100% agree on the Sableye point. I think what I'm trying to say is Diglett essentially pushes an offence archetype to a new power level it can't achieve without the extra trapping. Give the little guy a try with a Special Offence team and you'll see how far you can get with 55 attack when you have choice band and earthquake. Giving up a single turn in ADV isn't as punishing IMO as removing a check.
-
Follow our Instagram!
-
Curious about what we're currently doing about bots? Check out the latest updates from staff in this thread.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Resource ADV OU Viability Ranking and Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter McMeghan
- Start date
Hello folks! ADV Cup is nearly over, so we're going to open submissions for the ADV OU VR for 2026!
Here is a clear list of criteria for the VR submission, you must meet at least one of them to be part of the VR update:
If you qualify, we are using the same method to submit VRs this year! And anyone not qualified can use this sheet as well, if you'd like.
Princess Autumn's fantastic VR Sheet
If you wish to submit a VR, follow the instructions above to create a sheet. Afterwards, you must send me a PM (Smogon or Discord (goldmason)) with your qualification from the list above, as well as a link to your completed sheet (make sure to make it public). Any ladder screenshot must in some way include the date or be dated for the last six months. If you wish to verify your reqs with me first, you may.
I WILL NOT ACCEPT PICTURES OF A VR THIS YEAR. USE THE SHEET.
The deadline for submitting your VR is <t:1788753540:F>. You may ladder until then to try and get reqs for the VR.
Old Tiermaker image generator, if you want it for a post. Do NOT use it to submit a VR to me.
Here is a clear list of criteria for the VR submission, you must meet at least one of them to be part of the VR update:
- Made Top 8 of ADV Cup 2026.
- Played in the most recent Jimvitational (play-ins not included).
- Made Top 4 in the last Seasonal or Global Championship.
- Reached 1800 on the ladder in the last 6 months (January 27th).
- Top 16 of ADV Circuit Championships for 2025.
- Players with at least 4 wins in one of: ADVPL VI, SPL XVII, and RoAPL XII.
If you qualify, we are using the same method to submit VRs this year! And anyone not qualified can use this sheet as well, if you'd like.
Princess Autumn's fantastic VR Sheet
- Click on the link above. Click yes to make a copy of the sheet.
- You can either submit your list as text or as a tier maker-esque format:
- List: Input a Pokémon's name in column E and their rank (S-E) in column B. The list will be assumed to be sorted by ranking order so order them accordingly,
- Tier Maker: Select the Pokémon's name from the dropdowns in column H-U, the sprite will populate above the name. You are limited to 15 Pokémon in tiers S-D and 45 in E, if you need more, use the text format.
- To be very clear, only your rankings matter for the VR. Tiers are purely for aesthetic/to match the old tiermaker image generator.
If you wish to submit a VR, follow the instructions above to create a sheet. Afterwards, you must send me a PM (Smogon or Discord (goldmason)) with your qualification from the list above, as well as a link to your completed sheet (make sure to make it public). Any ladder screenshot must in some way include the date or be dated for the last six months. If you wish to verify your reqs with me first, you may.
I WILL NOT ACCEPT PICTURES OF A VR THIS YEAR. USE THE SHEET.
The deadline for submitting your VR is <t:1788753540:F>. You may ladder until then to try and get reqs for the VR.
Old Tiermaker image generator, if you want it for a post. Do NOT use it to submit a VR to me.
Last edited:
Probably won't have the patience to go for the 1800 elo requirement and unfortunately neither circuit nor JI play-ins qualify, but I'll post a VR here anyway
Edit: nvm 2025 Circuit got added as a qualify. Also, I changed the VR a bit so here's the new one:
Won't be commenting on every placement, but I'll try to comment on the stuff that changed the most placement-wise for me since last time + whatever else I feel like
S tier:
1 - :tyranitar: Tyranitar: Despite going from 1st to 1st, I feel it's gotten marginally better with the rise of Slop, both as a key pokemon there and as someone who can hit Registeel and help check Raikou (+ pursuit Gengar, which I feel is a considerable winner from the Registeel popularity boom, although usage since last year saw a dip and now a recovery, at least up to April)
2 - :skarmory: Skarmory: Still number 2, but the rise of Raikou, more offensive Swamperts and Fire Blast DDMences makes Skarmory a slightly worse 2nd place
A Tier:
6 and 7 (I swear it's not intentional) - :salamence: :zapdos: Salamence and Zapdos: The rise of more varied DDMence sets (and more mence in general), paired with Zapdos losing the agility pass tool, means that, in my view at least, Salamence is now better than Zapdos overall
14 - :suicune: Suicune: Maybe I'm overreacting, but I feel Suicune, while being able to steal games away, can also end up being dead weight after an unlucky crit (not uncommon for more defensive Suicune sets), a flinch or just being forced to rest due to chip damage in general, meanwhile Celebi can be a great offensive special check (especially with firebirds on the drop) with Leech, opt for a bulkier approach with Recover, go the CM route or even the SDPass route, while Dugtrio will almost always have an important target to trap (for a tempo loss, of course, but teams that run it should be equiped to deal with that), Claydol can always boom at worst, also functioning as a rock check even against spikeless teams and Aerodactyl enjoys having Raikou as a new target + many Swamperts now running less bulk, making them, in my view, overtake Suicune
15 - :registeel: Registeel: The big riser since last year, not much I can say that hasn't been said I think
16 - :forretress: Forretress: Maybe it's my recent bias towards slower stuff, but Forre offers so much compression with two of the most important roles in the tier: Spiker and Spinner. Great defensive typing overall while having decent flexibility in the last 2 slots (Earthquake for Tyranitar/Magneton, Counter for physical threats and HP fire coverage, HP Bug for Celebi and Tyranitar, Zap Cannon for Skarmory, Gengar and all other mons that hate paralysis, HP Ghost to chip Gengar into pursuit range/finish it after a pursuit, HP Fire for the mirror + Skarmory chip, Boom to avoid being setup fodder, I think I've even seen Giga Drain before), great mon with a pretty good skill ceiling
B Tier:
18 - :starmie: Starmie: Not much to say other than the rise of lead Starmie + more defensive Starmies being used makes it almost worthy of A tier in my eyes
19 - :charizard: Charizard: Not much has changed since last time: It won a target in Registeel but now has Raikou preying on it, but I definitely think I overrated it a bit last time
23 - :heracross: Heracross: Potential man, the beetle farms certain matchups super hard but also has a pretty hard time hitting the field while not even having that great of a speed tier (sub 100 base speed offensive mon), also one of the more luck-reliant mons considering Megahorn and Rock Slide accuracy, definitely fits better in either weather clear or matchup division stuff as the anti-stall tool. (Go Beetle Battalion)
24 - :raikou: Raikou: Another one of the big risers, I might even be still underrating it, but thudding into Blissey, struggling vs Snorlax, being a dug target and being very prone to chip (unless you run Rest, but then you're opening yourself to missing coverage vs some of Swampert, Flygon and Celebi) I think stops it from being even higher. It's also OHKO'd by Paralysis
C Tier:
26 - :jolteon: Jolteon: Mostly the same, likes having Raikou as a new entrypoint + threatening TWave on it, but HATES the rise of Registeel, having to play around it with spikes chip + roar/double switches.
29 - :regirock: Regirock: Absurdly physically bulky, can withstand some absurd super effective hits, but is pretty slow and hates being hit by Toxic, without a CB, it's also a Skarmory entry point.
30 - :gyarados: Gyarados: Mielke showed me that Gyarados is definitely OU-Worthy, but I'm still keeping an eye on it...
31 - :medicham: Medicham: Extremely powerful, but similarly to Heracross, mid defensive typing, mid speed and mid bulk, losing so many lead matchups is also not ideal either while being prone to chip damage too, considering it usually wants either Choice Band or Lum Berry. Compared to Heracross, it also misses having a second (usable) offensive STAB.
