A note from our Editor:
Monke has been publishing amazing work on the meta-game and what may be expected next. This post was written with context prior to Baltimore Regionals. However, I encourage readers to dive into Monke’s analysis of different teams and strategies as we have seen some of these teams and Pokemon in the post-Baltimore Regional standings. Some of Monke’s Pokemon picks may have not been too relevant for Baltimore, but with the amount of format diversity, who knows if one of these Pokemon will appear at the next big event! Thank you for reading and supporting players and writers on DevonCorpPress.
Ryan
Founder of DevonCorpPress

Hey guys, Monke here back again with another blogpost analyzing the meta. For this post, I was going to express some picks that are either doing good or could do good into the meta in my personal opinion. However, right after I posted my last blogpost which I will link at the bottom of this post, some developments showed up that I missed. Therefore for this post, I will dive into these new developments and these picks I wanted to talk about. Let's begin!

Here Comes The Sun

Starting off, I want to talk about a few new types of teams that have popped up. The first one we have to mention is Sun. Although this team hasn't gained a win in any big tournaments, many good players have been trying to make this work with Archaludon Rain being one of the most dominant teams gaining a win in many tournaments, especially this past VR tournament, people are moving to different weathers to try and mess with the tempo of this electronic bridge. With this bright light coming in to end the rainy days, we have 2 different teams to consider now.

The first one we can talk about is one we already saw going into the meta that just happened to feel a little stronger due to some people prepping for rain more: SunRoom.

https://pokepast.es/b381cc6a58a5b152

Notice that SunRoom still has Psyspam, as Torkoal can be easily slappable on Hard Trick Room Psyspam teams due to Torkoal being a premier Trick Room sweeper itself with strong Helping Hand Tera Fire Eruptions. However, just by adding Hisuian Lilligant, you can add many more dimensions and possibilities giving these Psyspam players a bunch of leads that you have to respect:

There is the Psyspam lead which can be seen with Armarouge Indeedee or Hatterene Indeedee on some teams.
Torkoal and Hisuian Lilligant lead which can either Sleep Powder spam or sweep with After You Eruption.
Gallade Indeedee which can Wide Guard Trick Room and also threaten Incineroar.
Other leads that can involve Ursaluna or even leads that can allow you to do certain plays such as After You Trick Room allowing you to get Trick Room up in certain board states before an incoming Taunt or Imprison goes off.

These can be deadly as while you have to try and respect every lead, the Psyspam leader can essentially throw any lead at you with the advantage of giving them a lead on the board if you get the lead wrong.

The second type of Sun team you can see is the fast mode of Psyspam with a face that is a little more ancient: Hisuian Typhlosion:

https://pokepast.es/2d9c96c4b8690d8a

This team is a team that is usually faster paced with the intentions to try and get fast Eruptions off with Sun boosts or without. This team can also be nice into Rain as Sunny Day can mess up tempo even if they swap in Pelipper instead of leading it. This also comes with the added benefit that there isn't really a relevant user of Rain Dance in the current meta. This team is also nice as it can be pretty flexible too, with some Typhlosion opting to run Scarf to not have the necessity of setting up Tailwind, some variants running Murkrow over Whimsicott for Haze accessibility and immunity to Prankster Taunt, and a lot of variants also leaning on other forms of speed control for their gameplan, such as Trick Room with BloodMoon Ursaluna that can also be used with Tailwind or even some people running Water and Grass Pledge for the Swamp effect that slows their opponent down. However, these teams will usually follow the construct of TW setter + Typhlosion + anti priority, which is a concept that is pretty similar to the Miraidon team piloted by Rajan Bal that won the Indianapolis regionals last season, with the exception that you now have to deal with a ghostly volcano instead of a futuristic bike on a rampage.

