Metagame SV UU Metagame Discussion - The Indigo Disk

[somethingaboutsomething]

i feel like this thing is busted because of the same reasons kommo-o is busted, its has just so much set versatility and if you guess any of them wrong you're sweept

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

Of all the insane drops, one of the mons that will probably fly under the radar with all the broken shit is . I’m actually really curious to see how Meta will fare this gen since he got access to a really crucial new tool in Knock Off, as well as a decent new STAB in Hard Press that can operate effectively off of his massive weight. He could end up being a pretty decent steel in the meta, between his stats and usable movepool. I could definitely see a solid defensive utility set with Knock, Rocks, Hard Press, and either EQ for coverage of Bullet Punch for STAB priority. Meta will be interesting, I think..

Hard Press deals damage based on the opponent's HP. More HP = More Damage. I think you meant Heavy Slam, which will always be 120 BP since everything else is light

 

[Szark]

I agree mostly cause it creates the least collateral damage. While I’m aware tiering isn’t based on what’s best for all tiers, I do think it should at least be thought about before making decisions. Ninetales is rarely used outside of aurora veil, so it has the least impact, while light clay makes screens as a whole borderline unviable and banning aurora veil makes other potential strategies in lower tiers impossible to use.

It’s also the simplest ban possible which councils normally prefer doing from what I’ve seen.

Light Clay is already banned from every tier below UU which means ironically banning it here creates less colateral damage for lower tiers ironically than Tales who can potentially drop and be viable.

 

[Lyssa]

quick-fire thoughts because i'm way too lazy atm to properly format things through:
- Latias could've been a great addition to the dynamics of the tier but instead decided to turn into espathra 2.0 with 1500 viable sets/tera that take advantage or play around something different and it's impossible to cover most let alone all of them resulting in a cringe situation, seeing it do silly stuff such as only invest in bulk because it genuinely doesn't take damage to anything as it setups to eternity is pretty depresso.
- Iron Hands is the best it has ever been and I cannot wait for this mon to be locked up forever and hopefully we throw the key somewhere.
- Initially overreacted to Blaziken maybe, it's insanely strong but hard to pick moves w/, relies on life orb so forced to take damage both from that+hazards, widespread prios across the table and there is some defensive counterplay. Don't know if I can see it being fine longterms but for now it could be.
- Ceruledge is still stupid in the same exact way it was before, minus we have more prios. idt it's ever staying for more than a couple of weeks sadly.
- Manaphy has not been that big of a deal to me. I don't know how much this will stay true with meta slowing down, but speedtier feels vmediocre, rather simple to deny setup and all sets have a decent chunk of semi-reliable counterplay.
- Latios is really good but heavily relies on good clicks to snowball out of control, it can get around every bit of counterplay there is in the tier but requires the right coverage at the right time and being able to have a lot of turns to click which isn't straight forward to achieve. Super cool addiction if it doesn't start being as cringe as his sister.
- Cinccinos a good pokémon but please stop clicking triple axel into zapdos it hurts my soul.
- Gargas probably as stupid as it was before but this very fast paced meta keeps it in check. Don't think I can see it being fine if the nature of the tier changes, I've seen it soloing an unhealthy amount of games whenever it didn't faced HO in the same way it did before, we didn't really get new pieces of reliable counterplay and the removal situation getting even worse makes covert even more unreasonable.
- Garchomp felt like a good addition to the tier, cool as heck pocket monster, counterplay exists and adds good dynamics.
- Greninja is silly but it's coverage hits like a wet noodle. Counterplay seems to be relatively widespread for now, but could get real stupid as people try out more stuff.
- Hydrapple is decent but goddamn we didn't need a move like fickle beam.
- Iron Moths similar to greninja, hits like a wet noodle but has a ton tools and can easily snowball out of control.
- Kommo-o has been shit. idk what else to say.
- Gmolt is still stupid as fuck.
- Cornerstone has an extremely limited amount of defensive counterplay but semi-awkward speedtier (especially for a mon that would love to play as encore pivot), itemlocked outside of boots and an horrible typing that gives it no defensive utility pmuch have made me feel like it was completely fine
- Torn-T is still the best mon in the tier.
- We didn't need a better static mon and hope that zapdos guy runs back to ou.
- Not only do I think that Veil is just worse than screens (taunt is an especially huge deal to me right now, and missing out on that+possible pivoting+mon immune to psychic fangs for hypnosis misses and 1 more turn to abuse doesn't feel worth to me), but in general haven't felt like they were enhancing the mons in a problematic way, I feel like everything i've touched upon or called broken were broken by itself and didn't get that big miliage from the extra support. I'm not necessarily opposed to removing clay since it doesn't add anything to the tier but to me that should be a last resort and it's both unneeded nor we know enough about what we're playing (yet) to make such a decision.

tl;dr of what was already a tl;dr: latias/hands have felt silly and will be voting ban on, can't see ceru and garga being fine longterms, will keep an eye on blaze/gren/moth/gmolt

 

[Lily]

Heya so just as an announcement, we're likely going to be voting on Light Clay, Latias, Blaziken, and Iron Hands over the coming days. Make your opinions known on them if you have any!

