Looking Back on an Era: ORAS PU
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Introduction
PU has had a long and complicated history as Smogon's newest official metagame, with a whopping number of bans and constant metagame shifts to keep the tier constantly changing and evolving. Let's take a look back at its ups and downs over the course of a generation.
Early XY
The first PU metagame of the 6th generation was a very chaotic one that looked vastly different from the current meta. Very few people played this iteration, as we had no room or ladder and only one thread and IRC channel to discuss the metagame. It was here that the first council and core playerbase was formed. Pokémon including Sneasel, Samurott, Lilligant, Garbodor, and Musharna became the most dominant threats. Soon after, Poliwrath gained popularity when people realized that it was the tier's best check to Sneasel and physical Samurott, as well as Barbaracle and Carracosta and other lesser threats. As the tier was still new, many threats that would later become PU staples, such as Throh, Serperior, Ninetales, and Misdreavus, had not been discovered yet and thus did not get much attention. Similarly, Cacturne and Pangoro, two Pokémon that rose in the first tier shift and likely would have been incredibly effective at that time, recieved very little usage. This first month of PU was a very volatile but also very important time that shaped a lot of the tier's early history.
Mid XY
In September 2014, PU came out of its "alpha" stage, and the tier was given a ladder and a room on Pokémon Showdown. In addition, the single thread in the Other Metagames subforum spawned several new threads for various projects, including the useful viability rankings. All of this helped PU's playerbase balloon out quite significantly from the previous month, where there were less than 10 dedicated players. At the same time, the tier had its first tier shift, and it was a monumental one. A whopping seven Pokémon, many of which were dominant threats, rose to NU, and with their departure came three drops that would end up as staples for a large portion of the tier's lifespan. The rises were Samurott, Leafeon, Exeggutor, Lilligant, Pangoro, Cacturne, and Torkoal, and the drops were Haunter, Gourgeist-XL, and Lickilicky. Several of these rises have since dropped back to PU. The metagame obviously changed tremendously as a result, and when the dust settled the metagame became centralized around three Pokémon in particular: Musharna, Sneasel, and Poliwrath. These Pokémon formed a triangle of sorts: Poliwrath checked Sneasel, Sneasel checked Musharna (although it could be taken care of with Colbur Berry + Signal Beam), and Musharna checked Poliwrath. Outside of each other, the three had very few answers, which, on top of the fact that they were all amazing Pokémon in their own right, meant that the metagame was incredibly centralized around these Pokémon. Garbodor also began to shine even more than it did before, but it still hadn't quite reached the level of dominance it was soon to have.
The metagame at this time was quite centralized and unstable, so naturally there were calls for suspect tests. The immediate candidate was Sneasel, which, outside of Poliwrath, had no hard counters and easily decimated teams with its insane offensive prowess. However, Poliwrath was still a hard counter, which led people away from the idea of suspecting Sneasel. Instead, Musharna became the next target for a suspect test, which eventually happened in the form of a council vote.
PU's first suspect test was a rather close one. Musharna's main set was a defensive pivot set that checked an obscenely large portion of the metagame and easily crippled opposing teams thanks to Thunder Wave and Synchronize. It also had a Calm Mind set that was nearly unstoppable once it started boosting. Still, there were a couple arguments against banning Musharna. First, it struggled a bit with hazards, which were extremely common with Garbodor in the tier. Musharna also had significant four-moveslot syndrome, and its main recovery move, Moonlight, had only 8 PP and could be rendered ineffective by sand and rain. However, the set that ultimately pushed Musharna over the edge was the Calm Mind + Baton Pass set, which was able to set up and pass boosts to teammates such as Rotom-F with incredible ease. Musharna was banned in a very close 7-5 vote.
Late XY
Following Musharna's ban, Garbodor became even more dominant than it had been, and Pokémon such as Tauros and Barbaracle that had previously been hindered by Musharna's presence really started to shine. VoltTurn teams with Scyther also started appearing around this time. Sun teams, which had always been quite strong in PU, had a massive boom in popularity and became a very solid counterpick versus offensive teams thanks to their relentlessly strong offenses and nearly unbeatable Speed. Misdreavus also became a huge staple during this metagame because of its ability to check many different top threats like Tauros and Piloswine and handy immunities to Spikes and Toxic Spikes. A few new Pokémon also rose from obscurity to become important threats, including Serperior, Throh, and Regice, and of course the ever-present Poliwrath and Sneasel were still very common. At this point, it became increasingly clear that Garbodor was a problem and needed to be suspected, but this idea was put off due to its high usage in NU and the impending release of ORAS.
