Metagame BDSP Monotype Megathread

maroon

free palestine
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Team Rateris a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnus
RMT & Mono Leader


This thread is dedicated to information and discussion about the Monotype variant played on Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. This thread will contain three reserved posts, one for tiering decisions, another for sample teams, and the last for viability rankings! This thread can be used for general discussion about the metagame, suggestions for sample teams or viability, and in general anything related to BDSP Monotype.
BDSP Monotypes will not be tiered and share the same ban list as BDSP OU with the addition of the same type clause.

Teambuilding and Playing Restrictions
- This format uses the same clauses as BDSP OU with the addition of the Same Type Clause.
Mechanics: Battle mechanics are identical to those in Pokemon Sword and Shield, with the exception of Dynamax being removed. Any items introduced after Generation 4 with in-battle effects, excluding Pixie Plate and Roseli Berry, are unavailable.
Available Pokemon: Pokemon #001-493 are available, with the exceptions of Celebi, Deoxys, Shaymin, Darkrai, and Arceus. This does not include Alolan/Galarian formes or Mega Evolutions.

Happy posting! Please keep one-liners to a minimum in this thread; you can put those in the Smogon BDSP Discord / Monotype Discord or the BDSP Metagames Chat Room / Monotype Chat Room.​
 
Last edited:
First of all... BDSP Monotype sucks, or at least it does for me cause my type sucks, there are hardly even matchups in this meta, and sometimes a type can just get 6-0ed by a single mon, an example for elec would be Breloom and Blaziken

With that introduction out of the way, lets talk about...

⚡ ELECTRIC IN BDSP MONOTYPE ⚡

As it happens with many types, you want to be as aggresive as you can, and take every little advantage your type offers cause boi this is a rough tier, if you try to use mons like Zapdos or Rotom to stall out someone boy you are in for a bad time, you are most likely gonna be a nice setup oportunity or just the sheer strenght some mons have will wreck you. So we wanna try to be the ones putting pressure and not the other way around. Now let's have a look at the options at our disposal shall we?

The "Clearly the best" mons, aka use this or i'll strangle you:

1638343807938.png

The boy has ice punch ok? That really on its own its all that it needs to go all the way up to this spot, my recomendation is that you slap a choice scarf on this so you can have the satisfaction of punching down most of this little rants also known as dragon types, in that case I do prefer adamant as I dont see myself outspeeding other scarfers bar Porygon-Z, but if you think Jolly is better be my guest. Also please use Vital Spirit unless you want your ass traced by Gardevoir, Porygon2, Ditto, etc.

1638344086513.png

If you think this guy is a passive mon, think again! Why would we want to make the passive out of a mon with ICE BEAM and STAB HYDRO PUMP? The item you are looking for are the shiny choice specs, just try it, its gonna be amazing. Uh, I still can't decide wether to use Water Absorb or Volt Absorb on this, both have their merits, probably water absorb is better overall if you consider rain dance might still be out there and also the reasons I gave for electivire.

1638344628718.png

I'd honestly think you would be trolling if I don't see a magnezone in your team. Has an amazing special attack, so good that even Tri Attack hurts, flash cannon is great in many matchups, Magnet Pull is completely useless so feel free to abuse Analytic to your heart's desire. Oh and its an steel type with a lot of bulk that can take many hits for the team, so yeah, what more could you ask for? Specs, Leftovers or whatever is good on this.

The "These are fine" mons:

1638345059704.png

I use this one to setup screens, its honestly much better than trying to burn your opponents cause more often than not they are gonna have a lum berry to cure it right away, you'd be surprised by how common that item is. Screens are the best support our other mons can get, altho if that dosen't convince you I guess a choice scarf its fine, just trick it to the right mon to make it's life misserable.

1638345311229.png

Ejem, this mon is terrible. Buuuuut it has defog, static and a decent bulk so it's definitively worth a slot in your team, just don't keep it on the field for too long or you are gonna be screaming to get a setup mon on your face, with the best you can do about that is use thunder wave or pray for a discharge para.

1638345575620.png

Flame Orb Guts it's a pretty good deal and basically the strongest physical attacker you can get, deals with most Calm Mind sweepers and Facade does about 60% to Gastrodon so its good to at least force it out, specially if you have a Light Screen up to deal with retaliation.

1638345952930.png

I haven't tested this one a lot but it really can't be that bad with an ok movepool and calm mind, sadly you can't use pressure on this, and the justification to use this is either calm mind or just the fact that he is fast, cause Rotom and Lanturn also have water moves.

1638346697451.png

Either scarf or nasty plot, you use this version of rotom if you dislike having to deal with Water/Ground mons and generally make the Water and Ground matchups easier, not much else to say

The "Either need more testing or are not as good" mons:

1638346167699.png
1638346190579.png

Raichu is one mon you can experiment a lot with, you can use it as a wishpasser with nuzzle and encore, you can run dual screens on this in case you wanna free up rotom from that, maybe to run a flaming scarf mowtom if you hate Gastrodon/Swampert that much, and lastly you have nasty plot to threaten said mons with Grass Knot afterwards. As for the junior version of this mon, there is only really one set going for it and thats tbolt/knot/sub/encore, which is gonna hit harder without setup.

1638346878416.png
1638346905012.png

I have not tested either of these two dogs but I don't think they have much going for anyways, Manectric has Flamethrower/Overheat, but the thing is those moves aren't really demanded in this meta, it also has Switcheroo so you could use that to lock a setup or passive mon. As for Jolteon well, he is fast, and thats as far as it goes as it has almost no coverage nor supportive moves.

This is getting long so I'm not gonna talk about Ampharos, Pachi, Electrode, etc. I'd be glad to hear any discoveries anyone else makes, at the moment BDSP is not my biggest interest so this is as far as my research goes, good day everyone.
 
Early Thoughts on Normal

As an avid normal player, I'm interested in how the type will fare without access to eviolite. While Staraptor is excellent as a secondary defensive pivot, it leaves much to be desired as a primary physical wall. Firstly, losing Heavy-Duty Boots means that it gets worn down more easily by stealth rocks, which isn't ideal. Its special defense stat is also mediocre at best, leaving it vulnerable to more powerful special attacks. Similarly, if the opponent switches out of the Intimidate, Staraptor's physical defense stat isn't great, leaving it at risk to powerful super-effective moves. It's no question that Porygon2 has been an essential component to normal teams for the past few generations of monotype. Its impressive physical bulk in combination with its versatile ability Trace, access to reliable recovery, access to useful coverage moves, and surprisingly useful special bulk, made it truly irreplaceable on any balanced normal team. Without it, there is a gaping hole in normal's defensive core, one that is not easily filled.

Theory Crafting

Without knowing how the meta will form, its tough to gauge what sort of options might be viable as Porygon-2 replacements. With that being said, I've tried my best to come up with realistic sets that maximize the defensive potential of these Pokémon:

Miltank (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Milk Drink
- Seismic Toss
- Earthquake / Thunder Wave / Protect

Synopsis: Miltank is an interesting option. Its ability, Thick Fat, lends itself well to Normal considering how weak Staraptor is to ice type moves. Thick Fat may also be useful in tanking powerful physical fire type moves such as Flare Blitz or a choice band Sacred Fire from Entei. Stealth Rock opens up a moveslot on Blissey, where it can run moves such as Counter, Protect. Alternatively, it makes room for screens. Milk Drink is for recovery. Seismic Toss is consistent damage. Earthquake is for steel types like Heatran that normal struggles against or Pokémon that Miltank otherwise cannot hit. Thunder Wave is another option to cripple opposing Pokémon. Protect can be used to scout opposing movesets and extra Leftovers recovery.

Regigigas @ Leftovers
Ability: Slow Start
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Drain Punch

Synopsis: A lot of people are weary about using Regigigas due to its self-crippling ability, Slow Start. Truthfully, Regigigas might require some additional care to utilize effectively. Using a defensive variant though, its ability becomes less of a factor. Regigigas has fantastic bulk with 110 base defenses across the board. In terms of simply matching Porygon2 and its bulk, Regigigas comes the closest. With its strong defensive stats, Regigigas can safely switch into and check many physical attackers. What it does not have that P2 does, however, is access to reliable recovery. Rest and Sleep talk mitigate this weakness at the expense of other moveslots. Rest fully heals and protects against crippling status moves like Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave that might otherwise make it more difficult to keep Regigigas healthy. Sleep Talk is so that Regigigas is not completely useless during its rest turns. Drain Punch is for extra recovery. Knock Off is rarer in this generation which makes a valuable asset to any Monotype team. Knock off is useful in crippling opposing mons. It also hits Ghost and Psychic types for super-effective damage. Both of these damaging moves hit surprisingly hard once Slow Start wears off.

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Discharge / Thunderbolt
- Protect / Thunder Wave / Shadow Ball / Magic Coat / Psychic

Synopsis: Maybe the best replacement for Porygon2 is Porygon2. Yes, there's no debating that without access to Eviolite it is simply worse. It is noticeably way less bulky and dies much faster. It also has a shallow movepool relative to its options in previous generations. However, Trace is still a very useful ability and its defensive stats aren't terrible. The Pokémon is still usable, though not as effective. In some situations, it's totally outclassed by Miltank and even Regigigas. Recover is standard and serves to keep P2 healthy throughout the game. Ice Beam is a great coverage option for grass, ground, and dragon types. Discharge and Thunderbolt are similarly useful, especially against popular types like water and flying. In the last moveslot, there are a lot of options. I'll highlight the last three since I've already gone over the use of Protect and Thunder Wave. Shadow Ball is extra ghost type coverage, which can be useful. Magic Coat can really help in steel type and matchups where Skarmory wants to set up spikes. It is also generally useful in avoiding status, which cripples P2. Psychic is great for fighting and poison type matchups.

