Following the recent survey of the post DLC NDOU metagame, we decided to hold a council vote on Ogerpon-Hearthflame.
If you've played or watched any games of NDOU since DLC dropped you will have seen just how hard Hearthflame makes games for opposing teams thanks to an incredible combination of Mold Breaker, excellent STAB, great Offensive stats, and a plethora of free boosts to its attack in the form of HearthFlame Mask and Embody Aspect.
Not only is Hearthflame difficult to play around in games, it is also centralises the meta around itself in the team builder like almost nothing else can. It almost mandates a Tera Dragon wall such as Alomomola, or incredibly dedicated sets such as Ability Shield Heatran to even have a chance at stopping it. Pokémon such as TankChomp and Great Tusk can take a hit from Hearthflame after its Embody Aspect buff, but they have to be kept at full in order to do so which is incredibly difficult throughout a game. This also goes out the window if Ogerpon-H is able to set up a further SD at any point. So while counterplay to Hearthflame does exist it is few and far between and either flawed in some way or far too specific to be considered healthy for the metagame.
As a result of all of the above, the council has unanimously decided to remove Ogerpon-Hearthflame from the tier.
Tagging Kris to implement whenever possible please
If you've played or watched any games of NDOU since DLC dropped you will have seen just how hard Hearthflame makes games for opposing teams thanks to an incredible combination of Mold Breaker, excellent STAB, great Offensive stats, and a plethora of free boosts to its attack in the form of HearthFlame Mask and Embody Aspect.
Not only is Hearthflame difficult to play around in games, it is also centralises the meta around itself in the team builder like almost nothing else can. It almost mandates a Tera Dragon wall such as Alomomola, or incredibly dedicated sets such as Ability Shield Heatran to even have a chance at stopping it. Pokémon such as TankChomp and Great Tusk can take a hit from Hearthflame after its Embody Aspect buff, but they have to be kept at full in order to do so which is incredibly difficult throughout a game. This also goes out the window if Ogerpon-H is able to set up a further SD at any point. So while counterplay to Hearthflame does exist it is few and far between and either flawed in some way or far too specific to be considered healthy for the metagame.
As a result of all of the above, the council has unanimously decided to remove Ogerpon-Hearthflame from the tier.
Tagging Kris to implement whenever possible please