Resource SV OU Post-HOME Viability Ranking Thread [ Final Update: Post #280 ]

[sims796]

Late response but D tier in OU at least is a replacement for c-, so everything there is viable if you squint hard enough.

Since there's no unviable OU in OU right now, the old D tier is gone for the moment.

Oh thank you, I'll edit that, I do think it has merit on the VR beyond that.

 

[sims796]

I wanna nominate Drifblim somewhere on the Cs. It's so...anti-meta. It's also my favorite of the Unburden mons. Unburden let's it outspeed almost everything that doesn't also have its speed doubled, and it's the slowest of all speed doublers I believe, but yeah, you're fast. It has multiple sets even seen here to trigger it, between Weakness Policy and XXX Seed, and I wanna give a special shoutout to the one I've been using:

Purple Haze (Drifblim) @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Fighting/Ghost
EVs: 252 Def / 40 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Strength Sap
- Shadow Ball
- Will-O-Wisp/Tera Blast

Pretty much a variation from the Grassy Terrain Drifim set from the Teams of the Week thread.

It can tear unprepared teams apart nearly single handledly. I feel it's the best user of Grassy Seed out of Lucha and Sneasler as it has a decent enough defensive stats with massive HP, a very wide disruptive movepool, reliable healing, and the ability to boost your main offense amd both defenses. Tera Fighting was the move on the original set, and it allows you to snipe Kinggambit that will inevitably come in on you, but makes you tera-stingy and I'm not the biggest fan of that. Will o Wisp is my move of choice, as it turns Kinggamnit and sooo many others into set up opportunities,and makes it a team player, but now you're weak to Normal types, Dragonite in particular.

This is just a taste of what it can eat

252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 4 allies fainted Kingambit Kowtow Cleave vs. +1 0 HP / 252 Def Grassy Seed Drifblim: 372-438 (84.3 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think that's significant for a Ghost type, let alone a mon capable of not only healing right back from it to full, but lowering your offense in the process! And can burn immediately after (or before if you wanna gamble). Without Leftovers, you can lliterally burn Kingambit to death whilst you sneak in Calm Minds. Enough and your opponent must forfeit. It also preys on Great Tusk, Baxcalibur (especially if you go Tera Fighting,), Sneasler (careful for hax) even Enamorous becomes a set up opportunity if it has Contrary, especially if it's Scarfed of CM but no physical attacks.

And it can Defog! And T Wave! And explode!

Not sure how to upload downloaded replay is off of my phone.

I got a match to show it off a bit.

 

[xavgb]

A few quick noms and other comments:

D -> B

Nomming Tinkaton this high because B- seems to be the point on this VR where we switch over to mons that are either super specific in terms of viable structures or just generally unserious and I think Tinka is better than that.

Tinkaton (F) @ Leftovers / Air Balloon
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Ghost / Fairy / Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe *
Jolly Nature
- Gigaton Hammer / Play Rough
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Encore

Tinkaton (F) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Pickpocket
Tera Type: Ghost / Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gigaton Hammer / Play Rough
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Encore

*More spdef is an option on Mold Breaker sets, though you lose out on outspeeding Bax which I think is pretty important

Yes, these sets are largely the same as each other, but they do have some important distinctions so I've put it down as two variants.
For both variants however, Tinkaton's niche stays the same; it covers several gaps that balance builds typically struggle to cover, without even having to tera. Mold Breaker sets can Encore CM Hat and NP Gholdengo, whereas Pickpocket Balloon essentially allows you to pick an item to steal from one of your opponent's contact attackers. Notable Pickpocket targets include:

Boots Knock off mons (Meow, Samu-H)
Great Tusk (big one)
Boots on defensive mons (Dondozo, Infest Pex)
Kingambit (if you have something to abuse it losing Lefties like Cresselia)

On top of this, both variants of Tinkaton will help with some pretty major balance breakers, including Orb/Band Bax, Hoopa-U, and even Amuk.