Alternative Idea: Perhaps balanced normal can't function well without Porygon2 and will be outclassed by hyper-offensive sticky web variants. I wanted to share a team, although it's just a rough idea, that I've theory crafted. I think this team could potentially become somewhat viable:

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Sticky Web
- Spore
- Nuzzle

Staraptor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- Double-Edge
- U-turn

Zangoose @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Toxic Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Night Slash

Porygon-Z @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tri Attack
- Discharge
- Nasty Plot
- Ice Beam

Exploud @ Choice Specs
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Flamethrower
- Surf
- Focus Blast

Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Transform

Conclusion

There is no identical replacement for Porygon-2, that much is clear. As the meta begins to take shape and develop further, we may see some interesting Pokémon with unique roles to fill rise to prominence. Overall, I'm excited for a new Monotype metagame and happy to be a part of this community. This is my first "actual" post on the forums. I hope it's not terrible. I'd be interested in reading what everyone else thinks about Normal and its viability in this particular metagame. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!
 
I've played BDSP mono for bit. Here are my initial thoughts on each type: (feel free to roast me if you want idc)

Good:

Normal: This type is a really good in this tier. So far, I've seen staraptor used as bulky defoger with intimidate rather than attacker which is strange but I think is great. Overall, bliss+def raptor is actually a quite good combo. The only potential problem is the lack of diggersby and specs heliolisk to wallbreak as well as the latter providing the crucial water immunity which is key. Speaking of water immunity.

Water: THANK GOD DRIZZLE IS BANNED. Regardless of what meta, water is a top tier type. This is no different in BDSP. The presence of tail glow manaphy to break blissey is almost illegal. Kingdra even running rain dance sets speaks to how powerful water is. Also, Azumaril lost a bit of overage but because of this, is has room for focus punch. Huge Power + Focus Punch = WTF is the calcs. Also, Ice is SH*T and kyurem is gone, so water rarely has to worry bout freeze-dry

Poison: Surprisingly, poison has access to most of it's good mons: nidoking, drapion, gengar, toxikroak. The only potential problem is the lack of AMOGUS for earthquakes. Venusaur is the best replacement but is not that good. You can use levitate weezing to avoid eqs.

Fighting: Surprisingly, arguably one of the worst types in swsh is one of best in BDSP. First blaziken is gone(thank goodness) but infernape is an excellent replacement. Fighting gained a lot of good mons like breloom and infernape, as well as medicham. Just watch out for hazards if you don;t use rapid sping hitmontop.

Flying: Oh no, we lost lando T, what will flying do. Anyways, gliscor is here. Yeah, between gliscor, skarmory, gyarados, and togekiss, flying has amazing synergy. The only slighly sad thing is that gyarados and skarm have to take the ice beams, and considering gyara is mostly offensive and skarm has **** spdef, it might be hard to anything. Skarm no longer has body press or iron head so I usually run spdef skarm with steel wing(sadge)

Ground: Why the F*** is no one using this type, it's amazing. hippo + nido + gliscor + gastrodon + mamo + chomp is an awesome team setup. I've used it to great sucess and yet I barely see anyone use it. AIA, if not for the next type, I would main ground.

Psychic: Latis. WTF is specs latios. wtf is scarf/CM latias with that. I've mained psychic in swsh and I still do it BDSP. This type is broken. Between dragon dance/will o wisp mew to band medicham, to band metagross(jirachi sucks, it has not iron head), to even lead azelf, and nasty plot alakzam. This type is a monster and seriously, with specs latios, this type can do anything.

Dragon: This is the other type that gets to abuse latios and mind you dragon is great defesnive type too. Fairy is not that prominent and steel got hella nerfed. There is not much else to say here. Even steel gets troubled by chomp. However, mind you, hydreigon is no longer here so you specs latios switch is non-existent.

Not too sure, they are between good and bad

Electric: I don't think electric is that good. Yall can roast me if you want for it. Yes, it does has zapdos and rotom wash, but most other mons suck. No, for the user above talking about electric, electivire is not a must on electric teams. Yes it has coverage but it's frail as ****, you get pretty much revenge killed by all the priority and faster scarfers, mainly latias, band mamo(yes look calcs), infernape, even porygon 2(look calcs)
252 Atk Electivire Hammer Arm vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 252-298 (69.8 - 82.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Electivire: 150-177 (51.3 - 60.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Porygon2 Foul Play vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Electivire: 138-163 (47.2 - 55.8%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Electivire Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 154-182 (41.1 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

you even get destroyed my staraptor(offensize)
252 Atk Reckless Staraptor Double-Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Electivire: 309-364 (105.8 - 124.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO (this is scarf btw)

However, lanturn is a monster and a decent replacement for rotom. Personally, I run both because I think both are needed. Electric is almost good, but I don't think it's there. Apart of lanturn, zapdos, rotomW, and maybe magnezone(too slow), there are no other viable option

Steel: Personally, I think this type is cannot qualify as good. However, I think it is the most underated type. First, thank god it's no longer the cancer it is in swsh. With no aegislash, no celes, no corvi, no drill, and especially, no ferro, steel has to content with specs rachi, lucario, empoleon, scizor, as well as the usual : heatran and skarm. Band scizor is actually as good as the good ole platinum days. However, switching into fighitng moves is HARD and with fighting being a great type, steel is not in the spotlight anymore. It still has great hazards setter but loss of defog corvi/rapin spin exca is pain.

Fire: Also an underated type. Fire still gets to keep drought torkoal and now has infernape as cinderace replacement. I think that ape + torkoal + specs tran + rotomH is awesome combo. People just overlook fire because water seem to always seem to overshadow it. With loss of HDB, SR is a huge problem but RS torkoal should be enough. Dragon is still as much as, if not more of a problem.

Dark: You have TTar, crawdaunt, weavile, and drapion. The others (maybe not sharpedo, skuntank, sableye) all suck. Therefore, you must manage battles with essentialy four pokemon. However, all these pokemon are some of the best mons. Sableye even helps with prankster. so it's more of 5 pokemon team. If you can get the best out of all 5, it works.

Bad:

Grass: No ferothorn is a death sentence, grass is already a sh*t defense and offensive type and it literally lost the only pokemon carrying its viability. Even then, it lost zarude, rilaboom, celebi, amoonguss. The only somewhat usable pokemon are breloom and maybe cradily, roserade, and rotomM.

Ice: Bruh, the only somewhat viable thing is snoak cloak spam. Not only will the ability likely get banned, it's very luck based and not consistent. The only viable pokemon on ice are weavile and mamo. Aboma is not a replacement for snowtails. it's slow, got garbage defensive typing.

Fairy: No tapus, no klefki, WTF r u supposed to do. The only usable mons are togekiss, celfable, and azumarill. You have to use REGULAR mawile for kelfki replacement. Mind you, intimidate is gr8 but mawile just cannot do what klefki can.

Bug: You have scizor and heracross. All others are complete and utter garbage, absolute trash. The only somewhat ok mons are shukle, yanmega, shedinja, venomoth, and wormadam trash

Rock: The biggest weaknesses of rock are exagerated ten fold in BDSP. It's SLOW(no terrakion or TR staka) and it has SH*T ton of bad weaknesses like water and fighting which are common attacking types. The only viable mons aero, ttar, and crad. That's not cutting it.

Ghost: LMAO THIS LOST SO MUCH. No pult, no spectrier, no mimikyu, no aegislash, no blace, no corsola-g. You only have gengar. The rest you have to use mediocre mons. Ghost is like steel but on steroid. At least steel got to keep tran and skarm. Ghost just lost almost everything.
 
No, for the user above talking about electric, electivire is not a must on electric teams. Yes it has coverage but it's frail as ****, you get pretty much revenge killed by all the priority and faster scarfers, mainly latias, band mamo(yes look calcs), infernape, even porygon 2(look calcs)
Just because a Pokemon has checks dosen't mean its bad, you also didn't even bother to make one of the calcs right, you have p2 an eviolite which dosen't exist in this meta, other than that this mon is your best answer against most dragon types and gliscor, it does very well the job its supposed to do and getting KO'ed by Mamo or Staraptor aren't really arguments against, you say it like if most other Elec mons didn't have that issue aswell, if you really wanna argue against Electivire then you need to show up a mon that does it's job better.
 
First of all... BDSP Monotype sucks, or at least it does for me cause my type sucks, there are hardly even matchups in this meta, and sometimes a type can just get 6-0ed by a single mon, an example for elec would be Breloom and Blaziken

With that introduction out of the way, lets talk about...

⚡ ELECTRIC IN BDSP MONOTYPE ⚡

As it happens with many types, you want to be as aggresive as you can, and take every little advantage your type offers cause boi this is a rough tier, if you try to use mons like Zapdos or Rotom to stall out someone boy you are in for a bad time, you are most likely gonna be a nice setup oportunity or just the sheer strenght some mons have will wreck you. So we wanna try to be the ones putting pressure and not the other way around. Now let's have a look at the options at our disposal shall we?

