Announcement np: Stage 18: Fox in the Snow (Ninetales-A Suspect)

[DugZa]

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Following the October shifts, Ninetales-A and snow archetypes have been at the forefront of the metagame. While snow teams were present in the tier before this by virtue of Abomasnow as a setter, Ninetales-A pushed the playstyle to a whole different level as a much more consistent setter of both snow and Aurora Veil. This has led to Ninetales-A and snow as a whole being a highly contentious topic in the tier over the past few weeks. As a result, the tier's best snow abusers Frosmoth and Sandslash-A have been buffed significantly. Of these, Frosmoth in particular gained noteworthy support for action in the recent tiering survey, support similar to Ninetales-A. As a result, the council was torn on which Pokemon should be targeted first, but ultimately opted to put Ninetales-A on the chopping block first most in part due to it being the newest drop in the tier that shifted the playstyle to a noteworthy extent; while Abomasnow snow was present with Frosmoth, they were never seen as problematic, making us believe that Ninetales-A was the most appropriate target.

Some believe that Ninetales-A has a decent typing with great breaking potential with Nasty Plot + 3 attacks sets, being able to customize its tera to break through would-be checks. Moreover, the tier lacks sturdy Ice-type resists while certain Pokemon that can resist it, like Arcanine are heavily nerfed by snow, limiting their ability to reliably switch-in. However, its role as a support Pokemon is what truly pushes it to the next level. Decent typing, ability to reliably set Snow, and access to Aurora Veil in tandem with an excellent speed tier all set it apart from Abomasnow. As mentioned previously, between Aurora Veil and Snow, it also bolsters Pokemon like Sandslash-A, Frosmoth, and Beartic to what some believe is an unhealthy level. Snow teams are also extremely customizable; full snow teams have the luxury of running three great snow abusers who can collectively overwhelm checks like Milotic and Arcanine, while semi-snow teams can allow for a balance/BO approach in tandem with other offensive Pokemon, which can make it hard to account for the playstyle as a whole.

Conversely, some believe that Ninetales-A can be extremely underwhelming at times. Firstly, it requires Icy Rock to be most effective in its support role; this renders it vulnerable to Stealth Rock, which can limit the number of times it can come in during a game, and even when it does, its underwhelming bulk makes it hard to switch in to hits reliably. Not to mention, with Light Clay being banned, Aurora Veil turns are limited, which can sometimes limit setup opportunities. While Nasty Plot sets can opt to run Heavy-Duty Boots, they struggle with severe 4MSS, as two of the tier's best Pokemon in Rotom-H and Sandslash-A resist Ninetales-A's STAB combination naturally, forcing it to run Tera Blast sets to deal with them effectively. However, this leads to an awkward situation of having to pick between Blizzard, Freeze-Dry, and Tera Blast, with dropping each move having its own consequences. While there aren't many downsides, its flaws usually all come together and can make it easier to play around.

All in all, Ninetales-A has its fair share of pros and cons; therefore, we have opted for a suspect test and let you, the community, determine whether the snow fox stays or goes. The ball is in your court now. Please share your thoughts on Ninetales-A's role in the metagame, and if you think it should be banned or not!

• To participate in this suspect test, create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in PU before this suspect test went up, or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played PU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• You have to reach a COIL of 2800 to get reqs. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 7.
• This suspect test deadline will be on Friday, November 7th, 2025 at 11:59 PM (GMT -4).
• Check HERE to see if you have reqs.
• A simple majority (>50%) is required to ban Ninetales-A.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or asa or post here!

minimum games required

GXE = Games Required
71 = 343
72 = 173
73 = 116
74 = 88
75 = 71
76 = 59
77 = 51
78 = 45
79 = 41
80 = 37
81 = 34
82 = 31
83 = 29
84 = 27
85 = 25

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Regarding the Tiering Contributor badge

• TC is awarded to those with 10 tiering-related votes across all tiers or 4 tiering-related votes in PU suspect tests.

If you have achieved the above threshold, feel free to PM asa or I with the links to your votes so we can process your request.

 

[Vulpix03]

Not gunna write a huge post, but to summarize my thoughts - snow is mid.

