>>18172750To clarify, the banned megas are M-Gengar, M-Kangaskhan and M-Lucario.
- M-Gengar was Gengar with Shadow Tag. This should speak for itself.
- M-Kangaskhan was absolutely disgusting in every way. It was like having Kyogre in OU.
- M-Lucario was less unreasonable but still too powerful. Extremely unpredictable and uncounterable, 6-0's shit with no effort.
More mega bans seem unlikely. If they happen, it's probably only Pinsir and one of the Zards and basta.
Fairy-type made a whole bunch of mons viable. Azumarill and Mawile are incredibly threatening. Clefable and Togekiss are solid and quite versatile. Even Gardevoir is quite viable with
his mega. I wouldn't use them as your only dragon-checks though.
Weather got nerfed, which is a godsend for us. Drizzle and all the other weather abilities work like Rain Dance and suchlike, only five turns without a damp rock. (eight turns with)
The meta as a whole is quite bulkier than last gen. HO is still very strong, especially with Genesect gone, but it's not the be-all-end-all playstyle. You even see stall teams up in 1800 (which is very high nowadays with the rating system change)
Stealth Rocks are somewhat easier to remove. Defog clears all hazards from all sides. Excadrill is back in OU thanks to weather nerf, and he's basically the best spinner in the tier.
Though if you get high up on the ladder, you should be overly prepared for deosharp teams. Deosharp is a core of Deoxys-S or -D + Bisharp to screw you over for defogging and probably Airballon Smogonsword to cockblock Excadrill. Someone from here jumped up to top 15 with one such team, that he just slapped together without thought. To be honest, things are pretty unstable at this point, though it's not as bad as the M-Khan and M-Luke days. The meta just needs more work.