While both of these archetypes are pretty strong, there are a couple of ways to deal with them:

Weaken Eruption. Both Torkoal and Typhlosion usually want to fire off Eruptions which can be exploited by the fact that it can be weakened by lowering the HP of the user. For Torkoal, this can be executed with priority moves if you have ways of removing the Psychic Terrain. Tera Fire Rillaboom can actually be a great Pokemon for this as it can override terrain, Fake Out Indeedee so it can't redirect, and even resist the Eruptions coming it's way. For Typhlosion however, this can be harder as you have to remove Farigiraf in order to use priority moves against Typhlosion.
Resist and remove. With these teams being fast paced, it can throw them off when you can take the hit and fire back. There are Pokemon that can do this such as Hisuian Arcanine or Pokémon with teras that resist such as Gholdengo or Rillaboom.
Block Eruption. Athough Sun teams are used partially with the intent of beating Rain in mind, there's still the fact that they revolve around strong spread damage that can still be blocked out by Pelipper. Making them play around this or even just bluffing the move can mess with their tempo at a decent rate.

Regardless, this is an archetype that has still placed high in tours, especially with players like Wolfe Glick and it wouldn't surprise me if it won an event or two going into this next season as it has massive potential.

Eyecatcher In The Dark

The other team that has popped up revolves around a Pokémon that is Unaware of the fact it's grabbing attention. This Pokémon is Clefable, coming as a centerpiece for the new archetype labeled Clefable balance:

https://pokepast.es/1f22d38831645e9f

(Paste here made by BravadoVGC on Twitter)

To understand the rise of this team, we must first answer one question: why Clefable instead of something like Clefairy which has seen much more usage? Well, the truth lies in one key factor: the Unaware ability. This ability is an ability held by Pokémon like Dondozo and Skeledirge that ignores the stat stages of other Pokémon. For example, a +2 Sucker Punch from a Kingambit would do the same amount of damage to a Dondozo as a neutral Sucker Punch would. In the same aspect, a +2 Wave Crash from Dondozo targeted into a Pokémon with a +2 Defense boost from Iron Defense like Kommo-O for example would do the same amount of damage into Kommo-O as the Wave Crash would do into a Kommo-O with neutral Defense. This ability helps Clefable as there are a good chunk of single target moves with boosts in the meta such as Electro Shot and Dondozo's Wave Crash that can be redirected and soaked up by Clefable as Unaware will ignore the stat boosts and take damage as if they were coming from neutral stats, therefore giving you a way to keep your allies safe from these strong attacks. Just from this one benefit has come a team that I personally believe is the best and strongest take on balance that we have seen so far in this Regulation, with strong setup threats such as Kingambit and Volcarona that can setup and run away with the game, to strong supports such as Rillaboom which can pressure with Fake Out as well as deal damage and Paldean Tauros Aqua who can help the team survive physical attacks with Intimidate as well as deal healthy damage. The last slot itself has seen some variations, with some using Gengar as a strong Special Attacker with access to Haze for Dondozo and some using Dragapult for big damage with either a Choice Specs variant using strong Draco Meteors or a Choice Band variant with strong attacks such as Outrage or Dragon Darts. There were also variants in the VR tour that replaced Tauros with Primarina and used picks such as Sneasler. I have also even personally seen a variant with Glimmora as another strong setup sweeper with a Power Herb Meteor Beam set. However, I think the variant with Gengar is probably the best one as not only do you also get Haze for Dondozo, but you also get serious Poison damage that can be used to threaten opposing Clefable in the mirror in one small package. This team can also see some variance in the items, as some opt to run Goggles on Clefable to redirect Spore and use tera Steel or Water to resist Make It Rain from Gholdengo, and some opt for Black Glasses on Kingambit to give another multiplier to their damage. I also think personally that other items can be explored in slots for this team, as I have seen a few people opt for Covert Cloak on Volcarona on different teams and there's always the decision to run an offensive item like Miracle Seed on Rillaboom to output more damage as Grassy Terrain boosted Miracle Seed boosted Wood Hammers can do a ton of damage to pretty much anything outside of bulky resists.

