Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub

[Sabelette]

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things. The point of my argument was that accuracy-lowering moves are only really viable as a cheese strategy when specifically used by Dugtrio and Diglett due to their speed tiers relative to the tier they’re in and the fact that they remove the most effective counterplay, Thunder Wave, due to their typing, allowing them to use Substitute to compensate for their lack of bulk. “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I believe policy would require banning Smokescreen if we ban Sand Attack. Smokescreen is a direct buff from Sand Attack is it has more PP and is also 100% accurate. We cannot ban a move and not ban a move that is a direct upgrade of it. And at that point we might well just get all of the moves.

Ban accuracy lowering moves>Do nothing>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Ban Dugtrio

Not sure why you believe this is policy (you can just go look at the tiering policy at any time and it’s a short read), there’s no such rule in Smogon’s tiering policy and we don’t have a separate RBY one, I’m just willing to use some common sense. It’s just common sense that if you ban one move you should ban clones of it, due to:

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

It stands to reason that if accuracy-lowering moves themselves are broken/uncompetitive conceptually, there’s no reason to allow them on anything, so just banning Sand Attack would pretty clearly be a targeted nerf at Dugtrio. Arguing that other accuracy-reducing moves should stay, especially Smokescreen, would just be pedantic and biased.

It’s very clear that the tiering-policy-correct move here is ban Dugtrio or ban nothing, personally I’m on the side of ban nothing.

 

[PKMN Master™]

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

 

[ButtGallon]

I agree that as stupid as sand attack/substitute Dugtrio can be, neither it nor accuracy lowering moves should be banned— at least not yet. If the tier converges onto more accuracy-lowerers being prominent, it may be a different story, but for now Dugtrio is pretty inarguably a net good for the tier. Dugtrio is overall healthy for the tier -> because sand attack is only broken on Dugtrio, the mon would be banned before the move -> therefore we will not ban Dugtrio. Seems like a pretty open-and-shut case to me.

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things... “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I do want to push back on the idea that the impact to lower-tiers like NU/PU/ZU is irrelevant in general, though. It may be because I'm inexperienced with standard tiering-policy, or because I'm more involved in PU/ZU than in UU, but downstream impact is not a bad concern on the face of it. For example, if banning sand attack were to make UU slightly better, but NU/PU/ZU a lot worse, it's not stupid for that to sway someone's opinion on ban/DNB— in fact I'd argue it should. Transitivity in RBY is a net good for the gen and I'm glad we have it. But whether tiering policy dictates it should matter or not, if the goal is for all RBY tiers to be the best they can be, a UU ban having transitivity into 3+ lower tiers forces one of two things to be true:

1) UU is inherently more important than all its lower tiers, and if a scenario presents itself where gutting them would make UU slightly better, doing so is worth the downstream cost.

2) The impact of ban decisions in RBY should be evaluated holistically, and if a ban would cause a positive change to UU, but be outweighed by negative changes to RBY as a whole, that should affect the voters' thought process.

On the face of it, #2 seems much more sensible than #1, at least in my eyes. I think the correct outlook is somewhere in the middle, where the primary focus should be on the tier in question, and the large majority of the decision should be made on that merit. But keeping the health of RBY as a whole in mind is not absurd. If any impact on lower tiers is irrelevant when considering tiering action, my question would be: is it irrelevant because that's the policy, or is it irrelevant because it's the correct mindset?

 

[Sabelette]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

 

[Shellnuts]

Banning an entire category of moves because of ONE problematic user is absurd for the reasons Sabelette has already mentioned. Adding this onto transitivity means we are killing a lot of niches in the lower tiers. If we ban sand attack this will be yet another example of "we follow tiering policy unless we dont follow it".

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user. To give one example I can think of off the top of my head; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first. So I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.

