How GOOD was Metagross ACTUALLY? - History of Metagross in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 3-6)

oh boy it's time for another big one and you already saw this for the title of the video it's Steven stone signature Pokemon Metagross Metagross is one of those Pokemon whose design is so out there but delightful in a way Pokemon pulls off so well it's kind of like magnets on where tons of its Prevost fused together except it's actually fused together and not just pasted together and now it's a kick-ass robot spider supercomputer with four brains that gives it psychic powers there's artwork of Steven and this thing that is some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen and fun fact in the anime Stevens Metagross is shiny I remember fighting Steven and Ruby and being flabbergasted by how strong his meta Girls was steel and psychic whenever meteor mash landed my heart sank but then meta girls instilled that fear in the hearts of its other opponents let's find out how good was Metagross actually and in this video we'll be covering these competitive formats spoiler alert yes it did Metagross has everything going for it incredible stats arguably two of the best types in the game they even cover each other's weaknesses and even a huge move pool just look at that attacks that that salamence attacks that two second-highest non legendary in the game when these two came out only behind slacking well what Salomon's had in speed and special attack meta girls made up for it with his whopping defense that making it a terrifying tank with the choice band equipped meta girls was hitting for absurd numbers especially with access to some of the strongest based power moves in the game in meteor mash earthquake and explosion and remember this was one explosions still cut the fence in half when you used it so anything that didn't resist that move was pretty much guaranteed dead and actually even if they did resist it explosion had a 50% chance of one-hit ko even Skarmory even opposing Metagross had to be afraid of getting blown up on this set was so powerful that it bypassed the fact that steel was a relatively weak attacking type but even then meta girls had his choice of covers moves in rocks light or sludge bomb to deal with fire types or bulky water types that had wanted to poison it could even run hit and power fire to deal with steel types that didn't take super effective damage from earthquake like fortress and skarmory doing decent damage with its not so horrible special attack speaking of hidden power some meta girls actually SPECT into special attack in order to lure and punish the ever-present Swampert who really didn't like hidden power grass and if you wanted meta girls to sweep the choice ban could be dropped for a leftovers and agility swapped in for coverage Metagross had a quite easy time getting off a boost because of its steel typing Metagross could even lean in to mix typing and run a mix set designed to deal with walls like Skarmory and wheezing who would be dealt with quite easily with significant special attack investment because they were mainly just planning to wall Metagross out this worked especially well because Weezie's main plan was to burn Metagross with willow is finally rest talk Metta girls took advantage of meteor matches attacked booths chance to potentially steamroll teams and stay active though it of course meant giving up explosion because you didn't want to randomly blow out while sweeping oh yeah and clear body men intimidate or even charm couldn't do anything the meta girls although burn was still quite effective Metagross is quote-unquote counters so to speak where those who could deal with its attack typing while Metagross did have quite a varied move full the necessity of running meteor mesh and earthquake for the power on most of his sets meant that wheezing and bulky water types that exceptionally well Milotic wheezing Swampert & Vaporeon all did well stalling it out and building their booths the Afra mentioned Skarmory and fortress also did very well against the most standard meta grossest setting up their hazards while tanking hits well but that's the thing they did well against standard sets but meta girls could be wildly unpredictable I'm talking about its ability to fill in its move pole gaps and invest in special defense but I'm also really just talking about explosion meta grossest explosion was a game defining move for Metagross players removing potential ghost types which ins was paramount as web meta girls felt like it could almost always force a one-to-one trade for momentum ghost types of protect predictions were absolutely necessary but the sheer well explosive power of Metagross was hard to stop outright sure exploding on Skarmory wasn't always the best play so those threats were still good but in the situations you could it was ridiculously good Metagross was absolutely one of the best pokemon and gentry overused no questions asked and things only got better for Metagross and Jen for the physical special split meant thunderpunch was now a viable option for hitting water types in Skarmory Zen head wood gave Metagross powerful physical stabs on both sides and it boat had access to and resisted stealth rocks new items like choice scarf and aqua Barry increased variety and best of all it got a stab priority move in bullet punch which coming off of a 135 attack and choice ban it sure then it seemed like a base 40 power move all of those changes play out in a way you can very likely expect Metagross estoy span set was still exceptionally strong especially with Zen headbutt and bullet punch it honestly suffered from four move slots syndrome pretty hard choice scarf was equally scary as a revenge killer the mixed set still had his place invading opponents so Metagross could have HP fire and grass coverage and it could absolutely still go for an agility sweep if it desired but Metagross his new role came as a lead Pokemon Metagross was an incredible lead able to set up rocks resist explosion ignore ton and even pick off focus sash users with its priority oh yeah and it could of course always explode itself - well this meta girl still had its issues heatran and status most frequently it could choose akka or Lum berry to circumvent those being a reliable hazard center with a whole lot of power behind it meta girls was still an absolute terror but it was joined by other terrorist Pokemon like infra Nate were up there empowered but the bigger threats came on the defensive side bulky ground types like hip out on and gliscor made their appearance easily getting around meta grosses new toy and thunder punch which at least let it deal with water types more easily they had counters sure like grass not a nice punch but those moves were uncommon to see meta girls running Magnezone was a problem - provided he could get a magnet rise off before meta girls hit it with an earthquake smart Metagross players would most likely just explode at this point but that was only if it wasn't choice and also it sucks to use your explosion on Magnezone but by far the biggest