disclaimer: english is bad, point of view personal, it is just a game
The stats I use are from
Sanos replay bank, it is pinned in the forums :)
I am glad to see that rain is finally getting the attention of the playerbase it derserved for a while now, despite having tried to push this topic multiple times to RoA heads personally, so I thank
Ruffles for bringing this topic back. To start I also think rain is a problem and just not more than a free mu button, only losing to impossible hard counter teams that will lose to every single one of the other playstyles rn.
It lead to a degradation in the diversity of the tier, making weather wars being much more common, hence why sun is so prevalent (for the wrong reasons btw-talking about it a few lines latter) rn as a way to cover most things easily without having to play rain and get cteamed.
Basically at this time I only consider Swampert to be a real ban candidate, but rain's usage/winrate isn't even that crazy. I would like to hear more concrete points illustrating why we're jumping to a ban rather than running more kyub/zardy/lati or even bringing back rotom/bulu.
This is the sentence that pushed me to make this post because I completly disagree on this especially the zardy point (and I will not talk about rotom/bulu because it is obvious you are shooting yourself in the foot against the rest of the tier if you play those two without being sure you will face rain). Even tho I disagree with this, I respect this point of view and understand the arguments going for it. I just want to show how I see the tier and my point of view on how manaphy warps the meta.
SO BE READY FOR SOME YAPPING!!!!!
Here are the usage stats for 2026 and 2025 respectively and
those don't have live tours from Smogon Tour. Rain is always the most spammed team and does not have a negative win rate at all. With its usage, it is statistically logical it gets close to 50% win rate but it seems to be a bit more on the positive side. But let's assume that, by the end of 2026, its win rate settles around 50%. What would that actually tell us? That rain is perfectly balanced? Or that you can simply load rain, put minimal effort into prep, and still have roughly a 50% chance to win against your opponent? In other words, rain functions as the most "neutral" matchup in the tier: regardless of what your opponent brings, you're rarely at a significant disadvantage and often have every opportunity to outplay them. If you think you are the better player why not just load rain? worst case scenario you get a neutral and maybe you will get a dominant mu and win.
Admittedly, that argument could sound sophistic, I could be accused of interpreting the statistics in the way that best supports my position... However, that criticism would carry much more weight if rain was a niche archetype. Players know they are likely to face it, so they have every incentive to prepare for it. If the archetype remains the most common while maintaining at least an even, if not slightly positive, win rate despite everyone expecting and preparing for it, that is precisely what makes it an anomaly. It seems logical by now that people would know what to load and so shut down rain very easily since 2019.
First common argument I see is "the tier has a lot to cover already". Despite SM having a lot of playstyle to cover when building and playing, I don't think it is the main reason why rain is as successful as it is. It is not just a rock paper scizors game...for a rain player. Why is rain so good and consistent?
Rain as the tools to win any matchups possible in the tier, as simple as that. While the standard composition of rain we see rn has already an extensive toolkit, sets tweaks or composition changes with magearna over manaphy transform the playstyle into the safest one you could play.
Standard compositon is meant to dismantle anything you could face in the tier and it is no coincidence that this playstyle and precise composition was born during cg olt as the threats in the tier are fondamentaly the same (just composition and combination changing their pace and focus).
For me the biggest reason to play rain at first glance is not manaphy, as it is to face a specific mu, but mega swampert that has immediate power boost thanks to swift swim and drizzle from pelliper. It can pierce most archetypes, just powering through defenses with its high attack boosted by rain while still having the possibility to mcmeghan your face with a flinch (kinda why saying cm clefable 6-0 rain is competly wrong) or freeze you to death with ice punch (also ice+ground+water is an almost unresisted combo, araquanid being the only mon that is used in the tier that resist it and maybe the rare shedinja). It also has the possiblity the change its set and go for sub toxic to completely prevent standard cm mons like latias to sit in front of you or flipping on its head this mu that is not in rain favor
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-953409.
