Gen 6 General XY Ubers Metagame Discussion

[Annabeth]

I've lost multiple times today against pranksters, especially against a 6 pranksters team full of Substitute, Swagger, Foul Play, Thunder Wave, etc... as my only priority user is Aegislash, which is too slow anyway.
Swagger + Substitute is especially nasty.
Should I don't mind losing against such stupid strategy ? Anyway, what can I do apart having a magic bouncer ?

 

[locoghoul]

extreme speed

 

[sammao]

I've lost multiple times today against pranksters, especially against a 6 pranksters team full of Substitute, Swagger, Foul Play, Thunder Wave, etc... as my only priority user is Aegislash, which is too slow anyway.
Swagger + Substitute is especially nasty.
Should I don't mind losing against such stupid strategy ? Anyway, what can I do apart having a magic bouncer ?

Most of the Prankster users are very frail, so my only advice is keep on attacking and don't switch. If they Swagger you, as long as you are not already paralyzed and you clicked an attack, you still have a 50% chance of landing it, which will usually OHKO the opponent because of how frail those Prnkster users are. Know what to sacrifice (i.e. Dark weak Monsters) and bring out another monster without getting paralyzed on the switch. Often time, even if you are already paralyzed and they swagger you, you can still possible to land an attack

 

[Haruno]

Most of the Prankster users are very frail, so my only advice is keep on attacking and don't switch. If they Swagger you, as long as you are not already paralyzed and you clicked an attack, you still have a 50% chance of landing it, which will usually OHKO the opponent because of how frail those Prnkster users are. Know what to sacrifice (i.e. Dark weak Monsters) and bring out another monster without getting paralyzed on the switch. Often time, even if you are already paralyzed and they swagger you, you can still possible to land an attack

That's just begging for failure. They'll just spam sub until you hit yourself in confusion and then afterwards they'll twave/foul play you to death. If you're not running ekiller then the odds of victory are very very slim especially since your priority will most likely be outsped and the odds of the prankster user getting free turns far outweighs your odds of continuously attacking them.

 

[Annabeth]

locoghoul : extreme speed might not be enough as you will have to switch in and face swagger... oh and Sableye is a prankster immune to Extreme Speed and having priority Will-o-Wisp... it is also hard countering Mega-Kang which is a threat to prankster teams
sammao : Yeah that's it against most pranksters, the classic scenario is to have a 50/50 chance. Some are not that frail, they often can take one hit. If they win, they might even kill you with a substitute on...

I don't get why Prankster isn't banned as Moody is, all mons using it rely heavily on luck, especially those using Swagger...

PS : How do you handle this one coming on Aegislash, Arceus-Rock, Lugia, Chansey/Blissey, etc... for example ?
Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252SDef / 4 Def (Calm) or 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef (Impish)
- Swagger
- Substitute
- Thunder Wave / Toxik
- Foul Play

SDef version can even switch in Xerneas...

 

[thedeafelectrician]

locoghoul :

PS : How do you handle this one coming on Aegislash, Arceus-Rock, Lugia, Chansey/Blissey, etc... for example ?
Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252SDef / 4 Def (Calm) or 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef (Impish)
- Swagger
- Substitute
- Thunder Wave / Toxik
- Foul Play

SDef version can even switch in Xerneas...

Honestly, you just have to get lucky. There really isn't anything you can do about it, although anything immune to t-wave has a substantially better chance since they don't have to worry about paralysis. Also, remember that taunt ruins their ability to do basically anything. Additionally, if you can knock off their leftovers their sub shenanigans become far less effective. Infiltrate pokes like noivern can hit through the subs as well. On a funny note, that set is (kind of) set-up bait for contrary seperior since it doesn't care about atk drops which actually make foul play hurt less.

None of those listed are "counters", and you aren't going to waste a team slot preparing for SwagKey. All you can do is try to tip the 50/50 in your favor and hope for the best. I don't mind prankster but sets like these are just plain stupid.

EDIT: Oh also, because this set is somewhat popular, set anything that doesn't use its Atk stat to 0 IVs; believe me it helps a lot against this thing.

