August 2024 is a very balanced metagame characterized by volt-turn offense and bulky balance as the two most dominant archetypes. With pokémon such as Scizor, Rotom-heat and Heracross at the forefront of the metagame with 58%, 56%, and 44% usage respectively. The pokémon rolled this month had much of the playerbase anxious as to what would become of the tier with such a heavy amount of defensive staples rolled. Blissey, Quagsire, Alolan-Muk, Sableye and Mandibuzz were all rolled. Many thought that stall would become by far the most dominant playstyle, this however was not the case. Far from it, stall found itself on the lower-end of viable playstyles this month. But why? The amount of defensive pokémon is certainly nothing to laugh at, however among the offensive pokémon rolled many had a very good or downright excellent matchup into stall. Among these pokémon were: Heracross, Mamoswine, Rotom-heat, Scizor, Hisuian-Braviary, Squawkability and Fezandipiti. Heracross, with flame orb and guts was one of the more centralising threats for stall to deal with. With an attack stat of 574 after burn heracross was considered by many to be the strongest pokémon in the metagame. Close combat + Knock off was already really good coverage, however heracross has a highly expansive movepool and very flexible moveslots. It could choose to run facade as a strong neutral option, megahorn for sableye and as a strong stab option, stone edge for the likes of Rotom-heat, Illumise, Charizard and Mandibuzz and earthquake for Fezandipiti and Alolan-Muk. All of this meant that Heracross could effectively choose its counters depending on what its team needed. Based on this you might think that Heracross is overpowered or even banworthy, however that is not the case, Heracross was in fact very manageable this month, as were a lot of the offensive threats. The reason for this is the metagame surrounding them. Every offensive threat can be dealt with using the arguably best core of rotom-heat and scizor. The reason why Scizor was the best pokémon this month is because of its status as the undisputed best offense-killer. Heracross, Mamoswine, Fezandipiti, Hisuian-Braviary and Squawkibility all die to choice-banded technician bullet punch after chip, which is especially crucial against mamoswine and non-babiri berry fezandipiti. However against Heracross or Hisuian-Braviary Scizor needs some damage or a close combat defense drop to score a kill. Here comes scizors teammate, Rotom. Rotom, the second best pokémon in this meta was an incredibly strong pick for a multitude of reasons. When it comes to its synergy with Scizor, the two formed an incredibly potent volt-turn core capable of putting on immense pressure on the opponents team and preventing their offensive pieces from switching in. Rotom is one point of speed faster than Heracross, the metagames fastest relevant offensive threat. At 86 speed rotom-heat can threaten the one-hit-ko on Heracross with a super effective overheat and threaten to switch out afterwards with volt switch. Overheat + volt switch is a very powerful stab combination being able to deal respectable damage even after an overheat-drop. With Scizors bullet punch and u-turn and Rotoms overheat and volt switch the two were undeniably the most splashable option on a team always able to put in work and win a game with proper play. So how did the metagame adapt to such a powerful core? The answer is the number 4 pokémon this month: Lanturn, with a staggering 44% usage Lanturn was a staple on balance teams. Lanturn has access to the excellent ability volt absorb which makes the user completely immune to electric type moves and heals one fourth of it's max hp when hit by it, This complements its water typing quite well as it allows lanturn to completely wall Rotom-Heat. However a mon like Blissey can do something similar with its comparable very high special bulk, making any damage from Rotom negligible but the key differentiation lies in the fact that Lanturn can block Rotoms move volt switch, preventing the Rotom from using it as momentum to switch out into a pokemon that can threaten it, herein lies the power of Lanturn, as Lanturns water typing threatens Rotom-heat the Rotom-heat player is forced to switch out, for this reason Lanturn players opt to run the moves toxic, scald and flip turn. Toxic is a generally good option against anything trying to come in, getting off guaranteed status on a pokémon such as Cradily trying to soak up a scald. And scald threatens to burn switch ins to toxic such as Scizor and Muk, crippling their damage output, making it a very strong combination. Lanturn also has access to the excellent move of flip turn, combined with a slow speed this lets the Lanturn player pivot into a mon to react to what the opponent is currently doing and position themselves accordingly. Partnered with a pokémon that does well into scizor such as your own Rotom-heat, Chesnaught or Quagsire this makes a very strong defensive core. However lanturn is not invincible and Scizor can still u-turn on it or a teammate, hence volt-turn was still exceedingly popular even with relevant counterplay, positioning was just incredibly powerful and heavily rewarded skill in assessing the matchup. With pokémon such as band/dice Mamoswine, specs Fezandipiti, Heracross, volt-turn and offense still had a massive amount of firepower and could position themselves to deny entry to these defensive mons and threaten a ko on one of the opponents mons. Against non-stall teams, most