In terms of common teammates, the two biggest teammates you should be thinking about using with Tinkaton are Dondozo and Ting-Lu. Dondozo provides the raw bulk to handle weaker (in terms of damage) Bax variants like SubDD, while Tinkaton will help scout for Banded and LO variants which are the only variants that threaten Dozo. Ting-Lu fits with both variants of Tinka, but the core of Ting-Lu + Pickpocket Tinkaton is notably a very efficient way to shave half of Tusk's HP and never let it have the passive recovery to get its hp back, which makes Ting-Lu a lot more proactive. This core also marks a really easy way to fit Rocks + Spikes + Ground + Steel on your team. For some rough examples of what Tinkaton teams look like in the current meta:

(Also used by Rubyblood in OLT)

And a few teams of my own (which arent super optimized but did show promising results)

https://pokepast.es/417550b4f66ce051
https://pokepast.es/d83e8079f68ea644
https://pokepast.es/e5d789387cd30a6b
https://pokepast.es/257b8cfcba8fe09b

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1919624510 - claims Pex and Zap items for my own Pex
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1928549834-wg4a5a2fux0xwfix20qx1bd9f144u8cpw - Pretty much single-handedly wins the matchup when it removes Meow's Boots
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1931097455 - More of a "look at the matchup" thing, Tinkaton is a pain to beat for this team when it always revenges Meow and Bax

B+ -> B

Two mons that I think should drop for similar reasons, although the specifics are slightly different in both cases. Basically these mons are both pretty inefficient at their jobs, with Roaring Moon usually wanting to Tera to become the breaker/sweeper it's supposed to be, and Hoopa being a balance breaker that's largely overshadowed by other balance breakers. The strongest teams in the meta right now regularly carry priority and lots of hazards, and as such they normally have natural stops to both of these mons as well as the ability to generally keep them out of the game. Hoopa in particular really wants strong hazard support on both sides, since it struggles to break through mons like Ting-Lu and Zapdos quickly without hazard support, and also needs hazards off on its side if it wants to come in regularly enough to win a game. I think for the most part, top players have realised that it's usually just easier to run Knock Hrott and free up the slots you would be using to support Hoopa, achieving a much more balanced matchup spread in the process. I think right now if you use Hoopa-U, Boots should be the set, but the lack of bulk compared to AV is still noticeable.


Ok...

So it seems that by keeping multiple tabs open and clicking the save draft button in the wrong tabs I have effectively deleted all of my other noms, and I have no energy to rewrite them so I'm just gonna list them with minimal explanation

A- -> B

Trash mon until it can prove itself on a good build. Poor into common balances and BOs due to spikes pressure and natural checks that it cant break without Tera (think Ting-Lu)





C+ -> B-/B

Each of these only fits on one playstyle but they are staples to stall and sun respectively, and both of these styles have been on the rise since OLT.

UR -> C

Features in arguably the best stall for the current metagame, here's SupaGmoney's RMT. Being nommed from UR so here's some of the many replays with this team:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1929723886
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1925821130
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1931549571
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1931391441

A -> A+

A- -> A

The two main staples of a bulky offense backbone that has been sweeping OLT. Boots Samu breaks fat teams long-term, Helmet Lando absorbs Knock and provides Rocks, the rest of the team is usually filled out with mostly Boots mons and typically skips removal. Here are some examples:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1925575271
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1919829047
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1928287430
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1924994461


A+ -> A-

Every team that this was used on got significantly less relevant. The meta has passed German 6 by and the newer teams prefer sturdier Ground resists like Lando/Zap/Moltres. As a boots breaker, Valiant typically runs these sets better due to Knock Off, and as a specs breaker, it's hard to rely on it to get through teams when it needs to predict correctly against Gking several times, and can even be hardwalled by Moltres. Subcm Enamorus HO has declined, along with basically every other form of lead-based HO, and while Scarf Enamorus can still Hwish things, there's fewer examples of good builds that make use of this right now.