Early ORAS
ORAS started out with a bang, giving PU six new mega stones and four of the most broken Pokémon to ever exist in a tier all at once. Mega Beedrill, Mega Pidgeot, Mega Lopunny, Mega Altaria, Mega Glalie, and Mega Camerupt were all made instantly available and quickly proceeded to turn the metagame on its head. To make matters worse, Contrary Serperior was released soon after and proceeded to wreak havoc as nearly every defensive switch-in was invalidated by its ability to go for a base 130 power STAB attack while boosting its stats. Most of the new Pokémon were quickbanned within a few days, but Mega Glalie and Mega Camerupt were allowed to remain in the metagame for a while longer. Mega Glalie, while an insanely powerful wallbreaker, was more easily checked than some of the others thanks to its lower Speed and defenses, and it could be countered by the common Piloswine and Avalugg. Mega Camerupt didn't have any counters, but being slow and weak to both Ground and Water made it so easy to offensively check that this offset how powerful it was. Pretty soon, the PU council decided to do a full suspect test rather than just a quickban on both Megas and Garbodor, which quickly rose back to being one of the most centralizing Pokémon in the metagame after the Megas were removed. In the end, Garbodor and Mega Glalie were banned by fairly convincing margins, but Mega Camerupt was allowed to stay, as players weighed its lack of counters versus its lack of switchin opportunities and plethora of checks. However, it rose to NU soon after anyway, and the metagame was finally allowed to settle—for about a month.
PU's renewed turmoil came with the first tier shift of ORAS, which removed metagame staples in Scyther and Bouffalant but added a host of new toys: Armaldo, Probopass, Torkoal, and Pawniard. Although Torkoal and Armaldo quickly became ladder favorites, it was the other two that would become fairly solid but not too dominant presences in the metagame. However, in the following two months after the tier shift, PU would find it necessary to ban another four dominant offensive threats, starting off with Tauros and Kecleon. The pair shared the main trait of being really, really powerful. Tauros's Sheer Force offensive sets had almost no switch-ins as long as it could predict correctly with its incredibly powerful coverage, and Kecleon went from being fairly tame in XY thanks to its lack of decent coverage to a top-tier wallbreaker in ORAS thanks to Protean Knock Off and Drain Punch. Although the tier had plenty of good Normal checks like Carracosta, Misdreavus, and Throh, Sheer Force and Protean gave the pair coverage far stronger than the other Normal-types. Additionally, Tauros was one of the fastest Pokémon in the metagame, and Kecleon had strong priority options in Fake Out, Sucker Punch, and the occasional Shadow Sneak.
At around the same time as the Tauros and Kecleon bans, it became necessary to deal with Chatter, an innocuous-seeming exclusive move that had been around for a long time but never utilized to its fullest potential until now. Although Chatot is far from the strongest of Pokémon, its ability to guarantee confusion while dealing damage with Chatter had become a significant issue, as it could easily set up Nasty Plot or even Agility with a few lucky rolls. Chatot became notorious for being able to Chatter and either accumulate boosts or simply use Substitute and Encore to become even more difficult to deal with. Although Chatot could not do much to Rock- and Steel-types without Hidden Power Fighting, which was sometimes forgone to make space for more utility moves, it could still be seen confusing its way through Pokémon like Probopass and Carbink with enough luck. Chatter was unanimously quickbanned by the PU council, and the tier moved right into its next suspect.
A few weeks after the Chatter ban, PU began a new suspect test to deal with Sneasel and Throh. Both were long-time staples of the tier, and each had grown increasingly more dangerous with every previous suspect test and tier shift removing some of their checks and competition. Sneasel was one of the fastest and strongest Pokémon in PU, with the ability to remove items from all of its switch-ins with Knock Off and boost with Swords Dance if its incredible Attack stat and high-power STAB attacks weren't enough. Although it could be checked temporarily by Pokémon like Piloswine and Zebstrika, its only true counters were Poliwrath and Throh, and, despite being the most common Pokémon, this only fueled arguments that Sneasel was too overcentralizing for the metagame. Throh, on the other hand, was one of the bulkiest and most difficult to KO Pokémon in the tier with its defensive RestTalk sets, a dangerous setup sweeper by running Bulk Up on its Rest sets, an incredible wallbreaker with fantastic coverage on its Choice Band sets, or even a stallbreaker with Taunt+Toxic sets. It had also recently lost a fantastic check in Scyther, which did not help its case. Throh and Sneasel were again banned by fairly wide margins, and for a short time the metagame actually managed to remain somewhat stable.