The "Clearly the best" mons, aka use this or i'll strangle you:

View attachment 388464
The boy has ice punch ok? That really on its own its all that it needs to go all the way up to this spot, my recomendation is that you slap a choice scarf on this so you can have the satisfaction of punching down most of this little rants also known as dragon types, in that case I do prefer adamant as I dont see myself outspeeding other scarfers bar Porygon-Z, but if you think Jolly is better be my guest. Also please use Vital Spirit unless you want your ass traced by Gardevoir, Porygon2, Ditto, etc.

View attachment 388465
If you think this guy is a passive mon, think again! Why would we want to make the passive out of a mon with ICE BEAM and STAB HYDRO PUMP? The item you are looking for are the shiny choice specs, just try it, its gonna be amazing. Uh, I still can't decide wether to use Water Absorb or Volt Absorb on this, both have their merits, probably water absorb is better overall if you consider rain dance might still be out there and also the reasons I gave for electivire.

View attachment 388466
I'd honestly think you would be trolling if I don't see a magnezone in your team. Has an amazing special attack, so good that even Tri Attack hurts, flash cannon is great in many matchups, Magnet Pull is completely useless so feel free to abuse Analytic to your heart's desire. Oh and its an steel type with a lot of bulk that can take many hits for the team, so yeah, what more could you ask for? Specs, Leftovers or whatever is good on this.

The "These are fine" mons:

View attachment 388467

I use this one to setup screens, its honestly much better than trying to burn your opponents cause more often than not they are gonna have a lum berry to cure it right away, you'd be surprised by how common that item is. Screens are the best support our other mons can get, altho if that dosen't convince you I guess a choice scarf its fine, just trick it to the right mon to make it's life misserable.

View attachment 388468
Ejem, this mon is terrible. Buuuuut it has defog, static and a decent bulk so it's definitively worth a slot in your team, just don't keep it on the field for too long or you are gonna be screaming to get a setup mon on your face, with the best you can do about that is use thunder wave or pray for a discharge para.

View attachment 388469
Flame Orb Guts it's a pretty good deal and basically the strongest physical attacker you can get, deals with most Calm Mind sweepers and Facade does about 60% to Gastrodon so its good to at least force it out, specially if you have a Light Screen up to deal with retaliation.

View attachment 388470
I haven't tested this one a lot but it really can't be that bad with an ok movepool and calm mind, sadly you can't use pressure on this, and the justification to use this is either calm mind or just the fact that he is fast, cause Rotom and Lanturn also have water moves.

View attachment 388473
Either scarf or nasty plot, you use this version of rotom if you dislike having to deal with Water/Ground mons and generally make the Water and Ground matchups easier, not much else to say

The "Either need more testing or are not as good" mons:

View attachment 388471
View attachment 388472

Raichu is one mon you can experiment a lot with, you can use it as a wishpasser with nuzzle and encore, you can run dual screens on this in case you wanna free up rotom from that, maybe to run a flaming scarf mowtom if you hate Gastrodon/Swampert that much, and lastly you have nasty plot to threaten said mons with Grass Knot afterwards. As for the junior version of this mon, there is only really one set going for it and thats tbolt/knot/sub/encore, which is gonna hit harder without setup.

View attachment 388474 View attachment 388475
I have not tested either of these two dogs but I don't think they have much going for anyways, Manectric has Flamethrower/Overheat, but the thing is those moves aren't really demanded in this meta, it also has Switcheroo so you could use that to lock a setup or passive mon. As for Jolteon well, he is fast, and thats as far as it goes as it has almost no coverage nor supportive moves.

This is getting long so I'm not gonna talk about Ampharos, Pachi, Electrode, etc. I'd be glad to hear any discoveries anyone else makes, at the moment BDSP is not my biggest interest so this is as far as my research goes, good day everyone.
now you know how it feels to be a bug monotype playerand watch your type go downhill from when you started (Gen5) as a mid to good type to now a quite bad maybe bottom 5 type. My condolences to electric, you were outstanding for only one gen

Anyways a small aside when they release Darkrai and Shaymin (and Shaymin S) will they be looked into for suspects (at least S and Darkrai)
 
Last edited:
My Dragon Hell (note this was written by an amateur and also I can't do fancy stuff because noob at smogon)

Sooooo everyone's been on about the bad types, but maybe the bad OPTIONS on dragon may make it apparent that this type, while having good mons, isn't cut out as it was thought to be.

Let's go over the 20 or so- wait, not 20? Okay we have 10 right? ... 8 mons.... great. Let's see what we got.

Dragonite
We have the goat, our king, dragonite. Despite sharing a type with 2 other of the dragon options in this metagame, theres not really any questions as to running it or not. Run it.

With multiscale, this beast tanks a super effective move like a champ and pounces back with a strong move, isn't that amazing?

It doesn't have HDB or WP for those people who did that, however that means band will be prominent again, and it hits like a truck with strong coverage overall, thats already 1/6 slots filled. Next?

Altaria
So let's make this short and sweet... it sucks. Its abilities aren't terrible, but it doesn't have much to show off. It isn't hitting much of anything with its 70/70 in attack/sp atk respectively, and that leaves defensive. What does it get for that, you may be asking? Well its 90/105 split isn't terrible... if you aren't comparing it to basically any dragon type that isn't kingdra, but even KINGDRA gets its own stuff to strike with... Anyways let's just get onto the movepool, OH YEAH IT ALSO SHARES THE SAME SPEED AS DRAGONITE HOW FUN-

Defensively, it gets both cotton guard and roost, which aren't terrible. However that's only good for stalling, what does it have for actually making this a problem for anyone else? Toxic! It must get that- nope. Perish song or nothing. If you're running hazards, you could spam roar, but Dragon doesn't have room to run hazards, sooooooo. Anyways perish song literally makes it so that theres no point in boosting since you'll have to switch out two turns later. Overall a bad mon. Next?

Kingdra
Okay, after trashing on the clo(wn)ud bird, we're onto Kingdra. With decent stats around the board, you would think it's viable, right?? Well unless you're running rain dance, which uh.. is a huge waste of a slot.. point is unless you run rain dance, it's only meh. It's your only variety though, since altaria just isn't viable in monotype. Some daredevil try to run it, I want to see this lmfao

Garchomp
Chompy boi is just great, with being able to learn stealth rock, to being a band/scarf/life orb/fairy killer/beast.. it is just its own huge problem, so much so that some people just died without having proper coverage for it. Considering ice literally sucks this gen, we won't see that problem very often, and despite it losing scale shot, it has a real chance to shine this gen. High hopes for it, def slot for your team

Lati Twins
I'm putting them both in the same place considering they're placed relatively similarly (and you're forced to use them both on mono dragon) with some monster stats in spatk/spdef, it can calm mind to oblivion with its 350 speed, or just specs it out and deal deep damage with draco meteor. Point is, we love the twins here, and they're very useful.

(Skipping Flygon since yeahhhhhh)

Salamence
Salamence is a mon that despite having pain to sr, can leave huge dents in the team with a choiced set, or set up with dragon dance to absolutely murder anybody in its path. It serves a similar function to dragonite, except with moxie, you barely need to set up in order to start wreaking havoc on your opponent. anywho you can't skip out on it, sooo have fun!

OVERALL
You may be wondering why I did this to begin with saying Dragon isn't great when I just praised 5 of its mons... wait 5? Oh crap uh.. try finding a slot for flygon or something, I dunno. Anyways, the point is that 5 of its mons are the ONLY 5 of its mons that in my opinion, work in synergy to win. Meaning teams are easily predictable and dragon mirror matches could be a very identical mirror match with maybe a single mon different. This lack of variety and also the fact that 5/8 mons on dragon are 4x weak to ice.. that I say Dragon isn't doing that great this meta. Note I am a complete idiot, and feel free to disprove my points, however the mons it does pack are fabled legends that can tear through the metagame if used correctly.

Anyways, rant from Dkid over, have fun :)
 
My Dragon Hell (note this was written by an amateur and also I can't do fancy stuff because noob at smogon)

Sooooo everyone's been on about the bad types, but maybe the bad OPTIONS on dragon may make it apparent that this type, while having good mons, isn't cut out as it was thought to be.

Let's go over the 20 or so- wait, not 20? Okay we have 10 right? ... 8 mons.... great. Let's see what we got.

Dragonite
We have the goat, our king, dragonite. Despite sharing a type with 2 other of the dragon options in this metagame, theres not really any questions as to running it or not. Run it.

With multiscale, this beast tanks a super effective move like a champ and pounces back with a strong move, isn't that amazing?

It doesn't have HDB or WP for those people who did that, however that means band will be prominent again, and it hits like a truck with strong coverage overall, thats already 1/6 slots filled. Next?

Altaria
So let's make this short and sweet... it sucks. Its abilities aren't terrible, but it doesn't have much to show off. It isn't hitting much of anything with its 70/70 in attack/sp atk respectively, and that leaves defensive. What does it get for that, you may be asking? Well its 90/105 split isn't terrible... if you aren't comparing it to basically any dragon type that isn't kingdra, but even KINGDRA gets its own stuff to strike with... Anyways let's just get onto the movepool, OH YEAH IT ALSO SHARES THE SAME SPEED AS DRAGONITE HOW FUN-

Defensively, it gets both cotton guard and roost, which aren't terrible. However that's only good for stalling, what does it have for actually making this a problem for anyone else? Toxic! It must get that- nope. Perish song or nothing. If you're running hazards, you could spam roar, but Dragon doesn't have room to run hazards, sooooooo. Anyways perish song literally makes it so that theres no point in boosting since you'll have to switch out two turns later. Overall a bad mon. Next?