 

[LilOu]

Heya so just as an announcement, we're likely going to be voting on Light Clay, Latias, Blaziken, and Iron Hands over the coming days. Make your opinions known on them if you have any!

thoughts so far (subject to change with new experience obtained):

(ban)
the amount of free turns auroraveil/screens gives to stupidly offensive mons to setup is insane. they are already hard to deal with on their own, but usually their fragility is what keeps them balanced. light clay just doesn't help at all with that

(abstain)

idk if i have just built teams that are not weak to this, but i haven't found a single problem with latias. the only set i have faced so far is CM+agility+draining kiss+stored power. it needs too may turns to get going, and with the hyper-offensive-bully state of the meta, i don't think it has the tools to keep up at least for now. edit: im way more afraid of cresselia, tbh

(dnb)

sure this looks terrifying on paper, but as i stated in my previous post, i haven't found blaziken that scary on practice. its subpar bulk and poor defensive typing means it needs protect to get the first speed boost and start rolling out. so if you use SD + protect, cc + flare blitz are not enough coverage to make it worth of a ban. on the other hand, if you drop protect to use another coverage move like thunder punch or knock off, everything else pretty much outspeeds it and kills/weakens enough to negate the sweep. also, priority is everywhere. people like to compare it with quaquaval, but don't do it haha. quaquaval sets of on EVERYTHING thanks to its typing, bulk and usually defensive oriented spreads that STILL snowball out of control.

(abstain)

i haven't had headaches with it in all my experience without the support of screens/veil. which reveals the problem is not this mon itself but the freaking screens

 

[Negative Charge]

Nuke light clay from orbit. I haven’t seen anyone present an argument for it to stay besides that the ban should hit ninetails instead. I think light clay makes sense because it nerfs Grimm too. I think the next step is ban Ninetails if this isn’t enough.

Latias is dumb because stored power is dumb. Kind of a shame because it’s otherwise very balanced.

Blaziken is probably fine. There’s so much priority in this tier. Blaziken typically gets a kill and dies in my experience but I also don’t really care if it gets nuked too.

Iron Hands is still busted, nothing has really changed. If it gets behind veil it’s GG.

 

[Corporate Donkey]

here's my opinions on the mons(and item) currently on the voting slate;

It's probably just my personal bias but I want this thing gone.
- Ban

Latias is just Cresselia on crack, having a much higher speed tier, access to draining kiss, and the capability to deal actual damage without an extreme amount of set up.
After some more thinking, Latias isn't that overwhelming. Other people have explained why Latias is fine better than I could here, so please take a look at their posts.
- DnB

At first I thought Blaziken wasn't as bad as other pokemon people were talking about, but after more games I learned the hard way just how fast it could snowball when sent in against a passive pokemon. The sheer amound of damage it can deal at +2 is insane, and it resists or is neutral to most forms of priority, making it incredibly hard to revenge kill.
- Ban

Similarly to Blaziken, I also thought Hands wasn't as bad as other dominant threats, but playing more lead me to realize that once again, Iron Hands is broken. Without Skeledirge around it can run ice punch freely, giving it effectively perfect coverage, on top of having massive bulk which allows it to have effortless setup opportunities.
- Ban

 

[spell]

- blaziken is walking a tightrope on being fine to deal with and stupid imo. because of how limited its switchin points+setup opportunities are and how annoying finding the perfect coverage for it is (protect is mandatory i feel) considering that non-knock struggles against lati@s, no cc struggles against waters and non-sedge means it won't ever hope of beating physdef zapdos unless you knock it + run tera electric which is not a useful tera type for it. hazards on top of this considering the sorry state of removal we have right now makes finding these points harder and annoying. trying to put blaziken on a team too also just proves to be annoying considering it has no defensive utility really and forces you into specific compositions that are very exploitable. but hey, these are all issues that can be figured out and handled and when it hits it really feels impossible to deal with because of the set variability thing i touched on earlier. right now is probably the only period where it'd be somewhat ok but banning it feels like the move.

- the bulk has always been stupid on this with max spdef eating everything, no dirge hurts this things playability a lot and checking it in the builder is extremely unreasonable. it does the same thing its always done but even more efficiency than before so yeah an easy ban.

- has 10 million sets which are all good (i like boltbeam cloak and scarf best since they have pretty good matchup spreads and utility rn), reina put it well in her post so im not going to add much but yeah she needs to go.

light clay is not broken

-----



Jirachi @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Serene Grace
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / you can add however many speed evs you want but SpDef should be the bias
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Trick
- U-turn

+

Zapdos @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Volt Switch
- Roost


does regular jirachi duties such as checking the eon twins and non-hwave torn with the added benefit of denying garganacl of a true sweep permanently while getting rocks up - pretty important compression thing since you want every slot to be doing something useful. this also works with latias too since the surprise factor is real and is a more reliable way of shutting it down than using encore. it being unable to touch metagross, treads, scizor, hydrapple or any water at all post-trick allows for zapdos to be a pretty fluid partner because it deals with all of those while also allowing whatever offensive guy you have in the back to get in via volts - think gren or latios as they are pretty big threats right now. adding av torn on top of those also helps deal with things like moth as well which is another thing that rachi is kind of boned by if you arent clicking u-turn.



this tier rn is pretty ballsack and chaotic but i can see it being really fun to prepare and play in, despite all of the flaws it has currently ive enjoyed it so i'm looking forward to building and playing it in uupl. have a nice day

 

[Melt Gibson]

hi i'm very sick rn so bear with me but here are my thoughts on the drops :)


Public enemy number one, I think a ban on this or Light Clay is going to be necessary for the tier to progress and evolve in a healthy way. A lot of things that are fine or already on the verge of being stupid are made very much not fine with the addition of Veil (Blaziken, Manaphy, etc.). Really nasty piece of work that doesn't really add anything of value and I think it'd be very good for the tier's health to just get rid of it.


