Nam's monotype tier list draft

Type tier list in no particular order:

After I list the types I will talk about the Top tiers in detail and give my thoughts and opinions on the other types in the game. This list is still a draft and my thoughts are not completely justified / clear yet so a lot of things may change based on my research.

Top tier - Psychic, Fairy, Water, Flying

High tier - Normal, Ground, Dark, Steel

Mid tier - Electric*, Bug, Poison, Dragon*

Low tier - Grass, Ghost, Rock

Garbage tier - Fire, Ice, Fighting

* Up for debate / Unsure

Psychic:

What makes Psychic good?
Psychic is mainly known for how diverse its selection of viable pokemon are. It’s also able to support offensive and balanced playstyles with this huge selection.

What are Psychic weaknesses?
Dark and Ghost are obvious weaknesses when it comes to psychic, and while it does have ways to deal with them it is still difficult for it to win easily against these types.

Fairy:

What makes Fairy Good?
Fairy has one of the most solid offensive cores in the game, with pokemon that have diverse coverage and the ability to deal with a large amount of the metagame on their own. This paired with screens and a way to deal with status moves makes fairy a really strong type.

What are Fairies weaknesses?
Fairy struggles against some pokemon like Ferrothorn, Celesteela, Mega-Venusaur and others. These Walls are extremely common in the metagame, and because of Fairy’s rather predictable team composition, teams won’t have a hard time finding a way to deal with this type.

Water:

What makes Water Good?
Water is able to be one of the most diverse types in the game that can fit literally every playstyle available. With an absolutely HUGE amount of diversity and mons that are spectacular in their own right, Water is a type that can be very hard to deal with if not thought about.

What are Water’s Weaknesses?
Despite having ways to deal with its weaknesses, some water teams will have glaring weaknesses if they don’t run a specific pokemon. Water also has to be careful about losing their electric or grass immunity / resist, because if they lose it their team can be easily swept away. The pressure that can be put on these mons can give the water user a lot of trouble.

Flying:

What makes Flying Good?
Flying has become a premier metagame type due to its large diversity in mon selection and its threatening offensive presence. With defensive pokemon like Gliscor, Celesteela, Mantine, and Zapdos, and far more offensive options, Flying can become a huge threat if one threat is not accounted for.

What are Flying’s weaknesses?
Flying is weak to Stealth Rocks, which are literally everywhere. The pressure that their defoggers have to go through makes getting rid of them even more difficult. Mantine may be a great special wall, but having to take 25% of its health away just to defog rocks away can be problematic. While options like Gliscor exist, Flying still has to worry about one huge metagame trend… Boltbeam. A singular boltbeam pokemon can potentially 6-0 even the best of flying teams, this trend is the one of Flying’s biggest defensive flaws as a type.

What do all the top tier types have in common?
3 / 4 of these types are good because of their flexibility and being able to support themselves with excellent pokemon at their disposal. Fairy, while the exception, still has a lot of flexibility in regards to sets that can be run on their solid pokemon, sharing this trait with the other top tiers as well. The main takeaway point here is that the top tier types all have ways to effectively deal with their weaknesses and can adapt to changes in the metagame with ease.

==High Tiers==

Normal:

Whaaat?? I thought Normal was a great type?!
Well at the beginning of the generation it was and while it is still good, it was not able to keep up with metagame trends. Calm mind Keldeo, the rise of toxic spikes and status moves, and more offensive pressure from the other top tier types all hit normal really hard. Normal was unfortunately not able to keep up, and so it fell in viability. The Eviolite duo + Staraptor is still a great defensive core, but lack of diversity and ways to deal with metagame trends made this type fall from grace.

Ground:

I never see ground, why is it ranked so high?
Ground in my opinion is an underused type that can do wonders in practice. Sand and Sandless archetypes make the type slightly diverse, and it even falls into the defining characteristics of the other top tier types. Just because it's never used, does not mean that it is terrible. Which begs the question, why is it never used? Water. The opportunity cost of running into water with ground is very often, and because of how popular water is Ground can almost never be a safe pick. Ground is not able to deal with its weaknesses as well as the other top tiers, but it is still a solid type that should not be slept on.