36 - :misdreavus: Missy: Pretty good on that ABR team, nowhere else to be seen
D Tier:
38 - :quagsire: Quagsire: Friend-shaped and makes a few squads actually usable, though it still feels bad to rely on it, can also be abused if you force it to Rest
41 - :dragonite: Dragonite: Also friend-shaped and has a pretty good advantage over Salamence: you can run it alongside Salamence. Pretty flexible and can help you free up slots on your Salamence on some teams that aim to win by overloading the opponent checks, such as Dragonite Slop allowing Salamence to chuck Fire Blast away for another physical coverage move.
Edit: nvm 2025 Circuit got added as a qualify. Also, I changed the VR a bit so here's the new one:
Won't be commenting on every placement, but I'll try to comment on the stuff that changed the most placement-wise for me since last time + whatever else I feel like
S tier:
1 - :tyranitar: Tyranitar: Despite going from 1st to 1st, I feel it's gotten marginally better with the rise of Slop, both as a key pokemon there and as someone who can hit Registeel and help check Raikou (+ pursuit Gengar, which I feel is a considerable winner from the Registeel popularity boom, although usage since last year saw a dip and now a recovery, at least up to April)
2 - :skarmory: Skarmory: Still number 2, but the rise of Raikou, more offensive Swamperts and Fire Blast DDMences makes Skarmory a slightly worse 2nd place
A Tier:
6 and 7 (I swear it's not intentional) - :salamence: :zapdos: Salamence and Zapdos: The rise of more varied DDMence sets (and more mence in general), paired with Zapdos losing the agility pass tool, means that, in my view at least, Salamence is now better than Zapdos overall
14 - :suicune: Suicune: Maybe I'm overreacting, but I feel Suicune, while being able to steal games away, can also end up being dead weight after an unlucky crit (not uncommon for more defensive Suicune sets), a flinch or just being forced to rest due to chip damage in general, meanwhile Celebi can be a great offensive special check (especially with firebirds on the drop) with Leech, opt for a bulkier approach with Recover, go the CM route or even the SDPass route, while Dugtrio will almost always have an important target to trap (for a tempo loss, of course, but teams that run it should be equiped to deal with that), Claydol can always boom at worst, also functioning as a rock check even against spikeless teams and Aerodactyl enjoys having Raikou as a new target + many Swamperts now running less bulk, making them, in my view, overtake Suicune
15 - :registeel: Registeel: The big riser since last year, not much I can say that hasn't been said I think
16 - :forretress: Forretress: Maybe it's my recent bias towards slower stuff, but Forre offers so much compression with two of the most important roles in the tier: Spiker and Spinner. Great defensive typing overall while having decent flexibility in the last 2 slots (Earthquake for Tyranitar/Magneton, Counter for physical threats and HP fire coverage, HP Bug for Celebi and Tyranitar, Zap Cannon for Skarmory, Gengar and all other mons that hate paralysis, HP Ghost to chip Gengar into pursuit range/finish it after a pursuit, HP Fire for the mirror + Skarmory chip, Boom to avoid being setup fodder, I think I've even seen Giga Drain before), great mon with a pretty good skill ceiling
B Tier:
18 - :starmie: Starmie: Not much to say other than the rise of lead Starmie + more defensive Starmies being used makes it almost worthy of A tier in my eyes
19 - :charizard: Charizard: Not much has changed since last time: It won a target in Registeel but now has Raikou preying on it, but I definitely think I overrated it a bit last time
23 - :heracross: Heracross: Potential man, the beetle farms certain matchups super hard but also has a pretty hard time hitting the field while not even having that great of a speed tier (sub 100 base speed offensive mon), also one of the more luck-reliant mons considering Megahorn and Rock Slide accuracy, definitely fits better in either weather clear or matchup division stuff as the anti-stall tool. (Go Beetle Battalion)
24 - :raikou: Raikou: Another one of the big risers, I might even be still underrating it, but thudding into Blissey, struggling vs Snorlax, being a dug target and being very prone to chip (unless you run Rest, but then you're opening yourself to missing coverage vs some of Swampert, Flygon and Celebi) I think stops it from being even higher. It's also OHKO'd by Paralysis
C Tier:
26 - :jolteon: Jolteon: Mostly the same, likes having Raikou as a new entrypoint + threatening TWave on it, but HATES the rise of Registeel, having to play around it with spikes chip + roar/double switches.
29 - :regirock: Regirock: Absurdly physically bulky, can withstand some absurd super effective hits, but is pretty slow and hates being hit by Toxic, without a CB, it's also a Skarmory entry point.
30 - :gyarados: Gyarados: Mielke showed me that Gyarados is definitely OU-Worthy, but I'm still keeping an eye on it...
31 - :medicham: Medicham: Extremely powerful, but similarly to Heracross, mid defensive typing, mid speed and mid bulk, losing so many lead matchups is also not ideal either while being prone to chip damage too, considering it usually wants either Choice Band or Lum Berry. Compared to Heracross, it also misses having a second (usable) offensive STAB.
36 - :misdreavus: Missy: Pretty good on that ABR team, nowhere else to be seen
D Tier:
38 - :quagsire: Quagsire: Friend-shaped and makes a few squads actually usable, though it still feels bad to rely on it, can also be abused if you force it to Rest
41 - :dragonite: Dragonite: Also friend-shaped and has a pretty good advantage over Salamence: you can run it alongside Salamence. Pretty flexible and can help you free up slots on your Salamence on some teams that aim to win by overloading the opponent checks, such as Dragonite Slop allowing Salamence to chuck Fire Blast away for another physical coverage move.
Attachments
Last edited:
(1) Necessary slots on the very "best" team styles (which for me, is spikes, very broadly speaking)
(2) How many sets/options/overall teams it has within that style
(3) Strength of its main niche or team style, and individual consistency/variability within that niche
(4) If not tied to a specific style I consider strong, general volume of teams it tends to fit on
(5) Miscellaneous strengths and upsides
and from there I used my usage stats % to educate individual ordering when there's ambiguity in my choices.
So for instance, I decided to put Pokemon that I consider to have a completely unique and universally strong profile in S, and A are the Pokemon that are essentially necessary slots alongside them, B tier are maybe more niche slots on those teams + the strongest guys for the next best teams, and so on. Of course, this is all bullshit in a sense - there's no right way to rank; this sort of severely exhausting way to do it is "fun" for me and made sense at the time. Surely our VR's should represent our usage and opinion to a large extent. Anyways, enough yap: below, I decided to say something about my top 10 and some specific ones I felt like talking about. Even if you disagree with my takes/opinions about some of them, I hope that this is a fun read at the very least. I am so sorry in advance for the Charizard placement by the way. It was an unfortunate accident.
--------------
:tyranitar:
I ranked Skarmory #1 last time and I regret it - Tyranitar is totally unique in its ability to set sand, use a huge variety of sets both offensive/defensive, and in particular DD TTar is just about the single scariest thing in the whole game to me. We say that DD as a cleaner is kinda bad because it's easier to play around with Intimidate, Dug, and pivoting and stuff, but realistically any team that doesn't have a healthy pert could potentially lose to DDTar, and there are a lot of teams that don't use defensive swampert nowadays. But yeah it's best as a breaker. Between the massive threat of DD and the other traits I mentioned, like setting sand to pressure all the super fat teams, this one has to be #1. I don't want to see it leave the top spot. I think my overall favorite sets are just Pursuit and DD Tar, but I sometimes use the others too. Not all that much to say because everyone knows the deal with Tyranitar... maybe the last thing I'll say is that I think sand's acceleration of games is pretty central to a lot of offensive plans, unless you go a suicune/snorlax route. But those plans are usually less flexible. TTar #1.
