Metagame RU Metagame Discussion Thread [January 2026 Shifts, Farewell Hippowdon :( ]

[MrAldo]

Sound argument BUT, that discussion has been had and there is no action to take on tera blast unless OU wants to do something about it cause breaking transitivity is bad. May as well get rid of porygon-z and replace it with Meloetta or something

So many offensive mons on this tier are absurdly degenerate, like when you load normal teams it is fine to play, but then the absolute stinky cheesy teams that plague the tier at the moment is just dreadful. Different types of HO, Grassy Terrain, etc. UGH. Tier is a coinflip and dont have anything really positive to share which is a shame but it is how it is.

Dont see anything worth testing besides maybe Hydreigon out of morbid curiosity, doesnt really force many solutions outside of an armarouge check (which is fine I guess), everything else is just adding more gasoline to an already existing wildfire.


Will come back with less depressing news next time, hopefully

 

[Elec-ant1234]

May as well get rid of porygon-z and replace it with Meloetta or something

You know... that's not a half-bad idea...

 

[Rarelyme]

Alright so I wanted to play a good amount before taking things more slowly with RUPL season and I'm here to share my humble view of this "new" meta.
The tier feels very polarized and people seem to give up more and more on building balanced archetypes which ends up in an overly large amount of hyper offenses and stall being used. This is probably a symptom of gen 9 as a whole but we can't deny that balance in RU has lost many of its options which makes it arguably more of a hassle to build but also more difficult to pilot. My aim here is to present some options that I think are overlooked and can help when using balanced and bulky offense teams.

Toxic Spikes
Every RU builder knows Tspikes are a reliable way to deal with HO teams and can also be an effective way to pressure stall. But despite this, very few teams actually use them. The reason for this is, in my opinion, the pool of Pokemon that can use the move. Most of them put a strain on the builder because they would rather use another hazard or they lead the teams towards the extremes I talked about above. For instance, Gligar, Mew or Forretress would rather take the slot of the classic hazard setter so as to not force the team to feature another one, Quagsire is too frail to act as a physical wall on its own in a team which leads to very fat teams... In my opinion, the best Toxic Spikes setter available to us right now is Tentacruel.


Tentacruel is a great option for BO to balanced teams because it offers a ton of support like removal, pivot or Knock Off while being a key part of a gameplan against HO and Stall. I think it has never fit the meta as well as today because it answers other problems non-polar archetypes run into at the moment. Removal has always been an issue in RU and Tentacruel is honestly a fine option. It is able to spin in the face of some common setters like Chesnaught, Empoleon or Jirachi while standing its ground against HO leads such as Lycanroc and Kleavor. Pivot has also always been a problem of mine in SV since we don't have many pivot options and most of them oftentimes need to use another move instead of turn (Noivern, Talonflame, Jirachi...) Something RU certainly does well is having effective wallbreakers, and I think Tentacruel is a great pairing for them. Since it can also soft check a surprising amount of our top tier Pokemon (like Mienshao for instance), it fits well in dynamic BO cores; my personal favorite at the moment is Tentacruel/Jirachi/Noivern but I also played with Tentacruel/Hoodra (or Regi)/Chesnaught, Tentacruel/Umbreon and some others that I'm not completely satisfied with for the moment.

I don't want to spend too much time talking about Tentacruel but I hope this is enough to at least make you want to test it.


As I said previously, removal is a tough challenge for any RU builder and using Noivern or Talonflame for it is so incredibly unsatisfying that I tried other options. Tentacruel is of course one that I felt confident enough to talk about here, the other I think could deserve more attention is Maushold.


We all know this guy as the HO goon that forces you to have a Rocky Helmet mon in every team. I went through a bunch or replays and was pretty surprised to not see it even in BO teams, so I tried to lab with it to see if it could become more than a HO bot and spoiler alert, I think it definitely can be. Maushold, like Tentacruel, greatly improves the bulkier teams' matchup against HO since against frail Pokemon it basically is a kill button. Because it puts so much pressure, it very often forces switches which let it use Tidy Up rather easily and therefore serve as a good removal. I would note however that Maushold can't easily switch in as you probably know, so using it in a team that is weak to hazards in the first place is probably not a good idea. You can improve this by using Encore or VoltTurn cores though. Maushold can also be part of the aforementioned cores itself thanks to U-Turn and in general can bring a lot of support thanks to its 4th slot (Encore, Taunt, Thunder Wave, Super Fang). The mouse pairs extremely well with meta defining Pokemon as well such as Krookodile and Mienshao which are in my opinion its best partners.


Now for less interesting inputs about the meta:
The tier has seen a resurgence of special attackers in offensive teams (Porygon-Z, Mew, Tornadus, Toxtricity...) which have made some Pokemon better. Magnezone is terribly underrated in my opinion, it has a great typing, unique offensive pressure, good pivot and is a Steel-type, use that guy. Muk-A is also a bit forgotten but is a tremendous progress maker in every game.
IronPress sets are very good in the current meta since physical pressure is still prominent in the tier. You should try IronPress Slowbro it is quite refreshing while being almost as good as the CM set. Bronzong is also a nice option and people should think about it more.
Priority moves are extremely good (they pair very well with Tspikes) and are a viable form a speed control in bulkier archetypes.
I don't think this pokemon is broken, people need time to adapt but I think we have a lot of options to deal with Porygon-Z, namely priority moves since it's so frail, faster threats since it's quite slow and Tera since the mechanic does work both ways right.
Get this mon out of D rank.
​

 

[Feliburn]

Alright so I wanted to play a good amount before taking things more slowly with RUPL season and I'm here to share my humble view of this "new" meta.
The tier feels very polarized and people seem to give up more and more on building balanced archetypes which ends up in an overly large amount of hyper offenses and stall being used. This is probably a symptom of gen 9 as a whole but we can't deny that balance in RU has lost many of its options which makes it arguably more of a hassle to build but also more difficult to pilot. My aim here is to present some options that I think are overlooked and can help when using balanced and bulky offense teams.