Dark:

Personal thoughts:
Dark is good type imo. With the ability to work well offensively and defensively and has a decent amount of variety to work effectively, I think dark is arguably the most solid type this generation. There really isn’t a ton to say about it really.

Steel:

Steel is OP!
Yes we all know that the steel council of monotype is the reason why steel is the greatest type in the metagame. Magearna was just to appease the masses, but don’t fret, the council is sure to unban a certain mega relatively soon.

Ok real talk, the is in the same place as dark except not really. It’s a solid type but team synergy and composition can be really hard sometimes, and while all types can usually suffer from this steel suffers a LOT from it. This issue along with needing to keep heatran healthy most of the time is why Steel can get easily pressured by a good player, but in the right hands it can prove to be a solid type.

What do all of the High Tier Types have in common?:

These types all share qualities with the top-tier’s but they all have one flaw that holds them back from being that great. Despite those flaws however they are still excellent and can be extremely effective in high level play.




==Mid Tier Types==

Electric:

Electric is in a rough debatable spot with me personally. I think it could be high tier, but it lacks good defensive qualities that can’t easily be overwhelmed. Offensively, it is excellent but its defensive qualities leave much to be desired, so I would wait for MWP to conclude to make a fair decision on where this type truly belongs.

Bug:

Bug is the best type!!

No it isn’t and here is why. While it is great offensively, its defensive qualities are very lackluster, which is why you never see people running balance bug. Offensively bug is good, not absurdly good but just good. However its weakness to stealth rock and a relatively shaky way of removing them leaves the type heavily pressured and can easily be outclassed by a different type. Despite this, it is still one of the few types that uses webs effectively, and that niche alone allows bug to succeed, so it stays at mid tier.

Poison:

Toxapex and Mega-Venusaur are broken!!

Lol. Anyway, this type is pretty decent as an anti-meta pick for Fairy and other types depending on the offensive pokemon you are using. Its natural immunity to Toxic can make the type rather hard to beat sometimes, but unfortunately it's defensive qualities are not enough to save it from its mediocre offensive presence. Despite having good offensive pokemon in Nihilego, Nidoking, and Gengar, their synergy with their defensive core is not entirely there, and the major lack of pivoting on the type bar Crobat doesn’t help the type much either. This puts poison in some tough 50/50 situations that most people cannot afford to get involved with. Losing one offensive pokemon can spell disaster for the team, and the lack of synergy between the offensive and defensive cores will always be the biggest thing that holds Poison back from being great.


Dragon:

Dragon is casually considered a super powerful type, and rightfully so. However its biggest feature is also its greatest weakness. Dragon is primarily an offensive type, meaning that balance is next to impossible to viably do. Since this meta focuses a lot on balance, certain teams might either lose to dragon, or be well prepared for dragon. Despite this dragon is in a tough spot imo. It is true that Dragon is a strong offensive type that is capable of beating every type in the metagame, and also has a lot of variety when it comes to how it can break these teams down. However, Dragon still suffers from being weak to Stealth Rocks, which are everywhere, and its crippling weakness to ice. Kyurem-Black can only do so much, and the fact that running one Ice pokemon on a type like ground or dark could spell danger for your team seems like a flaw within the typing itself. So I think this is up for debate, though I am leaning towards high-tier.

What do *most* of the Mid Tier Types have in common?:

Ignoring electric and Dragon, Bug and Poison both share the trait of being solid in one area but really lacking in the other. These glaring flaws within the types can deter a high-level player from using them. This doesn’t mean that they are completely unviable however, as they are still strong in one regard, and are usable enough to be good in that aspect.

==Low Tiers==

Grass:

This type has a very solid defensive core, but its offensive core also does not synergize very well with the defensive core. Sound familiar? Calling Grass discount poison would be wrong, but it suffers from the same issues that type has, except it has a much worse defensive typing. Mega-venusaur thankfully saves the type from becoming bottom-tier because it can take Toxic and help win a lot of MU’s. But the type’s overwhelming weaknesses hold it back from being better.

