Metagame [Gen 9] Do Not Use (new VR)

[Jumpheart]

Is Budew broken?

There's been a lot of discourse over Budew lately, so I wanted to give my thoughts in an actual longform post rather than disorganized conversations on Discord.

I. Budew Crash Course
Budew, considered the best Pokemon in the tier according to our most recent VR, is ranked as such due to its litany of positive traits. Its unique typing of Grass/Poison is very good in this tier. Defensively it's decent, providing useful defensive utility into Bramblin's Power Whip, Luvdisc's Water-type STAB, and Arrokuda's Liquidation and Flip Turn. It's not amazing, though, including notable weaknesses into Hatenna's Psychic-type STAB and Litwick's Fire-type STAB, among others. Despite only having decent typing, it has a great defensive profile thanks to access to Synthesis, great special bulk, and useful abilities in Natural Cure and Poison Point.

Offensively, however, Grass/Poison is very strong. It's one of the few Pokemon that can reliably beat both Nacli and Jigglypuff, and has an easy time doing so. The only Pokemon in the tier that resist the combination are certain Poison-types, Litwick, and Beldum, both of which it gets coverage for in Extrasensory and Shadow Ball. Past its STAB combination, it gets access to Spikes to serve as an easy setter.

II. The Fourth Move Slot
When building Budew, three slots are basically pre-determined for you, in Giga Drain, Sludge Bomb, and Synthesis. This may strike you as potentially falling into 4MSS, but this is not a good example as these three moveslots are all Budew needs to function to check what it wants to. The fourth move slot allows you to get even further value out of your Budew. Sorting in order of rarity:

• Spikes is the classic fourth move. Hazard removal is decent in DNU, but every remover has some key weakness that it needs to navigate around. As such, Spikes lets Budew get a ton of progress over the course of the game.
• Shadow Ball is the classic Budew coverage option, that lets it hit Beldum and Litwick for super-effective damage. You may also think its useful for Hatenna; while true it has a higher effective base power, Sludge Bomb's chance of Poisoning Hatenna means that it actually does comparable damage on average, and is the click that will end up being more productive over the course of a game.
• Sleep Powder is the RNG check option, as it lets you sleep the opponent's switch-in. Several of Budew's better checks, such as Hatenna and Swablu, don't mind getting slept due to their ability, but others, such as Beldum and Wooper-Paldea, really hate being slept, which allows you to either go to a counter or even just break your way through; running Sleep Powder actually lets bulky Budew 1v1 SpDef Wooper-Paldea, which should be one of its better checks, using Giga Drain.
• Extrasensory is the move to slot to beat Poison-types, such as Wooper-Paldea and Zubat. It's not the strongest move in the tier, but it does the job well enough. It's not used very much but does help you beat a few specific checks. It also helps you in the ditto, but Sludge Bomb does enough that it is difficult to justify the moveslot just for opposing Budew.
• Stun Spore and Growth are niche options that have been run before as well, but these are rare enough that I don't consider them in the teambuilder.

It's also worth noting that Budew can run Choice items as well, in which case it will drop Synthesis for something else. A second Grass-type move, specifically Leaf Storm, can also be run on these sets.

III. Defensive Counterplay
I'm going to break down what can viably switch in on a standard Modest with bulk investment Budew. Note that these are all considering the long-term game, meaning able to come in on Budew consistently over the course of a game, for the purposes of fat teams. Also note that most, if not all of these, lose if their Eviolite gets Knocked.

This ended up being a very long section, so I'll wrap it in a spoiler, but TL;DR is that Budew's defensive counterplay options are limited. There's a lot in theory, but in practice there's usually something holding said counterplay back. One of the best ways to counter this set is your own Modest with bulk Budew. Also, a lot of Budew counters are RestTalkers, which means that Budew can get free turns to exploit them.

Defensive Counterplay

(Defensive RestTalk) doesn't work. If you run enough SpDef EVs to get 3HKOed by Shadow Ball, you cannot OHKO Eviolite Budew even with maximum hazards, and you even miss the OHKO on itemless Budew. This means that you need to have no chip on you whatsoever, and dodge Shadow Ball SpDef drops (or Sludge Bomb poison chance if that's what they're clicking--it works out about the same) in order to beat Budew. You're then forced to Rest. Running max SpDef isn't particularly great as the tier's offensive power leans physical.

(Bulky RestTalk) works, unless Budew is Shadow Ball. Litwick has a similar bulk profile to Hatenna but in this instance the defender resists Sludge Bomb as well. Litwick also can run more offensive EVs in order to secure the kill more consistently over Hatenna. Similarly to Hatenna, running enough SpDef EVs to survive 2 hits from Shadow Ball means you don't OHKO with your STAB (but you do more damage than Hatenna, so it works out better overall). It's the same as above, except you resist Sludge Bomb, which does make a large difference.

works, and is one of the more consistent checks to Budew. However, Swablu has few key weaknesses that it needs to work around, so a well-piloted Budew team can break through over time. If Swablu is max PhysDef, Sludge Bomb is a 3HKO after Rocks, and if Swablu has been chipped previously it risks dying to Poison damage. Thus, Swablu is forced to run some SpDef, which reduces its ability to check physical threats such as Arrokuda. Also, this is one of the Pokemon that is most burdened by Spikes on the switch-in, as it means you have to find a turn to Defog with Swablu, something easier said than done.

works, unless Budew is Sleep Powder or Extrasensory. We went over this one above, so I don't feel the need to go into detail. Also, if Wooper gets Knocked, it loses to Giga Drain, no matter what Budew's fourth move is. It's consistent into the two most common moves, though, so it's... acceptable.

(Bulky RestTalk) works, unless Budew is Extrasensory. To be honest, I have no idea if this is a real set, but it has gotten wins so it's worth mentioning here. This set farms common Budew sets, with Shadow Ball not being a guaranteed 3HKO with two layers of hazards. However, Extrasensory is a 50% chance to 2HKO without any hazards, so unless you've scouted its whole moveset it's not guaranteed.