Kingdra
Okay, after trashing on the clo(wn)ud bird, we're onto Kingdra. With decent stats around the board, you would think it's viable, right?? Well unless you're running rain dance, which uh.. is a huge waste of a slot.. point is unless you run rain dance, it's only meh. It's your only variety though, since altaria just isn't viable in monotype. Some daredevil try to run it, I want to see this lmfao

Garchomp
Chompy boi is just great, with being able to learn stealth rock, to being a band/scarf/life orb/fairy killer/beast.. it is just its own huge problem, so much so that some people just died without having proper coverage for it. Considering ice literally sucks this gen, we won't see that problem very often, and despite it losing scale shot, it has a real chance to shine this gen. High hopes for it, def slot for your team

Lati Twins
I'm putting them both in the same place considering they're placed relatively similarly (and you're forced to use them both on mono dragon) with some monster stats in spatk/spdef, it can calm mind to oblivion with its 350 speed, or just specs it out and deal deep damage with draco meteor. Point is, we love the twins here, and they're very useful.

(Skipping Flygon since yeahhhhhh)

Salamence
Salamence is a mon that despite having pain to sr, can leave huge dents in the team with a choiced set, or set up with dragon dance to absolutely murder anybody in its path. It serves a similar function to dragonite, except with moxie, you barely need to set up in order to start wreaking havoc on your opponent. anywho you can't skip out on it, sooo have fun!

OVERALL
You may be wondering why I did this to begin with saying Dragon isn't great when I just praised 5 of its mons... wait 5? Oh crap uh.. try finding a slot for flygon or something, I dunno. Anyways, the point is that 5 of its mons are the ONLY 5 of its mons that in my opinion, work in synergy to win. Meaning teams are easily predictable and dragon mirror matches could be a very identical mirror match with maybe a single mon different. This lack of variety and also the fact that 5/8 mons on dragon are 4x weak to ice.. that I say Dragon isn't doing that great this meta. Note I am a complete idiot, and feel free to disprove my points, however the mons it does pack are fabled legends that can tear through the metagame if used correctly.

Anyways, rant from Dkid over, have fun :)
“Dragon is DECENT IN BDSP THIS IS NOT A DRILL DRAGON IS ONLY DECENT IN BDSP HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN TO ME I MADE MY MISTAKES

Anyways wine fest over you have 4 (5 if you make Latiaof the primary dragon mons from the last 3 gens of monotype (the only one really missing from this bunch is kyurem b for being a core dragon member)

look Dragons prob just gonna be mediocre and that’s fine, talk to Maroon and have him show you what ACTUAL DPP dragon mono looks like lol

Also like ohmygod you- you have to use BOTH LATI TWINS? Dear god no! It’s not like you can make one a bulky mon and the other a scarfer or give them differing roles

Meanwhile let me look at bug type with Scizor, Heracross Yanmega and a whole lot of jack shit

Dragon is prob back to running its normal standardized sets and that’s fine cause they usually work well with prediction based play

In conclusion every type is fucked. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Oh and also fuck bug type ig game freak… don’t fuck me over on BW/BW2 remakes
 
Early thoughts on mono water.
:pelipper:
Best rain setter has amazing utility moves in defog , u turn and scald. The common set for this mon would be phys def or specs. I could see scarf as well. Scarf peli just spams hurricane.
:kingdra:
One of the best rain abuser its rain boosted water moves hit hard. Losing hurricane is a blow but it still has ice beam. Specs and life orb would be common set specs more common than lo. While dragon dance set would have a niche.

Kingdra @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Pulse / Surf
3 class moves . Ice beam for grass types. Needs rain support from peli. I personally like dragon pulse more than surf as it just 6-0s dragon and doesnt allow any dd setter to get a dd after kingdra uses draco meteor.
:kabutops:
One of the best sweepers and one off the fast breaker for mono water with choice band.
It also has knock off and rapid spin for utility.
Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Liquidation
- Stone Edge
- Leech Life / knock off
Sd + 2 stab moves. Last move is up to you.leech life hits bulky grass types like tangrowth and knock off hits metagross,jirachi and bronzong.

Kabutops @ Choice Band
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Liquidation
- Aqua Jet
- Knock Off / Leech life
Banded wallbreaker its like azumarill but faster. Aqua jet is useful to pick off low health mons.

:gastrodon:
Its very fat. Gastrodon is the best water ground type in bdsp mono. Its able to stop volt switch thanks to its ground typing. While being being immune to rotom wash and lanturn stabs due to its typing. And resisting magnezone stabs and taking only 41% from analytic tri attack.
Gastrodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Scald
- Earth Power / Earthquake
- Clear Smog / ice beam
Max hp and spd for electric mu. Recover is for recovery. While scald is always amazing on a deffensive mon. Earth power and earth quake is up to you. Earthpower is more powerful whereas as eq beats cm raikou. Sclear smog is to clear stat boosts whereas ice beam is for dragon types.
:manaphy:
Broken under rain as always. Currently i am thinkinf of max speed and max spa set bit maybe in future it would run a deffensive spread. It might tun a sub + tail glow salac set.
Manaphy @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Energy Ball / Skill swap
Tail glow for bootsing. Surf is very powerful under rain. While ice bema hits grass types and dtagons. Energy ball for water absorb mons and skill swap for unaware mons.
:azumarill:
Slow wallbreaker but has high attack. Choice band would the best set but i might see belly frum set on ladder.
Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
- Superpower
Preety much the only 4 physical this gen on azu.

:gyarados:
Dd sweeper. Amazing attack and decent bulk.
Gyarados @ Lum Berry
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Ice Fang / earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Waterfall
Common set i might say ice fang hits fragon types. While earth quake hits hard while also hitting lanturn.

:crawdaunt:
crawdunt adaptability boosted knock of and crabhammer can even kill the fatest mons . It either can use a banded set or swords dance set.
Crawdaunt @ Choice Band
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Crabhammer
- Crunch
- Aqua Jet
Breaker nothing much to say here.

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet
- Crabhammer
Classic set . Life orb ensures that craw kills tang and skarm at +2 with sr up.

:rotom-wash:
Rotom wash can do multiple stuff and do them all good. Scarf for speed control , specs for power and a deffensive set. Has good utility in volt switch, trick and will o wisp.

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Trick
- Will-O-Wisp
Fast speed control. Volt switch gives momentum whereas hydro pump is powerful. Trick is to ruin walls like gastrodon. Will o wisp is good for burning targets.

:empoleon:
Great mon with uttility in rocks and can be used as a sweeper. Has defog for hazard control as well.
Empoleon @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Stealth Rock
- Defog
- Roar / Ice beam
Scald is always good on a deffensive mon. Sr and defog is for helping its comrades.
While roar prevents setup sweepers and ice beam can be used againt dragon types.

:omastar:
Is able to do multiple roles shell smash sweeper ,specs user and sucide lead.
Omastar @ Focus Sash
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Shell Smash
- Surf
The set is to support omastar comrades with hazard pressure.

Tldr- Water has lots of setup sweeper and breakers.
There are still more water types that i didnt say a thing about ex- suicune , slowtwins, starmie , etc
Hopw you like the post .
So ashbala99 for help. ~~dont judge me~~
 
I for one am really enjoying laddering this tier along with playing friendlies. Building the tier is a fresh change from SS and albeit there's some restrictions on a lot of types, you can still get creative. Here are some teams I've been spamming just to get a feel for the meta that I find fun. Descriptions are in the paste.

:crawdaunt: :mantine: :feraligatr: :qwilfish: :suicune: :gastrodon:
:venomoth: :gengar: :drapion: :weezing: :skuntank:/:crobat: :nidoking:
:manaphy: :starmie: :crawdaunt: :empoleon: :kingdra: :swampert:
(click sprites for paste)

As for the meta, as I mentioned, I think it's fun. A lot of mons losing moves is sometimes a pain in the ass to build with, since there's no Toxic TM in the games only mons that learn it naturally can get it. This means a lot of Defensive mons like Mantine are even more passive than they used to be. No rhelm is also pretty interesting now since U-turn just feels so free every game and you don't risk crippling yourself unless you're against like Chomp and Zapdos. No boots is also really refreshing. I still think Flying is a top type like usual but no boots actually makes hazards feel like it's worth putting on your team. Comparatively to SS hazards feel underwhelming against mono boots. Mons that I already think are super good in the meta rn are Latios and Crawdaunt (I'm sure there's more obviously I just haven't played enough yet). I haven't run into a matchup where they come in and don't at least chip heavily or claim 1 altogether. Regardless, I'm pretty excited to see how the meta develops from here :heart:.
 
Last edited:

TTK

Narmaya. That's it.
is a Community Contributor
So out of the 18 types, I have built at least 1 team for 10 of them (Steel, Water, Normal, Fighting, Fairy, Poison, Ghost, Bug, Fire, Dragon). Just going to categorise them in terms of how good these typing are.

The Good typings

:flygon:: I think this is a no-brainer one but despite the lack of FE dragons they are, it's still an extremely strong typing. Fairy has been nerfed significantly and I was even sad to try and attempt to build one so Dragon STAB is free most games, you have strong pokemon like the eon twins, Garchomp, Dnite. It's only issue is the predictability but it's not like a lot of typings can play around them properly even if you know what sets they're running.