So the question remains, why use grass if poison is better at what it does?
Grass is not unviable as it has Matchups against popular types that are in their favor, most notably normal and fairy. Hazard stacking is also very strong in this balance based metagame, so because grass also does that very well allows it to do even better. Poison doesn’t have these traits, and that is why grass is used over it sometimes.

Ghost:

While ghost can be strong, a lot of things hold it back. The type lacks any defensive utility and can’t run balance well at all. However unlike bug it doesn’t have a niche like Webs that allows it to make up for that. Thankfully its good MU against psychic, fairy, and sometimes water allows it to be a somewhat usable type. Also Mega-Sableye saves this from being bottom-tier, so use it!

Rock:

I thought rock was bottom 3?

Not anymore. Thanks to metagame shifts and discoveries made by top level players, rock is actually a low tier type now. Webs along with some very decent Pokemon in Mega-Diancie and terrakion allows Rock to have a great offensive presence. What holds this type back is really just the typing itself. Being weak to so many types is not good, and just like ghost the lack of ways to deal with this hold it back from being better. This type has potential to be mid-tier though, as it has all of the tools and pokemon to be so. If the type just had less weaknesses naturally, it would be Mid tier without a doubt.

What do all the Low Tiers have in common?:

The Low Tiers all share the fact that they share a trait with a mid-tier type, but are not able to accomplish the niche that these mid-tier types accomplish. However, these types can still be used well against some popular types, but that doesn’t change the fact that in general, these types are not the greatest.

==Bottom Tier==

Fire:

This type, like normal, has fallen in viability due to metagame shifts. The rise of water, rock, and other trends caused this type to drop really bad. Its offensive power is still there, but its defensively one of the worst types in the meta, only rivaled with Ice and Rock. There are countless things limiting this type from being good, so alas it's just best to say that fire will not become a popular tournament type any time in the future.

Fighting:

Oh dear what has happened to this type?

Unfortunately fighting has gotten the short end of the stick in gen 7. Despite pokemon like Mega-diancie existing last gen, fighting was still able to handle fairy teams and was still a solid type. Now with the Tapu’s, Power Creep, and only two new viable mons, fighting unfortunately could not keep up with the metagame and would probably be the worst type in the game if it wasn’t for…

Ice:

The butt of every joke, always said to be dead last. Ice is literally the worst type in the game in general, and really bad in gen 7 monotype. Ice’s only saving grace is the fact that it got plenty of good things from this generation, like Alolan-sandslash and Alolan-ninetales. Aurora Veil is very strong, and while it is definitely still good, ice cannot take full advantage. Ice can’t get a break with the fact that hazards are so common, and the fact that most of its mons are weak. So sadly, ice is the worst type in this metagame but if it wasn’t for alolan-ninetales it would be borderline unviable.

What do all the bottom tier types have in common?:

These types all share one very obvious thing, they cannot keep up with the metagame. Fire is a really good example of this, as it fails to keep up with the metagame defensively and cannot provide enough offensive pressure to be worth using. This trait, while not the exact same as fire, is shared with Fighting’s lack of ways to deal with opposing offensive teams and certain balance teams, and Ice’s lack of ways to do anything significant outside of a few MU’s.

Final evaluation of the monotype metagame:

People always say now that the monotype metagame is “stale” because of the lack of tier shifts / unbans / bans. While most may think this is boring, I think this is a great way for the metagame to be truly explored and not have a single thing about it overlooked. Ladder and tournament play has changed constantly over the months that this meta has been around, and new sets are still being discovered / popularized. More niche mons have had time to rise to the occasion, and once thought “always use” mons are falling for more interesting and effective options. If we kept focusing on unbanning and banning things, we wouldn’t have fleshed out this metagame to its maximum potential. So as “stale” as people may think this meta is, we are truly only now beginning to find everything.