hole in meta grosses rampage was Rotom it was immune to earthquake and explosion resisted meteor mesh and could burn Metagross or stall it out Rotom heat could even go all in with overheat meta girls really had no answer to Rotom who was seen on a huge amount of teams well that's not entirely true it did have one answer lay in tricking an iron ball to Rotom who would then be shackled to the ground and able to hit by earthquake but that was quite a gimmicky set it was for this reason that meta girls wasn't quite as dominant as in Gen 3 but make no mistake it was still an incredibly solid overuse pick and then over in doubles a we haven't talked about Gen 4 VGC in a while and when we do talk about it it's fitting that it's with Metagross if you take a look at this image of the top VGC teams of all time you can see that meta girls was actually the most used pokemon in top 4 in the first two years of VGC being on five out of the eight top teams across those years including both winners are two important things to remember about these formats one there is no team preview and teams couldn't Auto level 250 this was very good for Metagross no team preview was whatever but it can be argued that taking something as reliable as Metagross would be even more beneficial because you couldn't reliably modify for your opponent's team thanks to Marcus Stoddard also known as 13 yoshi 37 we know the strats for 2008 Metagross which was actually quite unique Yoshimura Snorlax would use belly drum which was then copied with psycho by bronzong and Metagross who could then recess everything and tear through teams while we know that the 2009 winner Kazuki suji had a Metagross he didn't bring it to any finals matches but go watch Game two of that finals anyways for one of the craziest VGC moments ever Metagross was used on a rain team here and this is where no level limit comes into play rain is obviously good for Metta girls due to its lowering its fire sight weakness and three out of the four finalists used reigned in BGC for the simple reason that Tyranitar was effectively been since it evolves over level 50 yeah the runner of use have powered on and even carried sunny day on his shedinja but even without an auto rain ability rain was crazy good and Metagross was great in rain what we can guess is that Metta girls had explosion because that was the crux of what made Metagross such a monster paired with a focus ash user or ghost type matter girls could choose any time to basically take the enemy duel out of commission of course there was counter play like other focus users protect etc but the ability to clear the field or at least threaten it was terrifying Metagross saw a huge presence in Gen 4 VGC Sid used it to get third out of the San Francisco regionals sporting maybe the most standard set of bullet punch meter mass explosion and protect and fellow smokin ARCA Russ took second at the same tournament using stealth rocks of all things yeah stealth rocks immediately go figure ultimate unknown one London with a likely similar set to SIDS two of the most unique Metagross sets though came from a long time smokin users imperfect luck and Omega donut and there's quite a story to go along with this read through a mega donuts war story here long story short Omega donut and IPL drove 3,100 miles to play in the Tennessee regionals and during being stopped by the police and a flat tire only to meet each other in finals where they both had Metagross this finals was nuts and really could have gone either way if a mega donut hadn't gotten too smart for his own good really read the war story but on to the other sets megiddo impaired his Metagross with an infra NAIP as a lead in every one of these games what's more it was an infinite running faint the idea here was to predict the protect and feint that Pokemon allowing meta girls to dispatch the other teams completely while Infernape lived with this focus sash which allowed Infernape to either get one last huge hit off or finish the job on an opposing sash with mach punch if improvisation was needed meta girls could always trick his choice scarf onto a trick room user or just go for Ironhead or rocks life pretty whacky by appeals strategy was equally innovative IPL used in prison on UC to lock away the opponent's protect which when combined with his own Metagross as explosion and trick room made for a deadly combo this wasn't seen in the finals because of donuts anti trick room strat but it's still pretty inventive and hey it got him there and won him the tournament but what really makes this story insane is that the two faced off again in the finals of nationals and they both still have their meta grosses in fact while IPL ditched his unique strat oh make a Dona used the exact same team with the same faint strat and this time he won talk about a run back anyways Metagross was clearly incredible installed no use in BGC 2010 because well look at the pokemon in there but it was arguably maybe the best VGC pokemon and Oh 8 and oh nine a man that took a while but back to singles luckily for me meta girls didn't change all that much in the transition to Gen 5 except for one huge nerf explosion no longer have defense light meadow his new ability was almost completely useless and other than that Metagross got pretty much nothing maybe Game Freak realized that was already stupidly good of course the meta game switched around meta girls and that changed things significantly Gen 5 is commonly seen as the generation where everythings power went up and that took Metagross down a peg along with the loss of explosion most of his sets changed the little to better accommodate is tanking nature instead of its raw attacking powers pursuit became a common option as the laddies moved in to overuse make it Metagross one of the most common counters to the twins hammer arm became a viable option in order to deal with opposing Ferrothorn or he trans and other than that Metagross was the same it of course wasn't a dedicated lead anymore as those were a thing in the past but its stealth Roxette was still by far its best set for its mix of utility and power it had more room for moves because of no explosion but still suffered from 4moo slot syndrome where Metagross saw issues was in the addition of cow introduced stall it in particular was a threat all in itself as a targeted Metagross is weaker special defense and gave it the status it feared the most all the old counters were stowed there as you might assume with nothing you how could it deal with them slow bro now and overused with her generator was super strong against Metagross resisting its moves crippling it with thunder wave and hitting it hard with scald and Fire Blast Rotom became even more annoying because of hydro pump stab but the real bug from Metagross was weather while rain was good in doubles it didn't compared to the boost other Pokemon got an exacerbated Metagross as bad singles match ups against water types Sun of course made fire types even more problematic and sand while normally good because the Metagross is still typing opened up other pokemons