"But it's RNG" so what??? We play RBY, this is a probability management game. We are complaining about one particular move on a mon that already has a 23.44% critical hit rate in a tier where the 2 best mons are clicking 60% and 55% accurate sleep moves. Why is Sand Attack exclusively being looked at as problematic here

I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

 

[ButtGallon]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

The Exeggutor bit is a good analogy, and it does make sense, but I don't think it holds true for downstream effects as a whole. You say the conceit of tiers in the first place is is that the lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, but that conceit is only for Pokemon themselves. Notably, moves are not tiered in the same way, and have a much higher burden to clear to take action against them. If something like the UU sleep ban vote happened with transitivity in place, people would probably go "it's debatable whether sleep is uncompetitive in UU, but banning it instead of hypno would completely destroy a bunch of healthy tiers, this obviously isn't worth it" and they'd be right to approach it from that mindset. On principle, tiering decisions should happen in a vacuum, but in practice I don't think it's always the right frame of reference for things that aren't Pokemon themselves.

 

[Sabelette]

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first, so I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.


I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.


So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:

While Pokemon bans are the default, there may be rare instances where a non-Pokemon element is deemed so inherently broken that banning specific Pokemon cannot solve the core problem. These are Exceptional Elements, and they must meet all the criteria below to warrant a ban at the element level.

I.) Inherently Broken Nature

• The element is so powerful or disruptive that it creates a significant imbalance in the metagame, regardless of which Pokemon employs it.
• There is no reasonable context or distribution that would render the element balanced by ordinary means.

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

III.) No Plausible Scenario for Balance

• There is no current situation in which the element would be balanced on Pokemon that currently have it.
• If giving the element to weaker or niche Pokemon that are still recognisably viable within the tier could be balanced, then the element is not considered universally broken.

Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

 

[Shellnuts]

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:


Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):

Also, just to clarify again, this vote will be on Arena Trap rather than just Dugtrio. With only Dugtrio gone, people would almost certainly use Diglett and maybe even Trapinch to exploit Arena Trap. While these Pokemon are terrible, they can still find ways to cheese the opponent (Diglett can still consistently trap Heatran and there is potential for gimmicky Trapinch setups via Trick Room and paraspreading). We do not want to make the same mistake that was made in BW, where Arena Trap had to be banned after only Dugtrio was banned.

I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument, from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

 

[Sabelette]

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):


I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument,

There has been a tiering policy framework update since then if you missed it, last edited 2025 in fact

from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

And yet you keep arguing “well another gen did this about Baton Pass/Arena Trap” which take away fundamental options from the game and force you to change your entire builder for a chance at stopping them. These things are far outside the norm and fundamentally shape the entire game, Sand Attack does not

 

[Wanted in 49 States]

I am rather undecided on Dugtrio and Sand Attack as a whole but I've noticed a large amount of players below UU, notably PU players, chiming in to give their thoughts. Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different. Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects... This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

"Wouldn't XYZ happen if we change the system"
You may be right. We can work on a solution to that, but the current system of a disinterested voting group affecting the ruleset without representation from the affected peoples below is not a good system. People who play the the tier below get screwed, and their concerns should be worth something.

Also I'm seeing a lot of pro-Sand Attack people posting and reacting but not filling out the survey. Please fill it out.

 

[Sabelette]

Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

There is no reason someone playing NU/PU/ZU should be allowed to prevent UU from making a beneficial change because they don’t like it in their own tier.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

I’m not justifying it with the system itself. We already had this discussion in the transitivity thread and people overwhelmingly supported transitivity because it is necessary for tiering to even be functional.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different.

