What's good
unfortunate readers, thought I should drop some of my thoughts since we've had the Ultra Sun/Moon for about a week and Ive played enough of it to start forming my own opinions. There's basically five points to talk about it so I'll just go over them one at a time. So since I've put this off for two days here's a post I started last night and rushed to finish before I have to head off to my terrible job.
: Kommo-o is quickly looking to be one of the most overhyped mons I've ever seen, to be completely honest. To be fair it's pretty decent and always something I have in the back of my mind when I build now, but I haven't yet felt the need to go out of my way to beat the Clangorous Soulblaze set. There's a ton of good fairies you can use to stop the Z move if you really need it. I've also found that it really wants to run both of its Dragon and Fighting STABs but Outrage is the first to go on almost any moveset and it really needs Close Combat. Flamethrower lets it hurt Doublade which I've seen a handful of Resttalk sets to give Kommo-o a hard time otherwise but then you miss out on running Focus Blast which is the only feasible double STAB you can run. It wants to run Poison Jab to hit Primarina and Azumarill but then misses out on the other fairies to an extent. Seriously, this thing can't OHKO a 0 bulk Togekiss with +1 Poison Jab LOL (
+1 252 Atk Kommo-o Poison Jab vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Togekiss: 244-288 (78.4 - 92.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO). Obviously if it goes with Iron Tail it misses out on doing big damage to Azu and Primarina which are also some important targets (arguably more common than Togekiss at the moment as well). The damage output is pretty disappointing overall and having to carefully pick what it can break through is not doing it any favors. Sure it can sweep with the right support but this goes for any mon, and it's not exactly hard to revenge kill if you do get yourself in that kinda situation since out best scarfers and priority users slam it, especially with the constant defense drops it has to take to use its best moves. I know the resurgence of Scarf Latias is probably due to the overhyping of this set, but I'd like to believe it's because Healing Wish in conjunction with Serperior and/or Azumarill is
amazing. Clangorous Soulblaze + Dragon Dance is a nice thought to make it harder to revenge kill, but the Dragon Dance sets tend to miss a physical Dragon STAB. Again, not terrible but not nearly as hard to deal with as some people seem to think. Straight Dragon Dance sets don't seem to bring as much to the table than Haxorus with its less powerful Outrages and lower speed as well as the lack of Mold Breaker, but having a pretty strong secondary STAB that can break Steels not named Doublade easier is kinda nice. The extra bulk and Suppose Choice Band is also a semi-viable option now, but again, why not just use Haxorus if you're going for the pure wallbreaking? A set that actually seems threatening to me is a SubSalac Belly Drum set with Drain Punch, as it seems really hard to revenge kill with scarfers or priority thanks to the Sub and Drain Punch, and you can't just sand it down with Hippowdon because of Drain Punch. Seems borderline broken on paper but it's probably a lot harder to pull off in practice than it would suggest. Being the massive GSC fanboy I am I also theorized a Bulk Up + Belly Drum based off of Curse + Drum, or Turbo, Lax set that I have yet to try but have already decided to call it Turbo-o. I'll write something else later about how it actually works out, stay tuned. I know it's only a week in but I'd probably give this mon B+ or A- just because it's something that definitely works in the meta but you don't have to think especially hard or go out of your way to check it with standard Balance or Bulky Offense.