:skarmory:
Like I said above, it's my opinion that spikes teams overall (all kinds) are the "best", where "best" here means either very consistent in the case of defensive/stally spikes teams or highly flexible in matchup when it comes to offensive spikes, in my view. Skarmory represents a unique force because if given the slightest bit of room it's gonna get 3 layers very easily, and from there if you don't have a spinner and the skarmory team has the means to apply some direct pressure (with say, a bird breaker), the game tends to be over very quickly. It can't be #1 because there are other quite viable spikers like forretress, and also Skarmory is not really a Pokemon in a way: it doesn't threaten to do any damage and it's not exactly a wall without toxic and protect, it just kinda sits on everything and sets the 3 layers. But do not ever underrate spikes. People seem willing to load skarmory weak teams a lot lately maybe due to the belief that they are weaker somehow- I don't see it as something that can ever really change. Spikes will always exist and limit teams/moveslots tremendously. Never ever forget: when its game3 of the BO3 and there's stakes on the line, that's when even the skarm/spikes haters choose to use it. Deep down, they know.
:blissey:
Back in 2023/2024 I used to believe that Blissey was ~10, when I used only offense. I started using defense more and it really helped my ladder runs and it's pretty clear that Blissey is a huge part of that. Here is the really important thing about Blissey's ranking for me and also a lot of other people: it completely gatekeeps the really strong defensive teams. There is no such thing as a truly defensive/stally team in ADV without Blissey. You can build superman style teams or grounded blissey-less stall teams but they all have a clear glaring weakness. If you try to build a passive team without Blissey you're definitely hedging the matchup a lot. It enables the really long games by granting the user a lot of control: you can softboiled as a insanely unkillable blob, you can heal status and your rest users with aroma to go to 300+ turns, you can use wish to heal your team on more middle of the road paces (100-200) turns, paralyze everything and toss it all down, etc. Completely central on all teams hoping to play a long game and an especially unquestionable slot alongside Skarmory or Forretress (again, on DEFENSIVE teams. On offensive skarmory/forretress teams, no, you're not looking at Blissey as much). There's no other pokemon that I view as necessary on all defensive/offensive styles, except for perhaps Tyranitar on offense. I very loosely view Tyranitar as being an offensive gatekeeper with sand and Blissey as gatekeeping defensive teams due to its insane profile alongside spikers especially. I also super agree with the notion of Bold Twave or CM Blissey being the two best - it's pretty natural to be a little grossed out by the modest sets that don't have CM. Bold is just unbelievably powerful, and it feels really yucky to max the spattack of a wall pokemon with modest nature just because you're scared of 1-2 pokemon, where you can find counterplay elsewhere. It's a big difference, those are the best two sets to me overall.
I think the above 3 fit into S nicely, because they have this interesting kind of cyclical property that you often only use 1-2 and not 3 of them: A lot of offensive TTar/Skarm teams don't want a Blissey. A lot of defensive Skarm/Bliss teams don't want a TTar. If you happen to have a TTar/Blissey, it's actually pretty natural imo to at least consider Forretress instead of Skarmory. So, I'm saying there's a kind of nice balancing act above, in that choosing all three of TTar/Skarm/Bliss overall is quite mid at best. It's just often too hard to make the slots work if you force TTar/Skarm/Bliss. I do like those teams still, but they are not particularly good compared to the other choices I just mentioned, where you pick 2/3 and go from there. I guess teams lacking all three are valid but I really tend to not like them personally, and this is my list, so.
:swampert:
This one I predict will rise at least a spot or maybe even two, to the top3-4 in the game, and even though I'm not a big user of EndPert and the recent offensive swampert sets, I believe them to be very good and reflective of how good people got at using offensive plans the last year or two. There's no question to me offense got optimized and is a lot stronger nowadays compared to when I started (I feel like this is mostly due to fruhdazi). But regardless, even as someone who spams defensive swampert ... it's amazing. Rock resists are necessary, and imo the best rock resists are Swampert and Metagross. I put swampert higher due to my usage stat, and also my hating of defensive metagross (which I'll say below). Swampert is a huge mixed threat with its offensive sets, a pain in the ass for statusless offenses with Protox/Surf/Roar (this is the best defensive set imo), you can even use Curse and all kinds of other combinations depending on team. It's the best check to DDTar which like I said above is theoretically the scariest guy in the game. It can also check ice punch Jirachi, which is lowkey the second scariest guy imo. It can't go in S though, even though a rock resist is a necessary slot, because you don't really ever consider swampert on those claydol/suicune/dug fat teams. So yeah, best overall physical wall, water/ground type unbelievably good, massive threat with endeavor/FP sets, list goes on. Really hoping swampert gets to be at least the #4 spot, it deserves to be as high as 3 in my mind, even.
:metagross:
The other good rock resist that can *kinda* check DDTar. More offensively inclined than swampert. In the past people put metagross at 3 or even like 1, and while it's certainly amazing for all of the usual reasons, I'm ranking it lower because there are actually offenses that people want nowadays that don't have metagross (thinking of slop style teams), and also, there seems to be a mild uptick in defensive metagross? I feel like I see it all the time now. I think it's quite bad to me: I would so much rather use agility>protect to take advantage of the insane game-robbing upside that metagross can do, and also, I unironically believe agility keeps you safer from physical threats on a lot of teams. You're taking a super effective EQ anyways, I don't think protect has a high enough upside. Boom is obviously amazing though. Anyways, it's also below swampert for me because of honoring my usage stat, where meta is a good bit lower. I think technically swampert is my #3 in usage, even. While metagross lately was somewhere in the 5-8 range. It's a really good scary offensive pokemon and a necessary slot that can fit on all kinds of teams, so it gets a very high ranking, but I don't like it more than swampert.
:salamence:
The other slot I would say is pretty important on most spike teams is a bird, and as things have changed over time I find myself wanting salamence more than zapdos and aerodactyl a lot of the time (well, definitely zapdos, but aero I love too). Between the coverage, speed, intimidate, and dragon dance sets that have taken off, this guy has got to be a little higher I think. People hate on mixmence spikes maybe because mence is kinda deadweight in the fat matchup vs suicune/restzap or milodol? But I feel this misses the point of its slot a little. It's not like Zapdos is doing all that much better in those, it is, but you still need to bypass Blissey in some way. Actually, the bird that does really well there is Aero (I'll say below). But really Salamence can fit on all kinds of archetypes with a huge amount of sets, and particularly I still like mixmence on the spikes teams because you get a really solid matchup into all of those TSS weak offenses with fighters and such, like magneton + 5 with no spinner and all sand weak/grounded. So yeah, bird slot very very good, because once you get 3 spikes up, direct offensive pressure becomes buffed, and the birds enable that pathway for your team the best. Salamence is outstanding in that context.
:zapdos:
This is actually kinda dishonest of me to put it this high, my usage is lower. But it's still a solid option as a bird for all the usual reasons, and the thing is zapdos can fit on really all kinds of teams. I do agree with the sentiment that it's fallen off a bit but I think it's a tad overblown. It's a very scary pokemon, especially the ones with toxic and roar/protect for blissey. It can stall with pressure and sub like on the evilzap teams recently, subpass on offense, bird breaker on spikes, etc. Amazing typing and defensive profile overall too. It can't be put too low, right. It's a really good pokemon but absolutely the idea of "zapdos teams are mid right now" I agree with. Not sure what it would take for that to change. I do think the best ones right now are the defensive zapdos teams that use pressure stall (unfortunately). I don't think the other zapdos teams are as good, but again, bird spikes breakers are very important and technically it can slot there. Perhaps the two best zapdos teams are simply el classico and the suicune/dug/sub rest zap team to me, not really sure though.
