WCOP Discussion:
Pokemon with consistent usage:
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great defensive pokemon with the capability to pivot around for its teammates and sending out stealth rocks to further dismantle opposing pokemon and knock off / toxic are useful tools to wearing down the opposition, one of the pokemon which can help against the ever common zeraora and it also helps with soft-checking heatran, pressuring tapu koko and also checks garchomp, tyranitar, and excadrill very well. therefore a very solid pick overall and with partners like corviknight to relief pressure on landorus-t to check rillaboom and kartana it is a solid pokemon all around.
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great stallbreaker with disabling function due to taunt to hold back slowking (and the less common slowbro) to pivot around with a slow teleport, can also disable slack offs, which is pretty important too, as slowking isnt able to outheal damage which regenerator cant do alone by itself. toxic'ing slowking is also very valuable to force progress in the long haul.
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really consistant answer to rillaboom, dragonite, excadrill, kartana, and opposing landorus-t and also checking threats such as tyranitar and garchomp goes a good way, as especially garchomp and rillaboom alongside kartana is still and in the future will be a core people will use in tour- and ladder-games alike.
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specially defensive sets are capable of checking the many dangerous dragon-types in dragapult, kyurem, and hydreigon. it can also go a long way with soft-boiled and consistent stealth rock settings and with thunder / thunderbolt it can even eitehr super effective or at least neutrally hit steel-types such as corviknight, skarmory, and heatran, which is valuable to force damage on them especially on heatran, as this pokemon is very consistent and furthermore great in its longevity with leftovers alone.
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our rising star on both, ladder- and tournament-games, urshifu-r makes itself a standout pokemon, due to its ability to hard hit with water- and fighting-stab moves and with the ability to constantly revengekill boosted volcarona with a great move in aqua jet. urshifu also is great at pivoting around and is one of the best offensive pivots in the current metagame with threatening weavile, heatran, landorus-t, and even wearing down pokemon such as slowking with u-turn.
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choice specs with flamethrower sees more and more usage after it was being used alot in the SPL SEASON already. choice specs and the status + hex sets are really great and they force constant damage on opposing pokemon and can even wear down checks like weavile, bisharp, and forcing weakened mandibuzz to roost. dragapult is one of the most consistent pokemon and one of the top-offensive threat currently and it shows in WCOP too.
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futureport with slack off + regenerator makes it a top difficult defensive pivot to deal with for special wallbreakers. people realized it quickly over the recent weeks how annoying it can be and the great WCOP usage shows how valuable of a team-support this pokemon is with forcing progress due to the access off futureport and additionally being able to dish out the one or the other scald burn.
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this tapu shines a lot right now with constant usage during the tour with its heavy-duty boots pivot set, making it a great answer to common threats such as corviknight, slowking, and toxapex due to its access to roost and u-turn.
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great electric-type immunity which can make use of either the great physical pivot set or a bulk up set with threatening coverage in knock off, close combat, and a great stab in plasma fist, with which it is able to hit numerous pokemon at least neutral and with an abnormally great speed tier, it found itself on a lot of different teams, even tho its win-ratio doesnt speak for itself, but it will always find its way back and is a pokemon which people will still account for in their teambuilds.
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grass-type spam core, the usual, with still a great success.
Pokemon Highlights in Week 1 (Qualifiers):
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| 26 | Zapdos | 5 | 7.58% | 80.00% |
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| 31 | Rotom-Wash | 4 | 6.06% | 75.00% |
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| 31 | Slowking-Galar | 4 | 6.06% | 75.00% |
Pokemon Highlights in Week 2 (Qualifiers):
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| 5 | Heatran | 10 | 27.78% | 70.00% |
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| 20 | Kartana | 4 | 11.11% | 75.00% |
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| 14 | Magnezone | 5 | 13.89% | 80.00%
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| 14 | Tornadus-Therian | 5 | 13.89% | 80.00% |
Common Cores:
- Landorus-Therian and Slowking
- Landorus-Therian and Tapu Koko
- Corviknight and Rillaboom
- Dragapult, Garchomp and / or Weavile
- Heatran and Landorus-Therian
- Clefable and Landorus-Therian
- Dragonite and Heatran
- Weavile and Heatran
- Tapu Koko and Heatran
- Clefable and Slowking
- Slowking and Dragapult
- Dragapult and Bisharp
- Corviknight and Clefable
- Zeraora and Urshifu-R
- Rillaboom and Magnezone
with that being said, im excited for the next couple of weeks in the WCOP season, and i am pretty sure we see more of these cores in the future, as they're all strong and pretty reliant with landorus-therian and corviknight checking overlapping pokemon, slowking giving dragapult great momentum and weakening its checks with futuresight-support. tapu koko especially is a pokemon i want to point out, as it is a great offensive pivot and answer to a lot of common pokemon currently being used in wcop and sees consistent usage. the old reliable rillaboom and magnezone core is still being used because with the heavy usage of corviknight rillaboom adores magnezone as a partner to trap and remove it. landorus-therian and slowking are especially a great core, since they check each others enemies, with landorus-t checking zeraora and tapu koko and slowking checking nidoking and tapu lele. both are able to pivot and therefore standing their ground as a great core in the WCOP season so far, and i am more than certain that we will see this core in many future games again.
these are my thoughts at the moment of WCOP mostly from the qualifier rounds. thank you for reading and have a great day!