to take it down like sand slash and I've been talking like Metagross became horrible but that's not the case there just weren't any more good things that happened to it it was still really good and definitely in overuse just not as great well the lack of explosion meant Metagross wasn't quite the terror it had been a Gen 4 it was still an incredible VGC pokemon in Gen 5 in 2011 Metagross wasn't allowed as it was au nova decks only but come 2012 Metagross became one of the most popular pokemon in doubles steel types were high in demand to deal with the ever prominent threat of hydreigon who's Draco meteors were raining down everywhere well throughout the season meta girls battle with scizor for the spot of the premier skill type it took overcome world in part because it's a better matchup against the dominant Cresselia who carried hayden power fire all the time Metagross for its part had a fairly standard set meteor mash and earthquake were a must as was bullet punch usually and protect always health with powerful spread damage and a useful typing Metagross was a great pick for almost every team meta girls one too many regionals to even name in 2012 so let's focus on its most important appearance world's Metagross had three appearances just in top 8 our world's 2012 and was one of the most common pokemon overall and of course it was one of the linchpins in the three-time winner ray Rizal's team each of these meta grosses were pretty different 8th place our jump a yamamoto's meta girls actually ran choice band whereas most had done a kaberi and also packed what he admitted was a gimmick surprise explosion even through the nerf yamamoto tried to hide his explosion until game 2 and even put hammer arm so as to not limit himself too much by hitting his partners with earth wait also passing a bullet punch present head but in order to have max damage on thunderous meanwhile third place sir Abel Martin Sanz had met a girls as his favorite Pokemon and even named it after his tag flash Abel's Metagross was also choice and looks more standard at first earthquake meteor mash and bullet punch his innovation came an ice punch which was similarly designed to take out thunderous he also used an extremely specific speed investment which allowed him through process of elimination to determine how fast opposing rotom's were finally raised Metagross looks even more standard at first but just like his MO there's a huge amount going on underneath the surface Rey ran a trick room team with Cresselia and he actually chose a speed IV that put his Metagross at just one point above Cresselia meaning in trick room Cresselia would go first swagger ii Metagross and triggering its alum berry making for a terrifying sweep and given that he won I'd say it worked pretty well come 2013 Metagross saw a tiny bit of a dip mainly due to the introduction of Landorus therian and the increased presence of eruption heat rant it was still incredibly strong and was actually on Gavin Michaels winning US Nationals team as well as placing an eighth of the Europeans top 16 teams across three tournaments at Worlds meta girls didn't show up in any top eight teams but it was still lurking just below on tenth places Yuki Matsumoto's team and it was still in the top twenty most used pokemon in the tournament and Gen six came with a whole bunch of nurse to steel types in the form of loss resistances especially important for meta girls as it could no longer rely on doing well against dark types a big enough change in fact for it to drop to under use but of course meta girls got an absolutely beasty mega evolution in addition to a boost in every stat except HP mega Metagross has an incredible ability in tough claws which boosts the power of contact moves by 30% this let it go through fairy types like a hot steel knife through some fairy butter mega Metagross his main job was to walk great with massive hits from meteor mash and hammer arm while use Zen headbutt thunderpunch ice punch bullet punch and pursuit as it wished there's that four move slap problem again and that's without earthquake since it's non-contact mega Metagross could also try to run rock polish for a sweeping set but it did mean giving up more coverage which could be a big problem given how bad steel was against non Fairy types and if you really didn't want to go mega assault fest Metagross existed to trap psycho types with us resistances and huge special defense by switching in and then hitting hard were pursuit mega Metagross has counters stayed about the same as its regular for with Slowbro and other bulky water types still being the biggest culprits along with steel types the biggest newcomers were dark types like choice car Tyranitar who could now hit metal girls very hard due to the steel typing changes bisharp amanda buzz were also big stoppers but mega Metagross was an amazing pokemon benefiting of two Metagross put on top of each other and in VGC mega Metagross had a strange history in 2014 it wasn't allowed in 2015 it found itself being one of the more reliable mega pokemon at the start of the season but as the season went on players started to realize that Landorus therian was the best pokemon in the format by far and it enjoyed a particularly good matchup against mega Metagross Metagross also struggled to keep up against other Megas like Salomon's Charizard and kangaskhan who took even more priority over it in some play style it played the same as in singles punch through everything in the end BGC 2015 ended up being one of the most static meta games ever with every team in top 8 running some variation of chalk which is Cresselia Heatran amoonguss slanderous and kangaskhan despite Metagross is okay matchups against Kengo with hammer arm there was just no way for him to compete interestingly enough in VGC 2016 the most used non legendary was bronze own who shares the typing with meta growth but it was bronze dongs better defenses and amazing support move pool that let it thrive in the meta game of titans and that's it so how good was Metagross actually it was incredible it's been top tier every generation since its debut even holding the status is one of the best VGC pokemon in three separate formats in doubles to spend on three world championship teams in singles it has consistently been a tanky monster and even when it was finally overcome by power creep mega Metagross made it do what it always had done but better this is one of those pokemon where if you've ever played you know what it's capable of be prepared or pay the cost and a hair it's a big monster in Gen 7 2 thanks for watching everyone and thank you so much to the patrons for voting for this Pokemon and for continued support of our videos and of course thank you to everyone else watching as well and as always if you liked the video you want to see more be sure to subscribe the fall swipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and of course as I always say comment on what pokemon you want to see next and follow my true on these social media platforms yada yada yada and that's all I got see you next time everyone