 

[kingmidas]

Honestly, you just have to get lucky. There really isn't anything you can do about it, although anything immune to t-wave has a substantially better chance since they don't have to worry about paralysis. Also, remember that taunt ruins their ability to do basically anything. Additionally, if you can knock off their leftovers their sub shenanigans become far less effective. Infiltrate pokes like noivern can hit through the subs as well. On a funny note, that set is (kind of) set-up bait for contrary seperior since it doesn't care about atk drops which actually make foul play hurt less.

None of those listed are "counters", and you aren't going to waste a team slot preparing for SwagKey. All you can do is try to tip the 50/50 in your favor and hope for the best. I don't mind prankster but sets like these are just plain stupid.

EDIT: Oh also, because this set is somewhat popular, set anything that doesn't use its Atk stat to 0 IVs; believe me it helps a lot against this thing.

Swagkey is really only good if you get a sub up before you starting using swagger. Its only real niche is spreading t-waves easily from my experience. Lastly, why are you bringing up contrary serperior, you do realize that it isn't even released yet and that no one in there right mind would use it in ubers.

 

[thedeafelectrician]

Swagkey is really only good if you get a sub up before you starting using swagger. Its only real niche is spreading t-waves easily from my experience. Lastly, why are you bringing up contrary serperior, you do realize that it isn't even released yet and that no one in there right mind would use it in ubers.

Steel/fairy is an amazing defensive typing and fairly easy to get a sub with before the opponent figures out the set, and even easier than that since very few things want to get paralyzed. Pokebank Ubers is basically DW Ubers with gen 6 pokes at the moment; and I openly say I'm not being serious yet that's the part you decide to harp on.

 

[kingmidas]

Steel/fairy is an amazing defensive typing and fairly easy to get a sub with before the opponent figures out the set, and even easier than that since very few things want to get paralyzed. Pokebank Ubers is basically DW Ubers with gen 6 pokes at the moment; and I openly say I'm not being serious yet that's the part you decide to harp on.

Uh yes I do know that they are pretty similar at the moment. But why are you trying to tell me what it does when you're just repeating what I said just with a sour undertone.

 

[Crucible12]

Disclaimer: I am fairly new to competitive pokemon, and even newer to Ubers , if I make a
mistake, please correct me

Some Thoughts on the effect of the shift on Certain Pokemon

Aegislash
____________
While Aegislash will (probably) be a massively dominant force in OU, it's hard to tell how powerful it will be in Ubers,
It will (probably) become a counter to the ever present GeoXerneas and Arceus-Fairy, and with a potential decline of Rayquaza
and (maybe) Kyurem-W, it could become extremely hard to counter, but that remains to be seen.

Kyogre
___________
Ah, Kyogre, king of Ubers, Kyrogre gets one pretty massive benefit this gen, a drop in it's number one counter, Scarf Palkia,
thanks to the aforementioned GeoXerneas and Arceus-Fairy, It may become even more powerful, but alas, not everything
is good for the king, the new weather nerf this gen will be pretty bad for 'ogre, as it's Choice Specs sets will no longer have the continous
rain they need for damage.

Blaziken
___________

With Blaziken getting the eviction notice from OU, it now is back in it's old tier, this time with a new toy to play with,
It's mega, As the only viable mega in ubers, the lack of life orb recoil gives it much more survivability, giving it a chance to
outspeed pretty much anything in ubers (with deoxys-s, in OU right now), As said by Serebii in it's PoTW, it is the
strongest non legendary pokemon in the game.

edit: completely forgot about ho-oh with Aegislash, thanks to the buff to defog ho-oh's typing isn't as bad anymore, as such, it will be an ever present check to Aegislash that
should always be taken into account

 

[Ascension]

Crucible12: Aegislash will continue to be within the top ten, top 20 range in usage as long as power herb Xerneas is popular. Although there are several viable counters surfacing such as Clefable and Scizor, a passable priority move, king's shield, amazing stats, good typing, and a reasonably good check to Mewtwo are too hard to pass up. It won't sweep in ubers because of Groudon. But it has secured a pretty niche like Ferro did last gen. As for Kyogre, Palkia got better and worse in some ways, but that is a discussion for another thread. I've already disputed that Kyogre's title as the king of ubers has been taken away this gen, but he will always be a top tier threat. I'm anticipating within the top 3, top 5 range. And I think the M Mewtwos, M Gengar, and even M Kangaskahn will be very viable megas in ubers in the future. M Blaziken being the strongest non legendary? Sorry serebii, I think Carnivine has a couple things to say about that.

