As an addendum to my notes on Ogerpon, it is still pretty limited with its Embody Aspect abilities only being usable by its forms, but holding a mask on the relevant form does give a 20% damage boost to all moves which is not too bad.
The usage stats for September's half of DLC1 are here, and note that this is only for the time period since the release of the DLC, but I think an overview will still provide some interesting insight on how DLC has affected the meta. I will probably make a followup post when the full stats are out like Crown Tundra in October 2020, and that only had 9 days worth of stats to go off of.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09-DLC1/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09-DLC1/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
Since this is only half a month, the battle count of 35340 is still pretty solid but also coming off of some new hype from the DLC.
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (#5)
#2: Ting-Lu (#3)
#3: Mega Heracross (#1)
#4: Mega Ampharos (no change)
#5: Blissey (#2)
#6: Mega Gengar (#9)
#7: Dusclops (no change)
#8: Mega Slowbro (no change)
#9: Mega Sableye (#12)
#10: Wishiwashi-School (#30)
As observed, Mega Venusaur has benefited hugely from Toxic Chain's presence with its natural immunity, protective abilities, and is also just a good user of it. This has put it back into #1 with Ting-Lu at its side, both surging back above 10000 raw uses, though Mega Venusaur is almost at 20000. While I've been seeing a lot of talk of this combo in the thread, I haven't been on the ladder much so I found it interesting that Mega Venusaur favours Toxic Chain and Ting-Lu is more of the designated Flower Veil setter instead of doubling up on Toxic Chain, with both also majorly using Mirror Herb for raw stats now. I guess it goes to show that Venusaur is in such a good position in this meta that it can break out of its typical role as a Flower Veil supporter or Weakness Policy fisher and can just go for broke as the lead of the team.
After its standout dark horse performance last month, Wishiwashi-School continues making major moves to step into the top 10 for the first time ever with only 836 raw uses, though it remains to be seen if the hype will carry over to the full September stats. It seems to tend towards Pickup/Mirror Herb and has no sign of Toxic Chain usage. New faces like Ursaluna-Bloodmoon (mainly Ice Scales) and Ogerpon-Hearthflame (mainly Intrepid Sword/Mask) are also hanging around the top 20 at #13 and #17 in the 1100 uses range, though the other DLC additions haven't made as much fanfare. One more dark horse I want to mention is Garganacl at #19 with 579 uses as a mon that we haven't seen much talk about at all, but seems to have found decent success with the typical Toxic Chain/Mirror Herb strategy that we'll be seeing a lot of in these stats, with a Dusclops partner.
For some reason Toxic Chain seems to show up as Illuminate in the moveset files, and this is pretty clear when you see the abundance of "Illuminate" within the top 10 mons in particular. Even Flower Veil on Mega Venusaur has been overtaken by both Toxic Chain and Magic Bounce, but in general it seems like Toxic Chain has definitely become a splashable option much like Opportunist once was, though not as prevalent on everything that prefers other options like hyper offensive mons. Bulky mons like Dusclops and Slowbro seem to particularly appreciate a more reliable wincon to take advantage of their ability to outlive opponents (though it's a double-edged sword to make them easier to whittle down as well), and we can also see the adaptation of a few niche counters with small percentages of PSN Cure Berry and Pastel Veil (blocks poison for both active mons) starting to emerge on some mons, with Iron Hands actually having leading usage on Pastel Veil.
As for viability ceilings (highest GXEs of users using a certain Pokemon), Blissey takes the sole lead with 80, with Mega Venusaur, Mega Heracross, Necturna (mainly Thick Fat), and Chansey (divided between Imposter and Innards Out) following closely behind at 79. Next up for 78 are Mega Altaria (Pixilate/Altarianite) and Tyranitar who runs Magic Bounce/Covert Cloak, which is notable because Covert Cloak doesn't seem to have become the primary item on most other mons like I expected, and Mirror Herb has actually been rising up a lot instead, with noticeable gain on the likes of Heracross and Ampharos who would usually just go with their Choice items before. Wishiwashi and Sableye have also mainly become Mirror Herbers, though Covert Cloak has surpassed Sablenite on Sableye at least.
Lastly with 77 we have Ting-Lu to complete the duo, Mega Gengar (Competitive and Magic Bounce), Mega Slowbro, Mega Abomasnow (mainly Refrigerate/Pickup), and Dondozo. While Dondozo seems to be going the Magic Guard counter route, Slowbro has mostly Toxic Chain usage, but something that caught my eye was that Slowbro has a fair amount of 30% usage with Merciless (the ability that guarantees critical hits on a poisoned target), which is probably a lot more reliable to activate these days thanks to Toxic Chain though it might be overkill in that case. The only other mon to make use of this ability seems to be 0.406% of Mega Pinsir, so I just thought that this was a funny combo that nobody has really brought up yet.
Overall Toxic Chain seems to be shaping the meta in a new direction with its splashability and powerful effect that can really accelerate the pace of games with its practically 5-turn death countdown, but compared to the similar impact of Opportunist I would say there are more varied ways to play around poison (though most combos still combine both the plague and protection that end up cancelling out in dittos), and it's hard to judge the impact of an ability when it comes down to a random proc in battle.
