Hi! I'm just getting into battling. I've played some UU matches on Showdown and I've enjoyed them.
First question, how do tiers for megas work? For instance Altaria, formerly NU, is now listed OU along with Mega-Altaria. Does this mean that we can't use non-mega Altaria in lower tiers? On the other hand, M-Houndoom is BL2 (which is UU but with low usage, as I understand it) while normal Houndoom is RU.
Second question, what resources are there for competitive pokemon sets, outside of Smogon's dex and Serebii.net's Pokemon of the Week? In particular, I'm looking for sets for non-mega pokemon, like Manectric or Altaria. All the sets on the dex have Manectite or Altarianite.