Good evening party people, it's been a few days since the Terastallization suspect concluded and since then the council has been discussing our next plan of action now that Tera is going to be sticking with us. To this end we have come up with a list of things that we have been keeping our eyes on and wish to discuss with the community before holding a council vote in the coming days. These are Magearna, Chien-Pao, Melmetal, Regieleki, Dragapult, and Damp Rock.
MagearnaMagearna has picked up from where it left off in Sword & Shield with absolutely no hesitation. It's Shift Gear + Calm Mind set has continued to dominate on Hyper Offense, being incredibly difficult to OHKO, and often demanding super effective hits to dent to any significant margin. However, unfortunately for the player, not only do most of these sets carry Weakness Policy, but the introduction of Terastallization gives Magearna yet another way to turn the tables against its best answers. Tera Psychic not only turns its weaknesses into neutral hits, but also greatly boosts the power of Stored Power, meaning that a well positioned Magearna can sweep simply off of a single Shift Gear and Calm Mind in most cases. Other additional types can supply either surprise immunities (Flying), or power up Draining Kiss to a point where it recovers far more HP than expected (Fairy), often giving the Magearna user another turn of setup. In addition to this, Magearna's old sets are still just as potent as ever, with its more traditional Shift Gear sets making counterplay to the Shift Gear + Calm Mind sets even more shaky.
(Regarding Spikes Magearna and its defensive potential, the Pokemon is not being put on the radar for this.)
MelmetalMelmetal picks up from Sword & Shield as an already powerful Pokemon, but one thing in particular puts it on this list where it would otherwise be absent. That is Steel-type Tera Choice Band Melmetal, a force so powerful that it has almost singlehandedly launched Trick Room into OU usage. Tera Steel Melmetal's Double Iron Bash is so powerful it outright 2HKOs even the bulky Regenerator Water-types that would otherwise be able to deal with it, and for the few Pokemon that can, under Trick Room, Melmetal is capable of flinching these checks down. This leaves very few reliable answers to Melmetal, if any at all unless these Pokemon are carrying a Rocky Helmet. Additionally, former 4x resists in Heatran and Rotom-Wash have taken somewhat of a hit in this metagame, and are also somewhat prediction reliant - Melmetal is capable of either OHKOing or 2HKOing these checks with relevant coverage moves.
(Whilst sets like Tera Electric + Pads do also exist, these aren't really the source of the main argument and haven't really been used enough to be a major part of the outcome.)
RainRain in general has also seen a resurgence, with a new abuser in Floatzel notably making headlines for its insane power level with Wave Crash, capable of 2HKOing both Toxapex and Slowbro with weather up and a Water Tera. Additionally, due to the Grassy Glide nerf, as well as other hosts of issues regarding offensive Grass-types, sufficient revenge killers like Rillaboom, Serperior, and Kartana are practically nowhere to be found in this metagame. However, Floatzel is merely the start of the issues with rain, and generally, the council has decided that it is willing to take action on Damp Rock as well as considering other rain abusers like Floatzel and Barraskewda that have emerged in recent times.
DragapultDragapult stands out to many as performing many of the same feats it did last gen. Despite the sea of Tera abusers and general decreased relevance of Z-moves, Dragapult still keeps Zs in the eyes of many via its Substitute + Dragon Dance set. Much like last generation, many of its answers are also unsafe as initial switchins to Dragapult, meaning that they are often blown back by Choice Specs, or crippled by Hex. And despite new answers such as Great Tusk, Iron Hands, Dondozo and Ting-Lu being added, they can all be crippled by some major movepool option Dragapult can run over Substitute.
Chien-PaoChien Pao has incredible offensive stats, backed up by an even more insane ability which leads to it having very few answers in the metagame as it is. Since Tera is here to stay however, this gets even more exaggerated as Chien-Pao can utilise multiple Tera-types very effectivley to overcome its limited pool of checks. Tera-Fighting with Sacred Sword allows it to overwhelm Pokemon such as Melmetal, Magearna, and Mega Scizor. Tera-Electric is another option which allows Chien-Pao to make use of Tera Blast to power through Pokemon such as Tera-Water Great Tusk, Toxapex, Tapu Fini, as well as the many other Defensive Staples which are making use of Tera-Water presently. Chien-Pao can also Tera to boost it's already strong Dark-type STAB to insane levels, with banded Tera-Dark Crunch being able to 2hko Melmetal, Toxapex, and put a decent chunk in Dondozo. This also powers up it's Sucker Punch to incredibly powerful levels making it a very capable revenge killer. Even without utilising Terastelisation Chien-Pao is incredibly difficult to deal with as both Banded and Swords Dance sets can break through a large portion of the metagame and remain difficult to revenge kill due to its incredible Speed tier and access to priority in both Ice Shard and Sucker Punch. This coupled with the fact that counterplay varies greatly depending on the Tera-type it has chosen makes it a very potent threat and quite possibly too much for the metagame to handle.
RegielekiRegieleki was never supposed to get coverage. Despite its excellent speed and decent offenses backed up by Transistor, it was always kept at bay by its limiting factor which was the fact that it could not touch Ground-types. With Tera remaining unbanned in the metagame, Regieleki gains access to ways around Grounds with ease. The most prominent 2 Tera-types for it to abuse are Ice and Grass, which both help it break Grounds such as Great Tusk and Ting Lu while Ice is more geared towards Garchomp, Landorus-T, and Gliscor. Contrastly Grass Tera lets it outright beat Mega Swampert and Gastrodon. Once Ground-types are out of the way there isnt much stopping Regieleki's extremely strong Volt Switches from wearing down a team to the point it can eventually sweep through with Thunderbolt. This is of course further amplified by the fact that it is often paired with Tapu Koko, which constantly wears down Ground-types with U-turns and keeps hazards off the field for Regieleki to pivot freely. Its speed tier also makes it almost impossible to revenge kill without priority, as even common speed control options such as Mega Swampert in Rain and almost every viable Choice Scarf user fail to outpace it (Zamazenta is about the only one that can do it). This leaves a very small amount of Pokemon which can actually revenge kill Regieleki, most notable being Double Priority Lopunny (which still needs at least at least 1 instance of Hazard chip), Choice Band Kingambit (or non-Banded Kingambit if 4 allies have died prior), Excadrill, Mega Mawile (again needs 1 instance of Hazard chip) and thats about it. There are Pokemon which can take a hit from Regieleki regardless of its Tera-type such as Iron Treads, Ferrothorn and Clodsire, these Pokemon are usually easy enough to wear down and overwhelm or otherwise less than ideal to be running on a team. The fact that counterplay to Regieleki is either completley dependant on its Tera-type choice, generally worse options than other choices in the metagame, and so limited of a choice in the first place makes it incredibly restricting in the teambuilder and even more of a nuisance to deal with in gameplay.
Please do share your thoughts on each one of these, your experiences using and facing them, as well as any and all pro or anti ban arguments. We will be greatly considering community feedback when moving into these votes, which should happen at some point over the next few days. Let us know your thoughts
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