Competitive Pokemon History - Meganium Quiz

Answer: Synthesis

Meganium's 80/100/100 bulk is quite decent, and its mono-Grass typing is workable as well. Combined with access to immediate, semi-reliable recovery in Synthesis, and Meganium is built to last for the long haul. Synthesis lets Meganium viably run other moves to support its team, such as Leech Seed, Reflect, Light Screen and Body Slam. Alternatively, the best offense is a good defense; Meganium has access to Swords Dance, and is able to use its healing and good bulk to boost and slowly pose a threat to the opposing team.

Answer: UnderUsed's banned list

Meganium did not receive enough usage to be OU by usage statistics. It was definitely too strong for UnderUsed, however, as its good bulk and access to Swords Dance let it clean up teams far too easily, while it walled out threats with little room for reliable counterplay, and it was eventually banned from the tier.

Answer: Overgrow

Overgrow boosts the power of the user's Grass type moves when they reach 25% or less health. Sadly, Meganium's lackluster offenses meant that, even when it got this boost, it was not hitting terribly hard unless it was hitting for super effective damage.

Answer: Venusaur

Venusaur was a stellar Pokemon, with a wide variety of sets it could run to fill any niche conceivable. The existence of Venusaur in UU meant that using any Grass type in general, much less Meganium, would just about always mean you were using an inferior Grass type. Meganium was a lost cause in standard play too, where its bulk wasn't good enough for the tier's power levels, and its offenses were far too low to be useful.

Answer: Specially defensive wall/Cleric

With good bulk and a good defensive typing, Meganium could take specially offensive attacks rather well. Unlike competition for this role, namely from Vileplume and Roselia, Meganium also had access to Dragon Tail, meaning it could stop the opposition from boosting in its face for free. Access to Aromatherapy allowed Meganium to cure its team of nasty status, giving it great merit as a cleric for the tier.

While Meganium was critically weak to top tier threats, namely Braviary and Charizard, its positive traits were enough to ensure it fit into the tier rather nicely.

Answer: Leaf Guard

Leaf Guard protects the user from status conditions, while also preventing them from using Rest. This ability was extremely useless for Meganium, and in fact could even be argued as being outright detrimental for it. While Meganium doesn't run Rest and could benefit from being immune to Toxic, Sun support is better served on offensive teams which Meganium couldn't be a worse fit on. Additionally, sunny weather amplifies Meganium's weakness to Fire type attacks, which could compromise its ability to function as a specially defensive wall.

Answer: Roselia

The other three options are banned to Ubers, the highest tier in the game, and would not be legal in PartiallyUsed, the lowest tier.

As a support Pokemon, Meganium can usually utilize Aromatherapy to cure its team of status, use Dragon Tail to remove set up sweepers, and bail out to a different defensive teammate in the face of threats it can't handle. This makes it difficult to counter in the strictest sense, because it only fits on stall teams which can make up for its shortcomings. However, Roselia can switch in on it with extreme ease, and while it doesn't immediately threaten Meganium too much, it can plague Meganium and its team by effortlessly laying entry hazards in its face, while it can also spam Toxic against Meganium until Meganium runs out of Aromatherapy PP, thus enabling Roselia to easily win attrition against it. Finally, Roselia can adequately pressure Meganium with STAB, super effective Sludge Bombs, while taking a pittance from any attacking move Meganium can throw at it thanks to its 4x resistance to Grass, Eviolite boosted defenses, reliably recovery in Synthesis, and Meganium's poor offenses. Because of these traits, Roselia can be considered a counter.

Answer: It has no discernible niche for the tier

Meganium was outclassed as a Specially defensive cleric by Articuno, as a physically defensive cleric by Granbull (who wasn't even that good to begin with), outclassed as a support Pokemon by Roselia and Ferroseed, outclassed as a wall by Tangela and Gourgeist, and was outright unviable as an offensive Pokemon.

This meant Meganium couldn't do anything of use in the lowest playable tier in the game, its true rock bottom in its competitive career.

Answer: Untiered

Smogon's battle dex website describes Untiered as "a list of all Pokémon that are not relevant (i.e., do not have above 3.41% usage) or viable in PU and is not a playable tier. Generally, the use of Untiered Pokémon in a competitive metagame is strongly discouraged."

Sadly, this definitely applies to the useless Meganium during the seventh generation.

Answer: Bad movepool

Say what you will about Meganium, but at least it has some decent options for a movepool. It has reliable recovery in Synthesis, clerical support in Aromatherapy, phasing to protect itself from setup sweepers in Dragon Tail, and it can spread paralysis with Body Slam or further support the team with Leech Seed. If Meganium had better stats and a decent ability, it's quite likely it would have enjoyed some serious success somewhere over the last twenty years. Sadly, its movepool has really been the only thing it has had going for it over that time, and as you can see, that simply has not been enough.