(Bulky and Defensive) doesn't work. Rocks chip + risk of Poison damage ruins this one, but more notably, max HP Eviolite Budew doesn't even get consistently 2HKOed by Air Slash; it's a roll to 2HKO with a layer of hazards. Similarly to Hatenna and Litwick above, the more SpDef EVs you run the better this gets at checking, but you're getting considerably weaker and start to let even frail attackers in. At max SpDef, Swinub doesn't even get 2HKOed. Yikes.

(Defensive) works, with a couple asterisks. It's technically not perfectly consistent, as you can get flinched to death by Extrasensory. You also need to run Eviolite. Boots Zubat gets 2HKOed by Extrasensory, and Shadow Ball drops means that you can also lose if you try to Brave Bird the Budew instead of Roosting.

(SpDef) works, unless Budew is Shadow Ball. Bulky Meditite is a recent innovation so it's hard telling how it will fare in practice, but on paper this is one of Budew's better checks. It functions in a very similar manner to Hatenna and Litwick above: it has a type advantage so it can force Budew out, but if it gets chipped it risks getting the SpDef drop from Shadow Ball. Unlike those two, however, it gets a reliable recovery move and isn't forced to rely on Rest, so it fares a little better.

EDIT: Alon Guy Person reminded me that Meditite does actually work, with a couple asterisks, as it outspeeds bulky Budew. This means it can attack after the first Shadow Ball and not risk dying, even with a drop, or heal up immediately if it is chipped. It can still lose to two SpDef drops if you try to Calm Mind on the Budew, or if the Budew has enough investment to outspeed. Leaving the rest of the write-up as it's still mostly true, but being faster flips it to an almost-always-win. My bad for the mistake!

(SpDef) works, but it's a flawed Pokemon that is basically hard-locked to Stall. Mixed bulk is more flexible, but it's less consistent and risks getting poisoned by Sludge Bomb. Also, it's reliant on Natural Cure + Rest for recovery, which means that Budew can force it to Rest and open up a free turn, for either Spikes or a free switch out.

That's the list. In summary--wait, no, I forgot one.

(Bulky Eviolite) works, barring poor luck (losing speed ties and getting flinched by Extrasensory). Yeah, one of Budew's best defensive checks is Bulky Eviolite Budew, which I'll remind you is the set we have been analyzing in this section. Other Budew sets will fare better into the various counterplay options, including itself, but if you need a splashable check for Bulky Eviolite Budew, the most splashable and flexible option is itself. The exact same set, barring the fourth moveslot.

I'm not going to spend nearly as much time on offensive counterplay, but here's a brief synopsis: Budew's poor physical defense means that any super-effective Physical hit blows it up, and even strong neutral hits can take out less bulky variants (either fast or Itemless, the latter of which is often run as a tech for Bramblin). Pikipek, Taillow, and the Rattatas all revenge kill it (for Rattata-Alola, it needs Hustle, so it's not reliable). Swinub works if it outspeeds (aka, Budew is bulky). Nymble can U-Turn for a significant amount of chip, forcing it to burn a Synthesis. Kirlia, Arrokuda, and Zigzagoon-Galar can all hit it for big damage up to an OHKO, depending on the Budew set, but require being faster, a correct prediction, and a clean switch and the Budew being itemless, respectively. There's also more that I haven't listed here, but as a rule of thumb, Budew's biggest weakness is that, even though it is fast for a defensive Pokemon, as an offensive Pokemon, it's fairly slow.

IV: Comparing Budew to Tiering Policy
Going through the tiering policy framework, which of the criteria for tiering action does Budew fit?

I think Budew doesn't fit as uncompetitive. There is a decent amount of RNG nonsense that comes with Budew, such as Sludge Bomb poisons, Shadow Ball SpDef drops, and Poison Point activations, but it's comparable to a Pokemon like Zapdos in OU in that regard. It can be and often is frustrating to fight against, but there is no truly needed RNG management in fighting Budew; it's just tipping the scales a little in favor of the Budew player.

I'm not sure whether Budew as broken by the definition used in the Smogon tiering policy, but I lean towards yes. It is a Pokemon that is difficult to build a team without. However, you can run viable Budewless teams, but those structures tend to be far more limited in what they can accomplish because of how much Budew provides to a team. For a tournament example, Budew was used in all 6 teams in Week 1 of SoloPL. One of the Budews died turn 1, but besides that, each Budew massively contributed, and two of the games had Budew vs. Budew on the field for a good amount of their runtime (teamo vs. JeoZ had both Budews almost entirely exhausted of PP). Could these players have run Budewless balance? Sure, but it would require a much more specific build.

Is Budew unhealthy? This is a difficult question. It is undeniably centralizing. If you look at our VR, so many Pokemon are affected by Budew. Despite this, Nacli and Jigglypuff are still #2 and #3. If Budew was well and truly unhealthy, why are the defensive Pokemon it checks still ranked so highly? You'd expect them to move down at least a little. As stated before, it's very centralizing. Is its centralization a positive or a negative effect on the metagame? It's hard to say.

Is it a Landorus-Therian, where its flexible qualities let it shine in a variety of teams? Is it a Primal Groudon, where it's so good it's difficult to drop, but for its ability to let you run a bigger variety of Pokemon on the rest of the team? Or is a garden variety brokemon where the tier has been centralized around it so it's harder to separate the impact it has on both the builder and in-game?

---

This write-up took a while but, as a certified yapper, I enjoy doing them and plan to continue. If you've played DNU lately, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts. A Budew suspect is absolutely in the cards, but not one I want to do hastily considering how influential it currently is on the tier; a theoretical Budew ban would upset the status quo more so than any other tiering action we've had in this tier, in my opinion even more so than the Diglett-Alola ban. Were we to suspect Budew tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'd vote.

