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While I’m here, I wanted to mention that I’ve been hand-compiling the usage stats for every mon so far. Thought I’d share them with you all in order to maybe help people prep for the top threats, as well as to discuss some trends I’ve been seeing. Without further ado,
Firstly, over half of the tier was used in just the first week. That’s great! I was worried certain mons would crowd out others in their roles, and while there certainly were a couple characters that were head and shoulders above the rest, even a few supposedly bad mons had some great showings this week.
The first thing to look at are the mons on top. Not too many surprises here, as a lot of these are familiar faces for people who’ve played the recent meta. Despite their nerfs, Bastiodon and Listoxina continue to reign supreme in their respective niches. Bastiodon I think is a healthy kind of good, but Listoxina in my opinion simply has too much utility, and completely chokes out the entire hazard meta on its own. Some other top threats include offensive demons Flygon and Matriaryena, as well as the tier’s resident scarfer Armaldo, who is sporting an absolutely disgusting 87.5% win rate. Armaldo has always been considered just on the line between good and broken, so if this trend continues we may consider looking at it a bit closer. Trobsidon is an interesting case, as it is one of the mons represented most incorrectly by my decision to combine Megas with their base forms in the counts. In this case, Mega Trobsidon was used almost exclusively, and it had a great showing befitting its high VR placement, but base Trobsidon shockingly had zero usage, if I’m remembering correctly. As for Diancie-Cataclysm, the Mega being the only form used makes a lot more sense, and its high usage also isn’t a surprise with mons like Armaldo and Flygon running amok this week. Rounding out the top of the usage rates are Aerodactyl, a broken-at-first-glance offensive mon who has some trouble with common defensive cores (as can be seen reflected in its win rate), as well as two Fairies, Archeops and Kabutops. Both of these are strong offensive utility mons, and both saw high usage, though Kabutops had an absolutely abysmal 16.7% win rate, the worst of any mon so far (excluding zero).
Going down the list, a few mons saw either much more or much less success than their VR placements would suggest. Anklarmor is in the same placement on the VR as Bastiodon, with both serving as defensive Steels. However, Anklarmor’s usage was much lower, though it did win every game it appeared in! Parasinensis had only one use and zero wins despite being one of the best defensive mons in the tier (and in a meta favorable to it, no less!), but I think that one may have just been coincidence, as many people reused teams that just didn’t happen to have the mushroom on them. Additionally, while HO did make an appearance several times in Week 1, its best enabler Aurorus had absolutely no usage. Hail as a whole is shockingly missing this week, despite being the only viable weather (do not ask about manual Rain). Perhaps this will change in the coming weeks.
As for supposed weaker options having much more success than predicted, there weren’t really any mons with high usage that were unexpected. Looking at individual games though, mons like Scorcharnia-Small and Relicanth performed so well in certain matchups that you’d be shocked they were in the bottom half of the VR! Of course, with only one or two appearances, any mon can look good in the right circumstances, but perhaps these successes will encourage people to try them out later on in the tour. While we’re here, I just want to mention how unfortunate it is that Dodrumb had so much usage and so little success. While definitely a bit matchup fishy, Simple CM Dodrumb is an absolute menace to teams not carrying a Dark, and in a meta with such low Carracosta and Drakabyssal usage, now is the perfect time to prove it. Turtlek’s Kee Berry Dodrumb would’ve nearly reverse 6-0‘d if not for an unlucky crit, and that’s just one example of the absolute devastation this mon can carry out with good positioning and matchup knowledge.
Looking at the mons who haven’t made their appearance yet, Aurorus is still by far the biggest standout. Some other notable missing faces include the aforementioned Drakabyssal, Psyspam as a whole, the tier’s second-best Ground (Oligosogilo), and offensive brokemon Swalot-Primal. Keep an eye out for these threats and more in the coming weeks, as entire playstyles have yet to rear their heads. But who knows? Maybe balance will continue to dominate for the remainder of the tour, and maybe that’s a sign towards the eventual nerfing of a few balance figureheads in the near future. All we have to go off of for now are these stats, so perhaps later weeks will continue to shed light on the state of the Paleomons meta. Well, that’s all I had, so thanks for reading, and play Paleomons!!
