I love this so much! I had no idea about Sandless Ground! I'm going to have to try that out soon! After all, Sand doesn't exactly do much for Ground besides Excadrill's Sand Rush ability.With the announcement of the next Pokemon games, and a release date planned for later this year, I believe it is only fitting to take a look at how the metagame of monotype has shifted for some types over the years.
I'll be doing a new weekly series here called: "The history of..." Where I look at one type in the metagame and how it has faired since the beginning of the generation up to now. I will be using stats from these tours: mpl3&4 and mwp1&2. Due to the lack of stats for MLT and SSNLS I decided to make it easier for everyone and just include the major team tournaments as they usually feature the biggest metagame trends. I will also be looking at general feedback the type has gotten from the casual community in our chatroom on Pokemon Showdown over time.
So without further ado, the first type I will be covering will be: Ground
General Overview:
Ground was not considered to be the best with the release of SM, as new threats like Tapu Bulu and Azumarill gaining Z-Belly Drum did not help its case at all. However, as time went on, new strategies were used and metagame shifts started to make Ground look better as a type. A brief generalization isn't going to be enough to give you an idea of how ground was perceived, so lets get into the details shall we?
Tournament performance:
MPL3 - As a brief reminder, during this tournament mega-medicham was banned (mid-way) while Magearna and Shadow Tag were still allowed. Also this is SM and not USM which means Kommo-o didn't have a Z-move and Blacephelon didn't exist, among other things.
Ground produced inconsistent results in MPL3 due to sets like Scarf Tapu Bulu being common and dugtrio not performing as well as it was intended to. Some players were able to make the type look unbreakable while others easily lost with the type. It can be inferred from both its 45% winrate overall and the quality of the matches that ground was relatively underdeveloped at the time, and did not perform well as a result.
The banning of Medicham-mega did benefit ground slightly as it made it easier for its defensive Pokemon to get in more often. However it also slightly hurt its viability due to players like Eien (who used Ground twice during this tournament) using the type to beat the hyper offensive Psychic metagame at the time. That being said, its safe to say that ground had a relatively humble start at the beginning of the generation when it came to tournament play.
MWP - During this tour, USUM was just released and both Shadow Tag and Magearna were banned. However Nagandel was still allowed during the first 3 weeks, which definitely affected Ground's viability in the metagame.
Now that psychic was not as prominent and with steel no longer being as strong as it was, Ground theoretically should have suffered immensely during the tournament. However, due to the prominence of Naganadel during the first 3 weeks, Ground was looked at as an option to deal with Poison and Dragon teams that would try to use it, since Excadrill in sand threatened most variants even after a speed boost as well as Excarill in Sand just being very strong. Naganadel also made Fairy less prominent during the three weeks it was allowed, which meant that Tapu Bulu was not as prominent, theoretically allowing Ground to see some usage. However, from the replays found, this was not the case. Ground still ended up meeting Fairy teams and didn't perform well against other types either. It barely won any games during the three week period naganadel was allowed, but naganadel was also not used as often as anticipated which may have played a role in Ground's performance. The rest of the tournament saw Ground suffer the same fate it did in MPL3 only this time it had no niche and suffered immensely. There are no solid usage stats of each type for MWP, but after watching every SM replay I could find for all 7 weeks, it can be inferred that ground was not used due to the rise of water usage and popularity of fairy teams. Ground only won twice out of the five times it was used that tournament (this could be wrong, please correct me if I have made an error), both times was because it had a positive matchup against Steel or Poison.
The naganadel ban only affected ground theoretically as this tour shows that Ground was not dominant or prominant at top level play when naganadel was around. After Naga got banned, Ground still did not see much usage at all for the reasons previously explained. So after MWP, Ground was relatively uncommon as a type, but still not inherently bad.
MPL4 - This tour follows our normal banlist that we have today. Also Zeraora got released midway.
After a really shoddy performance in MWP, there was a huge period of time where the metagame changed and many new sets and strategies were created. These include sets like Taunt + CM Keldeo and using sets that generally broke apart balance teams more. So Toxic Spikes, stallbreaking, and niche wallbreakers started getting more usage around this time. Due to this sudden metagame shift, more offensive teams were getting usage. Theoretically ground could capitalize off of this, but due to water still being prominent and other offensive types like Dragon getting more popular, it was not used that much. However one honorable mention is the fact that Sandless ground was used in this tournament and won a match. Player Attribute beat MJ in Week 4 of MPL4 by using a niche Ground build that tackled the bulky meta and offensive meta with pokemon in Quagsire and Gliscor. With no sand needed, Attribute had more options for Pokemon he could use, allowing him to patch up his weaknesses. It performed exactly as planned by beating normal, notable for being a very bulky type that can be hard to break.
Despite a rough start, Ground did end up doing significantly better than it did previously in MWP. While sandless did not become meta-defining it was still something that kept top players on their toes. Ground was finally worth thinking about as well with the rise of electric after Zeraora got released. This was the biggest break that ground had gotten in Gen7 history, and many people thought it was definitely a threat.