 

[Garchompi]

Yeah Kyogre received some massive nerfs in XY. The Drizzle nerf is of course the biggest one, almost its entire offensive movepool was nerfed and then there are also random Assault Vest users like Palkia walling it much more reliably.
Swift Swim is almost unusable in ubers now unless you're crazy enough to run Damp Rock on Kyogre, which would be an enormous waste of its potential.
It's still an extremely powerful pokemon but I have no doubt it's no longer the king of ubers.

 

[kingmidas]

Yeah Kyogre received some massive nerfs in XY. The Drizzle nerf is of course the biggest one, almost its entire offensive movepool was nerfed and then there are also random Assault Vest users like Palkia walling it much more reliably.
Swift Swim is almost unusable in ubers now unless you're crazy enough to run Damp Rock on Kyogre, which would be an enormous waste of its potential.
It's still an extremely powerful pokemon but I have no doubt it's no longer the king of ubers.

The nerfs aren't that major to kyorge itself. Rain as a play style was nerfed big time, as it still has a good 5 turns of easy thunders and boosted hydro/sprout. I've also used AV palkia on my main team for the past month, and I have to say even it can lose to kyorge just because thunder is a bitch.

 

[Manaphy]

Yeah Kyogre received some massive nerfs in XY. The Drizzle nerf is of course the biggest one, almost its entire offensive movepool was nerfed and then there are also random Assault Vest users like Palkia walling it much more reliably.
Swift Swim is almost unusable in ubers now unless you're crazy enough to run Damp Rock on Kyogre, which would be an enormous waste of its potential.
It's still an extremely powerful pokemon but I have no doubt it's no longer the king of ubers.

Most of the things you said there are really non-issues. Some of Kyogre's movepool had veeeeeeeeerrrryyy slight power drops but that really doesn't matter, plus Water Spout still has an amazing 150 power. Swift Swim is unusable but that doesn't affect Kyogre itself. You mention Assault Vest but virtually the only thing that can use it against ogre is Palkia, who still hates taking Thunder. Kyogre has actually got less checks this gen thanks to Ferrothorn being much less seen and Lati@s losing Soul Dew (PokeBank allows it for now but that shouldn't be the case in a month).

 

[Ascension]

I think AV Dialga could work too. Max SpAtk, enough speed for speed creeps, and the rest dumped into HP could make it sufficiently bulky for Kyogre. I'd like to think that think most people would be a little more reluctant to spam Thunder aganst Dialga, but even so it wouldn't mind getting paralyzed as much as Palkia would. Just some food for thought.

 

[Manaphy]

I think AV Dialga could work too. Max SpAtk, enough speed for speed creeps, and the rest dumped into HP could make it sufficiently bulky for Kyogre. I'd like to think that think most people would be a little more reluctant to spam Thunder aganst Dialga, but even so it wouldn't mind getting paralyzed as much as Palkia would. Just some food for thought.

AV Dialga is an often brought-up set that doesn't really work like people think it does:

+1 252+ SpA Kyogre Water Spout (150) vs. +1 0 HP / 252 SpD Dialga in Rain: 177-209 (51.9 - 61.2%)
(177, 179, 181, 183, 186, 188, 189, 192, 194, 196, 198, 200, 202, 204, 207, 209)

A clean 2HKO, while you also have to rely on Speed Creep which is never reliable. Unlike Palkia, Dialga actually uses support moves like Stealth Rock, Roar, and Toxic. Palkia has a naturally higher speed than most Ubers and never really did anything with his item slot anyway, so AV fits better on him.