:manaphy:: Probably the best mono typing imo. The versatility and options Water has is immense due to its high amount of pokemon. Rain is probably the strongest archetype since you can abuse ManaDra, which got Drizzle banned in OU in the first place. Even without Damp Rock, Kingdra is faster than all mons at +2 other than base 110 scarfers (If modest) and just nukes all of the typings with Water STAB. Grass on paper doesn't look good, Kingdra handles the dragons and water matchups with Gastrodon, it can be handled by Mana, Crawdaunt, Empoleon and Ludicolo on the rain side. Overall, there isn't much holding Water back and it has the tools to beat a lot of teams.

:blissey:: Normal is also another versatile type which has good options on the offensive side of things and also the defensive. It is one of only 3 typings which have access to webs, enabling a lot of the strong breakers of the typing like Exploud, P-Z and Tauros to go wild. It also has one of the most bulkiest pokemon on its side, Blissey. Blissey p much beats every special attacker that isn't a fighting type. Also having one weakness means it's not as matchup reliant as other typings and you won't have a team of normal that will completely just end up badly for the normal player. Even in this replay, I somehow managed to win the normal vs fighting mu.


Alright typings

:gengar:: Poison should probably be in the above section but I haven't used it enough and haven't seen the success with it compared to the above typings. Seeing a user on ladder winning games with mono poison got me to see how good this typing is. T spikes are dangerous. Very dangerous. Poison also has good mons in Gengar, which can really do work with Hex t spikes, Nidoking and Venomoth as good special attackers and also Drapion, which handles the psychic mu well enough so you don't auto lose.

:mismagius:: Ghost has some of the fewest pokemon and it really limits what you can run on ghost. Every team needs a gengar, a spiritomb so you don't insta lose to dark and potentially the ghost mirror, a mismagius. Then the rest of the mons are just kinda bad. Not to mention, the type has no access to hazards outside of Froslass, which is traditionally a lead and ghosts aren't known to be the bulkiest typing due to low HP and lack of resists so it's hard to handle other typings which are strong offensively like Dragon or Ground for example. At least ghost teams punish types that are using teams with Spin because Lass' spikes are up to stay.

:magnezone:: Steel is honestly a balanced type, not super strong but not super weak either. It doesn't have any noticeable flaws either. It has the tools to handle the steels that check it and has good stuff on the offensive side with Lucario, Scizor, Metagross and Magnezone and good stuff on the defensive side with Skarmory, Jirachi and Heatran.

:torkoal:: I do not like rocks weak types, especially with no good removal on their side of their things. It's sad to say Torkoal is the most consistent removal on Fire, because the mons that have defog are x4 weak to rock how fun. Either way other than that, Fire isn't that strong of a type. Yes OU broken Blaziken is on your side and that might be broken (I haven't seen enough) but yeah, good thing is if you go Torkoal (because its rock and removal), your teammates' STAB is boosted most of the time so the damage output is high.

:hitmonlee:: I've seen so many mono fighting and they just don't do anything. It hurts they have zero defensive utility because most of their mons are frail attackers and no good resistances outside of rock. There's also no defog so you have to rely on the Hitmon brothers' Rapid Spin and tldr, a lot of the good typings have faster and stronger mons that just threaten a lot of the fighting side.


Bad types

:pinsir:: I'm convinced Game Freak only started to care about this type starting in gen 5 because we got very good ones in the form of Scolipede, Durant, Volcarona and the ubers Genesect. But this is BDSP so none of those are here so we are stuck with Scizor, Heracross and Venomoth then 3 bad filler mons. Did I mention I hate rocks weak types with bad removal?

:clefable:: From one of the best to one of the worst. Can't really blame them when only a small handful of pre gen 6 pokemon changed typing. You know how I mentioned Dragon teams will end up being predictable because you'll always end up running the same mons? At least with dragon, you can swap out Kingdra with like Flygon or smth but no fairy team is never going to not run Clef Azu Toge Garde Granbull and Mime. Never. If you use Mawile, you are memeing. Just lack of options, lack of offensive presence compared to other typings easily makes Fairy the worst typing, even if I still have 8 more types to use.

I'll get around to using the rest of the types, Ground looks promising and so does dark and flying but everything else is probably eh or bad.
 
I've played BDSP MONO ladder for a while now I feel that there are 3(actually 4) pokemon that absolutely need to get suspected at banned(imo)

:blaziken: You outspeed every pokemon(scarf or not) that is not ninjask after just 2 turns. Therefore, uturn support(availabe on both fighting and fire) + sd + protect means you consistently get to +2 attack +2 spd without any effect. That just should not be allowed. In addition, Blaiken can easily afford to run adamant as it doesn't care at all about speed.

:latios: :latias: Twins: Specs latios, this sh*t wall breaks pretty much anything. Then add the fact that both psychic and dragon can put, GUESS WHAT, BOTH on the same team with latias often being scarfed or CM or offensive defog. These teams are borderline impossible to break because the latis are ridiculously fast and the only pokemon faster than can actually do something to latis are either the broken mon above, weavile, starmie and maybe ninjask. The removal of pursuit makes this worse as ttar can switch but can no longer guarantee damage.

:Manaphy:, :damp rock:/RAIN: Imagine if you had a special attacker that can break blissey. Then add 8 turn rain. Then add swim swimers like kingdra backing manaphy up. Then imagine manaphy having hydration rest to auto heal. Now, imagine this kind of team. I don't think more needs to be said
 

MurderousMantyke

What sʇᴉɯᴉ⅂?
Early Thoughts on Normal

As an avid normal player, I'm interested in how the type will fare without access to eviolite. While Staraptor is excellent as a secondary defensive pivot, it leaves much to be desired as a primary physical wall. Firstly, losing Heavy-Duty Boots means that it gets worn down more easily by stealth rocks, which isn't ideal. Its special defense stat is also mediocre at best, leaving it vulnerable to more powerful special attacks. Similarly, if the opponent switches out of the Intimidate, Staraptor's physical defense stat isn't great, leaving it at risk to powerful super-effective moves. It's no question that Porygon2 has been an essential component to normal teams for the past few generations of monotype. Its impressive physical bulk in combination with its versatile ability Trace, access to reliable recovery, access to useful coverage moves, and surprisingly useful special bulk, made it truly irreplaceable on any balanced normal team. Without it, there is a gaping hole in normal's defensive core, one that is not easily filled.

Theory Crafting

Without knowing how the meta will form, its tough to gauge what sort of options might be viable as Porygon-2 replacements. With that being said, I've tried my best to come up with realistic sets that maximize the defensive potential of these Pokémon:

Miltank (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Milk Drink
- Seismic Toss
- Earthquake / Thunder Wave / Protect

Synopsis: Miltank is an interesting option. Its ability, Thick Fat, lends itself well to Normal considering how weak Staraptor is to ice type moves. Thick Fat may also be useful in tanking powerful physical fire type moves such as Flare Blitz or a choice band Sacred Fire from Entei. Stealth Rock opens up a moveslot on Blissey, where it can run moves such as Counter, Protect. Alternatively, it makes room for screens. Milk Drink is for recovery. Seismic Toss is consistent damage. Earthquake is for steel types like Heatran that normal struggles against or Pokémon that Miltank otherwise cannot hit. Thunder Wave is another option to cripple opposing Pokémon. Protect can be used to scout opposing movesets and extra Leftovers recovery.

Regigigas @ Leftovers
Ability: Slow Start
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Drain Punch

Synopsis: A lot of people are weary about using Regigigas due to its self-crippling ability, Slow Start. Truthfully, Regigigas might require some additional care to utilize effectively. Using a defensive variant though, its ability becomes less of a factor. Regigigas has fantastic bulk with 110 base defenses across the board. In terms of simply matching Porygon2 and its bulk, Regigigas comes the closest. With its strong defensive stats, Regigigas can safely switch into and check many physical attackers. What it does not have that P2 does, however, is access to reliable recovery. Rest and Sleep talk mitigate this weakness at the expense of other moveslots. Rest fully heals and protects against crippling status moves like Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave that might otherwise make it more difficult to keep Regigigas healthy. Sleep Talk is so that Regigigas is not completely useless during its rest turns. Drain Punch is for extra recovery. Knock Off is rarer in this generation which makes a valuable asset to any Monotype team. Knock off is useful in crippling opposing mons. It also hits Ghost and Psychic types for super-effective damage. Both of these damaging moves hit surprisingly hard once Slow Start wears off.

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Discharge / Thunderbolt
- Protect / Thunder Wave / Shadow Ball / Magic Coat / Psychic

Synopsis: Maybe the best replacement for Porygon2 is Porygon2. Yes, there's no debating that without access to Eviolite it is simply worse. It is noticeably way less bulky and dies much faster. It also has a shallow movepool relative to its options in previous generations. However, Trace is still a very useful ability and its defensive stats aren't terrible. The Pokémon is still usable, though not as effective. In some situations, it's totally outclassed by Miltank and even Regigigas. Recover is standard and serves to keep P2 healthy throughout the game. Ice Beam is a great coverage option for grass, ground, and dragon types. Discharge and Thunderbolt are similarly useful, especially against popular types like water and flying. In the last moveslot, there are a lot of options. I'll highlight the last three since I've already gone over the use of Protect and Thunder Wave. Shadow Ball is extra ghost type coverage, which can be useful. Magic Coat can really help in steel type and matchups where Skarmory wants to set up spikes. It is also generally useful in avoiding status, which cripples P2. Psychic is great for fighting and poison type matchups.