:aerodactyl:
PUT IT HIGHER!!! Again, bird spikes breakers are always going to be considered on a spike team, and in terms of raw power I feel aero is the best overall bird basically (well, zapdos is strong too but aero has the speed). Its below the others because it's 1-dimensional and hard to fit without spikes (unless you're a BD passer...). It has Choice Band, Choice Scarf, and Heavy Duty Boots, and so with aero on your side you can never lose if you are smart and aggressive, or just flinch if youre lucky, why on earth would it be #12. It should be #8 (my spot), or even higher than this. We have rules like "you always need a rock resist" and its a super unbreakable rule if you intend to build a generally good team, and then we put Aero in 12th place (?) It's obviously amazing into offenses because of the speed and spikes, but it's not even bad at all vs fat. Yes, you don't really want to see claydol+fearrachi or claydol+meta, but if you fight one of those teams with claydol as the only rock resist, your aero is a big threat, and this is huge for it. It justifies viewing aero as a breaker into certain fat matchups. And well, now the pokemon is great vs offense and good vs a lot of fat teams. So it's just amazing. Also Liechi is a reasonable option on really fast paced teams and I argue remains a little underrated to this day, but that one has some more glaring MU issues. Choice Band can theoretically win any game on its own, lol. Awesome pokemon, especially in this huge offense craze era. The fact that it can offensively check anything and reverse momentum at base 130 speed is genuinely still underrated. Easily top 10 for me, I wish I could've put it even higher.
:jirachi:
Another slot I consider quite necessary on spikes teams is a slot dedicated to pressuring fat, usually a CM'er, or ghost. In my opinion Jirachi is simply the best calm minder, especially Sub/Wish sets, because these sets beat blissey (special attackers that can bypass blissey are fundamental to the game). Sub in particular is crazy because it combines all of Jirachi's amazing traits (101Hp Subs, sand immunity) at once to defeat blissey and win the game with remaining coverage, which in the case of boltbeam, is quite sufficient vs fat teams like superman, or claydol stalls with suicune/skarm/dug etc. Right, sub also helps you play around dugtrio which is HUGE. Without it or wish you just get dugged or twaved in the stall MU. But with Sub you just 6-0 fat. Right, also it has base 100 speed, so it's not even fodder vs offense. Sure, SubCM is weak but its fast. You can afford 300+ speed on it which makes this pokemon still a potential wincon in offensive games. Right, and it can just freeze/para if something goes wrong. Yeah... that's crazy to me. Think its the second scariest setupper behind Ttar. The downside though is that the teams that have SubCM jirachi have major slot issues, it's actually really difficult to build a good one. The other downside is it's not a breaker or a defensive slot, so you really are investing a slot on your team for it, and it does feel bad when the slot can't do much damage without setting up. But the upside is genuinely unreal. Very interesting pokemon, I'm still trying to process and understand it more. I think there remains some untapped teams/potential with it, especially wish sets. Looking to explore that more. The defensive sets are awesome too but is competing with registeel now so it's a little different - I would've put it higher but due to that and some other things it landed here, which I'm happy enough with.
:gengar:
Gengar used to be viewed as a top3 in VR's iirc. When I started and just used offenses, I couldn't imagine dropping it. But eventually, I got sick of missing wisp, and sending gar into claydol after my team got chipped and dying and insta losing, and I also didn't like clicking weak attacks into offense or getting caught with a bad set in offense MUs. It's role is unique and very powerful, don't get me wrong. But it's just one option for pressuring fat, there are multiple others, and gengar is simply a very inconsistent pokemon. Flexible, certainly, but not consistent due to will-o-miss and really requiring precise predictions to win the game. But, theoretically, Gengar teams can win any MU's, by turning the "wincon" into the 3 layers on the ground. It fits the best when the team really needs a fast pace, I love it the most with jolteon style teams. I don't like it on any even slightly slower paced team, and won't be looking at it if I'm interested in a consistent build (such as one to try to hit 2k elo with). But yeah, very scary threat with wisp and spinblock I just view it as one option for fat, and it can't ever be the only plan for fat either, so I think it's kinda mid compared to the past. You also really don't want this vs some of the modern offenses imo. It's really hilarious how those teams that auto lose to gengar on paper just beat it most of the time. But this phenomenon is well understood now, so maybe this placement isn't so surprising. Great pokemon though and very scary for defensive teams, I still love it myself sometimes. But imo not really a super top tier threat, sorry. Btw, Gengar in 2026 has now failed to be in the top5 ladder runs, which I mention because it is a context where Gengar is supposed to excel in due to it making all MUs roughly playable. It's not even found once in the top5 runs now. So this is pretty strong evidence about its role to me/people's preferences to me, but even outside the ladder in tournament this sentiment is growing regardless. I'm giving it #10.
--------------
That concludes my top 10. Below are some specific ones I wanted to mention.
:claydol:
It feels like it should be higher, because spinners are necessary on defensive teams, and claydol is an amazing spinner and support pokemon. I think some people are gonna put it quite high this time around, which is deserved. It landed 11 for me but it feels like its a top tier pokemon-fits on tons of teams, I even like having it on offensive teams just because spikes are such a disaster if you're weak to them. I also used to hate boom dol but yeah, they were right, explosion is so important to have. Best combo defensively has gotta be aroma bliss with boom dol and fearrachi for me. Spinning is strong in the game, it is just too bad that the spinners tend to be really passive/suck: but that actually really helps balance the game. It's all very interesting how everything fits into such a balance.
:forretress:
I mean, it's the next best option if you decide you need to spin but run out of slots, obviously thats a very naive reason to use forretress but the role compression is extremely valuable and kinda unique in a way because cloyster is a hyper specific plan, I would say. While, forretress teams can still have a plan that is somewhat similar to the skarmory version. I think it should be a little bit higher, it has a lot of variety in sets and while it's true that "standard" forre teams lose the spike war quite easily, I feel like there's a wave of more modern forretress teams that are aware of this and play those matchups differently, which should elevate forretress ranking to me. (By the way, I'll probably do a real RMT for the COTH team soon).
:registeel:
Not much of a user myself, but I did practice and experiment with it and it's placement is about right here to me, out of respect mostly though because I didn't use it much this year. The realization of regi>bliss on big5 I do believe is deep and important (maybe central, even) to all the changes we've seen over the last few years. It's a totally viable special wall to use to keep the pace up with boom and twave, and it slots on like all styles. However, it does compete with some slots (for my personal teams), and is viewed as a very secondary/niche option to me. Realistically, I just haven't played with it enough to put it higher, but I have some builds in mind that I would use with registeel on it. Won't say much more than that as I'm not a regi-expert, but I'm very hyped to see it in OU now and it's very well deserved, registeel is good. Surely this ranking is good enough so that the cult doesn't kidnap me and burn me alive.
:jolteon:
Put it higher. I genuinely believe joltspikes is a great archetype. You get some slot compression with it and it's a big threat into modern offenses, best with gengar by its side. It's still gonna be shit into claydol fat, but again, due to gar there is still potential for winning in that match. I actually view it as a really good style for just getting solid overall MUs (again, not so much vs claydol, but still winnable) and out-clicking with aggressive spikes pieces. My favorite joltspike teams are my own or mayos, but I plan on experimenting with those forre/cloy jolt teams as well, I think they are very good too. 130 speed is not to be underrated, I think the current 22 is too low, I'm putting it 19.
:moltres: / :charizard:
Okay, I always say how I think charizard is better but it wound up 26. Please do not murder me for this. Also, really this was just an artifact of the method I used to rank stuff. I realize I have no charizard teams that I like, while there are a couple spike moltres teams that I do use. The way I see it, moltres has a real niche as a bird with wisp, while charizard is competing with BOTH moltres typing and mixmence, of course. I think due to that I don't use it. I always say I want to bring it but don't, so this is just my usage stat being honored here. I promise that charizard is good, do NOT murder me in my sleep for putting it here, thanks, lol.
:raikou:
I'm very hyped to see it in OU and it's absolutely my style of pokemon, I just haven't got around to building with it yet. It still has its usual weaknesses as well. Again, mostly just due to my usage at the moment that it's this low but also realistically, I don't really think it should be higher than C tier. It's a niche threat especially in the modern era no question though, I just haven't quite found the raikou team I like yet. SpamOn had a raikou team that I liked and I might try to replicate, that's about the closest I've got so far. I'm very curious to see where it gets ranked, I feel it will be somewhere in the 20-25 range still but we'll see. Whereas, I think registeel will end up between 15-20. I would say registeel is better, but again, I'm a huge larper in this context cause I don't use these much.