 

[ss234]

honestly kyogre actually got better in this gen. L@tis are non existant because no soul dew, grassceus is rarer because the rain nerf stops it dealing with palkia as well and yeah ppl are using palkia less because rain nerf allows more mons to counter it(eg. bulky arceus). Scarf ogre with mega gengar is rlly good, as gengy ruins p much every ogre counter apart from palkia with taunt / perish song.

one poke that I feel is rlly nice in the current metagame is heatran. You check xern without focus blast with roar, you can at least put ho-oh on a tier with roar and the flying resist is very nice vs. yveltal. Genesect is still quite prominent, and yeah heatran wrecks him. Aegislash is another relatively common poke that heatran generally deals with nicely too, considering very few run sacred sword from what I've seen. You lose to mega mewtwo x which is rlly rlly annoying considering that thing is fucking scary but yeah no mon can handle that much of the metagame. A lava plume burn also causes mewtwo to think twice before switching in, so its not a complete free switch. Overall, use heatran more because it wrecks n_n

 

[Ascension]

-Manaphy--: Ah my bad, I forgot to plug in the "in rain" part on the calculator. You're right, a full powered water spout is a clean 2hko to AV Dialga.

 

[natedaishmaster]

Specs water spout is still amazing. I love outspeeding and OHKO-ing modest Xerneas as he tries to set up. On a different note, sub toxic Gliscor with taunt is a monster this generation. With so many people running stallish teams, Gliscor is fast enough to shut down and poison most of the opposing teams. I have honestly beaten teams with only a Gliscor with sub protect toxic and taunt (oh and btw this person actually had a decent grasp of the game it wasn't a total noob). If you get the toxic on the switch in and you can get a sub up nothing can break through you except steel types and those aren't too hard to counter otherwise.​

 

[ChaosNemesis]

Blaziken
As the only viable mega in ubers

Mewtwo and Gengar don't agree. Also Kanga looks a bit upset...

 

[Haruno]

ALL HAIL XERNEAS!!!!

Ubers Beta
| 1 | Xerneas | 56.92289% | 46859 | 49.191% | 35336 | 49.832% |

Pokebank ubers
| 1 | Xerneas | 53.35568% | 85363 | 47.010% | 62918 | 46.138% |

Ubers beta Lead usage
| 1 | Xerneas | 8.66485% | 7549 | 7.925% |

Pokebank beta lead usage
| 1 | Groudon | 5.91510% | 8303 | 4.572% |
| 2 | Deoxys-Speed | 5.73573% | 8319 | 4.581% |
| 3 | Darkrai | 5.50276% | 9657 | 5.318% |
| 4 | Xerneas | 5.36297% | 10441 | 5.750% |

xerneas still has the highest raw usage lmfao.

1850 uber beta
| 1 | Xerneas | 68.44038% | 46859 | 49.191% | 35336 | 49.832% |

gg, broke all benchmarks. Wtf is 50%. Let's hope it takes 70% next month.

1850 pokebank ubers
| 1 | Xerneas | 53.19966% | 85363 | 47.010% | 62918 | 46.138% |

still dominant as fuck



As for usage stats
| Power Herb 72.142% |
| Leftovers 12.077% |
| Pixie Plate 3.188% |
| Life Orb 2.076% |
| Nothing 1.009% |
| Choice Scarf 0.881% |
| Expert Belt 0.783% |
wut.........

pokebank ubers usage stats
| Power Herb 85.566% |
| Leftovers 5.664% |
| Choice Scarf 1.583% |
| Pixie Plate 1.448% |
| Life Orb 1.096% |

so errrr what is going on .-.


Mewtwo is still at an absurd number two. The top 10 are relatively unchanged from last mont .-.

 

[MagicMissingno]

Even a novice like myself will say the Xerneas loves a Scarf. It's a fantastic revenge killer that can take out Mega-Blaziken even with +1 speed! The lack of scarf usage disappoints me.

 

[jrp]

I've lost multiple times today against pranksters, especially against a 6 pranksters team full of Substitute, Swagger, Foul Play, Thunder Wave, etc... as my only priority user is Aegislash, which is too slow anyway.
Swagger + Substitute is especially nasty.
Should I don't mind losing against such stupid strategy ? Anyway, what can I do apart having a magic bouncer ?

that was probably me, lol

there's no specific way of beating it, if you run a regenerator core, you can usually outstall the team since nothing on the team can do enough damage to break it. If you don't want to counter-team it, the strategy isn't infallible, it relies COMPLETELY on luck, so with a little luck you can break it. If you don't want to risk it, Mega Absol has magic bounce as well as being in a fantastic speed tier, sitting at an excellent base 115 speed that lets it beat almost all common uber pokemon. Something like SD/Sucker Punch/Superpower/knock off could work wonders.

