Pokémon Legends: Z–A
Season 05 Rumination
A new month brings a new season! Season 05 completes the Z–A Pokédex with the inclusion of the DLC Legendaries and Mythicals, minus the Mascot Legendaries and Diancie. And Hoopa Unbound Form. For some reason.
For Season 05, I decided to run some of our new Pokémon again with an emphasis on the Pokémon I've not had a chance to use before. Of the special Pokémon, one was a Mythical Pokémon I was afraid I would never get the chance to use again, so I built around that Pokémon.
Then I chose which Pokémon I wanted to use the Mega Form for. Do you think you can guess which Pokémon I decided to use the Mythical form for? See if you can figure it out (and the problem that arose) before we get to the recap!
Table of Contents
Team Comp
I didn't put too much thought into who led the team this season. While Virizion has access to the Shields and some Stat Increase moves, I didn't quite think Virizion could survive leading if I happened to face a bad match-up. Melmetal happens to hit very hard with minimal effort and can quickly get a nice hit on the neighboring Pokémon while I look around the field.
Virizion was a great switch-in option for Melmetal, covering two of its weaknesses and countering a great deal of common typings on the field. Mine happened to have Life Orb and Swords Dance, so Virizion's goal was to do as much damage to anything stuck on the field with it as fast as possible.
Finally, there's Swampert. The only Pokémon capable of Mega Evolving on the team. Swampert covered the rest of the typings Melmetal was weak to, and was a great Mega Evolution option to flood the field when it gets too packed.
If only I realized sooner that Swampertite wasn't available until the following season. That's right: I accidentally played a No Mega team this season. I could have swapped once I noticed, but then I thought that this would make a fun little challenge.
Win Rate & Team Performance
A
First Place |
17 65.4% |
Second Place |
2 07.7% |
Third Place |
5 19.2% |
Fourth Place |
2 07.7% |
| Game | Me | P2 | P3 | P4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank Z | #1 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| Rank U | #2 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Rank Q | #3 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| Rank O | #4 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 5 |
| Rank N | #5 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Rank K | #6 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 3 |
| #7 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 4 | |
| Rank I | #8 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| Rank H | #9 | 5 | 4 | 9 | DQ |
| #10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 6 | |
| Rank G | #11 | 14 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Rank F | #12 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 5 |
| Rank E | #13 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| #14 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 6 | |
| #15 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | |
| Rank D | #16 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| #17 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | |
| Rank C | #18 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 2 |
| #19 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 3 | |
| #20 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 1 | |
| Rank B | #21 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 1 |
| #22 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 6 | |
| #23 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 5 | |
| #24 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 2 | |
| #25 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 2 | |
| #26 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 |
Team Recap & Moving Forward
What would I do differently? Well, first and foremost, I would have ran a Mega Evolved Pokémon. That'd be a good start.
This team performed better than I expected, if I'm being honest. Performed just slightly lower than my second best season (not counting Season 01, which I didn't track the win rate for) on a team that had a distinct disadvantage over the others? Not bad at all. I think if I were to redo this season then the only major changes I would make would be specific EV spreads.