Greninja has access to high base power attacks while having a rain boosted priority and the possibility to become a 640 base stat monster faster than tapu koko and that can also rely on flinch probability to break past its supposed 142 special defense check
. While Manaphy is very bulky and eating even a neutral hydro vortex is never easy since for offense/balance it means you most likely traded health on something needed for swamp or gren.
So, here we are, it is obvious that we can't use standard offense lando gear bs to win into rain. Surely fat will find something to flush that mud puddle, right? Here comes manaphy with the combination of ferrothorn and tornadus. Manaphy is pretty obviously broken in rain, hydratation with a triple boost move in tail glow is ridiculous, which means you can't prevent a set up with your defensive pieces through status while 7 turns of rain after Pelipper entry on the field removes the possibility to weather stall while doing progress in game. Yes you can stall the rain turns...good job at doing nothing for seven turns only to see it repeat again turns later while manaphy can wait patiently with rest when there is no rain...And if it was not enough Spikes from Ferrothorn and support Knock-off or Taunt from Tornadus would require an impressive streak of good turns out of you to avoid losing to manaphy the moment it enters the field even for mons like pyukumuku (that also has to choose between checking swampert comfortably or manaphy...). It even lead me to test dumb strats like gastro acid or skill swap but to no end.
What would you use then to face rain really...?
Kyurem Black:
Kyurem black is one of the most solid pick there is for rain as you pressure immediately the standard rain archetype with Z move. But Kyurem black has answers (despite people saying it does not most fats know how to face kyurem if it is not sub hone claw since it relies so much on the Z move to make progress) and it can be exploited by your opponent returning us to the problematic of the diversity of archetype to prepare for.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-950280, this team would have lose to manaphy anyway (at least taking a kill or two and so breaking the defensive soundness of the team) but the other player calced wrong first and then proceed to give manaphy on a fusion bolt (that does not even OHKO btw while a +3 hydro vortex in rain does T_T)(no disrespect to the player, just pointing the argument of this archetype not beating rain consistently). Still kyurem might be the only solid pick but leave you suspectible to the rest, especially when sun is so popular rn as well.
your own weather:
Then if rain is what is putting pressure, just remove it and run your own weather. Sand has very limited rain counter plays, at least the standard sand we see most of the time, forcing you to enter and reset weather on risky turns while mons like Tangrowth are passable options at best. Toxapex+Celesteela are one of the best sand structure, solid into most of the tier, but sadly here give free turns to our friend manaphy while Swampert is having fun and just need a flinch or a good eq predict to make the sand castle crumble. Serp can only be a problem with glare but you still have to break past ferro so...It really leaves us with sun that does not even have a mu that free to start with and depends highly on sets. I see countless people saying sun counters rain so easily, "just play sun"...For me sun is neutral at best and never a free counter unless you play the legendary hp electric one. People play sun because it destroys regular lando gear while giving neutral mu in the rest, not because it counters rain.
team on the left won, on the right lose. Rain wins most of the time and those are smpl and spl replays
The real problem:
The tier structure is the real problem, it is impossible to pinpoint where the tier fail presicely since everything is so intertwined and every threats play a game of musical chairs. One time it is manaphy, the other serperior then it will be magearna, then we go back on swampert and zard x...
I can also change rain last member and still adapt to any mu, which is why I also don't agree on rain being rigid. You can simply change Manaphy for Magearna that also uses rain to its advantage by removing its fire weakness while adding a more neutral mu to the team against dragon. And if fat is annoying, I can slot a band araquanid/crawdaunt in the mix and flip the mu again. But here, it forces you to choose what you will prepare for and not just load aimlessly and concider you will get a win, that is why Manaphy makes rain a problem. It piles up on all the good traits of rain, which are I think healthy for the tier as well, and transform them into a headache to answer snowballing into the rest of the tier and its interactions.
Banning Swampert would drastically change the tier since it is for me the corner stone of the archetype but I am sure it would mean that standard HO would have a field day, and make the tier even more boring than it is rn just loading HO and cleaning before your opponent which is more like tossing a coin than anything. I also find Swampert very good as a the mega for fat teams outside of rain, we saw a lot more of those lately and banning it competly would be a shame since it answers a lot of problem for fat rn (sand, zardx ect...).