Alternative Idea: Perhaps balanced normal can't function well without Porygon2 and will be outclassed by hyper-offensive sticky web variants. I wanted to share a team, although it's just a rough idea, that I've theory crafted. I think this team could potentially become somewhat viable:

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Sticky Web
- Spore
- Nuzzle

Staraptor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- Double-Edge
- U-turn

Zangoose @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Toxic Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Night Slash

Porygon-Z @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tri Attack
- Discharge
- Nasty Plot
- Ice Beam

Exploud @ Choice Specs
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Flamethrower
- Surf
- Focus Blast

Ditto @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Transform

Conclusion

There is no identical replacement for Porygon-2, that much is clear. As the meta begins to take shape and develop further, we may see some interesting Pokémon with unique roles to fill rise to prominence. Overall, I'm excited for a new Monotype metagame and happy to be a part of this community. This is my first "actual" post on the forums. I hope it's not terrible. I'd be interested in reading what everyone else thinks about Normal and its viability in this particular metagame. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!

Despite the glaring rocks weakness, defensive Staraptor has been incredibly useful for me as a way to fill the gap that bewear/p2 leaves. Normal feels really good overall, and I especially like the re-introduction of mons like Zangoose to replace Diggersby and mixed wallbreakers like Tauros that make Normal less predictable. While far from a Teleport replacement, proper prediction and smart doubles really let the type shine. Here are two versions of the team I've been using, one with Exploud and the other with mixed Tauros. Small description at the bottom of each team of the pros and cons of choosing between them.

Trimmings (Blissey) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled

King (Staraptor) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog

Neodorant (Porygon-Z) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tri Attack
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball

Much Appreciated (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform

Neighbors at 1 AM (Exploud) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Surf
- Overheat
- Focus Blast

Edgelord (Zangoose) (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Toxic Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Quick Attack
- Facade
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance

Thunder Wave on Blissey lets it catch mons like Infernape on the swap and makes it easier to revenge kill faster threats since pZ's speed tier is often rather lacking. The sheer power of Exploud lets it break through teams that lack dedicated answers to it, such as Flying, Ground, and Ice. Its coverage is also very hard to wall, with common specially defensive mons like T-tar, Heatran, and Empoleon taking hefty amounts from Surf/Focus Blast on the swap. With these mons weakened thanks to proper prediction, Specsploud can clean much of Dark and Water, while also paving the way for pZ to do the same. Using it over Tauros makes the team overall more prone to revenge killers and opposing special walls like Blissey, putting a lot of pressure on Zangoose to destroy said walls.

Trimmings (Blissey) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled

King (Staraptor) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog

Matrix (Porygon-Z) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tri Attack
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball

Much Appreciated (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform

Merciless (Tauros) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 192 Atk / 64 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Rock Climb
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Fire Blast

Edgelord (Zangoose) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Toxic Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Quick Attack
- Facade
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance

Tauros can bait in and destroy common defensive mons like Gliscor, Skarmory, and Forretress, while also getting a surprise KO on Scizor that try to U-turn out for free, which helps Zangoose out tremendously. However, it makes the team weaker to bulky pivots like Slowbro that the special coverage cannot break, thus putting more pressure on pZ to break them.
 
Last edited:
Just gonna dump good quality teams here for myself and whoever wants them as I get gud in this tier again after muh break. Hf! :mehowth:
(will expand as I test more stuff and be mostly standard teams)

Banded Medi + T Wave Spam (You can sub Banded metagross for medi for specific matchups but medi is just better overall)
https://pokepast.es/45c3fd68d1bd65cc
Stallbreaker Mew (pokepast.es)
Double Sash lead fighting
https://pokepast.es/36c0c29afdc58b0e
Fling Def mawile balance https://pokepast.es/d336afba4c9f2770

As a side note, just from what I’ve seen from building and battling, it’s kinda hard to run any kind of balance team in this meta with pokemon running around like specs latios and without access to toxic/crucial mons that make up the usual defensive cores types would have access to.
 
Last edited:
I've played BDSP mono for bit. Here are my initial thoughts on each type: (feel free to roast me if you want idc)

Good:

Dark: You have TTar, crawdaunt, weavile, and drapion. The others (maybe not sharpedo, skuntank, sableye) all suck. Therefore, you must manage battles with essentialy four pokemon. However, all these pokemon are some of the best mons. Sableye even helps with prankster. so it's more of 5 pokemon team. If you can get the best out of all 5, it works.
This is inaccurate. When building BDSP there are presently 5 mons you must run to be competitive: Tyranitar, Drapion, Weavile, Houndoom, and Cacturne. Sableye is not quite a must given it does not fill prevent an autoloss to ny of the major types (presently Water, Dragon, Steel, and Psychic, which you already beat) but it as a formidable partner to the Tyranitar-Drapion axis which will form the core of most well built Dark teams in this metagame. In both the Dragon and Flying matchup, Sableye presents the unique utility of providing the ideal switch-in for Weavile, who fears Dragonite's Extremespeed. Upon coming in, Sableye can proceed to harass opposing teams, either crippling something with Will-o-Wisp, or, if a switch is likely, Knock Off.

DARK IN BDSP MONOTYPE

S tier:
1638672930898.png
1638672945089.png

A tier:
1638672679011.png
1638672663452.png
1638672640707.png
1638672913132.png

B tier:
1638672693254.png
1638672706805.png

C tier:
1638672736297.png

Tyranitar is easily among the best mons in the metagame, boasting the ability to run a number of sets including the classic Specially Defensive tank, Choice Band, and to a lesser extent act as a Dragon Dance sweeper.

Weavile is the most important revenge killer in the tier, boasting a blistering 125 base Speed and access to the crucial Ice Shard, allowing it to serve as a massive deterrent against metagame defining threats such as Latios, Latias, Garchomp, and Gliscor. Despite a heavily neutered movepool now lacking Low Kick, Knock Off, and Triple Axel, Weavile's serviceable options in Icicle Crash, Throat Chop, and Brick Bear allow it to retain its function through the use of a Choice Band set. Swords Dance is also an option but is generally far less consistent due to the prevalence of Stealth Rock and Weavile generally serving as a far stronger revenge killer than sweeper.

Drapion works as a great defensive partner to Tyranitar given its high Defense, neutrality to Fighting attacks, and great utility options in Whirlwind, Toxic Spikes, and the now rare Knock Off. Fellow Dark/Poison mon Skuntank is generally less viable than Drapion, but warrants a mention as an alternative given its status as being just one of two viable Defoggers on Dark (the other being Honchkrow.)

Houndoom is a must as the only viable dedicated special attacker, and is generally your only way through Skamory in the Steel and Flying matchups. As spiritual successor to Hydreigon on Dark teams, it is far less consistent, and its poor bulk, weakness to Stealth Rock, and lack of useful resistances/immunities makes Nasty Plot and Substitute sets generally subpar, despite it being near unwallable at +2. Houndoom thrives best at either an all-out attacker or Specs user, running some variant of Dark Pulse/Fire Blast/Sludge Bomb + filler, with usable options in Taunt, Sucker Punch, or the aforementioned Nasty Plot.

Don't run Cacturne and you lose to Water. Every time.

After these 5, the primary flex options for Dark teams include mons such as:
  • Crawdaunt, whose access to Adaptability boosted Aqua Jet, Crabhammer, and Knock Off + powerful coverage option Superpower enable it to, when running a Choice Band, function as one of the if not the strongest wallbreaker in the tier
  • Honchkrow, a serviceable (though notably SR-weak) offensive Defogger boasting access to the much vaunted Dark/Flying STAB combo with Sucker Punch and Brave Bird. Honchkrow also provides the critical utility of serving as a reliable check to Breloom, with Insomnia allowing it to ignore Spore and scare out most Breloom not running Rock coverage.
  • the aforementioned Sableye, who provides a critical immunity to Fighting and shuts down most Normal teams not running Exploud. In early playtesting SabDrapTar has proven to be one of the sturdiest balance cores in the metagame, with Sableye's access to Prankster Will-o-Wisp, Taunt, and Recover allowing it to fulfill a number of functions including stallbreaking, utility shutdown, and discouraging premature setups by opposing physical sweepers
  • Sharpedo, whose access to Speed Boost allows it to function as a late-game sweeper alternative to Crawdaunt

Similar to its position in SS, I think Dark right now is a competent though fragile anti-meta type with a diverse roster of powerful breakers, revenge killer, and harassers who can be moved around at will to improve your odds against the top tier types. Beyond the Drapion-Tyranitar core, however, Dark is an impossibly frail type whose dependence on an SR-weak glass cannon as Defogger significantly harms its viability and ultimately makes what should be easy matchups against Steel and Dragon far harder. I believe it to be mid to high-mid tier in the present metagame.
 
Last edited:
Beyond the Drapion-Tyranitar core, however, Dark is an impossibly frail type whose dependence on an SR-weak glass cannon as Defogger significantly harms its viability and ultimately makes what should be easy matchups against Steel and Dragon far harder.
i agree with you on pretty much everything, but i think skuntank deserves some more love here. like you said, it has defog, but it also has the fighting neutrality and sucker punch that honchkrow has. outside of these boons, it trades a powerful brave bird/spore immunity for haze and play rough. both of which, i think, ease the dragon matchup. all of these aspects lend me to believe that the stinky fella deserves at least c-tier for what it can bring to dark.
 