Toxic Spikes
Every RU builder knows Tspikes are a reliable way to deal with HO teams and can also be an effective way to pressure stall. But despite this, very few teams actually use them. The reason for this is, in my opinion, the pool of Pokemon that can use the move. Most of them put a strain on the builder because they would rather use another hazard or they lead the teams towards the extremes I talked about above. For instance, Gligar, Mew or Forretress would rather take the slot of the classic hazard setter so as to not force the team to feature another one, Quagsire is too frail to act as a physical wall on its own in a team which leads to very fat teams... In my opinion, the best Toxic Spikes setter available to us right now is Tentacruel.


Tentacruel is a great option for BO to balanced teams because it offers a ton of support like removal, pivot or Knock Off while being a key part of a gameplan against HO and Stall. I think it has never fit the meta as well as today because it answers other problems non-polar archetypes run into at the moment. Removal has always been an issue in RU and Tentacruel is honestly a fine option. It is able to spin in the face of some common setters like Chesnaught, Empoleon or Jirachi while standing its ground against HO leads such as Lycanroc and Kleavor. Pivot has also always been a problem of mine in SV since we don't have many pivot options and most of them oftentimes need to use another move instead of turn (Noivern, Talonflame, Jirachi...) Something RU certainly does well is having effective wallbreakers, and I think Tentacruel is a great pairing for them. Since it can also soft check a surprising amount of our top tier Pokemon (like Mienshao for instance), it fits well in dynamic BO cores; my personal favorite at the moment is Tentacruel/Jirachi/Noivern but I also played with Tentacruel/Hoodra (or Regi)/Chesnaught, Tentacruel/Umbreon and some others that I'm not completely satisfied with for the moment.

I don't want to spend too much time talking about Tentacruel but I hope this is enough to at least make you want to test it.


As I said previously, removal is a tough challenge for any RU builder and using Noivern or Talonflame for it is so incredibly unsatisfying that I tried other options. Tentacruel is of course one that I felt confident enough to talk about here, the other I think could deserve more attention is Maushold.


We all know this guy as the HO goon that forces you to have a Rocky Helmet mon in every team. I went through a bunch or replays and was pretty surprised to not see it even in BO teams, so I tried to lab with it to see if it could become more than a HO bot and spoiler alert, I think it definitely can be. Maushold, like Tentacruel, greatly improves the bulkier teams' matchup against HO since against frail Pokemon it basically is a kill button. Because it puts so much pressure, it very often forces switches which let it use Tidy Up rather easily and therefore serve as a good removal. I would note however that Maushold can't easily switch in as you probably know, so using it in a team that is weak to hazards in the first place is probably not a good idea. You can improve this by using Encore or VoltTurn cores though. Maushold can also be part of the aforementioned cores itself thanks to U-Turn and in general can bring a lot of support thanks to its 4th slot (Encore, Taunt, Thunder Wave, Super Fang). The mouse pairs extremely well with meta defining Pokemon as well such as Krookodile and Mienshao which are in my opinion its best partners.


Now for less interesting inputs about the meta:
The tier has seen a resurgence of special attackers in offensive teams (Porygon-Z, Mew, Tornadus, Toxtricity...) which have made some Pokemon better. Magnezone is terribly underrated in my opinion, it has a great typing, unique offensive pressure, good pivot and is a Steel-type, use that guy. Muk-A is also a bit forgotten but is a tremendous progress maker in every game.
IronPress sets are very good in the current meta since physical pressure is still prominent in the tier. You should try IronPress Slowbro it is quite refreshing while being almost as good as the CM set. Bronzong is also a nice option and people should think about it more.
Priority moves are extremely good (they pair very well with Tspikes) and are a viable form a speed control in bulkier archetypes.
I don't think this pokemon is broken, people need time to adapt but I think we have a lot of options to deal with Porygon-Z, namely priority moves since it's so frail, faster threats since it's quite slow and Tera since the mechanic does work both ways right.
Get this mon out of D rank.
​

I agree with tspikes being really good, I have always been a big advocate of tspikes as an anti HO measure when building for it in SCL, but I wouldn't call Tentacruel our best setter. I do like it a lot as a setter, and Franklin experimented with it and used it vs me in tests and it looked good.

However, and this might be outdated info since it was when we had Hippo meta, the one tspike setter I used every single time was always scarf Gengar.


Gengar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Cursed Body
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave
- Trick
- Toxic Spikes

I feel like this was the perfect way to include tspikes on a team without sacrificing much, as Gengar's coverage moves aren't really game changing unless you heavily rely on a lure to hit Cyclizar. Most of the time you use this set for the almost uncontested speed control of the game, but you can also get tspikes up easily, and vs HO you can almost always lead with gengar and trade tspikes for rocks, and if they lead with a setter, you threaten with the Trick. I probably spammed this gengar set in the last couple of months of last year because it just did what it needed, and rarely ever felt awkward building with, as we all know Tentacruel can feel weird.

I was more mindful when using tspikes outside of choice scarf, as non scarf you usually do a better job with like Wisp + Hex or some tera NP stuff, you can probably still use it but idk it never appealed to me.