Since this thread isnt very active and i have had some alcohol (WOO - lol galbia) i think i should post about the metagame.
Firstly, addressing what i mention in pretty much every pu post; the viability of stall. Since tauros, kecleon, sneasel and throh have been banned people are now thinking stall is a lot better. Well none of these pokes really beat stall, as each have their counters if niche like solrock or decent like poliwrath, and taunt throh was utter trash considering jumpluff was everywhere and stall wasnt.
This metagame is even more filled with more stallbreakers, stoutland and ursaring where hyped a ton, and what does stall have for them? bulky costa is something, but loses 50% if predicted, and even if stall predicts superpower it doesnt have many scrappy fighting switch ins bar random duosions, this is similar with ursaring except you have to toxic stall and hope it doesnt run sd. Now look at other incredibly strong mons which are popular or should be popular who beat stall: simipour, np raichu, carracosta (stall run rose), barbaracle (similar to costa but wrath cant save you), ninetales, leafeon, hell even poliwrath knowing how easy it is to cripple and weaken roselia. Yes you can say these mons do have checks and counters but many only have one, and its pretty shit being forced to run a poke just in case the opp brings x, y or z. Then there is the prediction argument of 'simipour only 2hkos lickilicky if it predicts correctly', well lets look at the situation:
Simipour predicts correct and 2HKOs - simi wins
Simipour doesnt predict correct and doesnt 2HKO - licki has to wish up as simi gets a free switch into a physical attacker
Either way simipour is in a much better position. The sheer offensive pressure offensive based teams provide is enough to break stall, even if you dont run heatmor and rampardos, most offensive teams naturally have enough pressure to beat stall. Im just talking about specific mons which dent stall, and even if there is a stall team which has a solid switch in to the entire metagame, it doesnt mean it wins. This is another common misunderstanding about stall in this metagame, yes costa can take 2 superpowers from stoutland, but you get 3HKOd, you have to fish for a burn in response, or stoutland switches out and now costa is in range of opposing +2 costa's stone edge. People may disagree with me, but overall stall needs to be in a position in which it has the momentum, and the sheer offensive nature of the meta is enough to stop this and break stall (this is without moves like volt switch and uturn).
This leads me to the next point about what i want to post about; the metagame + possible suspects. I have listed pokes which have a good matchup vs stall, and if you look closer at those pokes, they all put in decent work against offense. simipour and ursaring both have decent speed and the coverage + power. It isnt just them; np chu; base 110 speed, costa; 98 speed after smash + strong priority, barbaracle; has smash, ninetales; 100 speed, leafeon; chloro + 95 speed, wrath; has rain dance. These pokes lack switch ins and are difficult to revenge kill. Im not saying they are broken, just that they are the ones which are making this metagame so offensive and speed based.
Of the s/a+ ranks all but 2 have either a high speed or ways to boost/get around it, then in a, 3/10 pokes dont have speed or priority, and of the 5 who dont fit in either catagory 3 have hazards, and all are useful for their defensive typing (and are used as bulky pivots). It is so easy to build an offensive team with set up sweeper/fast poke/fast poker/hazard/bulky pivot/filler (often set up sweeper). Looking at sample teams; my one is torterra/zeb/scarf mime/piloswine/poliwrath/rapidash, then tones; pawniard/scarf mime/ursaring/whirlipede/missy/piloswine (he is running hazard stacking so his filler is another hazard setter). Pretty much every other sample team fits this (im not saying that this is the only playstyle). Now is there anything that should be done about this? IMO nothing is broken, this is actually the most stable metagame PU has had with no outright broken mon. Is this metagame stale? I cant tell as the metagame is still new and innovating is still happening (which is the best way to prevent a stale metagame - in the PU chat i can see people talk about new gogoat sets c: and semi stall). Currently we have a balanced metagame, and even if there is one dominant playstyle, it isnt centralised and boring
sorry for the long walls of text