MWP2 - This tournament has recently concluded and also uses the current banlist.
Now that Tapu Bulu had began to run slower sets that didn't use a Choice Scarf, Ground did not have to worry nearly as much about getting swept by Fairy, although Azumarill still needed to be accounted for. After being used 11 times in the tournament, it felt almost as if history repeated itself as the type performed rather poorly despite its high expectations. This time around, it got counter teamed by unfavorable MU's that not even the best of players could work around. On the bright side, sandless Ground was the main way Ground was represented in this tournament, and while it did not perform as well as many wished, it still showed how far Ground had come in the metagame.
Conclusion - Over the years Ground was considered a niche type that wasn't often thought about, but now it has slowly risen in usage and has adapted to metagame trends. While it may not still be as consistent or good as Fairy and Psychic, it has definitely shown that it can put in work at even top level play.
The Progression of Teambuilding:
SM - Ground followed in the footsteps of its ORAS days and generally stayed as a weather based team. Hippowdon and Excadrill were essential and using Ground any other way was often seen as taboo. Landorus did not always run Gravity but eventually started to use it by the time USM came around. Dugtrio was also very important as people realized that it could check the ever so dominant Scarf Tapu Bulu with its access to Sludge Wave and ability in Arena Trap. While on paper this sounded great, but as time went on it would soon fall of as metagame trends progressed. Gastrodon was not seen as viable at all in the beginning of the generation, but thanks to later discoveries it soon found itself a spot as an important Pokemon for Ground teams. All in all, Ground was very basic and not as spread out in teambuilding as it would be in USUM. That being said it still had a solid archetype and a few options that were used here and there, such as Mamoswine, landorus-i or t, and Garchomp, although they varied in usability. This is what the viability rankings looked like by the end of SM: http://prntscr.com/msr8fd
USM - Ground would still follow the same trend it did in early SM until the metagame shift that happened after MWP1. The new wallbreaking metagame meant that Ground needed to catch up and use something new that would allow them to work well in this metagame. The answer would be found in MPL4, when Attribute and Charmflash used sandless Ground Stall teams that beat their respective opponents. While Ground stall didn't catch on, Sandless ground did, and many people started experimenting with new sets and teams with the many possibilities ground had to offer. Pokemon like Nidoking, Krookodile, Mega-Steelix, Gliscor, and Diggersby suddenly saw more usage on ground teams and different sets for Excadrill and Landorus were used to help them adapt as well. Dugtrio also heavily fell in usage, but is still represented as one of the best Pokemon the type has to offer. This major shift in the Ground metagame made people initially think it could be one of the best types in the game, up there with psychic and fairy. While it is still debated how good the type is (not as much anymore due to the conclusion of MWP2), Ground definitely saw one of the biggest teambuilding changes in the Gen 7 metagame.
Community Opinion:
I have contacted top players and regular casual players over the course of the week and asked them what their thoughts on ground in general have been as well as asking a few players a few specific questions about the type. Here is what I got:
Attribute:
Q: "What was your reasoning for using Stall Ground during MPL4?"
A: "After seeing the Charmflash vs Jase Duken game where Charmflash brought stall ground, I was inspired to build my own since the concept of stall ground seemed cool to me. I also noticed that my opponent, MJ, had a lot of replays using normal, so I thought this would be the opportunity to bring it."
Q: "What is your current opinion on Ground right now?"
A: "Average"
Q: "Any reasoning for that opinion?"
A: "Ground is generally weak to too many common types in the metagame"
Havens:
Q: "What is your current opinion on Ground right now?"
A: "I think it's underrated"
Q: "Any reasoning for that opinion?"
A: "The rise of mega steelix is actually very good for ground, it's not an autoloss for fairy anymore. Sandless Ground basically replaces Sand Ground as the best archetype and is pretty much better because of that."
Decem:
Q: "What is your current opinion on Ground right now?"
A: "I think it's underrated"
Q: "Any reasoning for that opinion?"
A: "I feel like Ground has even mus but that's just me."
General Opinion from others:
After talking to other members of the chat room as well as other staff members, it is evident that a large portion of the community thinks Ground is an underrated type, and most agree that its most troubling flaw is how it loses many common MU's to standard types like Water and Psychic.
My own thoughts on the matter:
After doing this research and looking at how metagame trends heavily affected Ground, I actually grew surprised at how Ground managed to appear a lot more at tournaments than other lesser used types (Fire, Fighting, Ice, etc.), especially during the early days of the generation. Despite not having the best tournament results to back up its defining qualities, I still think its definitely a type that should be thought about when teambuilding. I believe that Ground is a pretty alright type.
Now with that out of the way, what are your thoughts on the type? Do you think it is underrated or do you think its nothing special? What do you think it may need in Gen 8? I would love to read everyone's thoughts!
A big thank you to everyone who helped make this post, especially: Eien, Attribute, Havens, Chaitanya, and Decem.
There will be another type retrospective next week! Let me know if you want me to cover anything else that you feel is important in a retrospective like this.
You should do one on Ice! I think that'll be pretty cool! (Apologies for the low-hanging fruit)