Kangaskhan and VGC16
Sigh, the sound every player makes when a Kangaskhan comes in at the end of a game primed and ready to crush. You've played the game to perfection, its 4 v 1 and you SHOULD win bar any craziness, shame your checks to Kangaskhan are looking a little weak. Boom clap smash and 3 turns later you've lost the game. How on earth did that happen? Was it hax? Was it poor playing? Or was it just Kangaskhan being a bit too strong for its own good? Probably a combination of the three but what could you of done about it? You could of had 6 fighting types.. but then you lose to the handy Cresselia or Latios thats sat next to that Kangaskhan. Or how about 6 ghost types? What about that Aegislash, Heatran, Thundurus (insert Kang partner here) Long story short, Kangaskhan on its own isn't THAT bad, but when you add the right ingredients things get real explosive.
Lets start with some bias... I love Kangaskhan, as a Pokemon before a 'tool'. Catching that thing in the safari zone back in Pokemon Red was exhilarating as a child, it was one of my first lvl100's. When it was announced it would be getting a mega evolution in XY I was ecstatic, the clip of it hitting twice didn't mean much at the time but as we all came to find out, Gamefreak had created a monster. I didn't care of course as it was cool and Kang was fun to use, as time went on you get called names and get generally abused for using it, even in actual irl tournaments which is disgusting. How can you hate someone just because they use a good Pokemon, I'm pretty sure if I was using a Sigilyph I'd receive similar abuse for being an idiot or a snowflake. You can't please everyone or anyone it seems.
Kang in the VGC14 metagame:
The 14 metagame was by far my least favourite, games went down to team match up more than actual predictions and its only praised by its 'diverse' usage of mons ( Even though you were almost forced to use stupid unpredictable trubbish to stay on top) How does Kangaskhan fit in then? Kangaskhan started the format as an underdog, no one used it instead focusing on trying to use as much as possible, which is how a metagame is formed. Around Christmas time the UK winter series finals were being played. And Kangaskhan Garchomp and Talonflame was the big core to beat, We saw a lot of scarfed Salamence and Mawile to attempt to beat it but it wasn't strong enough with Kangaskhan taking the title. Over the Pond in America the Kang hate was in full swing, With Mawile Garchomp Ferrothorn winning a regionals and starting the Mawile train. For a while it seemed like you were either on the Kang train or the Mawile train. With both eventually opting for a rain mode. It was fairly even throughout the Nationals with Kang winning two and Mawile winning two also along with a rogue Venusaur and Charizard X in Italy. As worlds came around, Kangs time was up. Everyone went full anti Kang and it almost disappeared from the standings withstanding one decent finish.
Why was Kang such a force in 14? It was a combination of the move Power Up Punch and the format being filled with generally 'bad' Pokemon unable to take a hit from the monster. Alongside that was a lack of intimidate in the format being generally limited to Salamence Mawile and Gyarados. The nerf of special moves also contributed making Kangaskhan much harder to take down with its superb bulk. But what held it back from crushing worlds? Some say better partners, some say tutor moves, some say Mawile was too good a counter ( It really isn't xD) With ORAS announced however and the predicted open format looming, we all wondered if Kangaskhan would survive the transition with ease or if it would be left in the dirt.
Kang in VGC15
Kang seemed to be dead in 15 with the introduction of all new mega Pokemon, seemingly introduced to put a stop to Kangaskhan. Gamefreak forgot one simple thing though... Kangaskhan has friends. Gallade loses after a single speed control option is performed, Lopunny is the same and Slowbro is just really slow and really weak to special attacks. Some of the less direct 'counters' Salamence and Metagross were fairing better, Salamence especially. Metagross was forced to adopt substitute as a way to stop Kang was simply sucker punching it out of the way which became predictable and Metagross eventually fell off the radar.
Salamence however, with intimidate and base 130 def after mega! was fairing much better. However, in most Kang Mence stand off's, it commonly ended in a trade or Kang barely hanging on. Kang's partners typically T-waved Mence or just plain Ice beamed it.
Kang also picked up one of the most important tools it could ever hope to have... Low Kick. This move is capable of one shotting Heatran, Ttar, Hydreigon, Terrakion, other Kangaskhan, Lopunny. While some argue that PuP is still the best option, the results lean more towards Low kick being 'the play' Kang dominated all the way through the year along with Salamence and later on Gardevoir. until worlds where we all thought it would fall off. We were wrong... Kang plowed through the whole event ending up with 7/8 teams in top cut having one.
Obviously this upset many people claiming Kang is broken and Kang needs to go. This may or may not be true, Kang was always one of if not the strongest Pokemon available to use over the past two years but it took a worlds domination for people to realise this. I guess you can call Kang a cake, you can just have it and its alright, but when you start adding more ingredients and toppings, then that's just icing on the cake.
Kang teams have different archetypes than just 'Kangsquad' Some where 'CHALK' ( Cresselia Heatran Amoonguss Landorus Kang) and some where Kangwind, Kangroom,Kangrain,Kangsun. The options Kang had access to over the other mega's is what pushed it over the edge. With the best Kang teams seeming to differ on the choice of fire type with some having Heatran with others having Rotom-H, Entei, Arcanine or Volcarona.
What can we do to stop Kangaskhan though? Honestly I don't think its 100% possible too in such an open format. Given as of the time of writing, we have no new game on the horizon to potentially nerf Kang a little (maybe only have the STAB move hit twice?) we can only speculate on the next format. In my opinion it can be one of three things, only one of them I'd be okay with playing. 1: Keep the format the same... This wouldn't help anything and it'd be staler than 40 week old bread. 2: Remove the top 12 Pokemon from this year... This has issues as well, without Kangaskhan or Landorus around, some other Pokemon will step up and likely completely dominate with the lack of checks, To some people this is completely fine as they are blinded with Kang hate and would rather get pounded by a Pinsir than a single mother. 3: The return of GS cup... GS cup was the format played in 2010 which allowed 3 'Uber' Pokemon per team with only 2 being allowed in the match. This can be made less confusing by only allowing 2 'ubers' per team. There are many arguments against this, one being it encourages hacking, not that this year did the same.... Another is the massive power creep being scary for newer players, but personally if I was just starting out and was told I could use Mewtwo, I'd be over the moon. Another is the issue with the Primals being stupidly overpowered, I agree on this one and if GS cup were to exist I'd hope there would be some kind of rule, maybe impose a cap on BST with the highest being 700 which would exclude the Primals, Mega ray and Mega mewtwo's. The issue here is the move Dragon ascent which would leave Rayquaza available to mega evolve at any time whilst it has it learnt. The move could be banned but any viability Rayquaza had would be stripped away.
Honestly I don't know what the format will be, I'm personally hoping for GS cup after playing in some of the BS competitions that allow the bigger mons. But I wouldn't be surprised if the top mons were taken away and people get their wish. One can only hope something less checkable than Kang takes Kangs place and ruins everything . I'm so spiteful :) Anyways, I'll see you next year whatever the format ends up being (Bar VGC98)
PS: Kang is the best cri moar ;)))
Mattsby