--------------
Thanks very much for reading if you made it this far. I removed some of my old posts because in the past I had shared a lot of teams and am doing more tours now where unfortunately there is clear incentive to not overshare, but I realize I may want to start posting again because the forums are just dry AF and I really wish there was more content on here. I have an RMT style post I'm preparing. Also, any new teams are just gonna get revealed long term anyways right. So maybe it's fine to just post for fun and generally ignore it, idk, we'll see.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."
Last edited:
Updated
I had set it to auto-update (as long as my laptop is on), but some comedian at Smogon thought it'd be funny to remove a space at the start of every line in the stat files. This change came after using the exact same format for the previous 12 years
Embracing my inner L3W and tiering a ton of the non OUs. I experimented a whole bunch with them earlier in the year, and had fun. ADV really is that sweet spot where any unique niche can be utilised for a specific matchup. I cba to write up an explanation for all of them though.
VR from before
2026 VR
Commentary
a
Winners
a
Raikou and Registeel :Raikou: :Registeel:
a
If you look at my previous VR, I had Registeel and Raikou already tiered in OU sitting on the lower end. For this year's VR, after seeing more of Registeel in different kinds of builds, I have it rated higher than Raikou and even the likes of Jolteon due its versatility and ability to exert pressure in nearly any position.
Raikou , though still solid, seems a bit less potent this year for me. It may just be a cyclical thing due to people catching onto Super Kou being the standard set on Slop and Slop adjacent mixoffs nowadays. The element of surprise can't be utilised as well now because opponents no longer hesitate about Raikou having Substitute, which is a bit of a dampener on Raikou's limelight.
a
Vaporeon :Vaporeon:
a
The rise in usage of Vaporeon in the past year has been interesting. Water Absorb; 100+ HP substitutes; Baton Pass; a strong 110 SpA to throw off Hydro pumps and Ice Beams with; Vaporeon has a fantastic set of tools to play into both offense and fat teams. In the past I primarily saw it on Specoff teams (which I'm not fond of), but nowadays its finding itself more on Mixoff teams, where it seems more convincing and consistent.
A fun mon to keep an eye on
a
Gyarados :gyarados:
a
Gyarados has had a resurgence it feels like in the past year. When using it myself, I found that pairing it with Registeel really gave it a new hold on life. Registeel is the best Zapdos answer and a fantastic Rock resist, whilst also chipping down and paralysing targets that annoy Gyarados. Additionally, offensive waters feel like they've been more popular in recent times. Gyarados, with its fantastic special bulk and water typing, is a fantastic foil to these offwaters. Eating their hits and Dancing up in front of them.
a
Dusclops :dusclops:
a
Dusclops saw usage multiple times in SPL and pops up on ladder here and there. After falling into irrelevancy in the 2010s, it appears that Dusclops has found new life in V5-esque teams as well as Hyper Stall. Fantastic bulk; Pressure; Ghost typing to spin block; access to Will-o-Wisp; Dusclops has the tools to wear down the opponents. Much like Polyphemus in Odyssey (2026), the Cyclops sleeps in front of attackers who lack the firepower to break it , shrugging off hits while opposing PP gets drained. Offensive threats have to be weary of getting statused so cannot switch in freely nor set up carefree in front of it. But Dusclops players be warned, opposing set up Mons can use this predictable behaviour to set up.
a
Marowak :marowak:
a
Very sinister developments are occuring on the Marowak front. Though Marowak's Speedpass days are gone, a devious set of players have been finetuning its sets, experimenting with lead sets and teams where it is supported with Wish and Spin support. Keep one eye open...
a
Losers
a
Cloyster and Medicham :cloyster: :medicham:
a
Though both Mons have legitimate niches, both have always come across as underwhelming to me. Forre shares Cloyster's niche of being a Rapid Spin + Spikes + Boom user, except Forre is immune to Toxic and Sand damage. Cloyster's ability to evade trapping by Magneton is nice for sure, but even then the defensive utility the other Spikers provide makes up for being vulnerable to Magneton. Being able to switch in and Spike on bulky Waters like Suicune and Pert can feel nice, but if these Mons are offensively invested you don't even eat the hits well. People like to talk about Cloyster having great STAB attacks, but it hits like a wet noodle. Not to mention, it can only usually fit one of the STAB attacks. If it got Hydro Pump so it could actually hit Skarmory, it would be so much better :')
Medicham of course has the tied highest attack in the tier at a monstrous 480 attack. It wields this to be a very threatening lead where you can threaten to pick Mons off on turn 1 if you select correctly. If. Ultimately a Gambling lead. Admittedly the odds are decent, but can't really feel super confident about a lead where you have to predict on every turn ( due to its poor bulk , susceptibility to sands and spikes, and no leftovers usually in favour of running a Lum berry).
I feel like these guys don't deserve the OU label. For 99% of ADV OU, they've failed to hit OU usage in tours and ladder. And overall, don't appear on a wide variety of teams. Still decent Mons but yeah
a
Speedpass :ninjask: :marowak:
a
Well it's been a year since Speedpass was banned. My verdict : Good riddance
There was concern and some fearmongering that the banning of Speedpass would usher in an age of Stall and super fat for the tier. This did not come to pass. Though losing Speedpass was a tool that Offense lost to punish passive fat teams, there's still a plentiful sea of other styles of offense that can punish fat teams.
Before Speedpass was banned, I also used to mention that Offense builds themselves were occasionally vulnerable to being dice rolled by Speedpass tactics. That Offense would benefit from Speedpass' removal as Speedpass forced teambuilding constraints on Offense builds and that removing such a burden would allow for an even greater variety of offense teams. There's not a quantifiable way to measure team diversity in the meta, but having played on the ladder in recent times, it does seem like you see all kinds of offenses that were perhaps less common in previous years (I am not counting 1400 and below on the ladder).
a
VR from before
2026 VR
Commentary
a
Winners
a
Raikou and Registeel :Raikou: :Registeel:
a
If you look at my previous VR, I had Registeel and Raikou already tiered in OU sitting on the lower end. For this year's VR, after seeing more of Registeel in different kinds of builds, I have it rated higher than Raikou and even the likes of Jolteon due its versatility and ability to exert pressure in nearly any position.
Raikou , though still solid, seems a bit less potent this year for me. It may just be a cyclical thing due to people catching onto Super Kou being the standard set on Slop and Slop adjacent mixoffs nowadays. The element of surprise can't be utilised as well now because opponents no longer hesitate about Raikou having Substitute, which is a bit of a dampener on Raikou's limelight.
a
Vaporeon :Vaporeon:
a
The rise in usage of Vaporeon in the past year has been interesting. Water Absorb; 100+ HP substitutes; Baton Pass; a strong 110 SpA to throw off Hydro pumps and Ice Beams with; Vaporeon has a fantastic set of tools to play into both offense and fat teams. In the past I primarily saw it on Specoff teams (which I'm not fond of), but nowadays its finding itself more on Mixoff teams, where it seems more convincing and consistent.
