This weekend featured the first official Pokémon Scarlet and Violet regional tournament with the new Regulation E ruleset, and one Teal Mask Pokémon made a huge splash in the meta to win the whole event almost on its own.
At Peoria Regionals, all eyes were on the adorable Legendary Ogerpon as she made her official VGC debut alongside other DLC Pokémon added to the meta like Bloodmoon Ursaluna and Sinistcha. Heading into Regulation E we knew Ogerpon would be good, but the stats are proof this Grass Legendary is the new biggest threat to watch out for.
Looking at the top 12 Pokémon for the event, Ogerpon’s two most popular forms were Hearthflame with 34.6 percent usage and Wellspring with 22.1 percent usage, for a total of 56.7 percent usage between the two forms. Combined, that beats out the very dominant Paradox threats Flutter Mane and Iron Hands, and it doesn’t even include Ogerpon’s Teal form or Cornerstone form.
In fact, Ogerpon was so dominant in Peoria that every single player in the top eight had its Hearthflame form or Wellspring form on their team. There’s just something about Ogerpon’s pure power, move set, and bonus Tera ability that makes it too good to pass up.
And in the finals, it came down to James Baek’s Wellspring Ogerpon versus Luka Trejgut’s Hearthflame Ogerpon. Both forms proved to be incredibly strong, with Hearthflame being the more popular pick overall, and Wellspring seeing more success going into day two. Ultimately, Baek’s Wellspring Ogerpon won the tournament with weather playing a huge factor in the end.
Even without weather, Ogerpon is a huge threat. But if you bring a Pokémon like Tornadus to set up the rain or sun, the Wellspring and Hearthflame forms will be doing massive damage to almost anything on the field. That’s exactly how Baek’s Wellspring Ogerpon got the one-hit knockout onto Trejgut’s Flutter Mane in the rain to close out a fantastic finals match at the first Regulation E regional tournament.
After this very dominant performance from Wellspring and Hearthflame Ogerpon, we may start to see even more rain and sun teams popping up again. Rain and Wellspring Ogerpon ultimately came out on top this time, but Sun teams also have major potential in this format. The sun would not only benefit Hearthflame Ogerpon but also the likes of Flutter Mane, Chi-Yu, and Heatran—three special attackers who need to step up in a meta currently overrun by physical attackers.