teams were lacking in rotom answers barring lanturn, this is because the format had no specially defensive ground types and what other answers they would run such as assault vest Alolan-Muk or Quagsire were worn down very easily and could die to overheat with relevant chip, this meant a lot of offense teams were built around opening up their Rotom to have free reign on the moves it clicked against the opponents team. Meaning they would stack special threats such as Hisuian-Braviary, Fezandipiti and Vanilluxe in hopes to wear down the answers to rotom from a specially defensive point of view, alternatively they would use a lot of physical wallbreakers such as Heracross or Mamoswine in hopes of getting the opponent to sack their Lanturn such that they could bring in scizor to revenge kill them. A lot of teams did both of these, a common team could look something like this: Scizor, Rotom, Mamoswine, Fezandipiti, Hisuian-Braviary and a Lanturn of their own, where the breakers put a massive amount of pressure on the opponent forcing them to play more reactively, and giving the player an opportunity to position himself for the Rotom win. This kind of strategy of wearing down answers was certainly good with Rotom as it was the best abuser of it, however Scizor among other mons also benefited heavily from its answers being gone, being able to freely click bullet punch against a weakened team is very powerful so a lot of teams built around certain pokémon were built with this strategy of opening up threats in mind. With such powerful strategies how did stall survive as a playstyle? The answer is it didn't. In the traditional meaning of the word stall was completely unviable this month, what "stall teams" that were present succesfully were in fact semi-stall teams. Due to the state of the metagame, most team structures commanded shorter-games, this means that stall had to adapt by changing its gameplan. It was impossible for a stall team to answer everything defensively reliably and to win the long game, instead stall stacked "good enough" answers and tried to wear down the opponents team with hazards, hazards had a unique roll in the metagame in that they were used more against offensive teams than defensive ones. stall teams used them the most as all of the best hazard setters were stall mons such as Blissey, Runerigus or Quagsire. With especially stealth rock being limited to stall pokémon, hazards found themselves being used more as an anti offense tool. With so many top pokémon hating hazards such as Mamoswine, Heracross, Scizor, Braviary and Rotom it was a strong way to limit the pivoting that volt-turn loves so much. However, pokémon such as loaded dice Mamoswine or a choice-banded Scizor only need to come in once or twice once their checks are gone. This is where the true anti-offense core of Rotom and Scizor comes in, both of these found heavy use on "stall"  as a way to force out these threats and rack up damage, if stall could get enough chip with hazards and clean with scizor + rotom they won. When it comes to mons like Heracross, the answers typically consisted of colbur-berry-Runerigus, Mandibuzz, Sableye and Illumise. None of these are particularly good answers as their effectiveness varies heavily depending on the heracross set and if they'd been chipped. However in the short term they are "good enough" answers and do their job of forcing the Heracross to switch out into a pivot or more offensively potent mon, stacking up hazard chip and increasing the timer on their head. It was heavily important for stall to have this offense counterplay as without it, heracross and other offensive threats are much more free to switch in against the stall players team and continue to ravage their defensive cores. To prevent stacking hazard damage, most offense teams had hazard removal. This most often came in the form of defog Rotom, as it was much harder to fit defog on any other teammate such as Scizor or Braviary, rapid spin was very bad this metagame. With low distribution and having to deal with the presence of multiple ghost types in the tier it saw little usage. Donphan, the most popular spinner in the tier was notoriously bad into many common spinblockers such as Runerigus and Sableye who outright walled it if not without heavy chip. Stall also naturally ran removal in the form of defog on Mandibuzz and Rotom, however they found themselves using it much less due to the hazard-less nature of many offense teams. However, even with removal on rotom, offensive teams struggled to keep hazards off the field, as pressure from the likes of lanturn and pivoting provided stall teams with free opportunities to set hazards once more.

August 2024 was a very balanced tier that heavily rewarded player-skill and proper positioning, with almost every playstyle being viable and a number of interesting metagame interactions in the builder at the forefront of play, and many opportunities for creativity within team-structures, it is beloved by many.

Written by Presi

/challenge gen9nationaldex35pokes @@@ -All Pokemon, +mandibuzz, +braviary, +dusclops, +sawk, +corsola, +maushold, +vivillon, +runerigus, +chesnaught, +rotom-heat, +dhelmise, +illumise, +seviper, +boltund, +braviary-hisui, +mamoswine, +charizard, +smeargle, +donphan, +musharna, +muk-alola, +frosmoth, +sableye, +blissey, +heracross, +eelektross, +trapinch, +fezandipiti, +golem-alola, +lanturn, +quagsire, +squawkabilly-yellow, +cradily, +scizor, +vanilluxe

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