 

[Jumpheart]

We held a survey and received 11 responses, 7 of which were from voters considered qualified. Sharing some of the more important results here:

First, here are the scores for Pokemon that were asked about for tiering action to remove from the tier:
2.45 overall, 2.00 qualified
1.73, 1.57
3.27, 3.29
2.36, 2.57
1.82, 1.71
1.73, 1.43
2.27, 2.14
2.27, 2.43
2.00, 1.43
2.09, 1.57
3.18, 3.14

Standouts here are Budew and Venipede both scoring above a 3.0 in both qualified and non-qualified voting. No other Pokemon scored above a 2.5, except for Hatenna, who got a 2.57 among qualified voters (and was interestingly one of 3 Pokemon whose qualified score was higher than non-qualified, along with Budew and Rattata-Alola). The council will discuss action on Budew and Venipede, and we'll continue to monitor Hatenna, Pikipek, and Rattata-Alola in particular. This will likely be the last time the survey asks about Bramblin, Jigglypuff, and Nacli due to incredibly low scores there, at least for now. In addition, Swablu and Swinub received a write-in vote, as were Sleep Moves.

As far as additions, there was no clear consensus this time. Spheal will have to wait, but Goomy, Steenee, Tympole, and a suspect out being our next course of action are all on the table. There was also a write-in of revisiting Shedinja (and I know of one SoloPL player who didn't fill out the survey with a similar opinion), which is personally not something I would like to revisit but would begrudgingly do so with more support, so I'll plan to ask about it in the next survey.

No announcements for the next suspect yet, but the council will discuss where to go from here. Please let me know your thoughts and opinions!

 

[Jumpheart]

Do Not Use is now suspect testing Venipede!

Over the last several months, DNU has locked in on our most recent target: we're gonna be putting Venipede under the microscope!

Suspect Reasoning
Venipede, simply put, is a nearly perfect hyper offense lead, with access to Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Endeavor, and Speed Boost. This lets it put immense pressure on the start of games by getting up a layer of hazards, potentially two, and then trading with the opponent. In addition, it's not particularly weak, able to do enough damage to not be considered passive. In addition, its bulk is surprisingly decent, with 30/59/39. This means on bulky Eviolite sets, it often gets a Spike in at the beginning and can come back later. In DNU, a tier where there are a few Pokemon teetering on the point of broken, the ability to get a free 12-18% on most switch ins is very useful, and hyper offense teams exploit the hell out of this.

However, Venipede lacks a lot of set variety. While Spikes are guaranteed, you have 3 moveslots left, where the only four moves you want to fit are Endeavor, Toxic Spikes, Protect, and Poison Jab. You do miss whichever you drop in some matchups but there's not really anything else that fits here. This leads to it being fairly predictable: if you see a Venipede, you know you're facing Spikes offense, and it is either going to led or come in very early. This lets you play around it with Pokemon such as Nacli, Bramblin, and Hatenna, which all have interesting options to stop Venipede from doing what it tries to do.

Suspect Information
There are three ways to qualify for this suspect test.

1. Win 5 games during the suspect period, sending replays to Jumpheart to confirm.,
2. Play 15 games during the suspect period, sending replays to Jumpheart to confirm.,
3. Win a suspect roomtour, which will be held on Pokemon Showdown over the course of the suspect period. There will be 3 tours, with times TBD (will send out a schedule when I know for sure).,

In addition, winning 3 or more games of DNU during Solomods Premier League II will autoqualify you. This means that JeoZ, veti, Alon Guy Person, and goldmason automatically get reqs.

A single opponent can only count for up to 2 wins / 5 games if qualifying via method 1 / 2.

The suspect will last for 13 days, lasting through June 1st. Voting will work the same as last time. Good luck!

 

[Noglastica]

Nog Blog #19: My 10 to 15 Games of DNU
Hello everyone, former spl champion and Modern Generation 2 the Sequel, Just the Birds tier leader here for yet another NOG BLOG. For those of you wondering about my credentials on the tier, do not worry. I have just finished obtaining my reqs, and I have additionally amassed a 2-0 record against Jumpheart (pinged for added disrespect) in DNU Randbats, 2-0 record in DNU OU, and 1-0 record in MG2 DNU. I have additionally been rated as the greatest DNU player of all time by council member Zpice (pinged because I have a crush on them). I am also just now realizing it is spelled Zpice and not Zspice which is why my attempted ping didn't work and when I tried to search for them it also didn't work.

As DNU is the largest and most successful solomod, I didn't want to dilute a prestigious thread with a new player's perspectives and ramblings, even if I am known for my ability to condense my ideas into a short passage. I made sure to ask my good friend and tier leader Jumpheart if she was fine with me posting my thoughts in the DNU thread to which she responded with a resounding "yes" as you can see from the image below.

On a genuine note, I do want to express my support and approval for the tier because, I'll be honest, solomods/petmods suck for the most part, and this is one of the few ones that has actual support given to it. It's also one of the only ones that follows the "standard" in terms of tiering action with suspect tests, though that's largely unique to DNU among solomods not so much out of attitude but out of playerbase sizes, and the lack thereof. In addition to thanking Jump for creating said tier and giving me free wins, I would also like to thank the DNU council, as well as R8 who has not only played a role in developing DNU as a metagame, but also introducing me to Jump, who I now consider a good friend. Without R8 and Jump, I would not have been able to get the requirements for this suspect test. I would also like to thank my other opponents, Natalie, and Anna, for tolerating my frequent outbursts of rage and reminding me that abilities in fact DO exist in this generation and trading toxics against a magic guard Pokemon is in fact not optimal.

Now, to bash the tier...

The Team

NEO built this for solopl 2 and used it week 1 against shreyashhy and won, linked here. Though I won't be giving a review of this game because I don't know what I'm talking about, I do think turn 1 of the game is very funny. I also think it's dumb that (soon to be discussed about mon) Budew eats non-specs Kirlia!

