Pokémon Legends: Z–A
Season 11 Rumination
Happy Z–A Season, everyone!
At the end of last season, I foolishly said this quote:
Next season gives us access to all of the Restricted Pokémon again. Would any be a better slot for this role?
Let's be honest, there's another Mega Pokémon in the Restricted group that has the exact same typing as Mega Garchomp Z. Plus, minus its Signature Dragon-type move, its other three moves make the exact same moveset as Garchomp. Zygarde is significantly slower, but Zygarde will potentially work as a better nuke on the field compared to Garchomp (and I mean that literally with that cannon Mega Zygarde seems to grow). I'll probably let you know next season if Zygarde fills that roll just as well.
For what it's worth, I did try it. I gave Mega Zygarde exactly four matches. I don't think I've ever had as little fun using a Pokémon in this game, even going back to that Mega Baxcalibur season. What I did not know when I naively said this was that you cannot immediately Mega Evolve your Mega Zygarde. Even if your Mega Charge is at 100%, you have to wait until Zygarde has taken enough damage (I think 50%) before you can Mega Evolve. And that massive bulk was not helping "Mega" Zygarde in the slightest.
So instead I went back to Mega Garchomp Z. Did it work? It was still a well-rounded team in theory, so it should work, right? Let's find out.
Table of Contents
Team Comp
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Not really sure what else to say about these three. This is now my third season in a row using them.
Metagross has the Steel and Psychic typing. It's very heavy and has the lock-on move Heavy Slam. It's great for getting a first hit move, especially on Quasartico, Inc., where you spawn within attacking range.
Like I said above, Garchomp in general is significantly faster than Zygarde. It can swing across the field at enemies and wide wide range areas at will. Zygarde, in turn, suffers from the same weaknesses as (almost every) other Dragon: they're Super Effective against each other and often come down to who hits first, they're easily countered by Fairy- and Ice-types, and everyone and their mther has seen them all so they're prepared.
Gyarados is a Water/Flying-type. It's blue. In one game it was guaranteed to be red for a single encounter. This is my seventh time running Gyarados over eleven seasons, if you need a description of what Gyarados does then please read through the Competitive Pokémon section and scroll through this game's tab.
Win Rate & Team Performance
A
First Place |
13 61.9% |
Second Place |
6 28.6% |
Third Place |
1 04.8% |
Fourth Place |
1 04.8% |
Ironically, the overall score with Zygarde goes up slightly. By tradition, I completely threw Rank B. Garchomp outperforms in Ranks N–C compared too Zygarde's Rank Z–P.
| Game | Me | P2 | P3 | P4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank Z | #1 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Rank V | #2 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Rank Q | #3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Rank P | #4 | 6 | 1 | 7 | DQ |
| Rank N | #5 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Rank L | #6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 12 |
| Rank K | #7 | 12 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Rank I | #8 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Rank H | #9 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 1 |
| Rank G | #10 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Rank F | #11 | 9 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| Rank E | #12 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| #13 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
| Rank D | #14 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
| #15 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| Rank C | #16 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| #17 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 2 | |
| Rank B | #18 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 2 |
| #19 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | |
| #20 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 6 | |
| #21 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
Team Recap & Moving Forward
For the second time in this game's history, I completely underestimated Mewtwo in particular. Weirdly enough Mewotwo and Alakazam were both popular, Alakazam likely a budget version of Mewtwo if you couldn't afford it, but I had absolutely no trouble outplaying Mega Alakazam whereas normal Mewtwo gave me headaches.
- Ice Punch
- Earth Quake
- Thunder Punch
- Heavy Slam
For context, this is my specific Metagross build. You may have noticed that, despite being a Steel/Psychic-type, I don't have any STAB Psychic moves on it. That was very intentional. Heavy Slam is by far Metagross's strongest move in general, and the other three moves have typings that counter extremely common typings in the meta:
- Ice Punch [Ice] counters Flying-, Ground-, Grass-, and Dragon-types
- Earthquake [Ground] counters Poison-, Rock-, Fire-, Electric-, and Steel-types.
- Thunder Punch [Electric] counters Flying- and Water-types
My point is that Metagross's purpose is for STAB Steel (or Super STAB Steel against frail opponents of any type) and niche anti-meta moves. If I were to redo this season, I think I would probably replace Thunder Punch with one of those moves Metagross has that counters Psychic. Off the top of my head, probably Ghost-type Shadow Punch since I remember seeing a Mega Golurk, a Mimikyu, and a Mega Froslass (not that any of those Pokémon gave me trouble).
Besides that, the team performed relatively well. Not as well as the last two seasons, but still pretty good (60% average in a game with four players is fine by me). I know I don't want to play this team a fourth time in a row (and I don't want to run Gyarados for an eighth run), so we'll see which Pokémon are available next time.
Before formally closing off, I want to end on the most frustrating part of this run. Do you see that last game? Here's that last game's score screen:
Click me to see the summary screen.