The May tier shift arrived soon after the bans to take away long-standing tier mainstays in Haunter and Prinplup, but overall this had very little effect on the metagame. However, SmashPass became next on the suspect list, as it quickly rose from a rarely seen gimmick strategy to being every bit as notorious for PU as Baton Pass was in OU. Huntail could easily pass +2 Attack, Special Attack, and Speed to a variety of sweepers like Regice and Stoutland when provided Memento or dual screens support from Jumpluff and Meowstic-M, respectively, and there was practically nothing in the tier that could survive one of the many strong wallbreakers suddenly getting twice as fast and strong. Although Shell Smash + Baton Pass was only relevant for a matter of weeks, the move combination was quickly banned by the council, and the tier moved on.
However, PU simply couldn't go three months without needing another suspect. The next victim was one of the oldest team archetypes in PU—sun teams. Sun had been a fairly decent playstyle since all the way back in XY PU, and it had become increasingly better with every suspect. Most notably, Piloswine and Sneasel could shut down Chlorophyll users like Victreebel and Sawsbuck with Ice Shard, making it much harder to pull off a sweep while the two were so incredibly common. Other departed checks included Throh, Kecleon, and Garbodor, and with all of sun's checks leaving, it got progressively better until every team was completely restricted to using a number of niche checks such as Chlorophyll Jumpluff and Focus Sash Kadabra to make sure they didn't automatically lose to sun sweepers. Although most players agreed that sun was broken, the main issue was that there were varying opinions on how to deal with it. Voters in the suspect test were given five options: Do nothing, ban Victreebel (by far the best sweeper on sun with incredible power, coverage, and access to moves like Growth and Sleep Powder), ban Heat Rock (nerf sun by barely giving its sweepers any time to take advantage of the weather), ban Chlorophyll (making sun basically worthless), or ban Sunny Day outright. There was plenty of debate over which of the two most popular options would be more effective at nerfing sun, but ultimately came down to a close 7-5 vote with banning Victreebel being victorious over banning Heat Rock. Evidently the nerf worked, as sun would fail to become relevant for the rest of ORAS.
PU being PU, it would be less than a month before the tier had an even more impactful tier shift and was thrown into another suspect test even more difficult than the last. The tier had just passed on to new leadership with Magnemite and Galbia taking over from Dell and WhiteDMist, who had led the tier since the beginning of XY, and the new leaders quickly had to face up to one of the biggest changes PU would ever face in the August 2015 tier shift—Poliwrath was moving up. Poliwrath had been the easiest Pokémon to fit on teams since XY, the longest-standing S-rank Pokémon in the tier thanks to its solid versatility, power, and bulk, and was one of the best checks to an incredible number of sweepers from Shell Smash Carracosta to Swift Swim Golduck. The same tier shift also removed Aurorus, Torterra, and Pawniard, all fairly high-tier threats but none with quite the same dominance as Poliwrath. The Pokémon most synonymous with the tier was gone.
Mid ORAS
Without Poliwrath to keep Shell Smash Barbaracle and Carracosta in check, the tier was quickly plunged into another suspect test soon after the tier shift. Once again, most every top player agreed that something was wrong, but they disagreed on how to fix it. Both were ridiculously strong sweepers: Barbaracle's Speed allowed it to beat out a host of Pokémon able to revenge kill a +2 Carracosta, while Carracosta sported better defenses and Solid Rock to set up more easily, as well as Aqua Jet for beating out faster threats. Both had extra sets as well; Carracosta could function as a defensive Stealth Rock user while Barbaracle worked as a suicide lead, but neither set came out as even close to broken. Each had a handful of checks to their Shell Smash sets individually, but few Pokémon could take on both. For example, Tangela and Gourgeist-XL were physically bulky enough to take on Barbaracle but were OHKOed by Carracosta's +2 Ice Beam, while Choice Scarf Sawsbuck could easily outspeed Carracosta and tank an Aqua Jet but did not outspeed Barbaracle. The few checks to both included Focus Sash Kadabra and full-health Machoke, but something clearly had to be done about their power. Some players wanted one or the other to be banned, as it wasn't clear whether they were both broken individually or if one's presence pushed the other one over the edge. However, many players argued that it was impossible to tell, and even more believed that both were simply broken on their own, and the pair were both banned by wide margins.