A fun mon to keep an eye on
a
Gyarados :gyarados:
a
Gyarados has had a resurgence it feels like in the past year. When using it myself, I found that pairing it with Registeel really gave it a new hold on life. Registeel is the best Zapdos answer and a fantastic Rock resist, whilst also chipping down and paralysing targets that annoy Gyarados. Additionally, offensive waters feel like they've been more popular in recent times. Gyarados, with its fantastic special bulk and water typing, is a fantastic foil to these offwaters. Eating their hits and Dancing up in front of them.
a
Dusclops :dusclops:
a
Dusclops saw usage multiple times in SPL and pops up on ladder here and there. After falling into irrelevancy in the 2010s, it appears that Dusclops has found new life in V5-esque teams as well as Hyper Stall. Fantastic bulk; Pressure; Ghost typing to spin block; access to Will-o-Wisp; Dusclops has the tools to wear down the opponents. Much like Polyphemus in Odyssey (2026), the Cyclops sleeps in front of attackers who lack the firepower to break it , shrugging off hits while opposing PP gets drained. Offensive threats have to be weary of getting statused so cannot switch in freely nor set up carefree in front of it. But Dusclops players be warned, opposing set up Mons can use this predictable behaviour to set up.
a
Marowak :marowak:
a
Very sinister developments are occuring on the Marowak front. Though Marowak's Speedpass days are gone, a devious set of players have been finetuning its sets, experimenting with lead sets and teams where it is supported with Wish and Spin support. Keep one eye open...
a
Losers
a
Cloyster and Medicham :cloyster: :medicham:
a
Though both Mons have legitimate niches, both have always come across as underwhelming to me. Forre shares Cloyster's niche of being a Rapid Spin + Spikes + Boom user, except Forre is immune to Toxic and Sand damage. Cloyster's ability to evade trapping by Magneton is nice for sure, but even then the defensive utility the other Spikers provide makes up for being vulnerable to Magneton. Being able to switch in and Spike on bulky Waters like Suicune and Pert can feel nice, but if these Mons are offensively invested you don't even eat the hits well. People like to talk about Cloyster having great STAB attacks, but it hits like a wet noodle. Not to mention, it can only usually fit one of the STAB attacks. If it got Hydro Pump so it could actually hit Skarmory, it would be so much better :')
Medicham of course has the tied highest attack in the tier at a monstrous 480 attack. It wields this to be a very threatening lead where you can threaten to pick Mons off on turn 1 if you select correctly. If. Ultimately a Gambling lead. Admittedly the odds are decent, but can't really feel super confident about a lead where you have to predict on every turn ( due to its poor bulk , susceptibility to sands and spikes, and no leftovers usually in favour of running a Lum berry).
I feel like these guys don't deserve the OU label. For 99% of ADV OU, they've failed to hit OU usage in tours and ladder. And overall, don't appear on a wide variety of teams. Still decent Mons but yeah
a
Speedpass :ninjask: :marowak:
a
Well it's been a year since Speedpass was banned. My verdict : Good riddance
There was concern and some fearmongering that the banning of Speedpass would usher in an age of Stall and super fat for the tier. This did not come to pass. Though losing Speedpass was a tool that Offense lost to punish passive fat teams, there's still a plentiful sea of other styles of offense that can punish fat teams.
Before Speedpass was banned, I also used to mention that Offense builds themselves were occasionally vulnerable to being dice rolled by Speedpass tactics. That Offense would benefit from Speedpass' removal as Speedpass forced teambuilding constraints on Offense builds and that removing such a burden would allow for an even greater variety of offense teams. There's not a quantifiable way to measure team diversity in the meta, but having played on the ladder in recent times, it does seem like you see all kinds of offenses that were perhaps less common in previous years (I am not counting 1400 and below on the ladder).
a
Last edited:
1. :tyranitar: This should be no surprise - tyranitar is typically considered the best pokemon in ADV. I used to disagree with this, but having gotten more experience, not only is the impact of permanent sand massive, but tyranitar's huge set variety allows it to fit on almost all styles and archetypes. It's one of the absolute best and most reliable physical breakers, a win condition, the best pursuit trapper, and a great mixed attacker. I don't think tyranitar is going anywhere anytime soon.
2. :zapdos: This take is a lot more controversial. Electric type attacks are really good, and zapdos has an amazing defensive typing. Zapdos is capable of dealing huge damage to almost all pokemon in the metagame, and also can avoid losing momentum to its counters with baton pass. It can trade decently well into most pokemon in a pinch, and it can run offensive and defensive sets. Zapdos is perhaps my most played pokemon in OU. I play it a lot on special offense, where it is the main progress maker, but it also goes very well on spikes builds. Modest bulky zapdos can trade well into nearly every pokemon aside from ttar, mono-electrics and special walls (ofc you can only pick one of pert and flygon). However, even special walls can be worn down over time by zapdos. The only exception to this is blissey, but that can be patched up with a good old dugtrio, or spikes, or simple baton pass, or even toxic+protect.
3. :swampert: When it comes to building, it's not so much that swampert is easy to build around, but that building without it is extremely difficult. Swampert is one of the very few pokemon (arguably the only pokemon) that can comfortably take on both dragon dance tyranitar and metagross. As an answer to physical sweepers, it's completely unmatched, and it's also not free to switch in to either. Swampert can range from very defensive sets, to endeavor offense sets that aim to reverse momentum, allowing to fit on any pace of team. The fact that it chip-heals in sand allows it to function much more effectively in its role than other water types like milotic and vaporeon, despite these pokemon having access to reliable recovery.
4. :skarmory: Skarmory is the premier spiker in OU, and putting it at 4th is a bit low. There are a few reasons for this is. First, I think that spikeless offense is actually quite good in ADV, and these teams do not need or want skarmory. Second, as a physical wall and spiker on defensive teams, skarmory is vulnerable to being trapped by magneton. Of course, most such teams run skarmory anyway, but knowing that in some matchups the pokemon you need the most is going to be removed makes it harder to build around skarmory on these teams. As for why it is good, we all already know, so I'll save space here.
5 :blissey: Blissey is the blanket special wall in ADV, and it can check most special threats, and even a lot of mixed or physical threats, due to its incredible bulk. Blissey gatekeeps a lot of special attackers, but many special attackers do have sets that can break through or pressure blissey. It requires a lot of support to function at full potential, but even in the sand with 3 spikes up it can be annoyingly difficult to bring down sometimes. Blissey is an important defensive piece in the metagame, but every good team should have ways to handle it. It also suffers from a bit of 4 mss, being limited to choosing between coverage, status, cleric options and calm mind. Every blissey set can and will be taken advantage of by the pokemon that can exploit what you chose to drop, and every good team should have a way to deal with blissey.
6. :metagross: This is a bit low of a placement for metagross. I put it here because I feel like it is actually somewhat inconsistent - CB meta is great until you get trapped by dug or mag, or just miss 3 mashes on skarm/pert. Agil meta is great until you run into a milotic and can't do anything at all to break it. If you run boom to get through milo and suicune, then suddenly charizard and zapdos can stop your sweep because you don't have rock slide. However, this is somewhat of a simplification of how metagross operates. Most of the time, it wants to trade with the enemy, and is able to do so at an advantage because of its great defensive typing, and incredible attack and defense, with access to explosion. Metagross is not an unbreakable wall, and isn't even exactly an unstoppable force, but it will generally see good value.
7. :gengar: Gengar is the best ghost in the game by far, making it the go-to spin blocker for spike stacking teams. On top of this, it has amazing speed, great coverage and a huge arsenal of supporting and utility moves, meaning that even when not facing a spinner it can do great work, which is something that can always be said for rival ghosts dusclops and misdreavus. Outspeeding the ever-present base 100s, gengar is a great revenge killer, and at the same time can be a stall-breaker with wisp+taunt, a spinblocker, and a pivot on fighting and ground type moves. Gengar's mere presence also ruins normal types' existences in ADV, since they would love to hit everything with normal stab and ground moves, but then can't touch gengar at all.
