Meta Implications of the September/October Community Day Vote

This coming weekend, we get to vote for which Community Day event we want in September and October. The choices are:

Charmander: Evolve to get Dragon Breath Charizard.

Porygon: Evolve to get Tri-Attack Porygon-Z

Grimer: Evolve to get Fire Punch on Muk and Alolan Muk

Caterpie: Evolve to get Hurricane Butterfree

So, for each of these, how good are they? How impactful?

Just a note: Voting will take place on Twitter, at https://twitter.com/pokemongoapp!

So: Dragon Breath Charizard!

Quickly covering the PvE side: As a normal Charizard, it’s not worth much, due to a lack of STAB. However, it’s fairly competitive if you consider Mega Charizard X, out-DPSing Latios, though losing out to other common picks Dragonite, Garchomp, and Dialga/Reshiram (and of course, the actual top tier stuff like Salamence and Rayquaza). It’s fine, but this shouldn’t be your reason to vote for Charmander.

The real reason is PvP. Charizard’s got the potential to be an absolute monster, running Dragon Breath + Dragon Claw and Blast Burn. In Great League, Dragon Breath doesn’t really provide many meta wins that you didn’t have before. You pick up a really strong win against Altaria in the 1-1 and 2-2 matchups, though you still lose the 0. You get more chip on Water-types (though there aren’t any new relevant wins there), and you suddenly lose against Abomasnow outside of the 0, but this might be more of a Silph Cup thing?

While it’s not the most exciting thing in the world in Great League (why not just use Altaria if you wanna fire off Dragon Breaths?), it really peaks in utility in Ultra League.

Without baiting, DB/DC Charizard can beat Shadow Claw Giratina-Altered in all even shields, and can even beat Dragon Breath Gira-A in the 1-2! Without baiting, you beat Togekiss in the 1-1, and in the 2s with only a single Dragon Claw bait! Vs Registeel, you still win all except for the 0-2 shield scenario straight Blast Burn (and with baiting, you still win that too!) That’s absolutely insane! Not even considering that you now deal more damage in previously disadvantaged matchups like Swampert (you still lose hard, but you get more chip on the way).

There are, of course, a number of things you lose out on. Vs Venusaur, you go from dealing about 4 damage per turn to 3. Vs Abomasnow, you actually go from easily winning everything to now losing the 1s and 2s matchups. You also lose the ability to win the Articuno 1shield without a bait. That said, it seems overall pretty worth it?

In Master League, Charizard’s 2800-ish CP doesn’t quite cut it. However, Mega Charizard could be a very interesting option. Sharing that Dragon/Fire typing with Reshiram, but having a pretty safely better moveset with the super spammy Dragon Claw and the hard-hitting Blast Burn could make it really strong! Of course, we have no real idea how Megas are going to work either, so voting based on Master League Mega performance is a bit of a gamble.

One notable thing about DB Zard in general is that it's a Dragon Breath user not weak to Dragon. Think Gyarados in Ultra and Premier. It's a powerful niche!

There is a caveat to this. As far as we know, they won’t also evolve with Blast Burn, meaning each Dragon Breath/Blast Burn Charizard you make will require at least one Elite TM, and those aren’t exactly plentiful! While you might be able to get the double legacy in December for a community weekend event, there’s no confirmation for this, so it’s not reliable. Keep that in mind when you’re voting!

Fire Punch Muk and Fire Punch Alolan Muk

This is irrelevant for PvE. Muk's middling attack stat and the lack of STAB on Fire Punch just makes it noncompetitive.

For PvP, though, it’s potentially kinda neat! Kantonian Muk is an interesting mon, but it would most likely just be limited to Silph cups. Its current movepool is kinda...good enough? Running Poison Jab + Thunder Punch and Dark Pulse/Acid Spray/Sludge Wave gives it reasonable coverage against the current Great League meta. Thunder Punch hits common threats like Azumarill and Skarmory, and Sludge Wave beats out...well, Azumarill again, but also Grasses. That said, the mon doesn’t really see much play. And honestly, Fire Punch doesn’t get it that much? A little additional play against Grasses could be nice, and you can at least hit Galarian Stunfisk for damage now, but Electric damage is generally just more valuable than Fire in open Great League. Sorta similar for Ultra, Fire just isn’t that great. Notably, PJ/Fire Punch Muk loses to Registeel in all but the 2-1 and 2-0 shield scenarios. That kinda sucks.

Alolan Muk has a bit of a different issue: the mon is incredibly coherent already. Running Snarl + Dark Pulse and Sludge Wave/Gunk Shot makes A-Muk a pretty impressive safe switch in the Great League, only really losing to mudbois, and having a lot of play against pretty much anything else. Fire Punch doesn’t really get it much, leaving this as another Cup mon.

Ultra League it’s even harder. A-Muk does most of its job with just Snarl + Dark Pulse (making it a very effective answer to Giratina and Cresselia). Then, Sludge Wave and Gunk Shot are necessary to hit the common Charmers like Togekiss and Clefable, as well as stuff like Machamp, Poliwrath, and Obstagoon that resist Dark Pulse. And so the question is, which move are you giving up? And for what?In The Registeel matchup, with Fire Punch A-Muk goes from only winning the 0shield to also winning the 2shield. It still loses the 1, though. So do you give up Togekiss? Giratina? Fire Punch picks up…well, not much. You still lose to Escavalier in the 1shield and the 2shield (and you won the 0s anyway with Dark Pulse). Honestly? It just doesn’t seem worth it.

