December 2024 is a very beloved month, known for having three bans in its life time. The first metagame was fairly balanced apart from Okidogi, who had no real switch ins, which lead to it being suspect tested and banned early on. This wasn't anything out of the unusual, but this quickly ended up spiraling when Lokix was rerolled in place of Okidogi. Lokix was arguably a far more oppressive Pokemon than Okidogi, as it forced every team to be on a non reliable check which would slowly fold to U-turn or Knock off. Surprisingly, the Council's focus was not on Lokix, but on Jolteon, which was quick banned because of it's high speed and powerful volt switches which could not be prevented, on top of it's Substitute Calm Mind sets, and little Pokemon that could actually beat it. Due to community backlash and feedback, the council also held a suspect test for Lokix, which ended with a ban. It was then rerolled into Toxicroak.

Monthly Roster

This month does not have a summary,

this is a top 5 breakdown of each mon

that is substituting for a summary for the

sake of the Premier League Season 1.

If you would like to create a summary for

this month, submit it right here

Today we bring a list of top 5 most used December 24 mons. This meta was surely interesting, with so many bans which meant some of the mons that were good or bad changed a bit with the bans, but these were not the most consistently used Pokemon.

Numéro 5: Primarina

Prim has been one of the most consistent special attackers during the duration of the tier. It's specs set does massive damage, it's Calm Mind set made it a very effective revenge killer, and a surprise choice scarf set could flip match ups on their heads against revenge killers.

Numéro 4: Celebi

Want a physical wall? Use Celebi. Want a nasty plot sweeper? Use Celebi. Celebi could be virtually anything, even a choice band user. During the Lokix era it did sadly see a decrease in usage, but during the Okidogi & Toxicroak era it had good usage because it could beat these Pokemon and offer a lot of utility to teams.

Numéro 3: Morpeko

Morpeko's high usage can be explained with it being one of the few good physical attackers in the meta, and it's access to the scarce rapid spin. It had a great speed tier and could boost it with the very spammable aura wheel. Parting shot made it a really good Pivot user, Stab knock off and Psychic Fangs for Okidogi/Toxicroak also made it an effective breaker.

Numéro 2: Milotic

Milotic made its way to top 2 usage thanks to it's naturally high special defense and access to Marvel Scale which gave it an amazing defensive profile as a very difficult to break mixed wall. Recover, Flip turn, Scald, and Dragon tail offered a lot of utility to teams in slow pivot status spreading and phasing.

Honorable Mentions:

There are some mons which were very relevant but didn't make it into the top 5 because of either being allowed too late into the month to get good usage, or for being largely overlooked by the community.

Toxicroak

Toxicroak was the best physical attacker in the meta and arguably a top 3 Pokemon had it had more time being legal. Sucker Punch, Knock Off, Swords Dance, Taunt, or Substitute let it sweep unprepared teams, and it's positive match up into common defensive picks made it hard to respond to.

Guzzlord

Guzzlord was one of the few Pokemon that could defensively check Chandelure or Morpeko. This alone is very valuable, but it could also deal good damage on top of that with band or specs sets, while rest talk sets would keep it healthy to check them longer, and dragon tail was annoying to deal with.

Numéro 1: Chandelure

With Choice Scarf Chandelure outspeeds the entire unboosted meta and deals huge damage with overheat, shadow ball, and energy ball with literally only Guzzlord and Appletune being able to consistently switch into it's scarf set. Milotic could sometimes switch in, but it was mostly cooked by Energy Ball. Calm Mind sets were also effective in breaking down bulkier teams, and Bulky Will o Wisp sets punished virtually every physical attacker in the tier. Choiced sets could cripple their few checks with trick or overwhelm them with partner pokemon like Morpeko, which made Chandelure super hard to deal with.

Written by Xungo

Modified by Essence

Viability Rankings

/challenge gen9nationaldex35pokes @@@ -All Pokemon, +golem-alola, +zoroark, +pyukumuku, +guzzlord, +wugtrio, +garbodor, +aurorus, +morpeko, +walrein, +roserade, +ribombee, +carracosta, +perrserker, +cryogonal, +appletun, +primarina, +pachirisu, +banette, +celebi, +avalugg, +wo-chien, +pupitar, +cetitan, +milotic, +scovillain, +dipplin, +chandelure, +toxicroak, +magmortar, +yanmega, +cacturne, +luvdisc, +mawile, +jumpluff, +rotom-frost

Tierlist Maker

Usage Stats

Composed by MamboTND

Okidogi Ban

While Okidogi wasn't super oppressive in the team builder, it was nearly impossible to switch into. Milotic who was regarded as the best switch in, got crippled if it's flame orb was knocked off on entry, and even worse if it was affected by toxic chain. Choice banded variants could also break through it with thunder punch, and other sets worn it down with hazards and teamates. Bulk up taunt with drain punch in particular was difficult to deal with defensively. Okidogi was also super bulky and could beat most of the Pokemon which hit it super effectively. In short it had way too many sets in bulk up choice scarf/band, too much coverage for the format, no consistent defensive counter play, and was bulky and had a decent speed tier on top of that, which led to it being suspect tested by the community and being banned.

Jolteon Quick Ban

Jolteon was a very oppressive Pokemon, with it being the fastest Pokemon in the meta with almost nothing wanting to take it's volt switch, letting it make significant progress every single time it hit the field, making playing against it insufferable. On top of your typical specs sets, you also have Calm Mind Substitute sets which could just win on spot sometimes. It beat Cryogonal, the premier special wall 1 on 1 and broke through pretty much everything else. It could also run boots wish with volt switch to be even more annoying, but this set was less problematic than the other two. The only real check, and I'm full blown deadass when I say this, was pupitar. It was the only pokemon that actually walled Jolteon, and it also let you compress rocks and thunder wave into one slot, and it generally just had a ton of utility. Despite this it was still the sole check to Jolteon, and even though it would get this match up consistently, it was not healthy for Jolteon to have literally one real check, which was fricking Pupitar, so Jolteon was suspect tested and Quick Banned by the council shortly after the Okidogi ban.

Lokix Ban

Lokix was a very divisive Pokemon at the time. During most of it's life span it was legal with Jolteon, and together they formed a very difficult to deal with Volt Turn core that essentially had no checks. Despite this, people loved this meta as it made a lot of bad Pokemon viable because of their niche interactions with Lokix and friends. And also many people felt it was overall balanced and the meta was in a good place. A lot of people however still didn't like the place the meta was at, so the council decided to give Lokix a suspect despite how late they were into the meta, and I am sure you can guess what the result was. There were quite a few pokemon tested that could "check" lokix, but the only 2 pokemont that realistically could were Avalugg & Mawile, which both hated to lose their item, as it crippled their longevity. Despite Lokix's rock weakness it could consistently out live its checks and even pick them off, not to mention it was often paired with Zoroark to bait it's checks in or another mon which demanded the same guy to switch in in order to overload the Mawile or Avalugg quickly. In general, the checks were limited and it was very team builder oppressive, but the legality of Lokix really did just come down to which direction you wanted the tier to stay in, and most people voted to remove it. It was rerolled into toxicroak, which caused a lot of jokes of Okidogi returning, but Toxicroak was a fine and balanced wall breaker unlike Okidogi.