Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s Dominant Team Is Ruining Multiplayer
▼ Summary
– The multiplayer mode in Pokémon Legends: Z-A was initially chaotic and fun with diverse teams before a dominant meta emerged.
– Metagross, Xerneas, and Garchomp have become the go-to team due to their power, defensive capabilities, and ability to counter each other.
– The current competitive scene is monotonous, with most players using these three Pokémon, reducing team diversity and enjoyment.
– Players are forced to participate in ranked battles to unlock Mega Stones, even if they dislike the repetitive meta, though ranking down is impossible.
– Future updates like the Mega Dimension DLC may improve diversity, but for now, the mode suffers from homogeneous teams and a growing cheater problem.
My initial evenings with Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s multiplayer were genuinely thrilling, a chaotic free-for-all where the real-time combat system truly shined. There was a special satisfaction in unleashing a massive Surf attack to hit multiple opponents at once. Using a team of my personal favorite Pokémon, completely unoptimized for competition, provided an absolute blast. That sense of unpredictable fun, however, evaporated within a matter of days. Now, logging in almost guarantees facing the same three Pokémon, reducing what should be a dynamic battle into a predictable game of rock-paper-scissors.
While it’s normal for any competitive Pokémon game to develop a meta focused on a select group of creatures, Legends: Z-A’s format has pushed this to an extreme. The structure encourages players to identify the three most powerful and versatile monsters available and cycle through them endlessly. The current roster’s undisputed champions are Metagross, Xerneas, and Garchomp.
The multiplayer mode involves four players, each controlling a team of three Pokémon, all fighting to score the most knockouts before time expires. This specific trio excels not only in raw power but also in defensive resilience. Their unique type combinations, Steel/Psychic, pure Fairy, and Dragon/Ground, grant them resistance to a wide array of attacks. More importantly, their versatile movesets allow them to handle nearly any situation. They also form a perfect counter-cycle against each other: Metagross’s Steel-type moves crush Xerneas, whose Fairy-type attacks are super effective against Garchomp, which can in turn devastate Metagross with a powerful Earthquake.
This trio’s dominance is so complete that other players are often just trying to land a few hits before some permutation of this team appears. To confirm this for myself, I jumped into a match while drafting this piece. While I didn’t face the exact three together, every one of my three opponents had at least two of them on their squad. I’m clearly not alone in this observation.
One player expressed a common sentiment online, stating, “I know Metas are inevitable, but Legends Z-A online battles went from actually quite fun at release to the most monotonous and miserable thing ever over such a short time.”
Another user pointed a finger at the early inclusion of certain powerful Pokémon, commenting, “Adding in the legendaries this early in ranked was a crazy move. Xerneas being playable in ranked homogenized the format in the worst way. If they waited until there were more legendary options to choose from, like in older games, we would still see a degree of diversity among team building.”
This kind of repetitive team composition is precisely why the official Pokémon competitive scene uses tier systems to group Pokémon of similar power levels. Currently, Legends: Z-A lacks any such ranking system, leaving no dedicated space for players who want to use varied teams without confronting the impenetrable wall of Metagross, Xerneas, and Garchomp.
The upcoming Mega Dimension DLC, launching on December 10, might shake things up by introducing new monsters. For now, this is the frustrating reality of ranked battles. The situation is exacerbated because players must participate in ranked mode to unlock certain Mega Stones, forcing even those who dislike the meta to endure it to collect every Mega Evolution. This stale environment is further polluted by a growing cheater problem. On a slightly positive note, the developers made it less punishing to grind for rewards by removing the ability to lose your rank, so you can simply endure a few losses and still secure the items you need.
(Source: Kotaku)