252+ SpA Kirlia Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 186-218 (84.1 - 98.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Anyway, I think that the team is pretty cool. I initially tried another NEO spl team as well but that one kinda sucked imo and NEO said pretty much the same thing and said to just use the specs kirlia team. One of my issues with this tier is somewhat evident on this team: every non-HO team NEEDS to have Budew or you're throwing, and every team NEEDS to have either Nacli or Roggenrola. I don't have so much an issue with needing Nacli/Roggen because while they're extremely good Pokemon, they're not as strong as budew, AND they can be situationally better than each other. I also went into this overestimating how good Bramblin was because I remember it used to be the best mon in the tier and it definitely didn't feel like that. With all due respect to the DNU community, just recently coming up with itemless Pokemon to check poltergeist seems crazy to me, and then deciding to do so on Litwick out of all Pokemon (a mon that really wants boots! and also dies to literally any other set lol) I also don't understand at all.

The Games
I'm not going to link the games because I only saved the games I won and only posting them feels a) disrespectful and b) doesn't show all the games I made incredibly embarrassing plays. I still have no idea how much any of my attacks are going to do at any point. One thing that I do like about this tier is how important EVs are. Maybe my favorite thing about micrometas and drafts are how creative you can get with EV optimization, and I think that's something that, just because how the tier works, DNU really benefits from. But, at the same time, it really led to me making some boneheaded plays. Part of it is also just I don't know what anything is running in terms of EVs, items, moves, and I don't know the base stats of mons. I'm watching super effective brave bird do 60% to my Budew and then watching my Nymble take 70% from resisted stuff.

I mentioned earlier how I frequently had fits of rage and most of that was just due to learning the tier and my frustrations trying to figure out how to check/switchin to certain mons and, SPOILER ALERT, SOME OF THEM I STILL DO NOT KNOW!!!! I spent all of solopl 2 hearing about how broken Budew was and I thought "ok Budew is probably good" and I was watching all of the games and thought "yeah Budew is good" but then I load in and I'm like "Budew isn't that good, right?" I brought the venipede (ICBB) sample and thought wow I have (itemless) Litwick to check Budew, I'm perfectly fine in this matchup. I switchin one time, force it out, and think I have the meta solved. The next time I try to switchin, I learn that Budew learns shadow ball which I still don't understand why it learns that to begin with, but that was a great revelation for me that litwick, in fact, does not check budew. Certain stuff like that was mildly annoying, but this is also 100% all my fault for not utilizing the readily available and updated tier resources! Now I am starting to understand why outside players are annoyed during PMPL when half the tiers actually don't have any resources!

Metagame Complaints
My main issue is the over-centralization of Budew on the tier. I think you better have a really good reason for not bringing it, and I think it's just so obnoxious trying to deal with defensively unless you have one of the very few options for it on fat teams.

I mentioned it earlier as well, and it's not so much a complaint as just an observation, but it also does feel like one of the two rock types needs to be on your team.

My other biggest gripe that seems to "plague" the tier as a whole is how everyone just cheats on speed evs. I've already ranted about this to two separate people and didn't get the attention that I craved so this entire post is just a ploy in order to have this conversation. Why is it that every single offensive Pokemon refuses to run 252 timid/jolly on Pokemon? I understand NOT running 252+ in speed on every single Pokemon, but I'm serious, it seems like no Pokemon actually runs 252+ EXCEPT for the LITERAL fastest Pokmeon in the tier, Luvdisc. If anyone should be cheating on speed evs or running non-speed boosting natures, it should be luvdisc, and yet, for whatever reason, it seems like that's the one Pokemon that everyone IS running 252+ on. There's a reason that 90% of offensive Pokemon in other tiers run 252+ for speed. Winning speed ties, and actually outspeeding other offensive Pokemon that you should be outspeeding is very important! Earlier I said how I really like and respect EV optimization, but this is the one caveat that I have in DNU. I really don't understand dropping speed EVs and dropping speed boosting natures as much as it happens. Something like Nymble? Sure, absolutely, run adamant no speed, you have a priority move. Quick feet zigzagoone-galar? Yeah, run adamant, you're super fast without it. Taillow? Yeah, if you're just trying to break with it, absolutely, run adamant/modest, you're already super fast as well. But then I look at other Pokemon running 144 modest or something and I don't get it. Every single Pokemon is running adamant to the point where, the first Pokemon to actually run a 252+ speed nature, is 100% going to just dominate. My first few games I was genuinely terrified and confused because I'm looking at my adamant (sample team!) arrokuda's speed, and it says it's slower than max speed Bramblin and I think that's it, I lose the game. But no, because the Bramblin is also not running + speed. It feels like offense is so worried about being able to break through balance and fat teams that they're afraid they cannot do it without running adamant/modest. But then I just think about how easy of a matchup it is in offense v offense if I'm running timid/jolly on everything, and my opponent is running adamant/modest on everything, right? Like yes, your Arrokuda is dealing 5% more to my Pokemon, but now my rockruff is outspeeding it anyway and OHKOing it anyway so does it even matter? You can show me 15 relevant calcs where Rockruff needs adamant instead of jolly, and I will show you the one relevant calc of my jolly rockruff outrunning and still OHKOing your faster mon that you're not running max speed on.

I know that's a somewhat long rant, and I know that I'm new to the tier and I don't know the rolls and stuff, and I'm sure that there's plenty of stuff that really wants the attack boosting nature in order to secure 2HKOs and stuff, but all I'm saying is, right now, every single offense team looks like it loses to any offense team that just runs 6 speed nature Pokemon. Now, whether or not that speed nature team will ever beat stall? I don't know for sure. But I also keep hearing about how offense is already the "best" playstyle in the tier (which also seems to be the reason that venipede is getting suspect tested) so I'm not sure how much you need to worry about your opponent bringing stall in the first place, and if they do, how difficult it is to actually deal with anyway.