Ninetales as a standalone is pretty good. Nasty plot sets with w/e tera blast you want can be super threatening but not broken by any means.
It's a healthy fast set up sweeper that provides offense a great check to a lot of threats.

You can add a sandslash to the team and it's fine, but unless you're making nintales icy rock then slash will never be that threatening and if you're icy rock then you're hurting ninetales which is a more threatening mon than slash. Ninetales + Sandslash is also pretty restricting in how you can finish the team.

You can also go full hail with frosmoth beartic etc. Those teams are just straight up ass imo. Mu fishes that have no consistency and are usually reliant on frosmoth to win.

Don't ban a healthy mon that enables a mid playstyle

 

[Dutchum]

I managed to get reqs for this suspect test, but I have to admit it was a bit tougher than usual — I normally only drop one or two games during suspect runs, so this one took me a bit more effort overall.

Throughout my laddering, I faced quite a few Ninetales-Alola, and I never really felt that it was individually overwhelming. On its own, it’s a decent Pokémon with solid utility, but not something that feels broken or unmanageable. What truly defines it is the support it provides through Snow and Aurora Veil, which heavily boost Alolan Sandslash and Frosmoth. These two Pokémon clearly benefit from Ninetales-A’s presence, but even with that boost, they didn’t strike me as particularly overpowered. There are still plenty of viable and consistent checks to this archetype, such as Milotic, which can handle most Snow abusers without too much difficulty.

In my experience, Snow as a playstyle can be annoying to face but isn’t dominant enough to feel unhealthy. Ninetales-A’s presence helps make it viable, but it doesn’t push it over the top. As an individual Pokémon, it has clear flaws — Stealth Rock weakness, limited Aurora Veil turns, and underwhelming bulk — that keep it in check.

Overall, I believe Ninetales-Alola is a balanced and healthy presence in the metagame. It supports a unique archetype without making it oppressive, and there is sufficient counterplay available to deal with both it and the Pokémon it enables.

Btw, team I used : https://pokepast.es/bcac5a53dda36a0a

 

[LOOR]

I’m not going to get reqs nor am i going to make a lengthy post explaining myself. Alola Tales alone is fine, offers a lot of unique things to the tier that are quite nice to have. Snow itself seems a bit overblown but obivously kinda of obnoxious with how we are accustomed to building PU. Not that the council is going to suddenly change the suspect test but i implore some kind of immediate discussion on Icy Rock after this test if tales makes it through. i’m not postive if hail is broken or not, because i’m honestly not sure, but even the data suggests the problematic element is snow itself and not tales. Frosmoth scoring similar to tales + increased “complaints” of stuff like the bear and slash on the playstyle should be indicative on what this suspect is actually about.

 

[Excal]

grabbed reqs and i'm torn. on the one hand, tales is not broken standalone and snow has interesting meta implications, like easing teambuilding wrt fitting speed control, nerfing defensive pokemon like bulky espeon, florges, and arcanine by reducing their healing, etc. on the other hand, it is unclear whether many aspects of snow's significantly increased presence are positive or negative influences overall.

there are some very nice attributes to ninetales, like offensively checking pawmot, pressuring stagnant bulky cores with smart moveset choices, and providing centralization in a metagame where there's an abundance of threats and status to cover that are not feasible to address without ugly concessions.

however, while im not sure about how problematic alolaslash is under icy rock snow, i am absolutely sure that frosmoth is extremely broken in this tier. ninetales exacerbates this; however, frosmoth has always been broken but obfuscated until ninetales has exposed just how ridiculous it is. banning ninetales would certainly nerf frosmoth; however, i do not think it solves the issue at all. frosmoth is still busted and needs to go regardless of this suspect.

i'm leaning slightly towards dnb but not really committal right now. i think snow probably deserves more time to be around after getting rid of an egregiously broken pokemon and abuser in frosmoth to really get an understanding of how it impacts the metagame, because we have not had enough time to really figure it out.