Also believe this needs to be immediately nuked from orbit LOL, it's very fast, very strong, has a lot of coverage for every situation, and Booster guessing games are dumb as always. Lack of a real setup move also doesn't bother it at all since Fiery Dance is your best Fire STAB option in a lot of cases anyway. However, if it does survive the ban slate coming up, I think that things like Booster SpAtk + Agility could be worth exploring to capitalize on how good the moth is at forcing switches. Would definitely prefer it didn't though.


The other obnoxious robot in the room that also needs to go ASAP. The lack of Skeledirge's presence means it's once again just free to tech for whatever it wants and isn't mandated into Tera Fire with EQ. It's ridiculously fat, very strong, and can force trades with nearly everything it comes across. Even our stronger Grounds fold like a fucking lawn chair to a combination of Ice and Drain Punch. There's also the argument that can be made that if Hands being healthy in the meta hinges on whether or not Skeledirge is present, then it's just not healthy for the meta at all, but I'm not here to make that point when it's just clearly overpowering in the meta we have right now. Ban it, lock it away, and throw out the key.


The Espathra 2 comments are a bit much on this IMO, I don't think that Tera + its multitude of sets is quite enough to make it unbeatable. A lot of our Steels (Jirachi, Metagross, Scizor, Treads) can handle it just fine, although I do agree that it's very strong. Not quite convinced that this one is banworthy, but I could be if I saw it do some silly shit, and I definitely won't be mad about seeing it go.


If you told me in 2014 that both of these would be UU and that Latios would be the weaker one, I'd have looked at you like you had three heads. This guy is awesome though, Soul Dew breaker sets are very consistently rewarding towards aggressive play and Luster Purge is perfect for chipping away at recovery spam or particularly obnoxious walls. Devolving matchups into a series of coinflips is really funny. Pressure is an actual genuine worry since both of your STABs are 8PP, but you're not really trying to click either of them more than three times anyway so who cares LOL. Wish it still had Mystical Fire but otherwise probably my favorite drop.


A lot better than I was initially willing to give it credit for! PsyFangs, Knock Off, and Heavy Slam were perfect additions to the movepool for Metagross, especially the former with how prevalent Veil/Other random screens bullshit has been lately. Perfect counter to Alolan Ninetales, good matchup into the Latis, fat (enough) Steel, overall great presence. Like this guy a lot!


Counterplay to this is ample now and I think the toolkit it provides in the builder is really solid. Offensive sets have a neat thing going on where you can run Scale/EQ/SD and the last slot is pretty much entirely free since unless you're running into shitters like Gweez or the occasional Tera Fairy Latias you will never ever need an actual coverage move. Sub is probably my favorite, but I've also seen people throw on a hazard and it do just fine, Iron Head also never hurts to pack on there if you're really scared.


I don't like this at all LOL, definitely feels like Veil makes it worse than it actually is though. Acid Armor + Take Heart demon sweepers aren't impossible to beat, but they do heavily punish you for not immediately being able to start tacking on damage. The speed tier is mid as fuck, and picking a coverage move can be hard at times, but a lot of the things that would attempt to wall you simply can not outdamage you. Not worthy of an immediate ban as of right now, I'd like to see what we do about Alolan Ninetales/Light Clay and other things first, but I could definitely see this being the target of a suspect later down the line.


The damage this gets is absolutely bonkers, but the speed tier and typing alongside being item locked suck for it a lot, so I'm pretty fine with it. If anything, the most broken thing about RockPon is that it has an actual good Rock-type move with no real drawbacks. The lack of ability to defensively Tera is also kinda rough since there are a lot of matchups in this tier where you'd prefer to be a type that's not Grass/Rock, and the +1 Defense from Embody Aspect is okay? But nowhere near GrassPon's Speed boost. Sturdy is fine, I guess, not being able to get one tapped is neat in situations where you're worried about that. Overall a fine mon though, and I think people are definitely way overreacting to this one.


I think this is fine as of right now, but absolutely worth keeping a close eye on. I think that it's got enough checks that it's currently fine, Alo in particular completely snubs it, but Speed Boost is Speed Boost and it can certainly run away with games.

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

Banning this wouldn't really have any negative effect on the tier I'd say, but probably isn't necessary. I think HO in general isn't better than BO at the moment and I don't think Light Clay breaks anything currently. If it was between this and a pokemon that I'd consider to have a positive impact on the tier (ahem, Latias), I'd prefer to see this banned, but HO isn't better than BO and Screens aren't a better offense style than hazard stacking either.