Mid-ORAS PU started off with plenty of excitement, as PU was finally granted official metagame status in early November. While being able to call itself an official Smogon metagame didn't actually change the tier itself very much, this news was huge to many PU mains, as it meant things like representation in Grand Slam and other perks that it previously had not had access to as an OM would be happening. Additionally, that same day, the November tier shift returned Pawniard and Bouffalant to the tier after a stint in NU as well as dropping a long-desired NU Pokémon in Exeggutor. Although Executor's Speed and awful defensive typing hindered it in PU as in every other tier, it immediately became a rising star in the metagame thanks to an incredible base 125 Special Attack stat. However, since even before the ban of Barbaracle and Carracosta, one Pokémon had emerged to completely dominate the metagame to the point where none of the new PU Pokémon could fully shine in such a warped metagame. Belly Drum + Extremespeed Linoone had become the most dangerous setup sweeper PU had ever seen, to the point where nearly every team had to pack hard stops such as Focus Sash Kadabra (once again finding its way onto an incredible number of teams simply to beat a single broken strategy) or Choice Scarf Gourgeist-S or lose almost immediately once Linoone was given Memento support from Jumpluff or Misdreavus. The problem was even worse while Barbaracle and Carracosta were still legal, as teams reliant on Focus Sash Kadabra to revenge one of the threats were unable to handle both a Smasher and a Linoone on the same team. Although the newly dropped Pawniard's ability to boost off of Memento with Defiant and good prediction was a slight problem, Linoone was still unanimously quickbanned by the council a few weeks after PU became official.
The departure of PU's most dangerous sweeper allowed the metagame to finally begin to develop more, and it quickly became clear that PU had two new kings in Vigoroth and Exeggutor. While the latter was a straightforward case of being incredibly strong and versatile with sets such as SubPetaya, Choice Specs, resist Berry offensive, and sun sweeper, Vigoroth had been slowly becoming better and better throughout the generation until it became clear it was absolutely broken around the time of the November tier shift. Its Taunt or Substitute + Bulk Up set simply had too few checks, as most Steel-types could eventually be worn down and beat, the tier only had two Fighting-types to speak of, and even Ghost-types, which Vigoroth carried no moves to damage, could be PP stalled if Vigoroth chose to ran Taunt. In order to try to combat this issue, the PU council decided to retest Throh to see if it could be a more healthy addition to the new metagame. Throh had been the weakest ban so far, the tier had a powerful new check in Exeggutor, and it could easily handle Vigoroth with Storm Throw's 100% critical hit chance breaking through all of its Defense boosts. However, it became apparent over the retest that Throh was still no good for the metagame. As with last time, Throh was incredibly difficult to KO for the average team, forcing many of its checks to be run over and over in order to handle its power. Vigoroth certainly suffered, but Exeggutor got even better, as the strongest wallbreaker in the tier now also became the best Throh check. Although partway through the test the base formes of ORAS Megas dropped to the tier, including another check in Altaria and another strong defensive Pokémon that Throh could threaten in Audino, it was ultimately voted that Throh was still too powerful for the tier by a 60% majority. One month later, Vigoroth and Exeggutor were banned as well, by 97% and 64% majorities respectively.