Not a complaint but actually a compliment, I do LOVE how there's not a bunch of regenerator mons because they're just obnoxious in every tier.

General Thoughts on Pokemon (that I saw)
Budew: Seems quite obviously the best Pokemon in the tier. Not super sure why veni is getting suspected before budew because not only is budew better, but if budew does get banned, that presumably changes the landscape of the tier and might make veni more manageable for teams. I don't know. Feels like there's no checks to its dual STABs other than Zubat (who I will talk about more later). I was also informed that budew can run extrasensory to beat zubat and, even if that's fake, that's still annoying! The set that I used most was just STABs + spikes + synthesis which does seem like the best on balance teams for sure. I'm not sure how much the ability to break stuff really matters on fatter teams, but getting to run shadow ball on offense, or growth, does seem very, very strong. Especially because for whatever reason people like itemless litwick. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to go into when the enemy budew has comes in, and it seems that often times they also do not know what they're supposed to do, because every single game felt like it had several budew mirror turns. Also, this mon has really solid bulk and I feel like eviolite doesn't even help it that much. Obviously I'd say still run it but my knocked Budew was taking absolutely nothing from some things so... yeah. Broken mon. Also natural cure is definitely good, I was surprised that everyone is running poison point because you surely have enough poison distribution as is with sludge bomb. I suppose that there's not much twave usage in the tier which I guess helps, but I definitely think natural cure is good, even if it's not as good.

Nacli: The second best mon in the tier. I originally thought it was #1 before I played any games, and yeah, it's still really good. Not bringing a rock type means you lose to 1/3 of the tier, so you should bring Nacli (or roggen!) No 32pp recover made me sad, but it's probably for the best. Unfortunately, even though I think Nacli is super broken, I think there's no way you can realistically ban it because the tier becomes unplayable without it. I also didn't go against curse sets but that seems super good as well, and will 100% be better if budew ever gets banned.

Jigglypuff: Ok, full disclosure, I know small sample size, but I was not that impressed by puff for a mon that's supposed to be a top 3 mon in the tier. Yes it's good, but I think the abundance of Budew makes it significantly easier to deal with. It might be super stupid though if budew does ever gets banned, so that's annoying!

Zubat: I'm definitely NOT doing this in any particular order because Zubat is not my 4th best Pokemon, but I did want to say that I think this is a really solid Pokemon on fat at least right now. You check some scary physical attackers and more importantly wall Budew forever, AND zubat is a defogger so. So that's nice.

Bramblin: I thought this guy was broken but it's really not. I was using special bramblin because now people like their itemless so much, and special is so mediocre. It's fast which is nice, but I really don't think it's that good. It's like the only spinner in the tier and you don't really want to switch into opposing bramblin obviously to spinblock so I feel like it doesn't accomplish anything in that regard.

Litwick: I'm sure if you try running not itemless Litwick and also don't get boned by shadow ball Budew, Litwick can actually be good. Trick room seems neat and you do kinda just get to click your fire moves which is super nice, but I think just bringing boots HAS to be better than itemless. If they go into their bramblin, I will simply switch out? I don't need it to check bramblin. I would much rather not be OHKOd by rocks.

Rattata-Alolan: Ok this guy is actually so broken. I'd seen it do damage in solopl and didn't really pay attention to it's speed so I thought "ah it must be a slower wallbreaker" but no it's actually just one of the fastest Pokemon in the tier. People should be running + speed on their other mons for THIS GUY RIGHT HERE. YOU. ARROKUDA AND PIKIPEK USER. YES YOU. RUN + SPEED FOR THIS GUY. Yes I know it has sucker or whatever but they think everyone is running adamant as well so you outspeed and they die. A-Rat is actually so stupid, it feels like nothing really checks it. Band seems almost excessive because, again, nothing REALLY checks this guy and you 2HKO everything without CB as long as you get your reads right. The main counterplay felt like I was hoping they were banded and I would just guess right and then I know if I can go into my dark resist (jigglypuff) or my normal resist (nacli.) And even then, they can realistically make a safe double and I'm screwed. I would much sooner ban this stupid guy from the tier than venipede! One of the issues is now you're kinda restricted on dark types to zigzagoon-galar or uu mon impidimp which might suck for the tier, but I'm probably not playing it again so that seems like problem for all of you. This guy is also just so fast anyway it lets it click free CB pursuit on every psychic type and you die unless they miss. That doesn't seem super healthy for the tier.

Luvdisc: This is one that I'm super confused by because offensive seems good and defensive seems not good. I really don't understand why this mon would ever run max speed. I asked NEO and they said because there's a bunch of scarfers in the tier (I only remember facing one scarfer to be completely honest) but even then, meh! If you're scarf, you're scarf. That item has a pretty exploitable downside to it! The next closest OU mon is taillow, a full 12 base speed lower than you. I'm not looking at the speed tiers in front of me, but surely THIS is the one we can run modest on, right? Unfortunately you're 1 point too slow to run modest on it, but you can just run 160+ to still outspeed + speed taillow and now congrats you have 92 evs you can throw on HP.

Nymble: This guy was on the team I kept using and it felt so awful. I mean, I didn't have a horrible time keeping rocks down so running life orb wasn't that bad for that reason, but it has literally no bulk so even switching into resisted stuff was crazy. I initially thought that it was my Budew switchin (I'm sure all the DNU players are laughing while reading that) and I'm watching my 252 adamant life orb first impression do significantly less than 0 investment budew sludge bomb. No natural bulk + life orb seems pretty bad (It's literally just clicking bug moves, I feel like insect plate is surely just better for longevity). Even boots seems relatively good on it as well. Choice band seems meh because I do like the idea of fip + uturn on switches into something like nacli, but this guy really seems not great in general. The only time I really felt like it did something was when they had a-rat in and I could force it out.