 

[N_Mareanie]

grabbed reqs and i'm torn

bro after grabbing reqs:

 

[Lambovino]

if you're icy rock then you're hurting ninetales which is a more threatening mon than slash. Ninetales + Sandslash is also pretty restricting in how you can finish the team.

i'd just like to comment this part, for me
1) icy rock on ninetales doesn't hurt it *that* much since you have the best spinner in the tier next to it most of the time, and it makes other mons so good that it's worth using imo
2) sandslash can be more annoying to deal with than ninetales, apart from milo (which dies from tera blast elec at +2) and rotom-heat (which doesn't win the 1v1 after coming on an SD if sandslash uses tera), there are not many good ways to deal with it, especially since it's way harder to rk than ninetales
3) i don't think this duo is pretty restrictive, sandslash is good to use in almost every team atm and boosting it's defense and speed gives it so much value that you can def afford to play ninetales

I agree with some people in this thread on the fact that ninetales adds something healthy to the tier, mostly by making our main removal better. The snow core of ninetales + sandslash adds a really interesting dynamic in this tier, and I personally would like to keep it as much as possible.

I would personally vote for a ban of frosmoth and the icy rock to remove some strains on the builder while still keeping the best of the drops.
We could argue that defog uturn frosmoth also is a healthy addition to the tier, but nerfing it isn't as easy as banning icy rock

 

[Vulpix03]

best spinner in the tier next to it most of the time

If the slash is spin then it isn't tera blast, and if it isn't tera blast it's not that big of a threat. I just don't think slash really gets the set up opportunities to be that threatening against most teams. I think we agree overall though that ninetales and slash aren't the problem.

I am fully on board for a frosmoth suspect. Ninetales and snow outside of moth are nowhere near ban worthy. Moth is great in snow and outside of snow and can run a bunch of different teras to flip mus upside down. I think the tiering survey was posted a bit prematurely since it was only a week after the heracross ban and the meta was not developed at all. I personally put "1" as the broken level for everything because at the time I thought the meta needed more development before banning something. If the survey was posted today I'd def vote for a frosmoth suspect.

Also, I don't think an icy rock ban solves anything for the reasons I already stated - sandslash and, god forbid, beartic, aren't good enough to warrant action, and icy rock isn't really a factor in frosmoth being ban worthy

 

[asa]

We'll be hosting suspect tours again, one on Saturday and one on Sunday at the following times:

• <t:1762009200:f> hosted by eeriespell
• <t:1762117200:f> hosted by Yunie

The winner of each tour will automatically qualify for voting reqs in this suspect test, so be there or be scared!

 

[eeriespell]

congrats to Leni for winning the first suspect tour! brackets and semi/finals can be found below. tune in tomorrow for another shot!

semis:
tailglowsimple vs lullulluu
Hatred Intense1 vs rult85r rylon

finals:
rult85r rylon vs lullulluu

 

[2xTheTap]

Team post below with replays and description, as well as some meta talk to follow! I think in general that there aren't enough teams on the forums with more prominent players concealing what they want to use in larger tours like SCL and whatever else (this is natural when the community runs back to back tours - forum projects end up neglected a bit), so I figured I'd post this one that I made with Leni + Xiri with some team feedback afterward from Lambovino + yandaud. As with a lot of my teams, it's still a WiP and there are still optimizations being discovered.

Leni used it to both top the ladder and win today's suspect tour above, so hats off to him:

Bruxish @ Leftovers
Ability: Strong Jaw
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Aqua Jet
- Psychic Fangs

Bruxish is really the team's MVP and shines in a meta wherein walls to Psychic + Water coverage like Wo-Chien no longer exist, and Psychic Fangs destroying Aurora Veil means Bruxish naturally feeds well into this meta. This specific set is brand new though and is walled only by Water + Psychic resists like Brutus and more off-meta picks (ex. the Cacturnes and Tera Dark Poliwraths of the ladder, things like that). With Aurora Veil up and pivots like Rotom-H creating momentum and obvious opportunities to double out to Bruxish, there are plenty of setup opportunities for Bruxish to take games on its own. This set absolutely destroys teams with physically defensive Milotic as their go-to Water resist and is designed to use that as setup bait. Scald / Dragon Tail / Flip Turn do not break its Sub, and so it takes 2-3 attacks to break (Veil up or not), while Haze gives you a turn to Sub down. On the turns when an obvious Recover is incoming, use Swords Dance, then break with a +2 Psychic Fangs / clean up with a +2 Tera Water Aqua Jet from there. The number of faster offensive threats that falls to +2 Tera Water Aqua Jet is huge and I think this set has a lot of potential on more offensive teams too that rely on whittling down the opposing team via Knock / Trick (i.e. options that remove HDB) and hazard stacking. There is the chance for Alluring Voice to confuse you behind a Substitute, but I've yet to see that happen.

