So I played a tiny bit (mostly with
Arcticblast ), and here is my quick impressions and speculation!
- Stealth Rock is gonna be even bigger than usual in this tournament. With no Item Clause, Focus Sash spam is a very real, scary threat! I wonder if this makes auto weather set ups involving Alolan Ninetales or Tyranitar more appealing as well. Because of this, I'd advice against getting too crazy with Focus Sash spam, since I think it's good to be able to prepare for Stealth Rock. I sorta wish I could use Mega Diancie to screw with that... I guess I could try Espeon lol.
- Deoxys-A is pretty scary if its sash is up, it damn near 2HKOs the entire metagame! It can clean up stuff well too, though Mimikyu and Marshadow are gonna be issues in those regards. Maybe pair it with Tapu Lele, though that might lead to some annoying overlap.
- I tried Marshadow, and holy shit this thing rocks! It's an excellent user of Focus Sash, since it can mess up sweepers with Spectral Thief, and Shadow Sneak makes it great at picking off weakened Mimikyu and smashing Deoxys-A that lack Focus Sash. I've been a bit of a rebel and actually using two Marshadow as well, with one using Choice Scarf. Choice Scarf seems a bit weird when it has Shadow Sneak, but it's nice for revenging stuff when Stealth Rock is up, and outspeeding and OHKOing Scarf Tapu Lele is awesome!
-I saw a few Genesect. Not sure what to think of it. Download is great, but I haven't seen it do much yet. They all seem to be Scarfers, any thoughts on this thing thus far?
-Tapu Fini seems especially good to deal with Blaziken, and it does good against Marshadow too. Hell, I don't even think Deoxys-A OHKOs it!
-Me and Articblast noticed a lot more Trick Room shenanigans than usual, mostly coming from Mimikyu and Magearna. I imagine with high speed threats like Deoxys-A and Marshadow, Trick Room is more powerful than usual. I bet Porygon2 is good at doing it too!
-I haven't really had much experience with Zygarde yet, but
Arcticblast swears by it. I imagine its bulk makes it pretty good at stopping certain mons, though the large amount of Mimikyus and Marshadow (it can steal boosts if sash is up and then smash with Ice Punch) can be worrying.
-I'm interested in trying out Shaymin-S (I think gen 7 fixed the bug with the battle box thankfully), which I haven't seen yet. Skymin outspeeds Marshadow which is really nice, and it cacn screw up Tapu Fini's day too. It does rely on moves that don't always hit though, which is a bit scary.
Something I want to raise up:
the lack of species clause is dampened a bit by choosing 3 Pokemon, but I think running two of the same Pokemon could be a deadly strategy. I've tried two Marshadows so far, but I think there are better choices in mind for this.
Blaziken sticks out to me, since the mixed or Z-Solarbeam set could clean way for Mega and physical attacking variants to sweep. I can see double
Mimikyu being very annoying as well, though since it can be rather weak, I imagine bulkier teams can screw that strat up pretty badly.