Congratulations to our fourth winner!
This round surprised me with how varied the votes were: out of our 8 candidates, 6 received votes! Mega Gengar wins this round with 5 votes, while Xerneas is the runner-up with 2 votes and Ultra Necrozma, Marshadow, Zygarde, and Lunala got 1 vote each.
These are our nominees for #5 (you can still click on them and see their nominations and why you should vote for that Pokémon):
Remember, those ranking are for the most
influentional Pokémon on the meta, not the best, so, if you think that Primal Kyogre changes the Teambuilding more than Zygarde, but Zygarde is a better Pokémon, then you should vote for Kyogre. This rank also keeps in mind
all of gen 7, not just USUM. So, while this doesn't make Pokémon the Necrozma formes and Marshadow unable to compete with the others, do keep in mind that they weren't here from the start.
To vote, you simply needs to say the name of the Pokémon you're voting for; you don't need to provide a motive, but that would be appreciated. Discussion during the voting stages also is encouraged.
This is once again pretty hard, but despite the low amount of votes it received until now, I'm going with
Marshadow this round. Yes, Xerneas had great influence on SM, but as time passed, we more and more had naturally fit Xern's checks into our teams until we reached USUM and now most people can fit Groudon + Necrozma-DM/another Steel-type like Magearna on any team without using Pokémon that are useless outside of that. Ultra Necrozma also was a cool option, but only appearing on USUM gave the edge to Marshadow. For starters, Marshadow changed offense by just existing: now, physical setup sweepers can't really setup if they're slower unless they're immune to Spectral Thief (in this case, they're weak to Fighting). Remember Arceus-Ghost? Before Marshadow, it was arguably the most potent Arceus forme, with it destroying teams on webs with its Z-Move set. After Marshadow, it's pratically unviable. Ekiller, instead of running the old max Speed set with Life Orb, now uses a bulky Chople Berry set just for it (and in case it doesn't have Chople, it still is going to use a moveslot for Marshadow, like Substitute). Mega Lucario also had a hard drop, and even Lunala almost was forgotten for some time. Supportceus now almost always have ti have a decent matchup against Marshadow, with the only forme that's still is used that's weak to it being Dark. Pokémon that are weak to priority moves and run Espeed, like Deoxys-A and even Rayquaza to some extent, suffered too.