Community Day Tsareena: A PvP Analysis

It’s been TWO WEEKS since my last formal analysis article. Sorry about that. I’ll just say that ol’ JRE has been going through some rough times, mostly due to a fraying situation in my real-life occupation (no, I do not actually write for a living!), and had to pause and deal with some stuff and get my mind right again. Still working my way back, but hopefully this will be the first of a few articles over the next week. Lots of stuff on the immediate horizon!

For a PvE analysis, check out our quick analysis here.

Let’s just get right to it! May Community Day features Bounsweet and Tsareena. How does Tsareena look in PvP with its new exclusive move? 👢 Let’s kick off with our customary Bottom Line Up Front to start….

B.L.U.F.

• Overall, the new move DOES represent an upgrade to Tsareena’s performance in PvP. Usually.
• There ARE, however, some tradeoffs, with Tsareena moving away from a Grass role and suffering some new losses in the process.
• Bottom line (of the bottom line?) is this: Tsareena is still not a great PvP contender even with this move, with subpar bulk holding it back, and more refined and potent Grasses already mostly filling the role you’d want Tsareena to fill coming out of this event.

Sorry to be Debbie Downer there, but let’s see what the rest of the story tells us that pushed me to that final conclusion….

TSAREENA Stats and Moves

Tsareena Grass

Great League Stats

Ultra League Stats

Master League Stats

As a mono-Grass, Tsareena is left vulnerable to Fire, Poison, Bug, Ice, AND Flying, which is not great, especially since that balances against only Grass, Ground, Water, and Electric.

Of more concern is its stats. Just to compare to Grass starters, the only ones that have less relative bulk than Tisa are Sceptile and Meowscarada… even flimsy Decidueye outbulks it, as do Grasses not at all known for their bulk like Leafeon, Lurantis, Trevenant, and even Carnivine. So yeah… noooooot great.

Of course, really good moves can overcome a poor typing and stats (just look at fellow mono-Grass Lurantis which I just mentioned!), so perhaps that will be the case here. Let’s check and see!

FAST MOVES

• Magical Leaf – Grass type, 3.33 DPT, 3.33 EPT, 1.5 CoolDown
• Razor Leaf – Grass type, 5.0 DPT, 2.0 EPT, 1.0 CD
• Charm – Fairy type, 5.0 DPT, 2.0 EPT, 1.5 CD

Well, it’s basically Magical Leaf or bust. There are simply MUCH better Razor Leaf and especially Charm options in the game already. A small spoiler: the new move costs 55 energy, so that’s not anything that will help the already poor performance of either of those 2.0 EPT fast moves.

Magical Leaf, by contrast, is one of those rare PvP fast moves that deals above average damage AND generates above average energy. Granted, being only 0.33 over the 3.0 average isn’t great, but being over on both of them is pretty nifty, and it works much better with Tisa’s charge moves for sure.

Speaking of which….

ᴱ – Exclusive (Community Day) Move

CHARGE MOVES

• Stomp – Normal type, 55 damage, 40 energy
• Triple Axel – Ice type, 60 damage, 45 energy, Raises User Attack +1 Stage
• Grass Knot – Grass type, 90 damage, 50 energy
• Draining Kiss – Fairy type, 60 damage, 55 energy
• Energy Ball – Grass type, 90 damage, 55 energy, 10% Chance: Reduce Opponent Defense -1 Stage
• High Jump Kickᴱ – Fighting type, 110 damage, 55 energy, 10% Chance: Reduce User Defense -4 Stages

So let’s not beat around the bush here… new move High Jump Kick gives Tsareena its highest damage output yet, and for the same cost as Energy Ball (while dealing 20 more damage, at least on paper) and the awful Draining Kiss (dealing 50 more damage). It also gives it interesting new Fighting-type coverage, which is great versus Dark and Normal types and maintains the anti-Rock role you like to have with Grass types, but perhaps most importantly, gives Tsa handy coverage against Steel types that resist all of its other moves. It can also provide a nasty surprise versus any Ice types that try to prey on Tsareena’s Grass typing.

The obvious downside is, of course, the potential drawback that comes with it. There are moves that can drop the user’s Defense minus 2 stages (Wild Charge, Close Combat, etc.), or even minus 3 stages (most notably Brave Bird), but there is no move in the game that can drop any stat by the maximum -4 stages at once… until now. Granted, it’s only a 10% chance (as currently coded at the time of this writing), but when it goes off… oooooof.

Of course, this makes it a simulation nightmare, as anything I show could swing pretty wildly if that big debuff triggers. That said… of course I looked at the simulations anyway. 🙃 I mean, that’s what we do here! So while you can take these with at least some grains of salt, let’s see what potential comes with this new move.

GREAT LEAGUE

So before we dive fully down the rabbit hole of sims, a couple things I need to say up front.

Firstly, I’ve barely mentioned Tisa’s other charge moves, other than the other 55-energy moves… which you don’t usually want to be running anyway. Your best options (to this point, at least) have typically been 45-energy Triple Axel (which provides nice coverage and also a guaranteed Attack boost) and 50-energy Grass Knot (which deals the same 90 damage as 55-energy Energy Ball).

And that comes out looking like this in Great League. Yuck. Basically beats a bunch of obvious Grass-type targets and classic Shadow Victreebel (thanks to Axel on that last one).

And here comes the second bit I need to mention before we go any further: as of the time of this writing, Mr. PvPoke is on a well-deserved vacation and has not been able to add High Jump Kick to the site. Thankfully I have my own local version of PvPoke which I was able to add High Jump Kick to, but since it’s run locally I can’t link to it. So instead, we will have to go with some screenshots.