8. :dugtrio: This is really high for dugtrio. This high placement is mostly usage based, so I don't expect most people to agree. However, I'll explain why I like it. It can trap blissey fairly reliably for spec off teams, and speedy dug gives a safety net for dd tar and raikou. Unlike other pokemon, however, when dugtrio checks something offensively it's just gone, making it an amazing revenge killer for taking out low hp (or high hp ground weak pokemon) that otherwise threaten the team massively. Dugtrio can finish off a whole lot of great and annoying pokemon, and it can do so without being vulnerable to hax because of its speed, which is great for dealing with rock slide tyranitar and ice punch jirachi. The ability to guaranteed get the kill on a threatening breaker or unbreakable defensive piece without your opponent having the option to preserve these for later massively opens up both stall and offense teams. Dugtrio provides something that no other pokemon really can, and that what makes it irreplaceable. As a side note, a lot of people dislike dugtrio for its trapping, but personally I feel like it adds strategic depth - you have to think a few turns in advance to avoid being trapped by dugtrio, or to pull off a successful trap.
9. :salamence: Alongside tyranitar, salamence is one of the premier dragon dancers in ADV. With hp fly+earthquake, it has an amazing coverage combination that can nearly OHKO most prominent members of the metagame at +1 atk. Salamence also has excellent defensive utility with intimidate+fighting resist and ground immunity, and is probably the best reliable fighting answer in the tier. It can also run mixed sets to threaten the common physical walls, and has some nice coverage and utility options, like rock slide, hydro pump and refresh. Salamence is probably one of the most scary lategame sweepers, and for that alone it deserves serious respect.
10. :suicune: Suicune is also a very threatening sweeper, not because of speed or high damage, but because of its incredible bulk and ability to slowly ramp up until it becomes unstoppable. In addition to its solid defensive value, you can slowly apply pressure and sometimes put opponents into a guessing game where if they guess the wrong set suicune can ramp up to become unstoppable. It has sets that are able to beat basically all of its common checks like blissey, celebi, milotic and zapdos, but it can't beat them all at once. Every suicune set is quite stoppable by the right pokemon, and good teams will typically have a means of avoiding being swept right off the bat. However, it can still come in many times and always threaten that slow and steady sweep, and it just has great defensive value as a check to physical attackers and fire types.
Skipping to some of what I think are my hotter takes:
12. :jirachi: To me, jirachi is kind of a jack of all trades master of none. It has excellent special sweeping and defensive sets, but is often outclassed by pokemon that are better in that role. However, it compresses quite a few good traits into one pokemon with a very solid defensive typing that provides a rock resist and toxic immunity with only 2 weaknesses. I just find it hard to build around, and usually opt for other pokemon. I definitely might increase my rating of this pokemon after getting more experience with it.
16. :registeel: Unlike jirachi, I'm very confident in my placement of registeel. It's the best sand-immune blanket special wall in the tier, and is able to avoid passivity with thunder wave, seismic toss, and, most importantly, explosion. In a pinch, it can check just about any sweeper and save the team, including dd tar, agil meta, dd mence, cm kou, cm suicune, etc. This makes it a great fit on offense teams that appreciate the safety net and don't want to dedicate very many mons to check these important offensive threats. It also can run hp coverage to hit its biggest enemies in gengar and swampert, and is surprisingly annoying to switch into, because most of the mons that actually are capable of trading into it hate getting twaved.
17. :raikou: It's no secret that I am a massive fan of raikou, and so of course I'm going to put it at least in the B tier. It has an excellent speed tier, outspeeding many entire teams, and threatening great electric STAB damage. Offensively, it's similar to zapdos, but faster and with access to calm mind, allowing it to set up on virtually any special attacker and threaten a sweep. However, it pays for this by being grounded, and thus vulvernable to dugtrio and spikes. As I've used raikou though, I've found that there are a lot of ways to play around dugtrio. Most dugtrios don't just sit in the back and wait for a raikou sweeper to show up. You can hold raikou for the late game, and even bait dugtrio to enter as you switch to a punish. And really offense teams generally don't mind using raikou for a revenge KO on a threatening pokemon and then getting a free turn on an EQ locked dugtrio. Yes, if your opponent switches in the dugtrio on a raikou thudnerbolt and then KOs it, that is quite bad, but this is (usually) just a skill issue.
21. :snorlax: I kind of hate snorlax in OU. It can't chip heal, and it needs so much coverage to not absolutely blank into common threats. Even in the best case, (that it actually picks the right coverage and setup moves from EQ, normal stab, shadow ball, focus punch, sd, curse, rest) it often is somewhat underwhelming because it's so slow and abusable by physical threats like ttar and meta. You can curse up then get rock slide flinched and then instead of trading into ttar you just die, not to mention how much of a crit magnet setup sets are. I used snorlax a fair bit in prep for mushi league because I figured none of my opponents would see it in my scout so it might work. A lot of teams I play are lax weak, so I forgot how awful it feels to play into most matchups. Yes, it's good into spec off, but it's not like insane into it, and against ttar skarm gar balance, it just gets worn down before it can even scout what pokemon switch into it to find out how what move it needs to click. It has great stats, and it has potential, but so often it just flops. It's not bad per se, but it is not consistent or easy to build around.
31. :dragonite: Dragonite is epic. First off, if salamence didn't exist, this would probably be a top 15 mon. Salamence gatekeeps dragonite by being almost the exact same mon but with a better speed tier and a much better ability. Despite this, dragonite finds ways to succeed. Dragonite has a lot of moves that salamence doesn't get - moves that make or break matchups. First off, dragonite gets heal bell, allowing it to slot in as a pseudo cleric for offense teams. This lets you do things like trade thunder waves on jolteon vs jolteon or trade toxices on non-refresh swampert vs non-refresh swampert but then turn this even trade into a massive win for you, as your "OHKOed" jolt comes back with full hp. Dragonite also has thunderbolt and ice beam. Thunderbolt is huge because it lets special dragonite hit a slightly higher damage threshold to actually threaten water types - suicune takes a bit too much damage to setup comfortably, and milo actually gets 1v1ed by heal bell thunderbolt dnite, since it takes like 40-45% and eventually gets paraed or crit. Ice beam is also great complementary coverage, and lets you take a surprise KO on ddance mences from full hp - you can EV to always live +1 slide and never flinch because of inner focus. Of course, dragonite also has advantages on the physical side. The main one is focus punch - this lets you deal massive damage to switch-ins and gives dragonite a real niche over mence as a choice bander or leftovers physical breaker. It also enables mixed sub-punch sets similar to what charizard often runs. Overall, dragonite is usually outclassed by salamence, but salamence is really good, and in the cases where dragonite can be a better fit on the team than salamence, it will be really good.
43. :regice: Much as I love regice as a pokemon, I rated it super low because I just don't believe in a special wall that is vulnerable to sand and has no reliable recovery. Regice has potential, but a lot needs to go right for it, and against sand spikes balance, it tends to blank into blissey and only gets 1-2 switch-ins before it is too chipped to do anything,
45. :cloyster: This guy is garbage and should definitely not be OU ranked. It doesn't nearly have the usage to justify an OU placement. I've experimented with it recently, and it's just confirmed the reasons I don't like it. Cloyster needs to invest all of its EVs into Spdef just to live unboosted neutral special hits, meaning it has to choose between hp and speed, so it is either really slow or frail even on its physical side despite its massive defense. It can't even trade spikes that favorably into skarm, which just toxics it and keeps its layer. You are basically spending a mon to get up 3 layers, but your opponent also gets 2 layers. Not really worth it. It invites in big threats like zapdos and gengar, and is immediately forced out because it cannot take a single hit from them. It can't even hit them very hard on the way in. It has boom, yes, but you can just use glalie which is basically the same thing but better because you can have an actual speed tier AND not be one shot by gengar (in fact, glalie can set up layers easily on gengar without taunt). This guy is just a complete fraud.
58. :slaking: Normal types have it rough enough in ADV without giving their opponents free turns
59. :banette: If I was going solely by usage, banette would probably be like 20-30 on this list. It's a cool pokemon and fun to use. Sadly, it's not very good.
Honorable mentions: Pokemon like gardevoir, scizor and rhydon can do stuff and be good somtimes. Just because a pokemon isn't on the VR doesn't mean it is unusable, even in high level play.