Manaphy is useless, it is just here to spoil our days and make us frustrated when you have to play against rain ig. For the reason exposed earlier not having to deal with manaphy for fat/balance means you can slot answers to swampert much more easily and so break one link of the builder's paranoïa chain, which could be enough to stabilise the tier. Maybe it wont change anything and gear rain will be spammed instead, but I really think it would make building and so reacting to other threats like serperior much easier.
I like the fact rain exists in the tier, just not making it as free seem enough for me than just destroy the archetype all together. So banning Manaphy would be my choice.
My thoughts on Serperior:
I might be the only one that like this mon. I can't deny how strong it is and how stupid it can be but I never see it as an overwhelming threat. Like it is how stupid a smou mon can be, just like I can load cm gear with a berry and get kills into most team. I see it as top 5 pokemon but it is a free W only into very specific archetype contrary to mons like Dragonite or magearna that can realistically one 1vs1 anything with only eq ice punch with the right spread, Volcarona that is also the king of mu picking, and none of those mons I concider ban worthy. I even concider tspikes toxapex to be much more pressuring that serp, shutting down half of the tier but I don't see it as ban worthy.
Sub Seed as been dormant for years after 2019 snake and only saw a rise in usage this past year since it punishes the lazy sun pick with tapu fini as a defog user and capitalise on the fall of latias+tornadus type of core. Since HO is so common it is also logical that serp usage are high since it was historically the enabler of HO for years now. Sub seed punishes chansey pex zapdos fat that do nothing but suffer for 100 turns into any real breakers (not just serperior), which I think is a good thing. In a game we played with drachen and reuni, our serp managed to win into this archetype but it took a lot of turns to achieve it, it was never an instant win and they had the occasion to prevent this if they healed clefable that was surely cosmic power+encore, pp stalling leafstorm.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-2581423594-22146et5sg4dn1grrn7aj82aqdyhk90pw
This replay shows that Serp has to position itself to get going in order to win. It still has to deal with leaf storm, a move with very few pp and poor accuracy (we got lucky to not miss any attacks) and same thing with leech seed.
If you run sub seed+hp fire/rock then you will face a wall into pivot with a tornadus for exemple, while phazing is much more common rn than it was years ago. If you go for sub seed but with glare (a very broken move) you are going to be hard lock by Ferro one of the most common wall in the tier. You can't just load a serp and get to work.
I am also surprised that sub seed is the problem I hear the most, when glare and knock off make Serperior one of the most annoying support to face while sub seed has counters and needs time to win. I think since it is very good rn, people are not used to see the top of sm shared between other things than lando gear pex, we are just rediscovering what players in 2019 saw before moving on to gen8, that serp is good. Right now is also the perfect time for sub seed serp since people only seem to load fini, which serp is an expert at using for evasion or spe attack boosts. Will it last? I don't think so, people are not dumb and will in time understand to change their brings after they get rolled by sub serp while loading sun for the 10th time (I plead guilty on this account).
Also I find it very funny that we complain about sub seed serp winning into heatran when it is kinda the point of the set, to win into anything slower that is not immune to leech seed, there would be no real reasons to run it other than breaking past its most common check in heatran in smou. I would go for synthesis glare/taunt all day if it was not for the fire frog. (and in the skype replay the tran is already at 15% when serp enters the field for the first time...like of course you are going to lose no?)
Outside of tornadus and pivot, this metagame also has a lot more tools than in the past with phazing on fat, heart swap gear, dragon dance dnite, the possibility to still run volcarona or even the rise in viability of Venusaur (pretty much following its oras use little by little I think), encore clef, skill swap on cress or chansey ect, still being weak to tspikes...
Serperior is for me one of the corner stone of the tier now and the gardian of the tier pace. I enjoy the tier because of how even a fast paced game can feel complex while also having the possibility to take it slow and play much more tactical. I don't think you would get that balance with serp gone.
All of that to say serp is not unmanageable, excellent but not broken (only glare makes it suspect worthy).