I think it's so easy to look at this and think it's banworthy because of how it looks on paper and only looking at games where it wins, but in my experience, this is not an unfair wincon at all. Most of the time, I feel like if it sweeps a team, that team is either not prepared for it at all or the Latias user had to do a lot of work to get in a position where Latias can properly win. Its set variety can only take it so far as its immediate threat potential is pretty low, so you can often safely switch into a mon that can hit it hard and start hitting/scouting. Counterplay for it feels pretty intuitive too, most Steels (Notably Metagross, Jirachi and Scizor) can at least check it once (scouting it is half the battle anyway) and if you still struggle with it, you can look into plenty of other options to mess with it. Taunt, Encore, Trick and Phazing are pretty obvious outs and you can always improve your odds through Salt Cure or Status. You can even just try to beat it down with mons like Latios, Terrakion, Garchomp, Azumarill or even Heavy Slam Treads. I've found that, often times, it'll need to Tera to dodge a lethal hit, so feel free to use your own Tera to mess with it. The only way I can see of it getting out of hand with all these tools available is behind Screens and even then you have a fair few options I feel. This is not to mention how useful this mon is for teambuilding since it acts as an Webs-immune, Spikes-immune answer to a fair few otherwise threatening mons. Latias fits on so many teams and makes them sturdier against a lot of Water, Electric, Fire and Fighting-types in one slot, ironically giving you more room to deal with opposing Latias. In general, I understand where most of the complaints about this mon are coming from, but I think it's so easy to call it broken when counterplay for it is still at an early stage and I'd hope people don't single out games where it sweeps, because, in my experience, those are on the rarer side. Don't mistake a good wincon for a broken.

This thing is super inconsistent and telegraphed imo. I've seen a fair few of them hard switch into a faster mon and the incoming Protect is kind of too obvious to go unpunished. In general, it suffers from a lot of issues that make it difficult for it to do anything. Setting up is already quite difficult due to its poor bulk and low starting Speed. It also has some moveslot issues, it's super vulnerable to offensive mons while setting up without Protect, Knock hits most answers but still leaves it open to stuff like Booster Moth (yes, really) and Azu and whatever other option you might think of will come with its own issues. Its sweeps also feel super easy to stop with your own Tera since it often has to click a specific move to kill a specific target, but so many mons naturally run Tera Fairy, Water, Dragon or Ghost. Its own STABs also leave it pretty likely to get picked off by Priority which is not ideal. It's a very extreme mon so it can sometimes pick up a sweep out of nowhere, but that's the exception, not the norm. Still wouldn't mind it going, but idt it needs to.

No dirge, no balanced. Hands when it's able to run Ice Punch is ridiculous and there's not much more to say here. I haven't played against it too much, but looking at most of the teams I've built, it seems likely to at least trade positively, if not kill 3 mons and leave the team in an unplayable state. I'll leave it up to people who have more experience against it to judge, but it seems pretty strong.

 

[BigFatMantis]

We should only be banning the things that are absolutely obscene to deal with, and then see how it settles afterwards. I actually think the tier is better than it was last week so I wouldn’t make sweeping changes - definitely no need to touch light clay yet, I’d say look more at Hands, Ceruledge, and Kommo first. Don’t think Latias is as bad as people are making it out to be and generally agree with Mossy, it’s more suspect worthy than anything after the other stuff is decided. I stand by my 2020 DNB Blaziken post.

 

[ThatOneApple]

Radar Time (yippeee)

BAN
Being honest, this is just a complete negative, i understand that that alone isnt usually enough for a qb, but i do think there are mons that are fine without it but not with it now.

One such example is , who normally posses a solid amount of offensive counterplay to beat down into a range where it can easily be revenged, such as and . All of which can threaten it well enough to stop it from sweeping teams.

However, WITH veil, well... most of them dont
252 SpA Soul Dew Latios Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 255-301 (74.7 - 88.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Soul Dew Latios Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy through Light Screen: 127-150 (37.2 - 43.9%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Sandy Shocks Volt Switch vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 218-258 (63.9 - 75.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Sandy Shocks Volt Switch vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy through Light Screen: 109-129 (31.9 - 37.8%) -- 0.2% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Ogerpon, can still force it out pretty well... until mana teras, which is a different thing partially but it doesnt have to tera to a resist specifically with screens up, which is rough
252 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Manaphy: 308-366 (90.3 - 107.3%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Manaphy through Reflect: 154-183 (45.1 - 53.6%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Ogerpon Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Fairy Manaphy through Reflect: 77-91 (22.5 - 26.6%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

There are likely other examples of stuff like this, but i think the tier is better off banning light clay just to prevent more things that are usually fine from needing to get banned.

BAN
Tbh idk what else i can add that others havent already said,
It COULD be a nice presence, but it just HAD to be espathra but again, cresselia with more speed and a better defensive profile, Screens make it worse but i really dont think its ok without them. can replicate a good amount of what it does so its not like we lose too much of the positives of latias by removing it (tho speaking of this, keep on eye on latios if latias gets banned in case it pulls these shenanigans too). Overall yeah espatrha + cress mon = get out.

DNB
This thing is kinda eh atm, its not too too hard to prevent it from getting set up and has bad 4mss. Might be an issue in the future so its worth revisting.