Agree, there is a reason the default is banning mons and not mechanics except when egregious (such as Wrap)

Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Banning Wrap changes the entire playing field, sure. Much less convinced this is true of Sand Attack or Confuse Ray, to be honest. I still don't think lower tiers should have any say and I think it creates a perverse incentive.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

They can play the tier in question then. If OU voted tomorrow to ban Body Slam, lower tiers have to cope, but thankfully people don’t usually ban moves or mechanics lightly. Banning Sand Attack would be way too liberal with ban criteria.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

Correct, sure, but we are already following all the useful parts of the framework. “Let’s make an arbitrary system where people who play lower tiers get an arbitrary degree of representation in another tier’s votes” is complete nonsense. What portion of the vote should lower tiers get? Does NU get more say than ZU? What proportion does ZU get in a PU vote? Do we give tiers less representation right after they have shifts? Do we have to up the representation if a tier is more established? Do UU players’ votes even matter if three entire other tiers’ playerbases also get a say in UU tiering? Is it fair if UU players vote 90% to ban something but 100% of NU and below players vote against it, and the UU players get vetoed by people not even playing the tier?

If you want something different, you want something fundamentally incompatible with the idea of tiering. That’s fine, but go make that thing instead of trying to bend this tier system into it, because it *cannot be that*. It is fundamentally incompatible with what arguments like this are asking for, which is essentially a series of curated metagames at different power levels that somewhat resemble tiers but make decisions in completely different ways that may as well not be linked - you may as well just pick a core set of pokemon to balance around and then select whatever moves and pokemon you want to legalize within it. If that’s what you want, fine, but it simply cannot coexist with tiering as a system. You’d have better luck making something like 35 Pokes but you choose the Pokemon in question.

 

[virae]

I fundamentally disagree with transitivity of move bans, but since we're there I hope we're careful with move bans. To prevent damaging other tiers, moves only should be banned, if they really have close to no competitive value, or are really problematic and there's no other way. Move bans to maybe marginally improve a metagame are bad in this system.

This also seems to line up with the tiering policy bit sabelette has cited and within this framework I truly see no justification to ban sand attack. I'm not that involved with UU, so I have less of a strong opinion about dugtrio, but in my experience it improves the tier and is neither oppressive nor overly uncompetitive. There's also a lot of value in letting a tier breathe and develop. Especially in UU which had so many drastic changes recently idt we are even on a level of play and tier development to assess dugs metagame impact on a level warranting a ban.

 

[hammer798]

Outside of any concerns about tiering policy or even the banworthiness of Sand Attack and/or Dugtrio, I agree with virae on his last point - give the tier some time to breathe. We have already had three significant tiering changes this year, and have barely given the tier any time to develop and change between them. April 1st - UUBLs freed. This meta saw a single serious tour (UU Open), and then went away forever when we banned Wrap on July 14. That meta saw only two tours, UU Cup and UUCL. On September 23rd, Confuse Ray got banned, and we have seen a grand total of 5 serious tournament sets since, and people are already seriously discussing more bans. If Dugtrio, or Sand Attack, is broken, we'll see it as we get more data, but right now, it feels like people are overreacting to a few silly games.

 

[WildCard782]

I'd argue keep it, all of it, for similar reasons to the ones mentioned above. We're just jumping the gun atp.

 

[Wanted in 49 States]

Survey Results:
How competitive do you think RBY UU is right now?
Average Response: 3.33

What do you think of accuracy-lowering moves? (Sand Attack, Smokescreen, Flash, Kinesis)
Average Response: 2.27

What do you think of Dugtrio?
Average Response: 3.87

8 responses expressed desire to keep accuracy dropping moves, 7 wanted to ban them. Among qualified voters, it was an even split of six in favor and against. Only three people expressed a desire for tiering action on Dugtrio, so no tiering action will happen on it due to low support.
The results don't show a clear consensus, so the UU Council will take the brave decision to do nothing at this moment.

 

[pac]

I have finished playing RBY UU for RBYPL VI, at a record of 4-4. Go Wartortles! Have loved every moment on this team, let's close out the season strong.

After all this time, this was indeed my final RBY UU Tour! You will see me enter RBY OU exclusively henceforth.