Mewtwo and Gengar don't agree. Also Kanga looks a bit upset...

Kanga isn't as good as it is in OU. That 100 speed really hurts it since at best it ties with a lot of stuff, and with all the ghosts running around, it can't power up punch reliably. It does have the advantage of not really needing to run Earthquake, which lets it do cool stuff with Knock Off, which severely damages giratina-o (until we find out whether it hits pokemom that can't have their item removed for full power), as well as crushing stuff like Assault Vest pokemon. it's also a lot more reliable than Sucker Punch is.

 

[Blue Jay]

Kanga isn't as good as it is in OU. That 100 speed really hurts it since at best it ties with a lot of stuff, and with all the ghosts running around, it can't power up punch reliably. It does have the advantage of not really needing to run Earthquake, which lets it do cool stuff with Knock Off, which severely damages giratina-o (until we find out whether it hits pokemom that can't have their item removed for full power), as well as crushing stuff like Assault Vest pokemon. it's also a lot more reliable than Sucker Punch is.

100 speed is really solid in Ubers actually, as it was last gen. At least half the prominent threats are outsped and with the threat of that monstrous Return it forces switches quite easily (and will crush things immune/resistant to it with coverage). A significant proportion of faster threats are also frail attackers that cannot handle a Sucker Punch, and Mega Kangaskhan also gets Fake Out for solid, cheap damage on most offensive Pokemon. It also has acceptable bulk while only having one weakness, so it usually won't simply die the moment it's outsped. Really, its main problems are severe 4MSS - priority is great but its priority moves are situational/unreliable and it needs coverage - and the lack of resistances that prevent it switching in on much any attacks.

 

[Hack]

Kanga isn't as good as it is in OU. That 100 speed really hurts it since at best it ties with a lot of stuff, and with all the ghosts running around, it can't power up punch reliably. It does have the advantage of not really needing to run Earthquake, which lets it do cool stuff with Knock Off, which severely damages giratina-o (until we find out whether it hits pokemom that can't have their item removed for full power), as well as crushing stuff like Assault Vest pokemon. it's also a lot more reliable than Sucker Punch is.

While you outline reasons for Kanga to perform worse in Ubers (which is redundant to say, of course it's a niche mon in Ubers- it can hardly be as good here as in OU) those reasons are pretty much all wrong. 100 Base speed is good, it's just like last generation, and Jolly nature gets the jump on all Yveltal as well. "Ghosts that run around" is a statement that really don't make much sense to me, feels like we've been playing entirely different metagames then- the traditional bulky Ghosts (Ghostceus, Giratina formes) are very rare amongst players that know what they are doing. The two other Ghosts- Gengar and Aegislash are very prevalent but they aren't exactly much trouble for Kanga since Earthquake+Sucker Punch or Crunch deters the former from getting free turns, and Earthquake takes care of the latter. I don't see how you it doesn't need to run Earhtquake nor do I see it as a disadvantage that should- Aegislash is a very important target and Arceus-Rock likes to switch into you. It can run Power-Up Punch reliably if it wants too I guess(but honestly that's not the selling point of Kanga in Uber anyway). Knock Off is hardly a good move on it, your usual switch ins except bulky Ghosts who are rarer are Arceus-Formes trying to burn you- and even then Knock Off doesn't get STAB so firing off a Returns on possible switches (or EQ for Rockceus) is better most of the time. You won't stay in against Palkia and Knock Off, and Palkia won't switch into you so there goes the idea of knocking off Assault Vests from anything (Palkia is the only viable user of the item in Ubers, barring Amoonguss and maybe Metagross- they won't switch into you either). Sure knocking off Lugia's lefties are nice at times, but other than that i just worsens Kanga's 4MSS.