BAN
No dirge, this dude can tech for anything, change its tera to whatever it wants, nothing is good into it. Get staraptor 2.0 OUT.

Additional Stuff


Look this thing is just the same as last time, its a bit easier to prevent a weak armor proc but from what ive seen of it doesnt really matter when it just runs shadow sneak to be faster than things anyways. ESPECIALLY since sneak is super effective on 2 of our new special attackers and . I think its more deserving of a ban than blaziken atm, as it feels a lot better at just beating teams down with stabs, as its fire stabs doesnt have recoil (and heals it which makes it worse). And the prio makes it harder to revenge and less reliant on speed boosts. Overall hate this guy.

 

[Corporate Donkey]

I'll also give my brief takes on the other mons people talk about a lot when it comes to broken pokemon.



Ceruledge is pretty problematic, while it isn't too bulky and is quite slow before a weak armor boost, with Poltergeist it hits like an absolute truck, making it super hard to switch into, and if it gets weak armor activated from a weaker physical attack, it's nearly impossible to revenge kill.



Garchomp feels like a great addition to the metagame at the moment. It's a very potent win condition and offensive threat, while also having good defensive utility and being a great hazard setter. I don't think it's banworthy and would love to see it stick around.



I absolutely hate this thing but it isn't broken.



Protean Greninja isn't problematic in the slightest, however Battle Bond is pretty hard to deal with if Greninja manages to pick up a kill. Unlike when Battle Bond was first released in UU it is harder for Greninja to secure a kill, however by the late game it can facilitate a sweep pretty effortlessly. There are definitely more problematic pokemon as of now, but I'd still keep my eye on it.



I honestly don't know how this mon didn't end up getting voted on, but I feel like this is the next mon that needs to go after the three currently being voted on. It has an absurd speed tier with booster energy, instantly hitting a staggering 525 speed, and also having a massive base 140 special attack stat make it incredibly hard to switch into, not to mention it potentially getting a +1 boost each time it uses fiery dance.



I'd have more to say about this mon if I actually ran into people using it, but I feel like it isn't very broken. Unlike last gen where it had multiple dangerous sets it could run, it only has one set that's incredibly dangerous, making it much easier to prepare for in the builder.



While at first it felt overwhelming, I feel like now it feels pretty reasonable to check and is a great addition to the tier as a fast offensive threat. both 3 attacks soul dew sets and choice sets are really solid, and not too hard to prepare for in the builder.



Another pokemon I can't say much about since I've hardly ran into it, but it doesn't feel nearly as broken as I thought it would. There's plenty of pokemon who can outspeed and KO it, and it only becomes super hard to take care of behinds screens, which hopefully decrease in usage if light clay gets banned.



This pokemon caused me the most issues early on, however after playing more it hasn't felt as broken as it did day 1. However, it still feels problematic and I would support further action on it in the future.

 

[Szark]

I am honestly not sold on banning anything yet.

Personally I think Webs is better than Veil. There are so many strong threats in the metagame that are either don't have acess to speed boosting move or need to sacrifice a slot they would rather not. Ogerpon and Latios both appreciate that just little bit of speed, Ceruledge becomes less reliant on Weak Armor procs and has easier time against hazards and TG Manaphy gets to outspeed things for once. Fun fact Booster Speed Iron Moth at -1 hits 349 speed so its slower than Max Speed 110 base by 1 point. Anyway back to Veil. I think Alola-Tales feels really garbage to use right now because basically any counterplay that hits Rimbombee also hits it except for Spin. Cornerstone is faster than it and one KO's it while the other, Torn can still Knock it, Metagros has both Psychic Fangs and Bullet Punch so on.

This is the one I'm somewhat inclined because Double Dance with Tera can snowball out of hands very quickly or can be very annoying with Tera Fairy Draining Kiss. However it REALLY needs to set up to be threatning and usually REALLY wants to Tera. Base typing leaves it weak to both of Lokix stabs, most common Tera Type leaves it neutral to Bullet Punch, both of its stabs have immunities and it often struggles hitting Steels. I think Mossy said it best.

Idk man I probably just havent seen it enough but the games I have seen it in it just didnt do anything. It's hard for me to say anything about it but in theory with wanting both Protect and SD and wanting stabs that either kill it lower its defenses and wanting coverage it's hard to buy it just from theory. (Flare Blitz/Close Combat gets walled by Flash Fire which is a bit amusing).

Definitely the closest thing I find outright ban worthy. Hands does Hands things but ocassionally gets nuked by Latis. Really don't know if there is that much to say. I just haven't really played against it that much but between this and Light Clay I would rather Hands be banned because it's not even locked to that play style to begin with.