Tri-Attack Porygon-Z is a very difficult one to judge, because we just don’t have its stats. As such, this section will involve a lot more theoreticals, and a lot less concrete information.

What do we know: Well, Tri-Attack is a Normal-type attack, and in PvP, it will have a chance to reduce its targets Attack and Defense. That said, we don’t know how much energy it’ll cost, or its power, or what the chances of the stat drop are. In the main series, it has a 20% chance of the effect taking place, so it’s very likely that chance would be brought over 1:1.

In PvE, it would take a lot for Porygon-Z to become relevant. This is simply due to the fact that Normal-type damage can’t be Super Effective, so it would be outclassed as a raid counter in pretty much every scenario. So if we were to go to the extreme, if we make Tri Attack a Normal-type Hydro Cannon clone, Porygon-Z suddenly becomes one of the highest non-shadow neutral DPS options, beating out Rayquaza and Rampardos! As a Shadow, its neutral DPS is second only to Shadow Mewtwo!

….But, realistically, that’s not what’s going to happen, and it’s just going to be a middling option with somewhat of a niche in PvP. So, then, what’s its niche in PvP?

As stated previously, this is a hard one to judge, since we have no clue what the stats are. The absolute low end for Tri-Attack to be usable would be 130 Power/70 Energy, since Porygon-Z currently runs Return. While “Return with a debuff chance” isn’t great, it’s at the very least an improvement. So, for existing moves, let’s look at Body Slam, as the existing strongest Normal-type move. Body Slam is a 60 Power move that only costs 35 energy. Let’s start with this: it would be unbelievably spammy. With Lock-On’s blisteringly fast energy generation (5 energy per turn), you’re suddenly firing off a charged move once every 3.5 seconds! That’s a lot of charged moves.

And yet….it’s still kinda bad? Porygon-Z is incredibly glassy, with less bulk than even Blaziken, but no fast move pressure to speak of. With only Lock-On + Body Slam, you only have 4 meta wins in the 1-1 shield scenario in Great League: Venusaur, Munchlax, Whiscash, and Cresselia.It’s….gosh, it’s something, but it’s not good. If nothing else, though, at least such a cheap move would allow it to bait its super expensive secondary moves, such as Blizzard, Zap Cannon, or Solar Beam?

So, let’s take a look at Ultra League, I guess? Once again, straight Body Slam, you can beat Typhlosion, Snorlax, Charizard, Dragonite, and Abomasnow in the 1shield. That’s certainly more relevant than the Great League wins. If you throw in Blizzard, with baiting, now you also beat Drifblim, Gira-O (cleanly), SC Gira-A (barely), as well as common Grasses like Venusaur and Meganium. Sadly, though, its low bulk really does hold it back. No matter what, it’s going to cost you shields to keep it alive. If it does land a debuff quickly (thus artificially inflating its bulk by debuffing the opponent’s Attack), it does perform meaningfully better, but that’s not something you can ever really rely on.

In a sense, Body Slam is the potential upper end for Porygon-Z’s power. In pretty much all cases for PoGo PvP, if you’re not bulky, then you have to be fast enough that you can accomplish what you need to before fainting (like Shiftry), or have significant fast move pressure (such as Shadow Victreebel or Shadow Gardevoir). Or both (Haunter). Because Porygon-Z is glassy, and has no fast move pressure (Lock-On’s good but it deals no damage), it would need to be super spammy to have any chance at relevance. Since it's not performing well even with Body Slam, it would take a lot for it to perform with something else.

The caveat for this one, of course, is that Porygon’s the only new shiny available for voting, and it’s a super pretty one! So while Porygon may not be a great vote for PvE reasons, or for PvP reasons, it’s certainly not bad for shiny hunters!

If Caterpie wins, then you’ll be able to get Hurricane Butterfree!

Let’s keep this one quick both for the sake of my time, and Butterfree’s ego:

Butterfree sucks, dude. Confusion is too slow to handle Hurricane’s 65 energy cost, and Butterfree’s typing and bulk don’t really cut it. You never really saw Butterfree in PvP before, and you wouldn’t after this. Butterfree has no potential Ultra League utility either, since it caps out at 1827 CP.

For PvE, it has even less utility. The lack of a Flying-type fast move means it lacks a double STAB set if you need a Flying-attacker. That’s not even mentioning its pitiful 167 base attack, about halfway between Blissey and Aggron.

If you like Caterpie: great! If you like shiny Caterpie: great! (you could already catch it though). If you want Cowboy Hat Caterpie: probably not happening here, but here’s what it could look like!

Very cute. 10/10 good friend. Don’t vote for it for its utility.

In the end, there’s no one right thing to vote for. This is a game, and while Community Day isn’t quite so much about the community these days, it’s still an event. That means the “correct” way to vote is to go for the Pokémon you’d have the most fun catching! That’s why I’m voting for Porygon, and you should too.