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 1,638,093

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Metagross, Mega Metagross, Steven Stone, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Sun, Pokemon Moon, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, VGC, Smogon, Competitive Pokemon, False Swipe Gaming

Id: tyVc2b0-9VE

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Sun May 06 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheMajesticMrL]

Man I remember only just barely beating Steven back in Ruby because his Metagross missed Meteor Mash and let me land a final Earthquake on it with Groudon.

Metagross has and always will be a beast.

[u/untrustableskeptic]

Before I watch this, I'm gonna go with, pretty damn good.

[u/Scrubswarm]

(insert joke about the meta here)

[u/dragon_stryker]

Love Metagross, it has one of the coolest shiny forms out there. So glad I was able to get a shiny Beldum from the event at the release of ORAS.

[u/HeatEdgeSwordR]

For those that are wondering what's Mega Metagross is doing in Gen 7, Mega Metagross benefited greatly from the speed order change for Mega Evolution and the terrain. A suspect test was held for Mega Metagross and the result was a ban. Meanwhile in Doubles, Mega Metagross becomes one of the best Pokemon in that format. However, it is considered much more manageable there.

Still, I feel like the VGC section for Mega Metagross is a bit... iffy.

[u/Bardock_RD]

Metagross, one pokemon I've always loved since its introduction. It was so obscure in Ruby & Sapphire. Only saw Steven's Metagross, I remember thinking wtf was that. Only later learning through the Internet we could get its first form from a house. I've had great times training and battling with this pokemon over the years.

[u/flawedheroism]

Legit love these videos.

[u/xChris777]

Love Metagross, hate the official pronounciation. :P

[u/Metagross10048]

Pretty good if I say so myself.