What Legends ZA could do to Competitive VGC

[SableyePog]

Mainly a short thread, But If this game can be connected to Pokemon Home (Which it likely will be able to) I'm not expecting Mega Evolutions to come into Scarlet and Violet any time soon But I am worried about New, Possibly broken regional variants/new Pokemon and Xearneas coming back to the game with terastilization on its hands.

 

[Devalue]

Wonders if they will be transferrable to Scarlet/Violet. Releases in 2025. Usually takes a few months for transfers. Expects a new mainline game in November 2025, based on trends. Leaves only a few months of being in Generation 9. May simply not bother and work on transfers to Generation 10.

Assumes they will for this, though. Doubts too much of an effect from the new Pokemon or regional variants. How many Hisuian Pokemon made a big splash? Ursaluna, and...? Gave Pokemon some really good moves too (see: Hisuian Decidueye's Triple Arrows).

Considers Megas a different story. Made them incredibly powerful in Generation 6. Expects one Mega on most teams. Could be Mega Arcanine's, Mega Milotic's, or Mega Toxapex's time to shine. Potentially sees some Mega out of left field with some ridiculous new ability, like...Mega Kricketune automatically putting everyone to sleep when it Mega Evolves, or a Mega Blissey with an ability making its Defense equal to its Special Defense. Fully expects a special-based Intimidate to exist, if not for both offenses.

Admittedly competes against a pretty wide range of high base stat total Pokemon not sacrificing their item slot. May be more muted than in the past.

 

[SableyePog]

Wonders if they will be transferrable to Scarlet/Violet. Releases in 2025. Usually takes a few months for transfers. Expects a new mainline game in November 2025, based on trends. Leaves only a few months of being in Generation 9. May simply not bother and work on transfers to Generation 10.

Assumes they will for this, though. Doubts too much of an effect from the new Pokemon or regional variants. How many Hisuian Pokemon made a big splash? Ursaluna, and...? Gave Pokemon some really good moves too (see: Hisuian Decidueye's Triple Arrows).

Considers Megas a different story. Made them incredibly powerful in Generation 6. Expects one Mega on most teams. Could be Mega Arcanine's, Mega Milotic's, or Mega Toxapex's time to shine. Potentially sees some Mega out of left field with some ridiculous new ability, like...Mega Kricketune automatically putting everyone to sleep when it Mega Evolves, or a Mega Blissey with an ability making its Defense equal to its Special Defense. Fully expects a special-based Intimidate to exist, if not for both offenses.

Admittedly competes against a pretty wide range of high base stat total Pokemon not sacrificing their item slot. May be more muted than in the past.

Well its not like Im totally worried about VGC 2025 (It might not even have a restricted format, which is unlikely considering that will definitely be the last year of pokemon scarlet and violet. Also its not really like Hisuian pokemon broke the game or anything. (Only really Ursaluna and Hisuian Arcanine are considered Good) Its just the fact this is gen 6. Which also has Xearneas a stupidly broken pokemon which will probably become more broken with terastilization.

 

[Setsuna]

Devalue pretty much summed up what I was thinking in their first few sentences. Gen IX seems like it's on its way out now that the DLC for Scarlet and Violet is finished, and I can't see them moving the VGC meta to a new game. I'm not super familiar with VGC but it seems more likely to me that we'd get whatever additions Legends Z-A brings at the same time as the new additions for whatever the next games are, whether that's something like Unova remakes or the debut games for Gen X. Just like I'd consider things like Ursaluna to be Gen IX additions to the competitive scene when they debuted in Legends Arceus.

I could see something like a new form of Xerneas being created and being absolutely terrifying, but unless they decide to keep Terastal in newer games going forward I don't think that'll factor into what makes it so good. I'd assume current Xerneas is already great without Tera anyways.
I would love to see Megas continue into the series because I just think they're a great idea, but unless they're re-introduced in whatever the next VGC-compatible games are, I could just see them being locked to Z-A. Though I think it's worth considering the possibility of new evolutions or regional forms for old Pokemon in the same way we got things like Basculegion and Hisui-Arcanine. I think that's the absolute safest bet on any impact Z-A could have on VGC.

 

[SableyePog]

True, But the gimmick in Gen X will be nothing like Dynamax which made Xearneas mid in Gen 8.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

Considering that each new game has its own mechanic, like PLA this game will have something. Maybe simply just megas, again. But maybe not (megas + something else?). This second case is interesting because it would potentially make new pokemon that are good in that specific game, but maybe not so much with the successive gen X mechanic.
However, of course not expecting the new pokemon to be available in SV, while yes for gen X (happened already for PLA). But I personally don't expect gen X to implement megas. So, only the new forms/evolutions will pass to the newer games, how it was already mentioned. So, I'd say it's more about gen X VGC.

 

[CoolKid575]

I personally doubt that terastallization will be relevant to whatever impact new Z-A additions have on VGC, as Devalue said, the game is set to come out in 2025, only a few months before the likely release of a new traditional entry (assuming the current 3 years per gen trend holds); and considering how it typically takes months for transfers to be made available after a release, Nintendo will probably not allow connectivity with SV to incentive people to buy the new games to be able to battle their friends with the Z-A mons. Either way, I don't believe that Z-A mons will have a huge effect on VGC if they're similar to the ones LA introduced, they were mostly regional forms with limited competitive use, and I frankly don't see much reason to assume Z-A will be meaningfully different. Though of course that goes out the window if new Megas are introduced and are transferrable to Gen 10, especially if they're anything close to how broken they were in XY.