Pre-Season Power Rankings: Shitmon Edition
We finished drafting, the season starts this week, and it’s finally time for the first power rankings of the season! However this brings up the question; how can there be any power rankings if there hasn’t been any games. That is a good question, and to be honest, these rankings are a bit of a crapshoot based on my personal opinions based and how I think your draft went. Last time I did a pre-season ranking, the season turned out very differently, so take these with a grain of salt. So anyway, without further ado, here are my Pre-Season Power Rankings.
1 — Quahog Cacneas
Pokemon to look out for — Cofagrigus
Most underrated — Kingler
Is this the season that Luca finally dominates? Or will he have to pivot to a rain team mid-season? Given his roster, I believe it will be the former, as his team is full of top picks and value at the bottom. Cofagrigus, Togedemaru and Forretress make up a powerful physically defensive core, and Swellow provides overwhelming offence. Frosmoth and Poliwrath also provide much needed sweep potential, making Luca’s team very well rounded. He should be a force to be reckoned with, and I’m confident he can live up to the hype.
2 — Rio’s Roselias
Pokémon to look out for — Audino
Most underrated — WishiWashi
As usual Kevin has a very unconventional, yet surprisingly complete draft. With strong pivoting options in Audino and Jolteon, Kevin seeks to control the tempo of the game, throughout the whole game. Due to this, Kevin has many easy ways of getting Sirfetch’d or Galarian Rapidash into position to deal massive damage. Runegrigus is a pretty stable backbone to a very scary looking team, and this looks to be prime time for Kevin to return to glory.
3 — Hoppin’ Bunearys
Pokémon to look out for — Scyther
Most underrated — Crabominable
The reigning co-champion returns with hyper-offense, never letting his foot off the pedal. Scyther, and Virizion represent some fast physically attacking threats, and with some solid options in Rotom, Stuntank, and Sandslash for hazard removal. Golem-A can be a proper suicide lead, and one must be prepared for it to go boom every game. However his Pokémon are lacking some staying power, so if he ever loses momentum, the game can potentially spiral out of control. One thing is sure, is that he will be a force to be reckoned with this season once again.
4 — Azu Hoopers
Pokémon to look out for — Revavroom
Most underrated — Ditto
No surprise that the next on our list is the other co-champion, Mr. Romita himself. Another high flying offensive team, Saltlord has opted to focus instead on set up to win his games, with multiple chlorophyll users in Victreebel and Bellossom. Additionally he has Revavroom, a Pokémon known for stealing games if given the opportunity to set up with shift gear. Much like Lucas however, his team lacks staying power, and a single bad turn might lead to his demise.
5 — Constantinople Crawdaunts
Pokémon to look out for — Flygon
Most underrated — Lapras
Last season’s runner up, I come into this draft with yet another offense team, though I will say I have a tad more balance tools at my disposal. My mons can be quite tanky, with Coalossal and Doublade forming the defensive backbone of my team, but I also have some fast hard hitters in Sneasel-h and Flygon. The latter has an expansive move pool, and even I don’t know what set I plan to bring. I am one of two players to spend my tier 2 pick on a sticky web user, so webs might factor into my strategy a bit more than most. However I do seem to have collected my fair share of 4x weaknesses, and I’m sure people are going to bring coverage options on weird mons. Going to be a fun season (no ice shard pls).
6 — Shedwinja
Pokemon to look out for — Kingdra
Most underrated — Relicanth
Similar to Saltlord’s team, Ryan has opted to go for a myriad of weather sweepers. With Illumise to provide weather support, Ryan can potentially run specs on Kingdra, which can be an absolutely devastating lane game cleaner. Claydol and Corsola-G round out the defensive backbone of a team with otherwise fast and furious offensive threats. My only question mark for this team is if it’s too frail to function (see Alex later down in the rankings).
7 —Dubwool’s Disciples
Pokémon to look out for — Diancie
Most underrated — Dubwool
Danny has one of the most unique teams in this draft. In singles, whyborn has elected to commit to the bit, and run what appears to be a full trick room/body press team. I have to say, I’m impressed to say the least. The biggest issue with Trick Room in singles is that it’s really hard to bring your sweeper in after Trick Room goes up, but with the primary Trick Room abusers on his team being Diancie and Stackataka, who can both set it up themselves, this is a team that can definitely snowball out of control. I’m wondering if there’s going to be a lot of Pokémon that will run taunt to counter this strategy, but we’ll see in time.
8 — Flying Wailords
Pokémon to look out for — Galvantula
Most underrated — Cacturne
While a more defensively oriented team, Gio has focused his draft around being bulky, and wearing his opponent down long enough for Gurdurr or Cacturne to get into position and threaten with priority and hard hitting stab. I question the ease of execution of this draft however, and it’s going to depend a lot on whether Cacturne or Ninetales don’t just die immediately, as I don’t think Jellicent and Donphan can do enough damage to win their team the game.
9 — Wop Woopers
Pokémon to look out for — Flapple
Most underrated — Kecleon
Tony has probably the closest thing to a stall team that we’ll see. While Bronzong and Muk will be hard to break, I’m a bit less convinced that Scrafty and Flapple can do the required damage needed to win the games (espcially Hustle being the ability that it is). Let me tell you, I didn’t want Flapple due to the fact that every move you use gets it’s accuracy drop, and this is coming from someone who often relies on hydro pump. However perhaps the offense from other teams isn’t high enough, and the Tony will be able to exploit the lack of reliable KO’s even his solid defensive core and hazard control.
10 — 2 Trodes 1 Roark
Pokémon to look out for — Cinccino
Most underrated — Torracat
Holy frailty batman, Alex has picked up a glass cannon team. While he does have Palossand and Qwilfish to make up for his lack of defensive switch ins, almost all of his important Pokémon such as Cinccino and Zoaroark hit hard, but are KO’d by common priority. Last time I was wrong about Alex, but it’s going to take expert piloting to make this version of hyper offense work.
11 — Hoopa of the Hidden Leaf
Pokemon to look out for — Quagsire
Most underrated —Fraxure
While Lidio has a solid team, I’m don’t think it does anything particularily well. It’s ok at playing defensive, it has some wall breaking options in Magmortor and Fraxure, a decent spinner in Eldegoss, but overall it seems a bit disjointed. Hoping Lidio will prove me wrong here, and I’m interested in the teams he can cook.
12 — The Regi Royals
Pokemon to look out for — Rhydon
Most underrated — Incineroar
Last but not least, we have our only tag team this season, Karbl/doggo. Running a snow team is pretty gutsy I must say, especially with no tera. Incineroar is decent, but it struggles to function as a physical pivot in singles due to it’s typing being weak to all the common physical attacking options. Articuno can be quite tanky, but the most you can hope for is it takes one thing out and than dying to stone edge or rock slide. I’m curious how well this team will do, I know it’s got some pilots. Remember kids, pre-season power rankings are always crapshoots, and things can look very different by the end of this week.