Now this team can have 3 main ways to combat it, though keep in mind these are usually just tools for the matchup and not auto-win strategies:

Haze or Clear Smog. While Clear Smog is a little less reliant due to Clefable redirection and Kingambit's Steel typing, you can usually expect either Kingambit or Volcarona to hit the field at some point whenever you are playing them, meaning that having a way to clear boosts on them can be a nice tool to have in order to make sure they don't steamroll over your team. This is also very easy to do right now as every team you make should have one of these moves available anyways for matchups such as Dondozo.
Taunt. This whole team revolves around Clefable and its ability to redirect, therefore making it take a Taunt can cripple the Clefable and make it easier to target and take down the other threats.
Full Send on Offense. This team can take a second to get going and can sometimes hate upfront offense. Two hard matchups for this team can be Sun and Psyspam as getting the lead wrong against these teams can force the player to play a lot more reactively than proactively. This also isn't considering the fact that not much besides maybe the Dragapult variant really has enough tools to reliably stop these teams 100% of the time.

Regardless, I definitely believe this team is one of the best teams of the format just for the sheer fact that it can be explored quite a bit, with a decent amount of leads being viable and the variance you can take when exploring the 6th member and the items you can have them hold meaning you can essentially build upon this team more. Combine this with the cohesiveness the core already has and you have a team that will definitely continue to roll through the meta.

Other Options

Now that we've talked about the 2 teams that have surfaced into the meta after my last blog post, I want to take this next part of the blog to talk about some Pokémon that I personally think can be good into the meta. A good amount if not all of the Pokémon that I am about to mention have seen some success on teams somewhere before, and I just want to take some time to mention them individually.

Hisuian Decidueye

If there was a single Pokémon missing from my last blogpost that people reading would've had a riot over for not being mentioned, it would have to be this one. While Hisuian Decidueye has basically been the niche Pokémon of the entirety of Regulation H so far, there was a single reason that I did not include it before: personal bias.

I thought Hisuian Decidueye was fraudulent.

But after getting my tail end kicked by quite a few of them, I took a look into Hisuian Decidueye and realized it's actually not that bad.

Now I will admit, when looking at the Pokémon at first, it might not be that appealing. A Grass/Fighting type in a meta where a Flying type in Pelipper is around a ton doesn't sound too thrilling, and it's stats aren't exactly overwhelming either. The one good thing that you can say when looking at the cover is that it's ability Scrappy, which let's it hit Ghost types with Normal and Fighting moves, is probably a little better than the ability given to it's Alolan descendant. However, when opening the book, you see the one thing that makes this Pokemon appealing: it's signature attack Triple Arrows. Triple Arrows is a 90 BP physical Fighting type move with 100% accuracy that comes with a few side effects. These sides effects are as follows:

A high critical hit rate
A 50% chance to lower the target's Defense stat by 1 stage
A 30% chance of flinching the target

All 3 of these effects are pretty good, and there is also the added benefit that you can get more than one of these effects at the same time, meaning that you can gamble for some pretty good combos of effects when using this move. While 30 and 50 percent are definitely not great odds to write home about, these rolls are still very manageable in my opinion as with these effects coming from a move that's already 90 BP and 100% accurate as well as being boosted via STAB from Decidueye's Fighting type, this gambling session essentially feels like sitting at a slot machine with infinite coins. It doesn't matter if you win or not, you don't lose much so you can just keep on gambling.

However if you haven't noticed, even with this move under its belt, Hisuian Decidueye has not found a solid place in the meta until now. The reason can be found in the fact that it is a niche Pokémon into the meta.