I think the easiest way to show the differences in screenshots is by utilizing PvPoke’s “Matrix” battle, which shows multiple Pokémon (or in this case, the same Pokémon with different movesets) side by side and highlights the win/loss differences.

So here we go. With Magical Leaf/Triple Axel/Grass Knot as the base, here are the differences (positive and negative) when you swap out Grass Knot for High Jump Kick.

• 1v1 shielding – gain Bastiodon, Registeel, Lickitung, Umbreon; lose Azumarill
• 0v0 shielding – gain Lickitung, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, Guzzlord; lose Azumarill, Annihilape, Dewgong, Pelipper, Sableye
• 2v2 shielding – gain Registeel

So obviously a lot of good here, but also some bad. First off, in none of those shielding scenarios does Tisa beat even two thirds of the listed Great League meta (topping out at a 32% winrate).

That said, High Jump Kick is more good than bad, with the Fighting coverage (and raw power) shining brightly with the Registeel, Bastiodon, and Lickitung wins (as well as others like Galarian Stunfisk and Umbreon). But there are losses too, especially with shields down, where the lack of a Grass charge move leads to losing Pelipper and Azumarill, as well as things like Sableye, Dewgong, and Annihilape, where the typing and/or cost of Grass Knot make a difference.

I think it’s fair to call High Jump Kick Tsareena the best Great League Tsareena in general now, but there are tradeoffs, and I don’t think Tisa suddenly becomes meta or will even be a regular fixture in Cups. Just a slightly more interesting spice pick.

ULTRA LEAGUE

Here again, our best to this point has been Triple Axel/Grass. (In this case, Energy Ball shows one more win than Grass Knot, but it’s just because versus Obstagoon, the way to win is throwing Axel and then the Grass move rather than double Grass Knot as the sims try to do) And oh my goodness that was a lot of words for one rather meaningless matchup!) But anyway, the overall effectiveness is little better than Great League, with a winlist filled almost entirely of Water types, with Ampharos, Umbreon, and Granbull as bonuses. Overall, it’s only 25% of the meta, so even a bit worse than Great League.

But if there’s good news, it’s that High Jump Kick grows that winrate by as much as 50%. Both 1shield and 2shield are straight upgrades, which is nice. Let’s look at what those new wins are:

• 1v1 shielding – gain Registeel, Alolan Sandslash, Obstagoon, Greedent, Cobalion
• 0v0 shielding – gain Obstagoon, Umbreon, Alolan Sandslash; lose Feraligatr, Poliwrath, Jellicent, Granbull
• 2v2 shielding – gain Registeel, Steelix, Umbreon, also Cresselia (that last one, however, is just straight Triple Axel)

Unlike Great League, you keep the same wins (mostly Waters) even when now running without any Grass charge moves, except for having shields down in which a handful of Waters and Granbull (thanks to Grass Knot being cheaper) do get away. All of the new victories are over things weak to Fighting damage specifically, with the exception of a new win that shows up versus Cresselia in 2shield but that’s actually won on the back of straight Triple Axel. But other than that, no real surprises. And you’re still losing to things you would hope to overpower with High Jump Kick, like Guzzlord and (usually) Steelix.

SO SHOULD WE USE IT OR NOT?

Meh. While High Jump Kick gives Tsareena a little more oomph in PvP, it’s still trying to walk down trails other things have already blazed… and more effectively at that.

Triple Axel is really the only thing separating it from other Grasses with Fighting moves. In Ultra League, that means Chesnaught, and in Great League that means Lurantis, and you will notice they both outperform Tsareena anyway. The only standout wins for Tisa’s Triple Axel are things like Golisopod and Granbull in Ultra League (where the buffing allows it to outrace) and Shadow Victreebel in Great League (thanks to Vic resisting all Grass and Fighting damage, but being weak to Ice). Otherwise, Tsareena just drags behind Chesnaught, Lurantis, and others.

OTHER HIGH JUMP KICKERS?

There ARE, of course, other things that learn the new move. The more interesting ones include:

• MEDICHAM could return to a little more prominence again with High Jump Kick. While it gives up things like Venusaur and the mirror match by NOT running Psychic (the move), High Jump Kick would get the same win over Lanturn that Dynamic Punch does, AND potentially add on Whiscash and Skarmory, two big names in PvP right now!
• While SCRAFTY runs just fine already with Power-Up Punch and Foul Play as its closer, High Jump Kick would at worst represent a viable alternative to either, especially in Ultra League where H.J.K/Foul Play would potentially be pretty nasty!
• LOPUNNY is still rather fringe, but High Jump Kick would represent a better closer than the Focus Blast or Hyper Beam it has now.

Others like BLAZIKEN, HITMONLEE, HAWLUCHA, and LUCARIO can learn it as well in MSG, but none would be appreciably better with it, and would likely want to keep existing moves in most circumstances. Still, certainly none of them would mind having the option. 😉

IN SUMMATION….

This looks like another Community Day where the featured Pokémon IS better off with its new move, but unlikely to rise to sudden prominence as a result. High Jump Kick makes Tsareena a bit scarier and can draw shields where Tisa couldn’t before, but it would still take an unusual meta for it to rise up and… well… kick butt even now. Grind for good ones, as always, but this isn’t super high priority in my estimation. Just have a good time, because this is a game after all, right?

Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter with regular GO analysis nuggets or Patreon.

Good hunting, folks! Be safe out there, have some fun with your locals, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!