Aegislash has been in Pokémon UNITE for over a week and entered the meta with a healthy amount of play among top 100 players. Last week there was continued instability in the meta, particularly with the jungler and attacker roles. Wide swings in usage continue despite the last major patch being a month ago.
So, where do things stand now in the Pokémon UNITE meta?
Other placements include:
C Tier:
- Talonflame – 3.5% (-1)
- Gardevoir – 3.5% (-0.5)
D Tier:
- Blissey – 1.5% (+0.5)
- Mime – 1% (-2)
- Snorlax – 1% (-1.5)
- Blastoise – 1% (+/-)
- Garchomp – 1% (+/-)
- Absol – 1% (+1)
- Sylveon – 1% (+1)
- Machamp – 0.5% (-1)
Aegislash (-8), Charizard, Cramorant (-0.5), Crustle, Decidueye (-0.5), Gengar, Mamoswine, Ninetails, Trevenant (-1), Tsarenna and Zeraora all saw no noticeable play among the top 100 players.
The vanishing sword
Last week, Aegislash saw play from eight of the top 100 Pokémon UNITE players. This ranked Aegislash sixth, both among new Pokémon in their first week of play and for the week itself. This week, however, Aegislash was all but absent from the meta, seeing all its players migrate to other Pokémon.
Overall, this is the second-biggest drop in play of any newly released Pokémon, beaten only by Sylveon, who had to be patched only a few days into release. Here are the other changes in play rates based on net change between the first and second week of release:
- Blastoise – 20 (+8)
- Greedent – 14 (+4)
- Mamoswine – 2 (+2)
- Decidueye – 1 (+1)
- Dragonite – 18.5 (-0.5)
- Gardevoir – 2 (-1)
- Trevenant – 0 (-1)
- Blissey – 6 (-2)
- Tsareena – 7.5 (-4.5)
- Aegislash – 0 (-8)
- Sylveon – 5 (-11)
The general trend for new releases is to see a slight decrease in play between their first and second week, with seven of 11 seeing a drop and the average change for all being -1.182 players.
Rabbit season, frog season
Dragonite dominated Pokémon UNITE from its release on Dec. 19 until Patch 1.4.1.2 on Jan. 20. Since then, the jungle meta has been very volatile with Cinderace, Dragonite and Greninja all trading off the lead. Dragonite has been seeing a slow decline in play, now seeing play rates on par with the more niche jungle pick Talonflame.
With buffs from December and a weakened Dragonite, Cinderace has seen the best post-patch play numbers of any jungler with an average of 7.2% and beating out Greninja this week by five players. Last week, the situation was different, with Greninja beating out Cinderace by 6.5 players. The jungle remains incredibly unstable, but if there’s one consistency in Pokémon UNITE, it’s been the constant war for dominance between these two Pokémon.