: Azumarill is pretty much the same as the last two times we banned it, strong wallbreaker with a decent typing that lets it throw off some hard hits and revenge kill a Terrakion or Aero with Aqua Jet. Belly Drum is still sorely overrated as I expected. Its not hard to slap a fast Water resist on offense and limit it to 1 KO at most even if you play like dong. Even moderately powerful stuff like Latias can revenge it at half health and there are even better options for this task like Sceptile and Rotom-Wash. Liquidation is a cool new tool that it can use to smash through Quagsire on stall teams but you still probably shouldn't use it on Drum sets. I honestly think that Primarina is better in a direct comparison to be completely honest, the Special Water/Fairy STAB backed up by Psychic is pretty nasty and Sparkling Aria pretty much ensures that Primarina will never lose a 1v1 to SubToxic Gliscors which is always nice. Lastly, with the GSC virtual console live, we can run Whirlpool + Perish Song with Sap Sipper which is kinda neat because it's a free win against stall but not super potent otherwise. TLDR I'd vote unban a million times if I was voting again, and hopefully it doesn't get a ban vote for
a set walled by Hippowdon. (still <3 u kinku-sama)
: Definitely the middle of the road as far as these unbans go. Clicking 140 base power STAB and getting +2 SpA off of it is kind of annyoing for balance teams but at the same time its so pathetically weak initially that it has a hard time actually getting these boosts without giving some momentum away. It's really not even ridiculously strong with boosts, +2 HP Fire fails to OHKO Mega Beedrill (
+2 252 SpA Serperior Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Beedrill: 220-260 (81.1 - 95.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO; I learned this from U-turn missing due to an evasion boost from Defog, the true broken factor of Serperior)
Defensive teams have more than enough to deal with it between Mega Aggron (should be running max SpD), Mega Altaria, Togekiss, Moltres, Blissey, Amoonguss, Bronzong, and even Sap Sipper Azumarill now. All of these are viable choices for stall teams (which the SubSeed set apparently destroys) that can hold Serperior off pretty easily, off the top of my head. As for checking it offensively, there's plenty of good choices that can take it on. Its Speed tier of 113 is good but a bit awkward as this means even Starmie and Raikou can be threatening to it in the right scenario. As always we have things like and Scarf Infernape, Mega Beedrill and Manectric (this mon isn't common but i just wanted this chance to say use Salazzle btw) which are extremely common that scare it out pretty easily and can tank Leaf Storms in a pinch. Muk and Klefki are still ever rising in popularity and are both pretty threatening to Serp with priority Thunder Wave (or Light Screen) and Pursuit-trapping. Sure it's boosting is pretty potent in some scenarios but I think we have a sufficient amount of viable tools to keep Serp under control with. Definitely a mon with some good tools, especially with Z-moves and Defog, as well as something we'd have to consider a bit when building, but nothing over strenuous on any specific playstyles in my opinion.
: Scolipede definitely seems like the most re-banworthy of the trio, with its capability to get a Swords Dance and Speed Boost off in one turn making it a massive threat to any team without a Quagsire. Megahorn/Earthquake/Aqua Tail seems to be agreed upon as the best spread of coverage it can use to shred through as much offense as possible, but there are options like a secondary STAB in Poison Jab that can let it smack various Fairies in one hit as well as Mantine, which otherwise would be one of its most solid checks. I think all of this is somewhat better on paper than in practice, though, as Swords Dance is pretty hard to get off for free against the offense teams it supposedly sweeps and 100 base Attack is decent without a boost, but nothing astounding. Suicide Leads seem lowkey bad but can probably work on some balls to the wall retard offense that I hate so if anyone wants to try that out tell me how it goes. A general Life Orb set with Spikes/Toxic Spikes sounds more appealing to me, as and offensive hazard setter that doesn't get completely stuffed by common stuff like Tentacruel and Empoleon or Defog Rotom forms now is probably good. For now this mon seems really good and I'm for banning it since on paper it makes the tier worse even if it isn't completely busted, but I'm not completely sold on it. I'll need more hands-on experience with this mon as it's definitely the unban I've used the least out of the three so far.
Last point I wanna talk about is the general move tutors and new stuff we have access to now. I'll just point out a couple that have caught my attention since we don't have a whole ton of stuff to talk about just yet
: Obligatory talking about the new defoggers yada yada. I'd like to point out that Mowtom and Serperior are both really effective Defoggers in my opinion, as they easily force out common setters like Gliscor, Swampert, Seismitoad, and Mega Steelix (to an extent). Mowtom also can stop Klefki with Toxic which is nice. Mega Altaria, Gliscor, and Hydreigon are really strong Defoggers for defensive teams too but I haven't tried them out too much yet. Defog in general being more available has made Moltres and Talonflame more viable, especially with the increase of Rotom-Wash not running Pain Split and making it easier to wear down, as well as a little less Aerodactyl in general.
: Muk got some nice new moves with elemental punches, so now it can hit Scizor a bit harder with Fire Punch as well as pressure Gliscor a bit if you wanna go with Ice Punch if you can deal with Scizor well enough. Also has >100 HP Subs and Focus Punch now, not sure how that will work out but it sounds super fun to mess around with even if it might be a bit suboptimal.
Not too much more to mess around with at the moment in my opinion bar like Meteor Mash Lucario which I have yet to try out but doesn't seem like a super massive improvement on its part.
That's enough from me for now, hopefully I'll have the time for another more educated post closer to the bans. Still think we should unban Mega Lati and Buzzwole, and stop using 176 SpA Mamo with no Icicle Crash PLEASE.