Abbreviated Thoughts on Other Mons: Swinub seems really scary and if it were 1 speed point higher it could run jolly and literally 6-0 every offensive team. Swablu seemingly has very little usage but it's ranked A- which is funny. While I didn't play against it, it seems super good in theory. Zigzagoon-G seems really good too, taking toxic chip sucks but on HO it's not a huge deal and it's also now the fastest mon in the tier, congrats. Taillow I thought was broken initially and didn't really go against it but it's probably super good vs offense but just walled forever by Nacli so meh. Rockruff seems really strong and if people keep running adamant and you run jolly rockruff then it probably also 6-0s every offensive team (because apparently rock doesn't resist rock? I still don't get it.) Pikipek I didn't play against but I saw exactly 1 game of it and it seemed broken in that because of bullet seed (hits nacli!) Only Kirlia set I used was specs and that seemed cool and I really enjoyed it as a wallbreaker and it helped me basically have an unlosable matchup in two separate games. Hat I don't even remember if I played against it. I played with it two or three times at the beginning when I really had no idea what I was doing during this time instead of near the end when I just had also still no idea what I was doing. Hm. But in those few games I used hat, it didn't feel particularly overwhelming. No recovery move so it didn't feel bulky, and it has to run eviolite, so your only way of gaining health is with non STAB dkiss which is obviously not super great.

Everything else that I didn't mention I either didn't play against, didn't play against enough to really formulate an idea on it, or though it sucked. I'll let you guess which mons fall into which category. Category 4 is that I forgot to mention a mon which is equally likely.

Tiering Decisions
First of all, I'm not sure why I wasn't given immediate voting permissions for this suspect test? I've read thousands of lines of DNU metagame discussion during both solopls, though I think it's safe to say from my games that I retained none of it.

Second, I am voting DO NOT BAN on venipede. This mon really doesn't seem that strong to me. Yes, it's annoying with endeavor, I understand that, but at the same time, this is a tier with defog and stuff. It seems like more of an attack on hyper offense as a playstyle than anything else. I'm not really sure what other sets that it runs other than pjab, end, spikes, tect, but I feel like there's surely some great ways to exploit that, or at least minimize its effectiveness. Suicide leads are LITERALLY giving you a free mon for just a little bit of chip. If veni got taunt, I would understand banning it, but veni literally just finds itself on HO which doesn't really seem to have any hazard removal on it, so you can literally just trade hazards and not be threatened by it. Also, I'm sure there's some usable mons/sets that can deal with it. I only used it once or twice and lead matchup feels like they have to go rock type to 2hko or else I get 3 spikes, OR I go into rock type abuser t1 like arro and can double/pivot move into veni or something.

There's so many better Pokemon in the tier, and in particular, I think there's two that I would have 100% looked at before venipede: budew and arat. I mean, this is a mon that's currently ranked 10th on the vr.

Conclusion
All in all, I think DNU is a fine tier. It's probably not one that I'm going to play again, even though I didn't dislike it. I will say that, in it's current state, I did not enjoy the existence of Budew. Other than that, I think DNU is still one of the better solomods on the site, as low of a bar as that is.

 

[PalpitoadChamp]

budew has comes in, and it seems

Grammar error. Point invalidated.

 

[Jumpheart]

Short write-up because I'm about to load up some Hypixel Bedwars, but Venipede will remain legal in Do Not Use following a 4-5 vote! Results can be found here (along with mason, who voted DNB, but was accidentally left out of the list because of an error on my part). As such we'll continue in our current metagame. Next up is a VR update and updated samples as we look towards a summer tournament!

 

[Jumpheart]

Gonna drop some scattered thoughts I have on the tier right now.


Yeah, I voted ban. I'd do it again. I think Venipede enables some really despicable team compositions due to how well it enables hyper offense squads. It's not a perfect lead, nor is it unstoppable, but it almost always provides value as a lead and pushes the tier in a very offensive direction. One user I talked to said that all teams are either Venipede HO or teams meant to counterteam Venipede HO. I do think that this is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much--all non-HO teams need stuff for the so-called "venipede 5 brokes" archetype. I think the ship has sailed with a DNB vote, however; with that said, though, Venipede is only as good as the mons it enables, so removing some of the top offensive threats is a good idea.

During the Venipede suspect, there was a lot of discussion around how much pressure defensive cores are currently under in the tier due to how many strong offensive mons there are. I was testing a Wooloo stall team through a couple iterations, but couldn't find the right combination that allowed me to even get playable matchups into every mon in the tier; even swapping out a defensive mon for a trapper in Rattata-Alola wasn't enough to make stall better than a matchup fish. I got some wins with it, but some pretty brutal losses as well. I'm sure there is some stall combination that works well but I was unable to find it. I think that this plus the "venipede 5 brokens" teams is pretty telling how dominant offensive threats are is in this current metagame and how hard it is to build suitable balances. It's possible, but the cores are pretty restricted, and certain off-meta mons just completely annihilate common cores. I'll name Nidoran-F and Beldum as examples.


I've said this a few times and I'll say it here too: this is the worst broken mon I have ever seen in a format. It's honestly kind of incredible. But yeah, when this thing is firing on all cylinders it is just completely insane. It can do so much for a team, check half the tier in one slot, including the incredibly valuable role of being our best Pursuit trapper in a tier where half the top 6 are weak to Dark. It's especially nice to trap and remove Bramblin, as after Bramblin goes down you can stack Spikes from Budew to your heart's content. Obviously comes with the downside of Hustle being unreliable, but that means if you lose, it's not your fault :p


Budew is dumb. Budew is also important to the tier. I voted to suspect test Budew in the slate of votes that gave us the Venipede suspect, but I don't blame people who voted to not suspect it. I think it's dumb but could also be more reasonable in a tier where you can more reliably fit counterplay to it. I do think it is less crucial than it used to be, though; there's more viable Poison-types than ever and there are a lot of Grass-types who are completely neutered in viability by Budew that would rise up the ranks, such as Fomantis and the Sun duo of and Petilil. I'm definitely still interested in looking at it but I understand if it's not the top priority.