Below I have my thoughts on each Pokemon I ranked on the VR, I go very in-depth for some and it contains a lot of my general thoughts on the metagame. Kind of a glimpse into how I look at things on a more macro level, though as the mons get worse I kinda dont care as much to elaborate on them lol they speak for themselves a lot of the time.

Attached to this post I also have a full team dump featuring what I am pretty sure is every team I either used, considered using, or simply built for discussion. Should be 48 total, might be some accidental repeats my apologies if so. All of them should be labeled. Note some of them were meant for specific scouts, early in the tour, or are just bad so look through at your own desire.

VR/UU Metagame Thoughts

1. Hypno
Hypno is the clear #1, anyone who's played or spectated the tier already understands why. It's very problematic but I'll let someone more invested start argument for its removal. It single handedly warps the early game in a certain direction thanks to its bulk and dual status, with Hypno dittos being high-variance game deciders. Also, one of the best answers to Lapras. I have been dropping SToss more as the tour has gone on, in favor of Hypnosis Psy TWave Rest, and if I don't need Hypnosis or Rest I'd rather use Counter. SToss doesn't accomplish much besides being consistent dmg in the ditto, but simply clicking Psychic in the mirror is more than fine and doesn't allow Kang entries on SToss.

2. Kangaskhan; 3. Lapras
Big contention points on the list, many (possibly most?) will rank Lap 2 followed by Kang 3 or 4. In my opinion, Hypno Lap Kang teams are about mandatory and there's typically few reasons to deviate. Between Lapras and Kang, I think Lapras provides more opportunities to play around its threats while Kangaskhan is absolutely going to force the progress. With Lapras, once sleep clause is up especially its options to click are typically between Blizzard or TBolt which allows the opponent to make plays with their Hypno, Lapras, or Electrics to stop Lapras from progressing the game-state much and forcing the Lapras to retreat or trade. On the other hand, very few things can answer a Kangaskhan Body Slam turn without risking the game or a mon on the spot. Once a Kangaskhan is in the position to press the button it is instantly accelerating the match from the early-mid game and sometimes this first slam can win the match if its a crit as its often a death sentence or whatever mon is on the receiving end. Hail Mary Hyper Beams are also annoyingly difficult to answer. Kangaskhan also has higher peaks with its moveset variance. Lapras does have some moveset variety, the current popular set is Blizz TBolt Sing Rest but moves like Body Slam and Reflect do have their place. Body Slam does allow Lapras to have a stronger midground option to mediate the problem I mentioned earlier, but can risk wasting a turn on a non-para and gives up something valuable. However, I think you don't gain as much of an insane advantage from a successful application of one of these less common moves as you do with Kangaskhan's coverage moves. Body Slam and Hyper Beam of course being mandatory, Kangaskhan has the options of Earthquake Counter Blizzard and Rock Slide. Lots of variance and each of these can swing games or secure otherwise unfavored endgames on the spot, and they all demand respect.

Lapras is still obviously very good, and is generally used on every single team as well. It has only gotten better as the tour has gone on, as players have gotten generally better at preserving it for the later parts of the match to ensure that you aren't open wide for Articuno and it's a very hard mon to sweep through. Sing is also just an incredibly dumb button. I think the main reason why Lapras is so mandatory is just that having it single handedly glues every team together, dropping it causes a ton of holes that you have to work around and while it can work I have yet to see a Lapless team that I am genuinely interested in using.