 

[Askov]

there are definitely a few pokes that you could make a case of becoming broken because of light clay but in my experience it hasn't been enough to make it the main problem instead of other pokes that are broken with or without it

i'd say that latias would be fine if she didn't have cheesy sets potential alongside just being able to run sets like scarf with hw, offensive (with or without cm, which yes, is prob done better by latios but exactly because of that it can be used to catch the opponent offguard), twave support shenanigans etc, i feel like its versatility with sets that have fairly different counterplays makes it be too much for the tier

i'm on the fence about this one, it can circunvent its checks but at the same time it can't do it all at once, gets hurt a lot by 4MSS because you want protect, coverage for stuff like azu, upper hand in some cases to deal w prio stuff and there's also the issue of your main attacking move killing yourself and hindering it's potential, definitely a poke we should keep our eyes on though because of its snowball potential

i feel like we've made this mistake too many times. it always ends up being broken just because of its absurd bulk being able to win 1v1s that it shouldn't really, has near perfect coverage between drain punch tpunch and ice punch/eq and has a fairly decent natural typing, just keep it banned.

other stuff that aren't being voted on but i feel like people also have been concerned about or at least keeping an eye on:

ok that thing is still crazy like it was the last time it was here, bitter blade healing you back to full/out of prio range most of the time + a ridiculously strong STAB that complements bitter blade that barely has good resists + having prio on its own/can opt to run cc for untera'd garg/ttar + weak armor just makes it really hard to have real counterplay, and that's not even counting for other options like BU sets which although not as busted they can still be used to circunvent some counterplay options to it, fairly good base type as well

i feel like it's fine atm but once the tier slows down a bit from all the threats it'll be nuts, and if latias gets banned then it can pretty much also use the same fishy sets so yeah i feel like it'll eventually get the boot

i have mixed feelings about whether it's broken or not, i feel like it has great natural bulk to pretty much force your opp to trade at least one poke to beat it and has potential for some cheesy sets that can get out of control as well, although they prob are a bit slow to get going in this more fast paced meta

now this is something that i have an opinion contrary to most people i feel: yes, you have a good amount of prios that can take it out after scale shot drop + chip and defensive counterplay exists, and while it's true that tera is able to push other pokes that i don't believe is broken over the edge i feel like in garchomp's case it's a bit more noticeable because you can run tera steel/fairy to cover its base weaknesses and give a safer setup opportunity, run some defensive tera that covers w/e prio you wanna handle better or even just run tera dragon to muscle through anything that isn't enamorus/geezing, also not even mentioning that aside from those two fringe mons mentioned before, it hits pretty much everything with its STABs so you can customize your last move to be anything you wanna be a bit better against (you can even just use iron head if they're really an issue for you). maybe it's not banworth but as of now i'm leaning more towards this thing being broken than it not being.

the meta seems fast paced to make it a nuisance now but i feel like history will repeat and it'll be broken once the meta starts to settle down towards BO/balanceish teams

has potential to be broken prob, but i feel like it either lacks power w +spe booster sets or is a bit too slow to make it truly shine with +spa agili sets which is crazy considering it has 350 but that's how speedy/prio infested the meta is i feel

this thing has some checks that fits on all playstyles but at the same time they're pretty limited for more offensive teams i feel (you're realistically only using azu/keldeo on offense as switch ins to it) and perhaps lacks a bit of initial power/is locked into specs, but it being pretty much the fastest relevant unboosted poke + having a solid prio to circunvent being rkilled by opposing prio makes it harder to deal with. not sure yet but leaning a bit towards broken rn

havent really used it/played against so i don't have a real opinion on it, looks fineish but i could be wrong

still broken, berserk + sitrus giving it a free np in most games + pretty good stab combination + pretty good stats all around is insane

it's prob more under control right now due to meta's state rn but i feel like it eventually will be broken just because it has like 5000 differents setup sets options that don't overlap too much in answers + pretty good stats

yes ik static is pretty much a free kill vs contact pokes but it has felt fine so far, great addition to the tier just because there are a ton of stuff that just pressures it enough to not give it breathing room to properly shine and do zapdos stuff consistently throughout the game

yes, the former PU poke is making it on my list, like +spa moth sets there are some stuff limiting it just because of how fast and dynamic the meta is imo but SD sets will be insane after some waves of bans i feel, upper hand is a pretty dope addition for it as well. scarf and band still pretty solid sets, particularly liking scarf rn just because of how much it can keep in check vs offense mus

pretty much similar to terrak, cm sets could push it through the edge later on? vacuum wave is a pretty nice 2023 gift for it

 

[Moutemoute]

Fun fact Booster Speed Iron Moth at -1 hits 349 speed so its slower than Max Speed 110 base by 1 point.

I'm almost sure this was debunked a while ago. If a Pokémon with Booster Energy comes on the field, Sticky Web is applied first and then Booster Energy is used. In our case, Sticky Webs would lower Iron Moth speed thus triggering a boost in special attack with Booster Energy (and not speed as usual since SpA > Speed after debuff due to Sticky Web).

 

[Negative Charge]

Lokix @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Tinted Lens
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- First Impression
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch / Axe Kick / Leech Life
- U-turn

Lokix is the only mon that has been on basically every team of mine throughout Gen 9 UU. It's an amazing anti-bs mon that will always make progress. Its only truly bad matchups are into Moltres (and less so Zapdos). I used to have leech life on here but I think Sucker will save you occasionally. Huge fan of it in the offense fiesta of January UU. I used to run SD on it but I think four attacks is generally better.

 

[NobodyActually]

- DNB

Not enough initial power, struggles to get in on offensive teams, and lacks recovery/walled by darks on cm + agility while not that powerful on other sets.

