Incineroar is back, what does this mean for Pokemon VGC?

An impartial write up of what a non VGC 2018 & 2019 player thinks about Incineroar’s coming impact on the meta game

Have you missed me?

After a few days of panic and confusion with the release of Pokemon Home, The Pokemon Company has finally confirmed what many feared. THE CAT IS BACK. On the 1st of march, Incineroar and the other starters will be legal to use in official Pokemon VGC tournaments. Both pros and casuals alike have reacted to this and discussed this on social media like crazy in the last 24 hours. Some people have reacted with positivity, and are celebrating a happy reunion with their old pal. Most reactions however, have been overwhelmingly negative. Some people say VGC is ruined, others have even threatened to quit VGC entirely. This article is all about my personal opinion on Incineroar though. I will try and break down the what’s and the why’s to my opinions. I first want to put all this into context, by briefly explaining my background.

Some of you guys may know me for my Raichu & Gyarados teams, while some of you may not know me at all. Either way, i’m a 20 year old Pokemon player, and while I have played competitively for several years, 2020 is my first VGC season ever. In the last 3 months I have actually accomplished way more than I could ever imagine. Getting NO. 1 in the world on the in-game ladder at three seperate occasions, and I have also contributed to the rising poularity of the Gyarados & Raichu combo. Most importantly, I never played in the Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon days, and under Incineroars former reign of terror. I have merely heard stories of it’s sheer dominace and legendary 85.6% usage in 2019(Reported by Pikalytics). I actually didn’t even know or really believed the tales of it’s power, and I had to be convinced by Eakes that Incineroar really was all that powerful(check out EakesTV on Youtube and Twitch btw, for quality VGC content). Well, you still haven’t convinced me Eakes, and i’m planning to find out for myself. Which brings me to the main point of this article.

Just how strong will Incineroar really be?

Okay, so let’s start with the question that everyone wants to know. Will Incineroar see a ridiculous usage statistic, like in the 2019 season? Short answer… No. Will it see something remotely close to it? Short answer… possibly. This is probably where the more experienced players will come in and go “You just admitted to not having played in the USUM meta, your opinion is invalid”. Which is a fair point honestly, but I also think my inexperience gives me a different and more impartial perspective on Incineroar, that many USUM players don’t have. Do I think Incineroar is good? Of course, and it will probably be used A LOT. I still think there’s a few reasons why it wont be used as much as before.

First of all some of it’s most important assets like Fake Out and Intimidate is less powerful and dominating than before. With Dynamax, one of the opposing team members will be immune to flinching. Which can make Fake Out obsolete in some games, and can also make you effectively waste a turn on your Incineroar, if you target the wrong opponent in before your the target Dynamaxes. Intimdate is also nerfed due to abilities like Own Tempo now negating Intimidate. The abilites Defiant and Competitive is also fairly common in the meta game, which can downright punish Intimidate if you’re not careful. Milotic will probably be a commonly used counter to Incineroar due to having both type advantage, and countering intimidate with it’s own ability Competitive. Pinch berries have also been nerfed. Healing only 33% of full health, as opposed to 50% from last generation. This also reduces Incineroars survivability, since Pinch Berries have been Incineroar’s main method of recovery. Speaking of previously used items on Incineroar, Z crystals are now also gone from the game, also limiting its defensive arsenal somewhat. Incineroars offensive arsenal, has also been weakened now that it doesn’t have Knock Off anymore, due to the move being a tutor move.(Which wont be legal to use in VGC) This is a pretty big blow to Incineroar, as Knock off was an excellent way of dealing damage and serving an important utility function.

At this point you may be thinking to yourself, “huh, so I guess Incineroar isn’t that good this year?”. Well no, it’s definitely very good. Which again leads me to my next topic.

Why will Incineroar still be a top tier threat in the meta game?

Arcanine currently sits at a pretty impressive usage, with just under 36%

The main reason is that Arcanine currently sees a lot of use. As many people have pointed out, Incineroar is pretty much just a better version of Arcanine. While it doesn’t have the speed of Arcanine, it’s superior in many other ways. Better bulk, access to Fake out, access to Parting Shot/U-turn, immunity to prankster and even slightly more Attack. As a result, Arcanine will probably see a HUGE drop in usage after Incineroar comes out. Mirroring what happened when Incineroar got intimidate in the VGC 2018 season, where Arcanine was a top representative in the meta game as a supportive fire type. Much like it has been in the last few months. This means that you could pretty much take any team with Arcanine in it, and swap it out for Incineroar. Which is what a lot of people probably will do, including myself.

Another important reason why Incineroar will be good, is that while Intimidate and Fake out is somewhat less powerful than before, it’s still two of the best attributes to have in the game. Especially having them both on one Pokemon, which is pretty much the sole reason Hitmontop sees usage. I personally used intimidate and Fake Out cycling as one of the main strategies on my newest team, with a lot of success. I also mentioned that Incineroar lost a couple important tools, but it still has a large and excellent move pool to choose from. It even got a couple of new tools, like Parting Shot and Close Combat, meaning there should be no issues in filling up Incineroar’s move slots.

As a conclusion, where do I think Incineroar will end up in regards to usage in VGC 2020? Well, it’s of course impossible to say for sure. My best guess is somewhere in the middle between Arcanine’s current usage and Incineroars previous usage. Anywhere between 50% and 70% is my prediction. I definitely don’t think it will see less use than what Arcanine currently does, but I don’t think it will come close to it’s previous usage at 85.6%. I assume that most if not all the players using supportive Arcanine now, will switch to Incineroar, and a good portion of players who didn’t use Arcanine before will start using Incineroar as well.

So that’s my predictions for Incineroar. Do you agree with me, or do you think I got it all wrong?

Follow me on twitter for VGC teams, write ups and more cool Pokemon stuff: @AlcadeiasVGC