48 HP is optional and is a suggestion from Lambo. I think speed-tieing itself can end up being more important potentially, but these extra HP EVs enable you to Sub behind Veil without that breaking as easily.


Ninetales-A enables a lot of Pokemon to be more dangerous than they already are via Aurora Veil and it supplies some critical utility to the team in stopping slower setup sweepers via Encore even while hazards are in play thanks to HDB. Reduction of weather-based recovery via Ninetales-A's Snow versus Pokemon like Arcanine, Amoonguss, Florges, etc. is also very helpful for the team. Not much more to say other than NP Rotom-H + SD (and even dual dancing) Rhydon + SubSD Bruxish do very well with this support here, and that Ninetales-A's STAB Moonblast is important for checking Fighting-types for the team. Given this weakness, I also opted for Tera Ghost over the standard Tera Steel on Rotom-H, Tera Ghost on Ditto, and Tera Poison on Rhydon for taking on Pokemon like Pawmot, Arcanine, Ambipom, and so on. Its remaining 4 EVs are in Defense because this stat is doubled via Ice-type Snow and Aurora Veil boosts - every last EV matters, never let anyone tell you otherwise...


SD (and DD) Rhydon backed by Tera Poison is a favorite set of mine - everyone knows what Rhydon does, and it takes more games than you think it can with Aurora Veil + Tera + Setup. It does well in dealing with Pokemon like Pawmot via its ability and Tera combo while resisting and setting up on its natural checks. Just an absolute menace. With Aurora Veil, there is the potential to run without SR (the number of people who predict you to Rock Polish on this team is very small) and to simply copy a hazard setter with Ditto instead on this team.


Speaking of Ditto, I've always thought highly of this Pokemon, and it becomes better the more crazy setup sweepers you encounter when playing against Offense and HO archetypes. Given how common Aurora Veil is at the moment, Ditto is likely at its best right now, and there is nothing sweeter than reverse sweeping by copying something like a Frosmoth's boosts. Ditto is kind of the thing you can easily swap out though, should you find this still imperfect team weak to specific threats that you'd rather be covering more consistently. I find that Ditto is better for laddering though and that it preps you well against all of the rando setup-heavy Pokémon which this meta comprises.

Some talk about Ditto mechanics - it's standard for Ditto to run max Defense so that it can survive in case it has to transform manually god forbid, doesn't have anything to transform into (ex. Weezing Neutralizing Gas canceling Imposter if Ditto is slower than Weezing), or if it ends up using Struggle in the unlikely but still possible Ditto mirror. You'll notice my Ditto has maximum Special Attack over Defense - Ditto's own Special Attack stat is actually used if it copies a Future Sight user and then switches out before damage from Future Sight occurs, rather than the Special Attack of the Pokemon that it copied when it used Future Sight - slightly more damage, yippee. While this is the world's tiniest tech, I think the possibility for encountering a Future Sight user is slightly higher than running into a Ditto versus Ditto scenario given the presence of things like Espeon in the meta. Then, if you wanted to run Heavy-Duty Boots Ditto for some reason, making yourself faster than Neutralizing Gas Weezing with some Speed EVs can let you transform into Weezing before Weezing cancels out Imposter via its ability, meaning you'd also run some Speed / Max HP / the rest in SpA with HDB. I mention Weezing a lot because there is still some holdover on ladder from meta, and some people liked using Weezing for a time in that meta to beat out Guts. Not super applicable, but a fun thing to think about.