Been playing a bit of BDSP monotype. Anyone who plays the metagame can tell you that the best 3 types currently are Water, Dragon, and Psychic; all three are super powerful types.

I've been dabbed a bit with ice--got top 2 on ladder--and ice is IMO still viable in the metagame despite losing ninetails, kyurem, avalugg, and HDB. Ice is actually a solid anti-metagame type right now, with positive matchups against all 3 top types; it has aboma + freeze-dry users for water; beats dragon by being ice, and has weavile + froslass for psychic. I'd put it as a solid mid-tier type right now, simply because it beats the top of the current metagame (although it suffers from quite a few autolosses).

My current ice VR looks like this (mons within a rank are unordered):

S rank (mandatory, should be on every ice team):
:Froslass: :Mamoswine: :Weavile: :Cloyster:
A rank (Good mons that will almost always carry their weight):
:Lapras: :Rotom-Frost:
B rank (Viable tech mons, but probably suboptimal in the current metagame):
:Abomasnow: :Walrein:
C rank (Super niche tech mons):
:Jynx: :Articuno:
D rank (Barely justifiable):
:Glaceon:

I've also dabbled a bit with ghost recently, currently top 10 on the bdsp mono ladder and climbing. Ghost feasts on the Latios metagame, eating both psychic and dragon for breakfast--both matchups are hard to lose (https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8bdspmonotype-1467382344 is a nice example of how hopeless the mu is for dragon), and has an OK water matchup. I don't feel comfortable making a VR chart for ghost since I have no idea how good mons like Sableye, Mismagius, and Duskinoir are, but it is surprising that Ghost is still a viable type despite losing everything but Gengar. I'd say Ghost is a mid tier type as well, as long as people continue to spam dragon and psychic.

Overall, I've been pleasantly surprised how good the so-called "trash" types are, and I encourage everyone to experiment with their favorite types even if they lost a lot of mons and other people claim that they're trash!

Also, can someone tell me why Arena Trap is banned in BDSP monotype? This ability has not been broken in any generation of monotype ever.
#Free Arena Trap
 
Last edited:
#Don'tFreeArenaTrap

I'd put it as a solid mid-tier type right now, simply because it beats the top of the current metagame.
I disagree slightly but only slightly with this assessment. The main reason why ice I think if below average(below mid tier) is because of the loss of galarian darmanitan. For Ice this is THE MOST SIGNIFICANT LOSS. Without it, ice actually can't break through psychic and water. Although yes, ice has freeze dry, but the only mons that get it are mamo, glalie, articuno, delibird, glaceon, lapras. First of all, just from your VR, we can see that the only viable mons are mamo and lapras. Mamo is a physical attacker and would prefer to run I-crash, I-shard, EQ, S-edge, R-slide, SR, etc over freeze dry. This means that the only usable freeze dry mon on ice is lapras. This means that lapras is going to need to do a heafty chunk of work to water in order to make ice viable. With how slow lapras is, pokemon like rotom can constantly volt switch out or threathen with thunder/thunderbolt. In addition, water sometimes uses empoleon, which is not weak to freeze-dry and has tremendous spdef to tank attacks with steel moves liek flash cannon to chip ur lapras. This means that ice teams need and absolutely require a second freeze-dry mon in order to break water. Personally, articuno is the best option. Now for psychic, metagrass often runs banded bullet punch, meaning even scarf weavile gets wrecked and if you don't run scarf, you get swept by scarf medicham/scarf gallade which is very common on psychic, not to mention the scarf latios/latias they might carry. However, the biggest problem with ice is the SR weakness. The only viable rapid spin mon is cloyster, and there are no viable defogers. This means that to not lose to SR, you have to run RP, spikes cloyster, giving up on cloyster's excellent abillity to sweep teams with shell smash. You can try to put RS on SS clyster but it means you only have 2 offensive moves. Without Shell Smash cloyster, good luck trying to out offense scarfers. Even then, scarf latis outspeed you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TGA
#Don'tFreeArenaTrap



I disagree slightly but only slightly with this assessment. The main reason why ice I think if below average(below mid tier) is because of the loss of galarian darmanitan. For Ice this is THE MOST SIGNIFICANT LOSS. Without it, ice actually can't break through psychic and water. Although yes, ice has freeze dry, but the only mons that get it are mamo, glalie, articuno, delibird, glaceon, lapras. First of all, just from your VR, we can see that the only viable mons are mamo and lapras. Mamo is a physical attacker and would prefer to run I-crash, I-shard, EQ, S-edge, R-slide, SR, etc over freeze dry. This means that the only usable freeze dry mon on ice is lapras. This means that lapras is going to need to do a heafty chunk of work to water in order to make ice viable. With how slow lapras is, pokemon like rotom can constantly volt switch out or threathen with thunder/thunderbolt. In addition, water sometimes uses empoleon, which is not weak to freeze-dry and has tremendous spdef to tank attacks with steel moves liek flash cannon to chip ur lapras. This means that ice teams need and absolutely require a second freeze-dry mon in order to break water. Personally, articuno is the best option. Now for psychic, metagrass often runs banded bullet punch, meaning even scarf weavile gets wrecked and if you don't run scarf, you get swept by scarf medicham/scarf gallade which is very common on psychic, not to mention the scarf latios/latias they might carry. However, the biggest problem with ice is the SR weakness. The only viable rapid spin mon is cloyster, and there are no viable defogers. This means that to not lose to SR, you have to run RP, spikes cloyster, giving up on cloyster's excellent abillity to sweep teams with shell smash. You can try to put RS on SS clyster but it means you only have 2 offensive moves. Without Shell Smash cloyster, good luck trying to out offense scarfers. Even then, scarf latis outspeed you.
Galarian Darmanitan doesn't exist in BDSP and as such is irrelevant as a demerit against ice in the present metagame, especially as gone are the obnoxious defensive threats such as Ferrothorn that generally wreak havoc in its absence. The closest thing to Ferrothorn now is Forretress, which as of now isn't very good and has no recovery. I don't think Ice is quite mid tier, as it autoloses to both Fire and Fighting whether Blaziken is present or not,) struggles with Steel, and has a hard time against Dark if the Ice player is not running SD Weavile (which is a subpar set on Ice.)
  • Many if not most ice builds will be running Abomasnow. Ice's viability in the metagame is contingent on its role as anti-meta. This makes Abomasnow a no-brainer not just due to Grass coverage but also its ability to set Aurora Veil and hail chip ensuring that Weavile's Banded Ice Shard is always a KO against Latios.
  • Metagross is a threat but finds itself in heavy competition with Jirachi for a teamslot due to the latter's far greater all-around utility as a pivot as support mon. As a physical attacker it is outniched by Medicham (no one competent should be running Gallade on Psychic –– no one competent will ever be running Scarf Gallade) due to Medicham's far greater utility against Dark and Steel, as well as Medicham's similar access to Bullet Punch and elemental punches at a higher speed tier.
  • "Without Shell Smash cloyster, good luck trying to out offense scarfers. Even then, scarf latis outspeed you." Ice runs not one but both of the viable Ice Shard users in the tier. Beyond that Weavile (if it is scarfed) outspeeds both.
(to be cont)
 
Last edited:
This is inaccurate. When building BDSP there are presently 5 mons you must run to be competitive: Tyranitar, Drapion, Weavile, Houndoom, and Cacturne. Sableye is not quite a must given it does not fill prevent an autoloss to ny of the major types (presently Water, Dragon, Steel, and Psychic, which you already beat) but it as a formidable partner to the Tyranitar-Drapion axis which will form the core of most well built Dark teams in this metagame. In both the Dragon and Flying matchup, Sableye presents the unique utility of providing the ideal switch-in for Weavile, who fears Dragonite's Extremespeed. Upon coming in, Sableye can proceed to harass opposing teams, either crippling something with Will-o-Wisp, or, if a switch is likely, Knock Off.

Tyranitar is easily among the best mons in the metagame, boasting the ability to run a number of sets including the classic Specially Defensive tank, Choice Band, and to a lesser extent act as a Dragon Dance sweeper.

Weavile is the most important revenge killer in the tier, boasting a blistering 125 base Speed and access to the crucial Ice Shard, allowing it to serve as a massive deterrent against metagame defining threats such as Latios, Latias, Garchomp, and Gliscor. Despite a heavily neutered movepool now lacking Low Kick, Knock Off, and Triple Axel, Weavile's serviceable options in Icicle Crash, Throat Chop, and Brick Bear allow it to retain its function through the use of a Choice Band set. Swords Dance is also an option but is generally far less consistent due to the prevalence of Stealth Rock and Weavile generally serving as a far stronger revenge killer than sweeper.

Drapion works as a great defensive partner to Tyranitar given its high Defense, neutrality to Fighting attacks, and great utility options in Whirlwind, Toxic Spikes, and the now rare Knock Off. Fellow Dark/Poison mon Skuntank is generally less viable than Drapion, but warrants a mention as an alternative given its status as being just one of two viable Defoggers on Dark (the other being Honchkrow.)

Houndoom is a must as the only viable dedicated special attacker, and is generally your only way through Skamory in the Steel and Flying matchups. As spiritual successor to Hydreigon on Dark teams, it is far less consistent, and its poor bulk, weakness to Stealth Rock, and lack of useful resistances/immunities makes Nasty Plot and Substitute sets generally subpar, despite it being near unwallable at +2. Houndoom thrives best at either an all-out attacker or Specs user, running some variant of Dark Pulse/Fire Blast/Sludge Bomb + filler, with usable options in Taunt, Sucker Punch, or the aforementioned Nasty Plot.