You see, whenever competitive players consider a niche Pokémon for their teams, there are 2 things to consider: what it can do for the team or what it can do into the meta (this is not considering cases where you consider both). Hisuian Decidueye fits into the 2nd half of these considerations. You see, when Regulation H came out, the number of reliable Fighting types almost went extinct. Due to this, Pokémon such as Archaludon and Kingambit have far fewer things to worry about. However, when you lose these Fighting types, all of a sudden the one thing that was overlooked before now all of a sudden becomes much more appealing. Triple Arrows dealing good consistent damage to Archaludon is a great tool to have, and having a high crit rate means Archaludon players can't rely on Stamina boosts as favorably. Even other bulky things such as Porygon 2 for example can be threatened by Triple Arrows as a critical hit Triple Arrows can come very close to an OHKO if it doesn't already do so. The other factor that makes it good is that with it's access to Scrappy, even something like Gholdengo who would normally wall both of Decidueye's STABs now has to worry about Triple Arrows as well. Hisuian Decidueye is yet another example that sometimes even things that are written off can have their time to shine.

Electabuzz

The next Pokémon I want to talk about is one I have personally messed with and was actually seen for the first time at the North American International Championships last season. Electabuzz is a pure Electric-type with decent stats for a middle evolution that has a few things going for it. The first thing to note is that due to being a middle evolution, it can make use of Eviolite, an item that boosts the holder's defensive stats by 50% with the rule that it only works on Pokémon that can still evolve. The reason why we would use this over it's evolution Electivire is that with the bulk it gains from Eviolite, it can make use of another tool it has: Follow Me. Being able to redirect moves is always a positive, and Electabuzz can combine this with the fact that it has decent bulk boosted by Eviolite and the fact that it only has one weakness in Ground. It also has 2 pretty decent abilities in Static and Vital Spirit. While Vital Spirit is the ability you will see more, as it prevents sleep meaning you can redirect Spores and Sleep Powders without needing tera, Static can also work as sort of a bully system for physical attackers, as getting paralyzed can be devastating at certain points. The main reason to use Electabuzz right now though is due to it's matchup into Archaludon. With it's Electric typing, Electabuzz can redirect and resist both Electro Shot and Flash Cannon, and also take Body Press and Draco at a decent rate which is hard for a lot of redirectors to do. It can also use other tools in it's kit such as Taunt to slow down support or setup, ElectroWeb for speed control, Thunderbolt to hit Pelipper hard which is very hard at the moment with the lack of reliable Electric types, and Volt Switch to pivot out just to name a few moves it can use. So far it has seen a good amount of success including a 10th place finish in the VR tour and I can honestly expect to see some players use Electabuzz at events such as regionals and find some success with it there too.

Sneasler

Another Pokémon I have seen here or there that can have potential is Sneasler. First off, being a fast and decently strong Poison/Fighting type means you instantly have a Fighting type to threaten Archaludon. The second thing to consider is it's signature move Dire Claw, an 80 BP physical Poison move that has a 50% chance to inflict the target with sleep, poison or paralysis. While this is still not as reliable as you would like as it not only is a 50/50 but a 50/50 for one of 3 conditions picked at random, a ton of players have paired this with one of Sneasler's abilities in Poison Touch, which gives Sneasler's contact moves a 30% chance to inflict poison giving Sneasler 2 rolls instead of one. Poison is a decent status condition at the moment as having a timer on your opponent's Pokémon can be pretty valuable as seen with Glimmora Dondozo teams. However, Sneasler has another set which can be used, although it won't be as popular as Poison Touch. This set uses Sneasler's Unburden ability, which doubles it's speed after losing it's held item, and pairs it with something like Grassy Seed and Rillaboom to help it also set up Swords Dance and act as a sweeper with incredible speed, being able to outspeed Whimsicott even after it sets Tailwind if you run Jolly Sneasler. While these sets used to run Tera Flying Acrobatics as it's effects paired well with Unburden, others have used sets with Swords Dance and Grassy Seed or even Focus Sash and Unburden with Tera Stellar and Dire Claw for more offense and the gamble effect of Dire Claw. Although it is kind of frail when looking at it's defenses, it has speed and power going for it, so it is definitely something you can consider.