- Ban

Not broken but unhealthy for the metagame. Requires no skill to use and has almost no walls. This thing is an extremely well late game cleaner with a sd up, especially when its checks are worn down.

or - Ban

Veil is not broken, however it enables some mons that I think should be banned regardless. Iron hands is broken on veil but manageable without.

Also is by far the most broken mon right now

 

[5camp]

OK this was max hp Iron Hands behind reflect versus scarf, but still, it's a Gapdos brave bird. There's something just so inherently silly about the way Iron Hands just sits there and kills stuff effortlessly.

Anyways, for the current slate:

The only thing I think is currently QB worthy. I've been using tera dark to shit on Latios. It's been banned 3 times before so it feels safe to assume we know what it does and it still hasn't gotten any worse at that.

DNB, although I'd hardly cry if it was banned. I think people panic over light clay early on in every tier. When a bunch of strong setup sweepers join a tier, it's just really easy to slap together 4-5 of them alongside a screens setter so it makes the playstyle look more busted than it actually is. Also this really should be a AlolaTails ban if it was up - even though I'm like the one person on ladder running Grimmsnarl. Look, I just really like that prankster taunt, OK?

I'm extremely surprised at this one. Yeah it's good, but this feels less like Espathra and more like that one week of OU where everyone panicked over Galarticuno. It takes careful positioning to get it to where it can sweep.

On the fence, leaning on no. It's pretty incredible, and if you play your cards right, you can obliterate even resists at times. It just does so much damage due to the base attack plus stabs being so high powered. But again it requires very careful positioning due to its frailty plus that it murders itself to claim lives.

I'm a little surprised Garchomp isn't on the list, as it's been the mon I've 6-0d people the most with. The huge host of tera fairy mons hold it back a little, but I feel when everyone packs tera fairy to beat it that it can feel restricting - especially once you learn to bait the tera. The only other one that's felt restrictive has been Ceruledge but I'm not yet convinced on that one (I wasn't even convinced when it got banned last time either though).

Couple of other mons:

ALL amazing mons that are hella threatening. Gren is probably the hardest to deal with, especially the life orb battle bond version. Not banworthy, but I do have a fairly high threshold for what counts as banworthy.

Its speed being mid means it doesn't quite claim names like it theoretically should.

You can't ban something nobody uses. I ran into I think two on the ladder? It tera normalled and hit me with that boomburst and then I revenged it with Garchomp because I didn't give it space to setup.

I dropped this dumb bird from my team when it accomplished the square root of fuck all over the course of 20-something games. Might get better if Hands leaves the tier.

Was only a problem when I realised I had an entire team of physically offensive mons. Certainly good, but the tier is very offensive right now so it's not really a problem.

 

[udongirl]

I still dont understand latias's strength. I think people are avoiding the obviously underrated mons like ttar and gross because they assume they lack utility. the core of torn+treads is obviously bad at latias, so if you use a strong pokemon in the old meta, latias looks strong I guess. I would like to see the metagame transition a bit more.

Actually, I haven't seen much. I love it and I hope it stays, but I can't deny that my bias is mixed, so no comment.

I think this mon should be on the radar more than blaziken. The decent special bulk being very annoying, the fast initial speed is also troublesome. there were many scenes where I dealt with it using specs goodra and it could not deal with terastal, so I think the only Pokémon that can beat it is ttar at best.

I have rarely encountered this. I don't think it is a good idea to attack an unused pokemon just because it has caused a stir in the past OU.

I often see hopes of banning this Pokémon, but it is rather easy to deal with since it relies on trailblaze for speed. The fact that it cannot hold items also seems to hurt it a lot.

I can't say I want to see it banned because Pokémon that aren't there shouldn't be banned, but since it was a DLC 1 drop that was far more broken than hands and chomp, I'm curious to see what happens next week.

It is stronger than it was in DLC 1. priority users are weaker than they were then, and the newly added metagross cannot afford to employ bullet punch.

 

[LilOu]

is it just me or do we all agree that the radar missed the real missiles?

 

[klamalam]

As much as I hate screens I think there's room in the builder to answer it with psychic fangs which is actually a good move

My answer to this is the same as screens: metagross and ttar

Like udon said about metagross and ttar are being undervalued right now and tbh they answer some of the problems above. I've been spreading metagross propaganda since before the drops but this thing just got a ton of buffs. Heavy slam, psychic fangs, and knock off are really good moves for it to have and it gets coverage for pretty much everything besides scizor (and banded just 2hkos with heavy slam anyways). Its also got priority in bullet punch, niche boosting moves in agility and iron defense, stealth rock, etc.