Don't run Cacturne and you lose to Water. Every time.

After these 5, the primary flex options for Dark teams include mons such as:
  • Crawdaunt, whose access to Adaptability boosted Aqua Jet, Crabhammer, and Knock Off + powerful coverage option Superpower enable it to, when running a Choice Band, function as one of the if not the strongest wallbreaker in the tier
  • Honchkrow, a serviceable (though notably SR-weak) offensive Defogger boasting access to the much vaunted Dark/Flying STAB combo with Sucker Punch and Brave Bird. Honchkrow also provides the critical utility of serving as a reliable check to Breloom, with Insomnia allowing it to ignore Spore and scare out most Breloom not running Rock coverage.
  • the aforementioned Sableye, who provides a critical immunity to Fighting and shuts down most Normal teams not running Exploud. In early playtesting SabDrapTar has proven to be one of the sturdiest balance cores in the metagame, with Sableye's access to Prankster Will-o-Wisp, Taunt, and Recover allowing it to fulfill a number of functions including stallbreaking, utility shutdown, and discouraging premature setups by opposing physical sweepers
  • Sharpedo, whose access to Speed Boost allows it to function as a late-game sweeper alternative to Crawdaunt

Similar to its position in SS, I think Dark right now is a competent though fragile anti-meta type with a diverse roster of powerful breakers, revenge killer, and harassers who can be moved around at will to improve your odds against the top tier types. Beyond the Drapion-Tyranitar core, however, Dark is an impossibly frail type whose dependence on an SR-weak glass cannon as Defogger significantly harms its viability and ultimately makes what should be easy matchups against Steel and Dragon far harder. I believe it to be mid to high-mid tier in the present metagame.
Am I missing something or do we have to run Crawdaunt in order to not be completely wiped by Blaziken? Can't wall it, can't burn it, can't outspeed it.
 

mushamu

God jihyo
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
So out of the 18 types, I have built at least 1 team for 10 of them (Steel, Water, Normal, Fighting, Fairy, Poison, Ghost, Bug, Fire, Dragon). Just going to categorise them in terms of how good these typing are.

The Good typings

:flygon:: I think this is a no-brainer one but despite the lack of FE dragons they are, it's still an extremely strong typing. Fairy has been nerfed significantly and I was even sad to try and attempt to build one so Dragon STAB is free most games, you have strong pokemon like the eon twins, Garchomp, Dnite. It's only issue is the predictability but it's not like a lot of typings can play around them properly even if you know what sets they're running.

:manaphy:: Probably the best mono typing imo. The versatility and options Water has is immense due to its high amount of pokemon. Rain is probably the strongest archetype since you can abuse ManaDra, which got Drizzle banned in OU in the first place. Even without Damp Rock, Kingdra is faster than all mons at +2 other than base 110 scarfers (If modest) and just nukes all of the typings with Water STAB. Grass on paper doesn't look good, Kingdra handles the dragons and water matchups with Gastrodon, it can be handled by Mana, Crawdaunt, Empoleon and Ludicolo on the rain side. Overall, there isn't much holding Water back and it has the tools to beat a lot of teams.

:blissey:: Normal is also another versatile type which has good options on the offensive side of things and also the defensive. It is one of only 3 typings which have access to webs, enabling a lot of the strong breakers of the typing like Exploud, P-Z and Tauros to go wild. It also has one of the most bulkiest pokemon on its side, Blissey. Blissey p much beats every special attacker that isn't a fighting type. Also having one weakness means it's not as matchup reliant as other typings and you won't have a team of normal that will completely just end up badly for the normal player. Even in this replay, I somehow managed to win the normal vs fighting mu.


Alright typings

:gengar:: Poison should probably be in the above section but I haven't used it enough and haven't seen the success with it compared to the above typings. Seeing a user on ladder winning games with mono poison got me to see how good this typing is. T spikes are dangerous. Very dangerous. Poison also has good mons in Gengar, which can really do work with Hex t spikes, Nidoking and Venomoth as good special attackers and also Drapion, which handles the psychic mu well enough so you don't auto lose.

:mismagius:: Ghost has some of the fewest pokemon and it really limits what you can run on ghost. Every team needs a gengar, a spiritomb so you don't insta lose to dark and potentially the ghost mirror, a mismagius. Then the rest of the mons are just kinda bad. Not to mention, the type has no access to hazards outside of Froslass, which is traditionally a lead and ghosts aren't known to be the bulkiest typing due to low HP and lack of resists so it's hard to handle other typings which are strong offensively like Dragon or Ground for example. At least ghost teams punish types that are using teams with Spin because Lass' spikes are up to stay.

:magnezone:: Steel is honestly a balanced type, not super strong but not super weak either. It doesn't have any noticeable flaws either. It has the tools to handle the steels that check it and has good stuff on the offensive side with Lucario, Scizor, Metagross and Magnezone and good stuff on the defensive side with Skarmory, Jirachi and Heatran.

:torkoal:: I do not like rocks weak types, especially with no good removal on their side of their things. It's sad to say Torkoal is the most consistent removal on Fire, because the mons that have defog are x4 weak to rock how fun. Either way other than that, Fire isn't that strong of a type. Yes OU broken Blaziken is on your side and that might be broken (I haven't seen enough) but yeah, good thing is if you go Torkoal (because its rock and removal), your teammates' STAB is boosted most of the time so the damage output is high.

:hitmonlee:: I've seen so many mono fighting and they just don't do anything. It hurts they have zero defensive utility because most of their mons are frail attackers and no good resistances outside of rock. There's also no defog so you have to rely on the Hitmon brothers' Rapid Spin and tldr, a lot of the good typings have faster and stronger mons that just threaten a lot of the fighting side.


Bad types

:pinsir:: I'm convinced Game Freak only started to care about this type starting in gen 5 because we got very good ones in the form of Scolipede, Durant, Volcarona and the ubers Genesect. But this is BDSP so none of those are here so we are stuck with Scizor, Heracross and Venomoth then 3 bad filler mons. Did I mention I hate rocks weak types with bad removal?

:clefable:: From one of the best to one of the worst. Can't really blame them when only a small handful of pre gen 6 pokemon changed typing. You know how I mentioned Dragon teams will end up being predictable because you'll always end up running the same mons? At least with dragon, you can swap out Kingdra with like Flygon or smth but no fairy team is never going to not run Clef Azu Toge Garde Granbull and Mime. Never. If you use Mawile, you are memeing. Just lack of options, lack of offensive presence compared to other typings easily makes Fairy the worst typing, even if I still have 8 more types to use.

I'll get around to using the rest of the types, Ground looks promising and so does dark and flying but everything else is probably eh or bad.
I personally dislike dragon in bdsp (and in all mono gens) bc it feels like it lacks any sort of defensive backbone for an offensive type which really hurts it. U have to run kingdra in bdsp to not straight up lose to Ice shard and moonblast is unwallable. I would say dragon is a type that's good for getting through games fast on ladder but in actual tour play it will probably underperform.

I think steel/ground/flying/water/psychic/normal are the top types in this metagame. They all have exceptional defensive/offensive backbones with the exception of Normal which is mainly Blissey walling things and ditto revenge killing stuff that beats Blissey but it works well in this meta. I also think fairy is really slept on because gardevoir and clefable are just so good. U can reverse trap magnezone w gardevoir as well if u trace magnet pulll. I think mawile is a legit option considering the typing and it frees up Clefable from rocks. Yeah ur gonna be running the same 7 mons on fairy in this tier but its the same case with fairy in every mono gen; in sm its Koko Bulu Diancie then a mixture of clefable/keys/mimikyu/azu etc.

this tier has been fun to build and here's my team builder: https://pokepast.es/1182b6c1054205bd. its pretty standard but the sets that are kinda cracked are:

- focus punch weavile so Skarmory can't roost on you
- scarf Lanturn which is basically Rotom wash but with blizzard and it lets u run Rotom c for grass stab
- drill peck Zapdos for breloom
- gable dragon to free up chomp for scarf. this is kinda weird but I've been having fun with it
 
Am I missing something or do we have to run Crawdaunt in order to not be completely wiped by Blaziken? Can't wall it, can't burn it, can't outspeed it.
In theory. In practice both Fire and Fighting will also typically be running a thing called Infernape which means that getting rid of Blaziken normally means you are simply delaying the pain. In the rare event you are playing against Fire using Crawdaunt isn't even a reliable patch as Sun means that Banded Aqua Jet is not a KO after rocks, meaning you must strategically sack Tyranitar in order to allow Crawdaunt to revenge it.

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken: 360-428 (119.6 - 142.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken in Sun: 180-212 (59.8 - 70.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

For a time I ran Thunder Wave on Murkrow (who has Prankster, not to mention other solid utility moves like Haze, Taunt, Roost, Defog, etc.) in place of Sableye to mixed results, though I could not recommend this for anything beyond messing around on ladder. It's a tough one, and I get the sense that the best way to beat Fighting right now is to click X.

i agree with you on pretty much everything, but i think skuntank deserves some more love here. like you said, it has defog, but it also has the fighting neutrality and sucker punch that honchkrow has. outside of these boons, it trades a powerful brave bird/spore immunity for haze and play rough. both of which, i think, ease the dragon matchup. all of these aspects lend me to believe that the stinky fella deserves at least c-tier for what it can bring to dark.
Fair.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Ida

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top