By Wildcatdad17
THE RATIONALE
We are nearing the end of the season and we just completed one of the most interesting and complex metas ever built, the Genetic Cup. After creating that, our team wanted to take a more traditional route for our last meta of the season. With that in mind, the meta team wanted to begin with a typing that doesn’t normally see much love and isn’t the most powerful to feature. From that starting point, the meta team began with bug typing. Our meta development team took the bug typing starting point and developed three draft metas. Over time, our team developed a fourth meta that incorporated strengths of all three. After that, we stress tested and revised until the meta was healthy.
About the Final Typings
As we began our decision making process, our first question was what types of Pokemon tend to be polarizing when a bug is squared off against them? There are some obvious low-hanging fruits here and so bans of Fairy, Fire, Flying, Rock, and Steel were in order since all of these types either resist bug typing or deal super effective damage against it. Once those types were removed we recut the meta and tried to figure out what remaining types would contribute to neutral play but also provide bug types some good targets to attack. From our discussion, normal and ice typings emerged as candidates. Dark typing did as well since many dark type Pokemon are bulky, which results in providing weaker bug types a target without overpowering the matchup. Lastly, our next part of the discussion veered off into a philosophical debate of how best to provide Pokemon that resist bug but that won’t overwhelm the meta with too many extreme typing relationships. For this reason, we introduced poison typing, which allowed show 6 favorites such as Tentacruel to make an appearance. The meta distribution was looking fairly healthy at this point, but the large number of dual types brought in a lot of viable water types, so we decided to ban ground and electric types to limit how many polarizing matchups existed. This left us with normal, poison, bug, dark, and ice as the base allowed typings while fairy, fire, flying, ground, rock, steel, and electric were banned.
Air Drops, Exemptions, and Bans
Along the way, we mutually realized that while it was necessary to ban flying types on the whole, doing so resulted in an overly extreme ban on spicy picks that provided variety and balance to the meta. For this reason, a discussion of ban exemptions for this boutique picks began, and so we introduced Scyther, Vespiquen, Ledian, Gyarados, and Ninjask in order to give them a chance at the being in the spotlight. All of these fliers are either extremely fragile and/or lack efficient moves or, in the case of Gary, lack STAB flying moves. Of these, XL Ledian promises to surprise, and if it lives long enough, we look forward to some screenshots of Dynamic Punch landing on some ice types! Similarly, the rock ban resulted in Pokemon like Armaldo and Relicanth being banned, both of which fit in well with the tundra-driven theme and seemed unfairly targeted from the ban, so we exempted them as well.
Oppressive Moves
We were beginning to think we were done, but it became evident that many of the Pokemon at the top of the meta were counter users. From that, we reasoned that since counter is undoubtedly one of the best fast moves in the game, and since dark and ice types play a primary role in this meta, we decided to remove Obstogoon, Vigoroth, Toxicroak, Ursaring, Heracross, Buzzwole, and Scrafty from the meta. This allowed ice and dark to be viable without suffering from a polarizing matchup that would be virtually guaranteed given show6 party making. The next thing our team noticed was that some familiar faces from the previous Sovereign Cup were prevalent and played an important role in the meta. There were bulky tackle users everywhere, so we removed Miltank, Greedent, Dubwool, Munchlax, Normal Castform, and most importantly, Oinkologne. Dunsparce has incredible bulk and coverage moves against ice, bug, and poison typings. Bans might have been completed at this point if it were not for those rare dual types like Articbax, combining dragon and ice typing, which enabled it to two-shield and farm down nearly every Pokemon in the meta. Just as Arctibax’s dual typing makes it an exceptional offensive Pokemon, there were also some Pokemon like Araquanid and Toxapex that provided polarity due their bulk and the newly introduced ban on rock and ground types. In the end, we removed both Araquanid and Toxapex as well to soften the distribution.
Softening the Distribution
The discussion up to this point was lively. What began as a discussion focused on making a traditional, and presumably simpler meta, had developed into a rich discussion that spanned nearly a month. The team kept focusing on additional picks that fit the theme and provided balance and health to the meta and/or the ability for trainers to use a Pokemon that they might not normally use! From this, the idea was to drop in Goodra as a proxy for Arctibax, but one that would be less oppressive. Goodra gave similar fast move pressure, but lacked the dominant ice moves and also lacked the ice typing, providing a dragon with less ability to attack and/or take damage. With the addition of its unique coverage moves, we felt it deserved a spot on the roster. There were some monotype waters/grasses like Politoed and Tangrowth, both of which had unique coverage moves that seemed healthy for the meta. Specifically, Politoed has access to Mud Shot to check poisons and along with water/ground charged moves to check various ice types. Tangrowth, which has access to Rock Slide, Ancient Power, and Power Whip, provided some nice coverage for ice and bug types, but lacked dominance due to it being solely grass type and susceptible to the poisons in the mix. Once we completed the bans, the air drops, and the additional air drops that required exemptions, the meta was looking pretty healthy. But/and, we still had the move update to contend with.
The New Season
It’s fair to say that every trainer in the community was excited about the move update and meta rebalance. However, especially in restricted metas, it is important to ensure the fragile health of the distribution stays intact. For this reason, we always reserve the right to make adjustments, even after a meta has been released. The Los Angeles regional provided a sneak preview which allowed us to get a jump start on the changes; and Lokix, which now learned counter, was an immediate ban target by our meta team. The remaining changes initially seemed impactful, but once we confirmed the changes and recut the meta, both Cetoddle and Cetitan took the top and third spots in the meta due to being able to learn Powder Snow. Although excited about both of these Pokemon, we decided that allowing both would encourage doubling up on both, so we banned Cetoddle since it requires XL and is also the bulkier and stronger Pokemon of the pair. We hope everyone enjoys Tundra Cup and we wish everyone a solid month of ranked play in what will be our last regular season meta of Devon Corp’s Season 1.
Gym Breakers Tundra Cup Remix
As many of you know, the Tundra Cup was used by Gym Breakers in their World Cup format. The World Cup involves multiple rounds that are separate from and extend beyond the individual ranked play in Devon’s solo format. As trainers play a meta for an extended period of time, they begin to see limitations and flaws in the distribution. For that reason, our Devon meta staff and our friends at Gym Breakers developed a remix on Tundra. The changes made were based off survey level data from Gym Breaker’s trainers, our own meta team at Devon, and from the meta team at Gym Breakers. Although we don’t intend to write up a full set of developer notes, we do want to ensure you can find the updated flier and rules below.