Late ORAS
Following the bans of Vigoroth and Exeggutor, the tier finally took a break from its massive banning spree. For several months, things were far more quiet. A few tier shifts came, bringing back Prinplup and adding Cryogonal, Ampharos, and Crustle. Cool new sets were discovered that would eventually become standard, like Nasty Plot Mr. Mime and Tank Golem. However, one of those discoveries would end PU's quiet fun. Defensive No Guard Machoke, a previously rare set that was considered outclassed by offensive Machoke, would turn Machoke from just another PU Pokémon into its most high-profile suspect test yet. Machoke had two main qualities, being nearly impossible to KO and being completely uncompetitive. Similarly to Throh, Machoke sported massive bulk and could take an impressive amount of damage and deal quite a lot back. Previously, RestTalk had only been run on Guts Machoke, since it would allow Machoke to heal itself and significantly increase its attack while asleep, but this failed as a defensive threat because Close Combat would drop Machoke's defensive stats every time it was used. When the No Guard set was discovered, it simultaneously gave one of the bulkiest Pokémon in the metagame a popular defensive set and heavily increased the usage of No Guard Dynamic Punch, noteworthy for its 100% confusion chance. Now not only was Machoke impossible to KO, but even Pokémon that should have been able to wall it like Vullaby and offensive Pokémon pivoting into it like Grumpig and Mr. Mime would keep hitting themselves in confusion, failing to wall Machoke or wasting offensive presence as it simply switched out into a Psychic check. Pretty soon everybody was clamoring for a ban, although many wanted Dynamic Punch to be banned rather than Machoke, as it was the main cause of its uncompetitiveness. However, this was not an option, since, unlike with Chatter, multiple non-broken users of the move and ability existed in the tier, so the problem had to be attributed to Machoke as a whole rather than just a move. Once the option was removed to avoid nerfing every other Pokémon with access to Dynamic Punch, Machoke was quickly banned by an 88% majority.
Machoke's ban marked the end of extreme turmoil at long last. After it was gone, the metagame began to settle out, with the tier finally getting some quality time without one broken Pokémon dominating the metagame. Stoutland finally got to become the tier's premier wallbreaker, Leafeon saw a surge in usage as its Swords Dance and Choice Band sets became far more powerful, and Golem would become the most easy-to-use Stealth Rock setter in the tier, with its tank set acting as a check to a large number of Electric-, Normal-, and Flying-types. Monferno became the premier and only major Fighting-type in the tier with Machoke's removal, and overall PU was finally able to spend some time as a regular and balanced metagame. The only tier shift in this period brought Mawile, which immediately became a solid addition to the tier both defensively and offensively but otherwise didn't impact the metagame very much.
Two months later, the tier was able to comfortably receive its largest tier shift yet, with Cacturne, Muk, Smeargle, Pelipper, and Rotom-S all dropping from NU. Cacturne immediately became one of the strongest wallbreakers around, able to mitigate its lacking defensive stats with the ability to threaten or outright OHKO many of the tier's most common attackers with Sucker Punch, an attribute that initially led many players to call for a suspect test (which never happened). Meanwhile, Rotom-S functioned a solid niche pick that remained somewhat outclassed by its frosty brother, Pelipper immediately went back to being a solid but not terribly noteworthy Defogger, and Smeargle became a solid hyper offense lead but failed to do much of anything else. However, it was Muk that would become the real sleeper pick of the drops. Although it initially saw solid usage with varied sets like Choice Band and Assault Vest, it wasn't considered anything special until the true potency of CroMuk paired with a Steel-type trapper like Probopass and Trapinch was discovered. Popularized by players like False., Curse Muk would rise up to supplant Cacturne as the Pokémon most needing a suspect, as there were very few Pokémon capable of handling it after a few boosts and even fewer that weren't susceptible to being trapped by Probopass or Trapinch. However, the suspect idea was put on hold by the council. Muk hadn't become dominant until a few months into the tier shift, and the possibility that the tier gained a new Muk check was enough to put the suspect on hold until the shift happened.
Conclusion
In the final tier shift of Generation 6, the council's guess turned out to be true as the tier received Quagsire, a solid defensive choice that also happened to completely wall Muk and fear nothing from Probopass or Trapinch. Combusken and Trevenant also fell in the shift, with the former looking to be a solid alternative to Monferno as well as bringing SpeedPass to PU, and the latter appearing to be mostly outclassed by Leafeon and Gourgeist, though it at least has access to Natural Cure, Harvest, and a superior offensive movepool than both with gems like Wood Hammer as a stronger STAB attack and Earthquake to hit defensive Mawile. However, we really don't know how these Pokémon will turn out. Due to technical difficulties, the trio were only available to use on ladder less than a week before the release of Sun and Moon, and their niches haven't fully been discovered yet. ORAS PU will stick around for a few months until it's possible to create a preliminary SM banlist, but it will take a while to have all the tier shifts needed. Meanwhile, there's still a little time left to explore the new drops. Will SpeedPass become a viable strategy? Is Quagsire going to make stall teams overpowered? We don't know yet. However they turn out, it's an incredibly exciting tier shift, keeping alive some interest in PU even with the new generation at hand and allowing the playerbase to say their farewells to Smogon's newest official metagame on a high point.
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