These two provide glue to finish out the team, as well as hazard removal, priority, and a QuakeEdge resist for things like Rhydon in hecid's case, and facilitating setup via Volt Switch and/or setting up behind Aurora Veil in Rotom-H's case. Tera Dark supplies the team with a Psychic immunity that can be critical in the face of other Bruxish and other offensive Psychic-types, and a Defense drop from broken Triple Arrows combined with a boosted Sucker Punch lets you pick off weakened Pokemon with hecid, though Tera Steel is still a fine and standard alternative on either of these to Tera Ghost / Tera Dark. Tera Ghost on Rotom-H was the last edit made to the team because of how vulnerable the team can be to Fighting-types in general, but you have plenty of routes to handle those offensively with Tera / Veil / Ditto / Alolatales / Bruxish depending on what it is, so it's not a huge team-breaking issue that you can't play around imo.

Replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2461420035-jb0s63t7hbw98jdxhau12u700t61xalpw vs Lambo
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2461411037-9ab22ern4hdasvgejd1ekaa1jxrxf4mpw vs Lambo
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2472922868 Suspect tour finals - this new Bruxish abusing Milotic
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2472906499 Tera Poison Rhydon vs Fighting Spam team, highlights how the team deals with Fighting-types offensively

Version 2.0 with Oricorio > Rotom-H


Tera + QD-boosted Oricorio behind Veil? Sign me up. This second version was made with this combination in mind and to provide even just a lighter resist to Fighting moves in Oricorio, but the Rotom-H version is likely better overall. Tera Grass is there to allow Oricorio to lure in / check non-Tera'd Rhydon as well as live hits like Bruxish's Aqua Jet after setting up. Fire + Grass coverage before and after Tera isn't that bad and while mono Grass coverage can be disappointing, timing your Tera here is everything. Taunt is a Xiri tech and I love it for stopping status / Trick / Encore, blocking recovery, and keeping your sweep going. You can argue for HDB > Leftovers easily so this Oricorio will be coming out early-game ideally, but Taunt / Tera give you some room to run with Leftovers instead, and each time you Taunt something successfully or force a switch, that's another turn of Leftovers recovery. Just be mindful of positioning and not switching non-HDB Ori into SR lol. Running with some small amount of SpDef can be impactful, as this SpDef investment is further boosted when it QDs. Again, every EV counts...

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2461498549-k58c25gccxe5myhe5aydcd8uibmqkd9pw Ori version 1
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2461487625-ghj94eg2tpijcelmie25prdce4igrwvpw Ori version 2 with more Milotic abuse
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2461451353-xokly3snq62xu0vebebt3cj8oywxd0cpw Ori version 3 vs DDJoe

 

[DD Joe]

Just got Reqs. Used a snow team for wins 1-18. Wasn't hard!

'Snow is mid'

It's not. It constrains the builder in so many unhealthy ways and forces the current PU Builder to have to overprepare and whip out awful abominations such as this fellow

Staple PU Mons have shrank into insignificance. Arcanine, Amoonguss, Espeon etc, all mons who rely on Morning Sun/Synthesis to heal, and the fishy semi snow/full snow veil HOs are extremely strong into multiple archetypes of teams, offense, bo etc.

If you look at PU Cup/Swiss, many rounds are people being utterly goobed by snow as they're unprepared for it.

SCL Builds look similar at the moment because of the centralising tools required to deal with snow.

Both Frosmoth and Sandslash are extremely oppressive behind the extremely consistent Aurora Veil from Ninetales.

Frosmoth is already obscenely bulky. Behind veil and with access to sub, it's downright diabolical. You need one turn of momentum to win an entire game in some cases.

Sandslash is more manageable but still forces tera in many cases and forces more passive building.

Overall, I think Ninetales makes the tier less interesting to build and opens the door to very degenerate offense which is extremely unfun for the more casual tours player.


In general, yeah, Ninetales is fine in a vacuum. However, it just enables too much behind veil. Even QDers like Venomoth and Oricorio can end up snowballing horrendously quickly behind aurora veil. Don't get me started on absolute degen stuff like Fillet Away Veluza either...

In any case, I do not enjoy the impact that Ninetales has brought to PU and I hope to see it banned.

If not Ninetales, then an Icy Rock ban would also probably be sufficient.