Activity VGC Format 2016

King Arceus

King Arceus

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The rules have finally been announced for 2016.

Allowed Cartridges: Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire
Format: Double Battle
Blue Pentagon Clause: All Pokemon must have the blue pentagon.
Banned Pokemon:
Mew
Celebi
Jirachi
Deoxys
Phione
Manaphy
Darkrai
Shaymin
Arceus
Victini
Keldeo
Meloetta
Genesect
Diancie
Hoopa

Restricted Pokemon ( Max of 2 per team ):
Mewtwo
Lugia
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Groudon
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina
Reshiram
Zekrom
Kyurem
Xerneas
Yveltal
Zygarde

Item Clause: Each Pokemon must hold a different item.
Banned Items: Soul Dew

Many new possibilities open up with many Pokemon previously unusable in VGC since 2010.
 
I don't play vgc (pretty much OU) but wow is this gonna be an uber fest. No need for any pokemon besides Primal Kyogre, Groudon and Mega Rayquaza
 
It's like VGC is the exactly opposite of OU. OU ban Pokemon while VGC unban Pokemon.

Weather war is going to be a thing if I can predict it right, since any player can use Primal Kyogre, Primal Groudon or both of them.
Mega Rayquaza is something that screams broken metagame, but I guess that's nothing new in VGC with Mega Kanga.
 
Doubles is a completely different meta game remember. While something like Mega Ray is so beyond broken in singles that it got banned even from UBERS, doubles will be a different ballgame. Unless you're using something like Surf (lol) mega Ray can only attack one Pokemon at a time, leaving it vulnerable to the other. In addition in doubles, mega Ray, unless paired with a Follow Me/Rage Powder user, will not have the time to set up Swords Dance/Dragon Dance, which was one of the biggest problems with it in singles. Mega Rays ability also sacrifices control of the weather. If your opponent has primal groudon or kyogre, they can retake the weather war (as opposed to normal rayquaza which has Air Lock.)

Nintendo's run this format before where they allowed 2 ubers to be used on teams, and that format was quite cool to watch. It will be exciting to see where the format goes this year.
 
So aside from Primal Kyogre Primal Groudon and Mega Rayquaza, which legendary Pokemon do you think are going to be most dominant in this new metagame?
 
Dialga, definitely. It has a cool support movepool (ie: Trick Room), huge base stats, it doesn't take up a mega slot, and its typing lets it combat other dragons incredibly well. It was very popular last time they allowed ubers, if I remember correctly, and I don't think this time will be any different.

Mewtwo was pretty prominent last time as well, but I don't know if that will be the case this time. I don't really know what advantages the Mega Mewtwos sport compared to other megas, and it is (relatively) frail on the physical side, and I haven't run calcs, but its non-STAB Ice Beam *probably* doesn't ohko Mega Rayquaza because of its ability. At the same time though, Mewtwo is still faster than a lot of the legendaries on that list, it has Psystrike now which hits stupidly hard, and Grass Knot trolls Kyogre and Groudon pretty hard.

I'd love to see either Lugia (with its massive defensive stats) or Ho-oh (50% chance to burn with Sacred Fire) get some playing time, but sadly, I don't think they will.
 
Well, Mega Mewtwo Y has Insomania, so I guess that's helpful in VGC.
And yeah, Ice Beam is not going to OHKO Mega Ray:
252 SpA Life Orb Mewtwo Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Rayquaza in Strong Winds: 151-179 (83.8 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(with modest nature, Mewtwo has 50% chances to OHKO but then it gets outsped by Mega Ray)
 
It's pretty interesting. Seems like the top used legends are Primal Groudon and Xerneas. I also wonder about the team preview. It should be much easier to know what Pokemon your opponent's about to use since who wouldn't pick at least one of his or her legends for the battle?
 
It's pretty funny that on the usage statistics for Battle Spot Special, which uses the VGC'16 ruleset, the first 5 Pokemon (sub out the Primal you aren't using for Talonflame) are used by the majority as their team, with a choice of something from the rest of the top 12 as your final pick.

If it wasn't for me going about play testing all the restricted legends to see where they fit (or if they don't at all) I would have just stopped caring completely. Already shaping up to be a stagnant, boring format right after the last stagnant, boring format.
 
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