Hisuian Zoroark

The next Pokémon is one that has had some success is Hisuian Zoroark. When this Pokémon came out, it was just known as a funny little gimmick Pokémon and nothing more. However, now that it is in a low power format, people are finally using it as it's base 125 Special Attack and Base 110 Speed stats are definitely pretty solid for the format. Another added benefit it has given is a way to wall Annihilape, as with it's Normal/Ghost typing it walls both STABs that MausApe would run.

The primary team archetype you will see this on is usually Psyspam, as it actually has a decent bit of synergy due to it's ability and has seen major success with this archetype, including a win in one of the first few Regulation H Limitless tournaments by LenVGC. As mentioned above, Psyspam is already a matchup where you have to respect quite a few leads and adding Hisuian Zoroark can essentially throw a wrench into your playmaking as even if you think that you got the lead correct, you can still be prone to getting hit hard by a Choice Specs boosted Tera Normal Helping Hand Hyper Voice from what would seem like an Armarouge at first, therefore leading you in turn 1 of a game to question if the lead you see is actually what it looks to be. For once, I definitely would not be surprised if Hisuian Zoroark were to make a stream appearance this Regulation.

Toxicroak

The next Pokémon I want to mention is one that has been showcased by Cybertron as I am writing this: Toxicroak. Toxicroak is a Pokémon that shares a typing with Sneasler but is a tad bit different. While it doesn't have a decently broken move like Sneasler with Dire Claw, it still has a decent matchup into Incineroar and Rillaboom. However, one if it's main reasons of use actually came as a niche in Regulation G that also gave it a good matchup into Urshifu Rapid Strike: it's ability. Toxicroak will run the ability Dry Skin, which heals Toxicroak if hit by a Water move or at the end of every turn while Rain is up. Due to this, it can function as a Rain Pokémon that actually has a good matchup into the mirror just like Ludicolo in prior generations due to it having a decent matchup into opposing Archaludon, as it can threaten it pre tera with Close Combat and essentially threaten it with Gunk Shot post tera as Archaludon usually runs Grass or Fairy Tera which are both weak to Poison. Do note however that Dry Skin also has the side effect of taking more damage from Fire attacks or losing health while Sun is up. However, this is a Pokémon that can definitely influence those pesky Archaludon Rain matchups, therefore it has a nice place into the meta.

Kommo-O

Now this one might seem a little weird at first. Why would I mention a Pokémon in a section regarding niche or "anti meta" picks that has seen success in past Regulations on quite a few teams? Well there's one reason.

You see, while Kommo-O has seen success before with an Iron Defense Body Press set, I wanted to take a moment to talk about an older set that could see some use this format: The Clangorous Souls set. When Kommo-O came out, the first set everyone used was Clangorous Souls, which revolved around it's two signature moves. The first one called Clangorous Souls was a setup move that would raise all 5 stats by one stage in exchange for 33% of your health. Further tacking onto this, Clangorous Souls had the one niche that it was a sound based move, meaning that it could activate the Throat Spray giving Kommo-O another boost to it's Special Attack, meaning that you would have a +1 boost in every stat except for Special Attack which you would have a +2 boost. This would be combined with it's other signature move Clanging Scales, a 110 BP special Dragon type attack that also had the addon of being a spread move.

However, this set never really popped off as the prime problem of our murderous cloth Flutter Mane would threaten it quite a bit, and keeping Kommo-O safe was also generally harder as losing a third of your health would make you a bit more susceptible to getting knocked out after setting up, meaning that people would have to build heavily around the concept with things like Clefairy to keep it alive and Sinistcha to heal Kommo-O after it setup. Adding on the fact that Fairy type Pokémon were immune to Dragon type attacks and Steel types were pretty prevalent at the time as well, and this set fell off quick.

But wait long enough and you might see a return. With the Regulation taking away a decent amount of viable Fairy Pokémon and a few viable Steel types as well, this set has saw some decent success. However, I will admit I was a little hesitant to talk about it at first because in testing I found it lacking in some damage at certain points, though people would run this set with Helping Hand Clefairy usually and I didn't so I guess that's on me a little bit. I decided to include it here in the end though because of the sole fact that seeing as Fairy Pokémon are not as abundant as before, you're still benefitting from the fact you're gonna usually be doing neutral spread damage to a good chunk of the meta aside from resists like Gholdengo or super effective damage into other Dragon types.