This mon has been an on-again off-again broken for me, but as time passes I think it well and truly is a broken mon that makes the tier worse. While a lot of Pokemon can reliably 1v1 Arrokuda after it gets Choice locked, there's not a lot that stops Arrokuda from just clicking Flip Turn with a layer of hazards and racking up damage over the course of the game. Sure, it requires some smart prediction. But with that said, here is a list of mons that can reliably counter Arrokuda with Stealth Rock up on the field: Water Absorb Wooper and... shit, really? Swablu can take two of anything, even with Rocks up, but if it gets Knocked it no longer wins.

That's a bit exaggerated, as Arrokuda does face a bit of 4MSS in what coverage it wants. It wants all of Aqua Jet (revenge killing), Psychic Fangs (Budew and Wooper-Paldea), Crunch (Bramblin), and Poison Jab ( Cottonee and Gossifleur) in the two moveslots that aren't locked in. In reality, though, you end up clicking Water STAB most of the time anyways, and the coverage move of choice is often used going for a hard read to end the game earlier, where clicking Flip Turn again probably would have also worked. So, in practice it honestly flops a fair bit, but in the builder it can be a headache to play around and often is a mon you just have to say "okay, I'll outplay it".


I've come around to the brokemon allegations. This Pokemon is stupid. Yes, its bulk is pretty bad since it really needs Life Orb, which causes it to wear itself down quickly. Yes, it has a bit of an awkward speed tier. I don't think that matters though when this mon has so few actual switch-ins. I went through a phase of spamming PhysDef Hatenna just coping about a soft counter to this guy, ignoring all the flaws that set has. PhysDef Wooper also works here, which means that you can actually cover Arrokuda and Swinub in one slot (this mon is 100% being ranked higher in my VR next slate), but that mon has some flaws and annoyingly doesn't actually check a few mons you'd think it would. Swinub is not even particularly prediction reliant as nothing in the tier is comfortable taking both STABs. PhysDef Jigglypuff is the closest but is... just not a good Pokemon, lol. MixedDef Puff is a better mon overall but loses to two Earthquakes with just a little chip (if Rocks are up, you enter 2HKO range at 98%, with it being confirmed at just 84%.) Marill can live hits but similarly to Hatenna is reliant on RestTalk and is just a worse mon overall. Past those options you have to really dig deep to find checks: bulky Surskit resists both STABs? The D-ranked Togepi and Lotad?


I hate this bird so much. It's the poster child of what is plaguing DNU right now, this legion of frail but incredibly powerful attackers who force you to load, like, at least 2 speed control options per team. It's not a particularly good broken, as it shares a lot of counterplay with other fast and frail attackers (preserve Nacli or be ready to revenge kill it), but it just is a nightmare for defensive teams. Any stall composition is basically forced to run Unaware Wooper-Paldea for this mon, which means you're locked out of normal Wooper, which if you look above... yeah. Also the closest thing this mon has to counters only do so once, if the Pikipek clicks Knock Off, which it often will.

I'll also give dishonorable mentions to Yungoos and kiiiinda Surskit in this category, but they are worse mons that are much less splashable and abusable. I also have been side-eyeing Litwick a bit but that is a down-the-line mon for me.

I would appreciate some thoughts on people on my alleged broken Pokemon. Are they really broken? Is there some counterplay I've overlooked? Is there a mon not mentioned here that you want to draw attention to? While an official survey is probably not going to happen, we do have time for a theoretically suspect test before any summer tournament. What would you want to look at the most?

If you made me select the next suspect today, I think I'd go after Arrokuda personally, but I could easily be convinced to go after any of . is also a possibility for me but I'd need a biiit more convincing to be the next target over the alternatives considering the benefits it brings, compared to the others I mentioned which are mostly just unga bunga attackers.

Finally, to end this on a nicer note, I'll gonna glaze a mid tier I've been spamming the hell out of lately:


This mon is so good! Not sure why everyone just kind of forgot about it, but it is a super flexible defensive build that, in my eyes, has singlehandedly revived balance. I really like SpDef Toss/Toxic/Amnesia/Soft-Boiled as a set as it allows you to beat Budew in a 1v1 (yes really you take 49.5% max from Modest Budew), but Wishtect over Amnesia also works, and this mon has a deep deep movepool. Thunder Wave, Aromatherapy, Shadow Ball, Calm Mind, Encore, Counter, Magic Coat--there's a lot you can do here and it has a surprisingly flexible kit, really only needing Toss and a recovery move (the former is even droppable if you commit to running Calm Mind 2A sets, which I haven't tried recently but are probably good?) You can't just throw it to the wolves like you can often with Jigglypuff and Nacli, but whatever you have it set up to beat, it is probably the most reliable mon in the tier at doing so.

 

[Jumpheart]

DNU has updated our sample teams! We have a whopping 12 samples to pick from, all of which have been tested and deemed effective for use. Not all samples are created equal, but all are created viable, and I hope you enjoy using them and this can help people get into the tier!

 

[Jumpheart]

Today the DNU council published a new viability ranking!

VR Shifts

Rises

Zigzagoon-Galarian rose from A to A+
Makuhita rose from A- to A
Wooper rose from B to A
Cleffa rose from B+ to A-
Nidoran-F rose from B+ to A-
Surskit rose from B+ to A-

Rattata rose from B to B+
Meditite rose from B to B+
Impidimp rose from C+ to B-

Diglett rose from C- to C+
Pidove rose from C- to C
Dreepy rose from C- to C
Skitty rose from C- to C
Wimpod rose from C- to C
Fomantis rose from D to C-

Rellor rose from UR to D
Bunnelby rose from UR to D

Drops

Nacli fell from S to S-
Jigglypuff fell from S to S-

Bramblin fell from S- to A+
Roggenrola fell from A+ to A
Luvdisc fell from A to A-

Cottonee fell from A- to B+
Wooper-Paldean fell from A- to B+
Hoothoot fell from B+ to B
Marill fell from B+ to B
Nymble fell from B+ to B
Swablu fell from A- to B
Bidoof fell from B to B-
Happiny fell from B to B-

Tadbulb fell from B to C+
Snorunt fell from C+ to C

Hoppip fell from D to UR

Now some assorted thoughts:
This may be sacrilegious, but I think Bramblin is closer to A than it is to S- at this point. While it is still probably the best hazard removal in the tier, some recent trends have been horrendously unkind to it, such as the innovation of Rattata-A teams, the continued meteoric rise of Zigzagoon-G, and Swinub having a great showing lately. I have Bramblin possibly as low as #7 on my list--I don't typically order my entire list but I like to at least determine top 5, and I have a hard time placing Bramblin in it.

