81, while the duo of Tyranitar (Magic Bounce/Covert Cloak) and Mega Altaria (Pixilate/Altarianite) join Heracross at 80.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-01/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-01/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
The battle count for January managed to rebound and surpass the drop of November again with
38388 battles, still not back to peak activity but is positive nonetheless.
January 2024: 1630-weighted top 10 + last month (December) positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (no change)
#2: Mega Heracross (#3)
#3: Ting-Lu (#2)
#4: Pecharunt (#7)
#5: Blissey (no change)
#6: Terapagos (#4)
#7: Mega Ampharos (#6)
#8: Mega Slowbro (#10)
#9: Mega Gengar (#8)
#10: Mega Abomasnow (#27)
While Venusaur is still #1 and definitely a popular ladder leader, Heracross gains ground and takes the #2 spot back from Ting-Lu. Meanwhile, Pecharunt is already making a pretty good impression for itself after its debut, while broken Terapagos is still #6 despite only existing for a third of the month. Not too much has changed for the top 10 other than Abomasnow making a big leap up to oust Sableye at #11, but there's some pretty interesting shifts outside the top 10. Some other recent Gen 9 mons making names for themselves are Gouging Fire making #26 with 679 uses (Magic Guard/Life Orb with Kangaskhan), followed closely by Ogerpon-Hearthflame in #28 with 723 uses (paired with Blissey), the fellow DLC paradox Raging Bolt in #33 with 552 uses (more Magic Bounce, with some Synchronize and Pastel Veil?), and even Brute Bonnet managed a record #35 with 157 uses (running Prism Armor/Fluffy with a Venusaur partner).
Over in the moveset file, Flower Veil seems to have resurpassed Toxic Chain and Magic Bounce on Venusaur, which is the combination that
Kratosurtur has represented recently. Flower Veil is still the prime option on Ting-Lu itself though. Pecharunt still seems to be divided between Ice Scales/Toxic Chain/Magic Bounce evenly, but Mirror Herb has pulled through as the main item of choice. In its final hour, it seems Terapagos frequented Intrepid Sword and Choice Band more over the other mixed options of Download and Mirror Herb to focus more on physicals.
Looking at the viability ceilings (highest GXE of a user using that Pokemon), the peak this time around is 82 with the unexpected pair of Mega Gengar (mostly Good as Gold, with some Competitive and Magic Bounce) and Arcanine (Defiant and Band). I feel like this is just a case of a very small sample size at this rate since Arcanine only even has 50 uses, but it's worth a shoutout for the achievement. The next highest viability ceiling is 79 with a 6-way tie between Mega Venusaur, Ting-Lu, Blissey, Terapagos, Mega Abomasnow (Good as Gold/Mirror Herb with Pecharunt), and Cresselia (Magic Guard/Toxic Chain with Mirror Herb/WP/Leppa). There is no one with 78, and 77 is a 10-way tie that I won't go into much but includes Pecharunt, Mega Ampharos (mainly Toxic Chain now), Mega Sableye (still Magic Bounce but notable Toxic Chain usage), Dusclops (mainly Toxic Chain barely over Magic Bounce), Glastrier (primarily Simple), Iron Hands (also running Toxic Chain/Ice Scales), Mega Kangaskhan (Magic Bounce), Brute Bonnet, Porygon2 (mainly Toxic Chain), and Hisuian Arcanine (also Defiant/Band with some Storm Drain). So I guess this goes to show there's more parity, but also a lot of mons are just getting away with using Toxic Chain as an option now in this meta.
Finally, I want to highlight a weird set/combo just because I don't think I ever mentioned in this thread yet, and so I wanted to document it for the sake of it.
beethoven (Heracross) @ Heracronite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Metronome
The concept of this set came to me a few years ago from thinking about Illusion with megas and the weird name interactions that come with it, and thinking about how Imposter with megas works instead. How it works is that you have the option to mega evolve midbattle and you just become the mega with its base ability as normal, but you still keep Imposter's 5 PP, so I thought this could basically only be used as the fastest way to get Heracross to Struggle. It's sitill not even that great at that because you don't have an ability or item to boost your attack properly, and you can't even run Leppa Berry if you wanted to. I had some replays from late 2020 with this and an Altaria set, but they don't seem to be back yet, so you just have to take me on my word when I say it won at least one battle. The one positive matchup you have is like Illusion, other Imposters will fail on Imposter, but unlike Illusion, the order of Imposter activation is speed based, so anyone faster then Blissey (like Heracross) will become a 5 PP Blissey with less HP while Blissey remains the same.
not a blissy (Audino) @ Audinite
Ability: Imposter
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 0 SpD / 0 Spe
- Metronome
The most recent incarnation I decided to test was this Audino. Audino has the second highest HP of any mega capable mon, behind Kangaskhan's 105, but also Audino can outslow Blissey. The result is me trying to make a Blissey counter that could still also transform into a mon with a decent amount of HP. I also realized after the fact that Mega Audino gets Healer naturally as well, which could be relevant in this meta. It was not a good idea, but you can see it in action here (not against Blissey):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9metronomebattle-2045886305-rfa92pai3fs8fm5ci4kin4kheghcgjbpw
The last thing I wanted to highlight was the stat spread on this Audino. My goal was to have a Blissey transform into my terrible stats while Audino would be able to mega evolve to have the BST advantage, but I was wondering how stats work when you mega after transforming. Since Transform normally prevents any form changes, it is very difficult to put an answer to this question from natural gameplay. I figured either that I would have the enemy's full EV spread since sites like Bulbapedia say that Transform copies EVs, but I also thought it could just mean I take their raw stats at the time and the form change would just recalculate my own stats when it happens.
The above replay answers how this works on Showdown, and it works like the latter. Mega evolving does recalculate you back into the stats you put in the teambuilder, as shown by Mega Venusaur critting Mega Audino with Attack Order for 23% HP on turn 4. This range is only possible if my 0 Defense EVs and IVs were both intact, so I guess in this scenario you shouldn't actually mega evolve, unless you are untransformed and against a faster Blissey.
Venusaur used Metronome!
Waggling a finger let it use Attack Order!
It's not very effective...
A critical hit!
(The opposing not a blissy lost 23% of its health!)
252 Atk Venusaur-Mega Attack Order vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Audino-Mega on a critical hit: 62-73 (15.1 - 17.8%) -- possible 6HKO
252 Atk Venusaur-Mega Attack Order vs. -1 252 HP / 0 Def Audino-Mega on a critical hit: 75-89 (18.2 - 21.7%) -- possible 5HKO
252 Atk Venusaur-Mega Attack Order vs. -1 252 HP / 0 Def (0IV Defense) Audino-Mega on a critical hit: 85-100 (20.7 - 24.3%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
So that's pretty much everything that I thought could be said about Imposter megas. It doesn't really mean anything, but I just wanted to get it out of my mind for anyone else wondering what would happen and if there are any uses for it. Hopefully there will be better things that we can look forward to in this year. Thanks for your reading.