I think I'll leave it at that now, there's more stuff that I might change slightly but in general I wanted to focus mostly on things that were easily out of place in my opinion. OLT has been very useful for this because it helps frame what the mons do in the context of actual teams - for example it's not like Lando is running anything new or even really being used to beat anything new, it just happens to be an important pick to tie a bunch of top Boots users together. Similar thing goes for some drops like Hoopa. A mon can perform well and still get downgraded - all it takes is the discovery of a more efficient way to do the same things. Just some food for thought when doing noms on here, because I feel that people tend to focus entirely on the mon's individual traits when writing posts here. In many cases it's more important to look at what teams you can make as a result of x mon existing and how good those teams are in the current metagame, and that will give you a much better picture of when a mon should rise or fall.

 

[Finchinator]

We will be locking this for the final slate of the pre-DLC metagame!

 

[Finchinator]

S Rank:

S Rank

Great Tusk

Kingambit

S- Rank

Gholdengo

A Rank:

A+ Rank

Baxcalibur

Dragapult

Iron Valiant (drop from S-)

Samurott-Hisui (rise from A)

Slowking-Galar

Ting-Lu

Zapdos

A Rank

Amoonguss

Cinderace

Dragonite

Enamorus (drop from A+)

Garganacl

Greninja

Landorus-Therian (rise from A-)

Moltres (rise from A-)

Walking Wake

Zamazenta-Hero

A- Rank

Dondozo

Iron Moth

Meowscarada (rise from B+)

Sneasler (drop from A)

B Rank:

B+ Rank

Clodsire (rise from B)

Corviknight

Hatterene (drop from A-)

Hoopa-Unbound

Rotom-Wash (drop from A-)

Skeledirge

Torkoal (rise from B)

Toxapex (drop from A-)

Ursaluna

B Rank

Azumarill (drop from B+)

Basculegion

Brute Bonnet (rise from C+)

Cresselia (drop from B+)

Enamorus-Therian (drop from B+)

Glimmora (drop from B+)

Garchomp

Heatran (drop from A-)

Hydreigon

Lilligant-Hisui

Moltres-Galar

Pelipper

Rillaboom

Roaring Moon (drop from B+)

Sandy Shocks

Scream Tail

Slowking

Volcanion (drop from B+)

B- Rank

Alomomola (rise from C+)

Blissey (rise from C+)

Breloom

Maushold (rise from C+)

Muk-Alola

Scizor (drop from B)

Thundurus-Therian

Tornadus-Therian

C Rank:

C+ Rank

Arcanine-Hisui

Armarouge (rise from C)

Basculegion-Female (drop from B-)

Ceruledge (rise from C)
Cyclizar (rise from UR)

Floatzel (rise from C)

Grimmsnarl

Hawlucha (drop from B-)

Indeedee (rise from C)

Iron Hands (drop from B-)

Iron Jugulis

Iron Treads (drop from B-)

Polteageist

Tinkaton (rise from D)


C Rank

Abomasnow

Articuno-Galar

Frosmoth

Pincurchin (rise from D)

Talonflame
Wo-Chien (rise from UR)

D Rank:

D Rank

Braviary-Hisui

Cloyster
Decidueye-Hisui (rise from UR)

Ditto (drop from C)
Drifblim (rise from UR)

Gastrodon
Grafaiai (rise from UR)

Magnezone (drop from C)

Masquerain

Mew (drop from C+)

Mimikyu

Pawmot (drop from C)

Quaquaval (drop from C)

Regidrago

Slither Wing

Slowbro

Toedscruel

Zapdos-Galar

Zoroark-Hisui

 

[Finchinator]

Above is the final VR update of the pre-DLC metagame, and this thread will be updared with this and kept locked. Thanks for increased discussion both within this thread and to our bolstered VR council.

This metagame is effectively done and these last updates are intended to be preserving it. This raises and drops reflect recent developments. We will not be giving expanded thoughts or opening for questions with DLC coming in less than a day -- it defeats the point.

We will have a new viability list up within a week of DLC and this thread will be archived from there. Thanks to everyone for participating. You are all appreciated greatly. Enjoy DLC!