The usage stats for September's half of DLC1 are here, and note that this is only for the time period since the release of the DLC, but I think an overview will still provide some interesting insight on how DLC has affected the meta. I will probably make a followup post when the full stats are out like Crown Tundra in October 2020, and that only had 9 days worth of stats to go off of.
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09-DLC1/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
https://www.smogon.com/stats/2023-09-DLC1/moveset/gen9metronomebattle-1630.txt
Since this is only half a month, the battle count of 35340 is still pretty solid but also coming off of some new hype from the DLC.
1630 Top 10 + last month positions:
#1: Mega Venusaur (#5)
#2: Ting-Lu (#3)
#3: Mega Heracross (#1)
#4: Mega Ampharos (no change)
#5: Blissey (#2)
#6: Mega Gengar (#9)
#7: Dusclops (no change)
#8: Mega Slowbro (no change)
#9: Mega Sableye (#12)
#10: Wishiwashi-School (#30)
As observed, Mega Venusaur has benefited hugely from Toxic Chain's presence with its natural immunity, protective abilities, and is also just a good user of it. This has put it back into #1 with Ting-Lu at its side, both surging back above 10000 raw uses, though Mega Venusaur is almost at 20000. While I've been seeing a lot of talk of this combo in the thread, I haven't been on the ladder much so I found it interesting that Mega Venusaur favours Toxic Chain and Ting-Lu is more of the designated Flower Veil setter instead of doubling up on Toxic Chain, with both also majorly using Mirror Herb for raw stats now. I guess it goes to show that Venusaur is in such a good position in this meta that it can break out of its typical role as a Flower Veil supporter or Weakness Policy fisher and can just go for broke as the lead of the team.
After its standout dark horse performance last month, Wishiwashi-School continues making major moves to step into the top 10 for the first time ever with only 836 raw uses, though it remains to be seen if the hype will carry over to the full September stats. It seems to tend towards Pickup/Mirror Herb and has no sign of Toxic Chain usage. New faces like Ursaluna-Bloodmoon (mainly Ice Scales) and Ogerpon-Hearthflame (mainly Intrepid Sword/Mask) are also hanging around the top 20 at #13 and #17 in the 1100 uses range, though the other DLC additions haven't made as much fanfare. One more dark horse I want to mention is Garganacl at #19 with 579 uses as a mon that we haven't seen much talk about at all, but seems to have found decent success with the typical Toxic Chain/Mirror Herb strategy that we'll be seeing a lot of in these stats, with a Dusclops partner.
For some reason Toxic Chain seems to show up as Illuminate in the moveset files, and this is pretty clear when you see the abundance of "Illuminate" within the top 10 mons in particular. Even Flower Veil on Mega Venusaur has been overtaken by both Toxic Chain and Magic Bounce, but in general it seems like Toxic Chain has definitely become a splashable option much like Opportunist once was, though not as prevalent on everything that prefers other options like hyper offensive mons. Bulky mons like Dusclops and Slowbro seem to particularly appreciate a more reliable wincon to take advantage of their ability to outlive opponents (though it's a double-edged sword to make them easier to whittle down as well), and we can also see the adaptation of a few niche counters with small percentages of PSN Cure Berry and Pastel Veil (blocks poison for both active mons) starting to emerge on some mons, with Iron Hands actually having leading usage on Pastel Veil.
As for viability ceilings (highest GXEs of users using a certain Pokemon), Blissey takes the sole lead with 80, with Mega Venusaur, Mega Heracross, Necturna (mainly Thick Fat), and Chansey (divided between Imposter and Innards Out) following closely behind at 79. Next up for 78 are Mega Altaria (Pixilate/Altarianite) and Tyranitar who runs Magic Bounce/Covert Cloak, which is notable because Covert Cloak doesn't seem to have become the primary item on most other mons like I expected, and Mirror Herb has actually been rising up a lot instead, with noticeable gain on the likes of Heracross and Ampharos who would usually just go with their Choice items before. Wishiwashi and Sableye have also mainly become Mirror Herbers, though Covert Cloak has surpassed Sablenite on Sableye at least.
Lastly with 77 we have Ting-Lu to complete the duo, Mega Gengar (Competitive and Magic Bounce), Mega Slowbro, Mega Abomasnow (mainly Refrigerate/Pickup), and Dondozo. While Dondozo seems to be going the Magic Guard counter route, Slowbro has mostly Toxic Chain usage, but something that caught my eye was that Slowbro has a fair amount of 30% usage with Merciless (the ability that guarantees critical hits on a poisoned target), which is probably a lot more reliable to activate these days thanks to Toxic Chain though it might be overkill in that case. The only other mon to make use of this ability seems to be 0.406% of Mega Pinsir, so I just thought that this was a funny combo that nobody has really brought up yet.
Overall Toxic Chain seems to be shaping the meta in a new direction with its splashability and powerful effect that can really accelerate the pace of games with its practically 5-turn death countdown, but compared to the similar impact of Opportunist I would say there are more varied ways to play around poison (though most combos still combine both the plague and protection that end up cancelling out in dittos), and it's hard to judge the impact of an ability when it comes down to a random proc in battle.