4. Dragonite
This is a Pokemon that I think actually has potential to be lower than this, but for now I would leave it here as my lowering opinions on it are quite recent. Dragonite has fantastic defensive role compression, shoreing you up into Dugtrio Persian Electrics and Fires. The issue I have with Dragonite, and why I would absolutely not have it over Kangaskhan like some people have it, is that can often finds games where it is a liability. The first 3 mons are applicable in about every single game, while Dragonite has a case of 4MSS that causes problems. Without Agility, you're slow and similar to Lapras the button you select can often be punished and in Dragonite's case you're often threatened with an immediate OHKO or similar. Dragonite simply cedes momentum to the opponent constantly, and its dmg output isnt quite strong enough to make up for this. Its defensive prowess and ability to succeed in certain states is definitely great, but I do think there are mons that more actively push you towards a win than Dragonite. Lately I've really been thinking about this mon in the context of when I need a Dug check rather than the all-encompassing threat I used to view it as. Lead Dragonite is also fraudulent to me atm I think, for most of this tour it was one of the most popular leads and it was both finalists most used lead going into it. It has a good on paper MU spread, but very quickly puts you in a scenario where a well-positioned Lapras sits infront of you and either Blizzards for the OHKO or Sings, which either sleeps the Dragonite OR sleeps a key piece for free and now you still have to deal with that Lapras while having your Dragonite as one of your remaining mons. More mons force better positions from the lead than Dragonite does.

5. Dodrio
Genuinely don't know what all to say about this Pokemon, as its very cut and dry why this thing is so good. It will always be good for similar reasons to why it has always been good. Similar strengths to Kangaskhan, advantage of Speed and Agility but downside of more polarizing matchups. Good lead, good midgame breaker, good endgame threat.

6. Gyarados
Oh Gyarados. This guy has some of the highest highs of the tier. The biggest thing I'd like to focus on is its unique ability to force a trade with a Lapras that intends to stay in the back. Gyarados' moves are very hard to answer outside of Lapras so its pretty easy to either trade tbolts it, which is a absolutely fantastic trade value-wise. They can try to come in on tbolt with an elec if they have it, but in that scenario you can threaten slam and on para you can essentially count their electric as dead.

7. Haunter
One of the swingiest mons, forces dmg incredibly well especially if they're Dugless. Off lead or after a Lead 1v1, it comes in and 60% of the time its getting Sleep then flinging off Night Shades into the incoming mons and forcing a Boom. Hypno is often forced to come in and booming on Hypno and forcing it to Rest early after having already securing a Sleep is just so insanely strong. 40% of the time this thing is just fucking dead though so... Yk. Also ofc has the Persian MU but Im not as high on Persian as others.

8. Dugtrio
Big Dug is the only remaining survivor of the previous big 3 in Kad Tent Dug, and it generally does the same things and has the same strong matchups as before just with the general increased bulk being obviously unfavorable for it. Dugtrio has decided to counter cringe with cringe with the popular EQ RS SandAttack Sub set. The advantage of this is less the games where it just sets up sub and sweeps through the would-be Dug check with sand attack gng, which does happen on occasion and caused some outrage. The big thing is that instead you can apply it to the dug check to safely work something in like a Lap or a Kang and put yourself in an advantageous scenario. This is unreliable though obv as this can sometimes just not work due to the nature of an acc dropping move.

9. Articuno
Another high variance mon. Its hard to build a team that is specifically strong into Cuno outside of Rest Lapras, though a well-played Lapras is generally good enough to secure versus it. However, if something unfortunate happens to the Lapras or it is forced to show itself early and make plays that result in it taking enough dmg, Articuno can just outright win once revealed. It not being in the match still forces plays thanks to lack of team preview, which to me is enough to place it up here. It does have the most games where its deadweight compared to everything about it, but if you can successfully execute the Articuno gameplan its incredibly strong. RS Kang exists basically just for this thing.

10. Persian
Only so many ways you can talk about a fast strong Normal-type being good, so I'll focus on the negatives and why Persian #3. Biggest issue is its dmg output being reliant on Slash, so unlike Kang or Dodo its dmg is too consistent in a sense. You lack the advantage of throwing out your easy to click progress maker and randomly just winning an entire piece. In addition, the poor Haunter MU is generally more relevant than Dodrio's poor Golem MU, though you could also argue Persian can at least break through Haunter if chipped or slept while Dodrio cant do much to Golem unless its like slept and at 20. However, the Speed tier is incredibly significant, being so fast you can revenge kill unpara'd Electric types. This alone will always give it a place, and ofc some scouts will let it be stronger than the aforementioned Dodrio.

