So, I don't know how many people followed the Charlotte regionals, but to anyone who did, we've seen plenty of Incineroar action (official stats have it at 48% usage for the tournament, a couple of percents behind Lando-T, and it was on 4/8 top cut teams, which is also consistent). This is perfectly in sync with the current PGL stats:
I assume anyone here who actually plays a lot of the format already knows Intimidate Incineroar is a very big arrival in the format. The meta as a whole has started to adapt:
- Salamence has been on the rise, both in tournaments and on the PGL.
- Mega Blastoise
won 2 (!) different MSS last week, one in Scotland, one in Canada.
- Charizard usage has slightly fallen.
- Metagross usage has slightly fallen.
There's a reason
Blaze Incineroar had been on a consistent rise since the start of the format:
- It checks Mega Metagross, Charizard Y, Tapu Lele, Tapu Bulu, Amoonguss, Kartana, Aegislash, Celesteela, Mega Gengar, Gothitelle and Cresselia by virtue of its typing and bulk alone.
- It has access to Low Kick to deal with Tyranitar, Heatran and put a ton of pressure on Snorlax (Knock Off also puts pressure on Snorlax).
- It takes on Tapu Koko and Manectric decently well (it usually deals more damage to them than they deal back).
-
It offers Fake Out pressure.
- It has more than 1 viable set; AV might be the most common, but a lot of people run 50% berries or Incinium Z, both of which are perfectly viable (berry might actually be better) and need to be played around a bit differently since they carry Protect and sometimes Taunt.
Having a good matchup against such a large portion of the meta, especially so many of the top ones, is pretty impressive. Of course it has its flaws as well: its low speed, bad matchup against Lando-T and Fini, and more generally the weakness to Ground (Stomping Tantrum/High Horsepower is common coverage on some of the Pokémon it otherwise checks). But my point is that it has a lot more going for it than against it at the moment.
Now, to all this,
add Intimidate, arguably
the best ability in VGC. On a Pokémon that already checked a large percentage of top-tier meta. I really don't see how anyone can pretend this won't have a big impact, and that Incineroar will not be somewhere around the top in usage for the rest of the season, unless you haven't been playing much VGC recently. Of course the meta will adapt and shift to check it better, but what the last 2 weeks have shown so far, is that reliable answers are actually not that easy to find, and that it'll remain there as something that's really annoying to deal with and play around for many teams. Most importantly, it now shares something important with Landorus-T, Metagross, Charizard, Snorlax & co.: anyone building a VGC 18 team right now needs to ask themselves "how will I deal with Incineroar? / what are my Incineroar answers?", which is one of the best indicators of its prominence.
By these Viability Rankings' standards, Incineroar is most definitely an A+ Pokémon; not A, and certainly not A-. Whether it gets ranked as such or not, its usage in tournaments, on Battle Spot and on Showdown display it clearly; I don't only mean usage percentage, but I especially mean how useful it actually is in battle and how well it's been performing.
Also, Lurantis should probably be added somewhere, maybe tentatively in C to see how it performs in the long run. If you're wondering why, watch this:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/239974973 (shoutout to
Jibaku, that was a great set to watch!). There's also the fact Brian Youm went 8-0 with it on Day 1.