Gastrodon

The last pick I want to talk about is one my friends will probably mess with me for as it constantly gets hyped up and fails. However, funnily enough I think I can say for once Gastrodon can be a decent niche pick into the meta. You see, with the ability Storm Drain and it's natural Ground typing, it can be immune to Archaludon's Electro Shot and Pelipper's Weather Ball in Rain and also resist Archaludon's Flash Cannon as well. It also has Clear Smog, meaning that if you want to slap Fairy Tera on it, you can actually be immune to Dondozo's 2 main attacks in Order Up and Wave Crash and actually be a pretty funny Dondozo counter. The main tool at it's disposal that I want to talk about here is the move Yawn. This move is a status move that gives it's target the Drowsy condition, which puts the Pokémon to sleep after the next turn unless it switches out or has an ability that makes it immune to sleep such as Vital Spirit or Insomnia, barring other things like Misty Terrain or Safeguard. This move is actually used quite a bit on Pokémon like Gastrodon or Snorlax and even has seen some use on strategies like the Dondozo Ting Lu team that went through the meta game of Regulation F with the combination of Yawn and Sand Tomb to trap opposing Pokémon on the field and make sure you had a dead slot on the field due to Sleep usually being guaranteed. While this was a strong use of Yawn, the main way it is used is with a cycle of Yawn and Protect as a way to threaten the opponent and mess with their tempo as if you stay in, you're susceptible to falling asleep at the end of the next turn and if you switch out you risk losing momentum. This can actually be a decent tool in the current meta game as with the previously established fact of the metagame revolving around snowball effects, you can essentially threaten the choice of sleep or momentum loss on many archetypes regardless of them carrying Safety Goggles or not, which many redirectors such as Maushold, Clefable or even Indeedee will do to stop Amoonguss from doing the same thing with Spore. Combined with the fact that it is decently tanky and can redirect all Water moves keeping your Water weak Pokémon safe from attacks gives you a decent support to work with. Do keep in mind it is pretty slow and passive at times, meaning it can be exploited a little easy at times, whether it be faster Taunts or being scared of touching grass.

The Big Question

Now if you have managed to make it this far, you might have one question. Just what is the best Pokémon in Regulation H? Well while I can't sit here and tell you for certain, what I can tell you is what I think is the best Pokémon in my opinion. While this is possibly my 3rd most favorite Pokémon of all time and a Pokémon that sort of fits the theme of my blog page's name and my online name, I can honestly say looking at results that this is not really affected too much by personal bias. In my opinion, the best Pokémon in Regulation H is Rillaboom. This Pokémon has honestly had so much going for it even prior to this Regulation and somehow these tools have felt slightly magnified in this Regulation so far. With Psyspam running amok, Rillaboom is a good answer to mess with their tempo and honestly no matter what team I've made so far, I've never had a single complaint regarding Rillaboom when I use it. It's just a very versatile Pokémon that is slowly feeling as slappable as Incineroar would be in prior rulesets. It also is even versatile itself, as not only can you run an offensive item like Miracle Seed or a defensive item like Assault Vest, but the EV spreads you can make on this Pokémon can honestly vary a decent amount depending on what you want at a feasible range. For these reasons, I think it is definitely the top Pokémon to watch out for this Regulation.

Conclusion

With that, we have reached the end of the blog. This one was a little longer than my other posts, but I genuinely felt like there was just so much to talk about that I just couldn't leave out. If you've made it this far, I hope you enjoy and also possibly check out my last blogpost if you want to read some more content. As always, until next time!

Want to read my first piece? Read it Here

Disclaimer: The opinions/stories expressed in the blog post are those of the author's and not necessarily reflective of the platform or its affiliates.

Jungle Safari: Regulation H, The Sequel