11. Clefable
Mostly focusing on Lead Clefable, as Back Clefable is strong on paper but hasnt seen much use this tour so can't speak on it. In the lead, has generally good MUs and is similar to Lead Haunter in practice. Somehow has a less consistent sleep game than fucking Haunter, being slow and having Sing, but you get the advantage of increased dmg/coverage around the board, paralysis, and a wide movepool variety. Good at guaranteeing a trade even if the sleep click doesnt go well unlike Haunter. Both it and Haunter have the potential to either just fucking die or go 1 for 2 with the lead and a key piece.

12. Raichu; 13. Electabuzz
Electric-types are useful for obvious reasons and find their way onto a LOT of teams. Being able to pivot on Lapras or Gyara TBolts and threaten paralysis or dmg is very useful. Hypno is also kind of a fake check to these things with crits and the like involved. However, I have them down here as everything above this is filled with mons that are significantly more cringe and can gain more value from RNG and the like especially. An Electric-type is respectfully performing its duties and dipping, while everything else is just randomly winning games. Raichu>Electabuzz for stronger MUs and access to Agility simply, the speed difference isnt too important. Both are good.

14. Moltres; 15. Rapidash

Moltres could be higher I think but would need to see it be abused to its absolute potential. Both Fires are good for consistent dmg and have good endgames and lead scenarios where it just cranks out dmg (assuming the fblasts fucking land lol) and get extra credit on the next mon thanks to Agility. Big diff between these and the elecs is that Fires extra credit is just dmg while Elecs get to guarantee status. Other than that just typical good MUs you would expect from a fire-type mon, eat shit Kangaskhan. Moltres is kind of Articuno pilled and like 3HKOs Lapras which is cool but Fire Blast is just ultimate a worse button than Blizzard about that simple.

16. Golem

This is a very hard mon to place. I think I have it on the low side for sure, it could be as high as like top 10 depending on your perspective of the game. Its very much carried by its two most polarizing MUs, Electrics and Dodrio, and is generally a good idea to present this mon in your scout as a question to the opponent to deter certain reprehensible actions in the builder but it can also find games where its slow specially weak ass never comes in and just kinda shifts around till it fucking dies either by getting a boom off or getting sacked somewhere. High highs and demands respect and usage but low lows where you cant spam it.

17. Slowbro

Weird this thing is so low. I think it could rise with time but it does demand a bit of a different teambuilding style, I think this often lands itself on those Lapless or Kangless teams which Im not a fan of which could be why I view this thing the way I do. Having it on your team is a great asset as you instantly increase the bulk of your team significantly and shore up against RNG, and it is one of the very very few semi-reliable answers to a Kangaskhan Body Slam. However, it also opens the door to a lot of cringe MUs and setting up Amnesia endgames is a hit or miss. I think it could be worth experimenting with some Fc-pilled Bros that are more midgame centered and feature Counter or SToss and the like. Definitely much to be developed with this mon.

18. Ninetales

This thing is perfectly fine but the lack of Agility makes it hard to justify compared to the other two Fires. It does its job perfectly fine though. Not much to say here. Back Ninetales is fine.

19. Nidoking

I am incredibly Nidoking pilled, it was my most used lead this tour and I think Back Nidoking also should have usage. Its biggest advantage over the other ground is that its MU spread is just so even across the board. Its great at forcing a trade with SOMETHING, its not going 2 for 1 or applying some meaningful status which keeps it all the way down here but the lack of polarizing MUs is very strong. Hypno, Dragonite, Gyarados, Lapras, are all being outsped and Nidoking is tanking at least 1 hit and throwing super effective dmg/crits into it. It has solid MUs in the lead, doing fine into Rapidash, Electrics, Dragonite, Gyarados, Haunter, etc. Clefable and Kang leads sucks but hey everything has bad MUs. It tanks 1 Lapras Blizz from full compared to Dug which is act pretty huge. Kangaskhan is a problematic MU though as it outspeeds Nido and doesnt take too much dmg from Nido which is bad since Kangaskhan is well... Kangaskhan. Thought about using Fire Blast for the first Kang switch in? Nido's 4th is pretty flexible could be neat. This is just a very solid mon at taking advantage of the TWave Immunity and going ham with it. Does not shore up any MUs as strong as a Dug or a Golem though.