I'm surprised that of the unga bunga HO threats this is the one that rose, but I can't say it's not deserved--it's great at what it does, which is serve as a general-purpose anti-offense mon and speed control using Quick Feet. It's a mon I want to build with more. Not a lot to say here.

I went over why this mon is so good in my last post, but tl;dr, checking Arrokuda and Swinub in one slot is heavenly for teambuilding and lets you focus a lot more resources on other mons. It's not a perfect Pokemon but it's a damn good one. I actually only ranked it A- so I was pleasantly surprised to see it in A proper.

I have to say I vehemently disagree with this drop because it feels like Nymble is better than ever in a lot of ways and I considered it for A-. Sure, it's a pretty flawed mon in some ways, but man, it is so good at what it does: blowing up the many fast and frail mons in the first with priority. It helps balance teams ease the offense matchup a ton by being able to just trade sacs as Nymble whittles down their threats. It's not really a Pokemon you build a team to withstand, which is a point against it, but it is so incredibly useful and surprisingly versatile in what matchups it helps with. I don't know, famous DNU player Noglastica thinks it sucks, so maybe I'm the bad one.

We were really close to seeing this mon drop to DNU UU, which would have been funny. I don't have a lot to say here honestly, Marill is a polarizing Pokemon. Some say it sucks, others say it's really good, but I think even the people who have historically been high on Marill are realizing the flaws this Pokemon has in the current metagame. It's a bad sign considering that Swinub and Arrokuda, two mons that are kind of dominating team compositions right now, are two of Marill's on-paper good matchups, yet it is doing this poorly.

This Pokemon just... completely vanished. Where did it go? I honestly think the B- rank is generous and would personally put it below multiple Pokemon ranked below it. Both setup variants are outclassed by other Physical attackers and share a lot of their counterplay. They're strong, but they're clunky to actually get going and not as strong as you might expect. They're powerful and aren't entirely unviable, but hard to use properly, which has led to no one loading Bidoof in a while. Also, while Unaware utility sets were never actually good, they're entirely dead in the water now.

Underrated Pokemon that I ranked in B- and considered higher. Find me a switch-in. Spoiler: there is a single one, and it's not good. While it's true that Diglett suffers from a lack of bulk and entry points, a skilled player piloting Diglett on a team built to support it can cleave through teams, especially considering that Diglett is faster than a lot of speed control options (Jolly outspeeds Scarfed Yungoos, for example). Band is the real set, not Swords Dance. I think the reason this Pokemon was so slept on is that Gossifleur entirely shuts it down, but Goss has been on the verge of dropping to UU for two VRs now, so Diglett has less of a problem there.

Finally, a shitmon rapid-fire round:
Normalize Sucker Punch is a really funny anti-offense tool and Return chunks most Pokemon. Obviously Normalize is a super flawed ability so you need a team built around it, but run the calcs, there's some goofy stuff.

It's a Normal/Flying that actually wants to click Defog (sorry Swablu) and can punish the Nacli switch by clicking U-Turn. Cool guy, recommend giving him a shot if you haven't.

R8's been looking into this mon again and I've been pleasantly surprised by its calcs and matchup spread. It hates Budew being tier king, though, and until Budew goes it will have a hard time rising higher than this. Fomantis + Budew farmer 3000 (Zubat) might be a viable comp, unsure.

ALL HAIL THE GUNKER! I have no idea if this mon is actually real or being propelled by meme power but we've all lost to the gunker at some point so maybe it's actually good idk

Finally, DNU UU shifts:
have fallen to DNU UU

No Pokemon have risen to DNU OU

 

[R8]

R8's been looking into this mon again and I've been pleasantly surprised by its calcs and matchup spread. It hates Budew being tier king, though, and until Budew goes it will have a hard time rising higher than this. Fomantis + Budew farmer 3000 (Zubat) might be a viable comp, unsure.

I would like to expand a bit on this mon since i think it is very interesting, as it can help building interesting offensive cores aiming to overwhelm Budew: it does lose to Budew, but not much else wants to deal with it, so it can quite reliably land a leaf storm + a +2 hp ice against budew which can open up a teammate. It can hit really hard and, for example, boots litwick just super easily get farmed while evio also is at risk after rocks/hazards:

252+ SpA Contrary Fomantis Leaf Storm over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Litwick: 313-369 (102.9 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed KO in 2 turns
252+ SpA Contrary Fomantis Leaf Storm over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Litwick: 208-246 (68.4 - 80.9%) -- 47.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

So you survive a Sludge Bomb from Budew and can hit it back with +2 HP ice:
+2 252+ SpA Fomantis Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 144-170 (50.7 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Fomantis Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 29-34 (10.2 - 11.9%) -- possible 9HKO

So they are left with a 30-40% budew (+ hazards), and you can just pair it with something that enjoys Budew being at that range. I tried Capsakid but that's probably ass, maybe offensive Cottonne (which i think has a lot of potential!) or offensive luvdisc? Keep in mind you might be hitting a random Zubat occasionally instead though

https://pokepast.es/eec667b1a9032100 here is an example too lazy to complete the luvdisc set feel free to do it