 

[Easter Bliss]

just some casual comments on the stuff on the chopping block as well as my general thoughts on stuff w the new tier for the past few days. naturally things r gonna be hectic in a new meta so nothin here is super concrete or anything.

quite frankly idgaf whether it sticks around or not coz bffr who cares whether or not we have screens cheese in the tier, but as it stands idt its the most pressing issue out there. If we hit a pt where its evident that screens r wholly responsible for a large number of mons being broken then go 4 it, but idt we r there at all.

the bulk in tandem w tera makes for one of the much more annoying set up threats in the tier atm. The mon can be ran fairly flexibly and is overall one of the nastier wincons in the tier. There r existent outs between some mons like rachi sciz and tricking it, but as a whole it has felt a bit much. Idt any 1 set is going to be perfectly consistent, but uve absolutely got room to do unfair things provided ur not thudding into a catch-all in rachi/gross. All things considered I'm mostly ambivalent to the prospect of latias getting banned.

threat potential is big when its boosted, but it has felt fairly flawed. No moveset has rly felt super satisfying and in general the mon just feels super restricted w its moveslots to actually achieve anything ridiculous on a consistent basis. The general frailty and tendency to implode on itself w recoil has felt bad tbh. additionally, there r also existent prio options to snipe it even in the event that it does get going w stuff like gren shuriken and w enough chip stuff like ledge sneak and tera scizor bp. Upper Hand is a cute tech for prio, though ur already strapped for moves as is and tect/sd are locks. I respect the snowball potential and I'm not entirely opposed to it being broken, but it's def not something I'd consider qb-worthy as it stands.

3rd(?) time was unfort not the charm hes still evil and broken. Hands is more than deserving of a spot on the qb slate and ideally it leaves w haste. At the end of the day its just a mon w silly good bulk, silly good atk w SD, good coverage, the ability to tera to make it immensely difficult to remove, and a stab drain punch to ensure you can't get rid of it to boot. I think by now we are all v familiar w what the mon tends to do and w/o dirge to at least demand some semblance of respect, it's just too much.

as for my thoughts on some of the scarier mons in the meta, some whose presences i think r a bit dubious


It's still p capable of doing the same dumb shit it did back when it was in the tier initially and I'd rather not see it stick around long-term if nothing big changes for it. BBlades still a dumb move, Poltergeist still hits like a freight train unless ur trolling and going out of ur way to run an itemless mon for 1 specific MU in a meta w hazards being the way they r.


By no means the most broken mon in the tier, but it's still p dumb imo. immediate power is the 1 notable drawback, but the speed + BBond are still pretty fried and it's rly not too difficult to prop it up to clean up later into games. Shuriken as prio is also pretty decent rn for it in allowing it to both pick off weakened boosters and beat out oppo prio.


Still a strong component on HO and has a respectable stab combo w super annoying secondary effects. It's p linear and still does the same stuff it used to, but nonetheless deserves a shout for being an annoying pos.


It's hella strong to say the least. The speedtier while not absurd still gets you above a good portion of the meta and at least ties stuff like lati twins. All things considered tho speed could be better, its locked into 1 item + tera, and the typing has definitely has its flaws. Still, it's v potent offensively and feels really good to use, could b broken tbh.


I could see this being broken at some pt, but I'm mostly indifferent atm. Booster speed can def snowball out of control, but tends to lack a fair bit of initial power. +Spa agil sets are interesting, but the immediate speed is often appreciated in this meta and I don't have enough experience to judge it so I'll leave it at that.


Chomper just feels really good, and as it stands nothing too far beyond that. Sd + Scale shot sets are by all means very scary, but I think cplay has felt serviceable for the timebeing. I also think tera fairy is just really splashable as a whole atm and in a pinch you can generally panic button tera to deny the speed boost and rk it coz it's not crazy fast to start out w.


Mostly echoing prior sentiment in that it's not too difficult to overwhelm atm w all the offense, but has problematic potential later down the line. Atm IDBP + Tera can run over some unprepared teams, but idt it's the most consistent thing out there and realistically its just going to wait for a more conducive meta before it does what it wants to. I'm maybe open to the possibility of it being balanced long-term, but given that I can't evaluate a meta that has yet to exist iunno.


tbh just hitting it hard has worked well enough. It can def go 1:1 w its p good bulk, but I have yet to see it be too dishonest. I've seen the demon sets, but I think they r generally a bit slow to get going properly atm.


ngl where did he go. I haven't seen v many of them so I can't comment in earnest. Seemed relatively fine though from what little I have played.


I sorta doubt hes balanced in the long run and atm hes really just being overshadowed by his sister, think I feel inclined to say it'll end up being problematic when the dust settles. As for current meta though, it's just in a nice spot of being really good w/o being crazy overbearing. As an offensive counterpart to latias its p fun and acts as an all around nice breaker.

rapid fire random thoughts
- I'd b lying if I said gatr was crazy good w that kinda speed, but it hits quite hard and is a fun guy at the bare minimum.
- Tidy up was a really fun buff and the mon is p capable of doing things here.
- Initial typing is a bit of a let down, but it still has a lot of fun stuff to it. I'm interested to see how it fares when things slow down to a more balance-oriented state. Fickle Beam is also hilarious why is that a real move.
- overshadowed by drops and maybe not the demon it was, but still a fine mon w a definite place.
- fast, strong, and vacuum wave was a cool addition. Fun mon and a pretty good one too. also has the merit of being a soft offensive check for gren.
- like yea it spins but seems kinda garbage
- has more interesting defensive application now in that it can roar out cm latias, bb gren, mana, and iron moth. think theres some cool merit to it that it didn't have be4.

that is all, I'm kinda glad we are finally through w the DLC releases, will b interesting to see the development of the final iteration of this tier. in a good world we would get toxapex next month ...

 

[BlueChedd3r]

Not really much to say except the fact kommo-o and metagross have been super fun, kommo-o's clanger set is super legit and metagross' new tools are perfect for it