20. Victreebel; 21. Tangela

Good brings into certain scouts/matchups but hard to justify compared to other threats and can both flop for different reasons. Victreebel is good when it works but is just a MU check ultimately. Gives too much to Nite and is slow as fuck. My issue with Tangela is that while when it works its a consistent Sleep in a tier with no good consistent Sleepers, if it doesnt land the Dugtrio MU it can struggle to do much thats beneficial beyond that and you're not exactly clamoring for Dugtrio checks in this tier. However I can see an approach to the tier where you value this highly and don't use much Dragonite. Both are about as good just depends on the MU you get, I rank Vic higher as I think checking Elec-Bro teams might be a more often beneficial asset than what Tangela brings.

22. Omastar

I almost ranked Gomastar in UU below around the Grasses, it is incredibly underrated. The absolute worst case scenario it gets is trading STosses into Lap, which is nice compared to a Vap or Gong which has shit all to do in that MU and would both otherwise see more use, but in the best case scenario it has a ton of strong matchups. Checking Art Molt and Dodo one mon is a huge asset. And even into MUs where its not checking persay it has huge DMG output and a normal resist that gives it opportunities to come in and trade with mons like Kang, Persian, Nite, etc. It also ofc has the god MU into double Birds teams which do exist. However the Lapras MU is just so incredibly unfortunate and centralizing and holds this thing back. I could reasonably rank this around as high as 18 though.

23. Kadabra
Oh how the mighty have fallen. The biggest asset of this mon is constantly trading with opposing Hypno or Buzz to open your own Hypno to pretend its an actual mon with strengths and desires. This is a useful trait so it goes here, but I also think you can just never run this and be perfectly okay and not lose too much. Everything above this I think should at least be proposed on your scout.

I do not care enough about the rest of these Pokemon. They're usually pretty obvious in why they would be good, note Aero might be better and some players are pushing its usage on certified Defensive Play teams but I haven't seen it too much and on paper I am not a fan of the vision. Another quirky Dug check I guess? Simply doesn't fit as well into the modern metagame as it did in times of old.

RBYPL VI Self-Scout

Personal/Team Thoughts

I greatly enjoyed my time on the Washed Wartortles. Everyone on that team is lovely and very supportive of everyone, and we had a great time both helping prep in the other slots and just shooting the shit about life and other games and I found myself just simply excited to talk in the teamcord. Scep and Nicole are great managers, I love that they picked up a lot of the Magmar homies from last year and I would love to team for them again next RBYPL (though hopefully in OU).

I am done with RBY UU. Forever. This tier is unforgiveable RNG slop that rewards bad plays, bad strategies, genuinely unforgiveable crits and is an absolute hell to play if you care at all about your competitive performance. The Hypno/Lap sleep dynamics is some of the most frustrating gameplay I've experienced in any video game ever. One mistake or an unfortunate 50/50 or someone does the JensenDale (land sing thru para for those unaware) and it is just GG go next. I have spent 5 years playing this tier and I wish never to return. We've tried several times to fix it and I dont feel like relearning a tier every 6 months when the tier does not help to progress my skill as a player. The pool was also very weak this tour which I think is due to a lack of dedicated UU players the same way the other tiers have those. It should be removed from future team tournaments, and I think we would actively gain more as a community from this than being forced to play this godawful tier.