DIShonorable mention: :jynx: This pokemon is so stupid. It does not deserve a spot on this VR or any VR. Jynx is fundamentally a luck fishing pokemon, trying to hit sleep and sub and then get off another sleep and sub more with an attack occasionally thrown in... bringing jynx isn't just disrespecting both your opponent and the game itself, though - it's also total garbage. The type of teams that run jynx absolutely need to land sleeps on threats like dd tar and metagross. If the sleep misses, it's often just game over, so the expected value isn't even good. Yes jynx can ice beam ttar and then get a dug follow up. But wait, you know who else can outspeed ttar and hit it into dug range? Every pokemon with a base speed above 61. Idk why anyone started thinking of jynx as having an actual place in the metagame.
(note: please don't take this too seriously - if you play jynx I still respect you as a person, I just don't like jynx)
Anyway, this my tier list, and these are my opinions. Feel free to discuss or disagree
Last edited:
Also, my first official VR, like some others on this list. Seeing as I currently have recs, I figured I’d at least submit one clean ranking showing where I stand. I ranked the top 45 and my rankings are ordered based on how good I think each Pokémon is in competitive play and are separated by tiers in a way that mirrors Mason’s current tier list. I’ll go over a few of my key rankings below.
1 :Tyranitar: Like many others, I think this guy is king. Truthfully, I’ve built both with and without him, and every time I come to the same conclusion: “I’m actively handicapping myself by not having this guy on my team.” Even teams that initially seem like they can’t fit Tyranitar are often just worse because Tar is THAT GOOD. You should actively reshape your team to make room for him rather than accept going without him. He can do it all: provide support, sweep, break, or act as an emergency defensive pivot. Truly the ADV GOAT.
2 :Skarmory: Skarmory comes in at number 2, only slightly behind Tar. He is the quintessential Spiker of ADV and one of the most difficult Pokémon in the tier to deal with. Skarmory brings offense through Spikes, defense through its incredible typing, and utility through its expansive kit. Much like Tar, it contributes to nearly every aspect of a team. Its impact on the tier is so great that it single-handedly makes Magneton an otherwise mediocre Pokémon viable almost entirely as a means of removing it. Any serious ADV team needs a clear game plan for Skarm.
3 :Blissey: Bliss is a funny one. Everyone knows it is the best special wall in ADV, but what people don’t talk about enough is how effective it can be as a physical wall as well. Its typing and absurd HP stat often allow it to blanket-check a plethora of powerful physical attackers in a pinch before KOing or crippling them in return. It also has plenty of tricks available: Counter, CM sets that can clean up later, and utility or Bell support. Like the two Pokémon above it, Bliss provides immense value across multiple roles, which helps explain why it is so often the preferred partner of the second-best mon in the format, Skarmory.
4 :Metagross: What doesn’t this guy do? It offensively checks many of ADV’s biggest threats, even after they have boosted. Its typing lets it shrug off Rock attacks, its enormous Attack stat allows it to brute-force through many of its checks, and Agility can patch up its otherwise mediocre Speed. Beyond all of that, Metagross can often guarantee a careful and mindful player a 1-for-1, even in some of its worst matchups. It can occasionally break Skarmory and Swampert by itself while also pressuring the blobs in the tier wonderfully. It’s the best grounded Steel, nuff said.
6 :Jirachi: This might be high for most people when it comes to Rachi, but simply put, I think this Pokémon is OP. It brings excellent utility and sweeping potential to a team, is immune to sand, and has great all-around stats. My two favorite sets are its stallbreaker set with 101 HP Subs and Super Rachi, which leverages its excellent Speed to clean up and hax through unsuspecting teams thanks to Serene Grace. Beyond those sets, the Wish + Protect set commonly seen alongside Skarmory can be incredibly difficult to play against, especially if you find yourself loading a Rock-spam team with Aerodactyl into it. Overall, you would be hard-pressed to find a game where Rachi feels like it is underperforming on your team.
9 :Suicune: Another ranking that might seem high to some people. Suicune is generally the less preferred standard Water-type compared to Swampert and, at times, the less preferred pure defensive Water-type compared to Milotic. What separates it from both, however, is the scaling power it gains through Calm Mind. Calm Mind is without a doubt one of the best setup moves in ADV, and Suicune uses it exceptionally well thanks to its fantastic bulk and respectable Special Attack. I think people who place Swampert leagues above Suicune simply aren’t using Suicune correctly. Even though it loses Swampert’s Rock resistance, it more than makes up for that weakness elsewhere and can offer a team much more offensive upside.
16 :Charizard: Another mon that some may see as being a little high, sliding its way into B tier. Historically, Charizard has always been a great way for Spikeless teams to pressure SkarmBliss cores. Nowadays, the introduction of another high-value Steel target in Registeel gives Charizard even more to threaten. Its Fire typing, immunity to Spikes, powerful movepool, and respectable Speed and Attack stats combine to make it a seriously difficult Pokémon to deal with. With more valuable targets in the tier, Charizard can now find even more opportunities to switch in and make itself more useful than before.
25 :Registeel: A new up-and-comer. I’ll be frank: I don’t like this mon. Kollin convinced me to try it, but I’m just not sold on the Pokémon. Yes, I understand that it can enable offense and support certain Pokémon like Cloyster and Gyarados. But whenever I use it, I find myself asking: “Why the hell am I focusing on enabling these weak mons when I can just bring Tyranitar and Metagross and structure my team differently to support them instead?” That is my fundamental problem with Registeel. It simply isn’t as good as the other grounded Steels above it on this list, and it doesn’t enable any Pokémon that I believe are worth building around. My verdict is that it is fringe OU at best, and I expect its usage to decline in the coming months as people become more familiar with its flaws.
26 :Raikou: The other day, I was saying that I thought Raikou was better than Registeel. Well, I’ve changed my mind. This mon honestly just isn’t that good. It has its place in the meta, sure, and I did use it several times in ADVPL, but I wouldn’t say that was because Raikou itself was amazingly strong. It was more that, through preparation and research, I felt my opponents would be weak into it. Raikou absolutely has the ability to run away with games, but it is equally capable of doing nothing before slowly dying to sand and Spikes when it runs into a special wall that completely blanks it not to mention Dugtrio. Like Registeel, Raikou has gained a lot of favor recently, but I don’t think it has truly earned a place among the elite Pokémon of OU. For now, it remains a fringe pick.
30 :Venusaur: I love this Pokémon, and it is without a doubt one of the best sleep setters in OU. Unlike Breloom, it comes with respectable bulk and a great Speed tier, giving it more opportunities to find value throughout a game. The main thing holding it back is its lack of Spore and reliance on Sleep Powder.
Honorable mention :Smeargle: This mon is bad now that Speed Pass is banned. It can put something to sleep and set Spikes, sure, but it is such a fish as a lead. It’s arguably even more egregious than Jynx.
ADV Moderators have decided to expand the criteria to the following:
- Made Top 8 of ADV Cup 2026.
- Played in the most recent Jimvitational (play-ins not included).
- Made Top 4 in the last Seasonal or Global Championship.
- Reached 1800 on the ladder in the last 6 months (January 27th).
- Top 16 of ADV Circuit Championships for 2025.
- Players with at least 4 wins in one of: ADVPL VI, SPL XVII, and RoAPL XII.
Last edited:
Some of my hotter takes:
7: :Aerodactyl: - This piece of shit has no business being as resilient as it is. A unique defensive typing giving it immunity to spikes AND sand means that as long as it's above 0hp it can always come in to revenge. And when it does come in you're sitting there praying to whichever deity you believe in that it doesn't flinch through whichever one of your supposed "physical checks" you have left.
8: :Metagross: - I'm not very high on metagross. It's still a fantastic pokemon that can singlehandedly blow holes through any unprepared team, but it usually ends up having to explode to force any meaningful progress into pokemon like skarmory, swampert, zapdos, suicune, or milotic. Exploding to force progress is by no means a bad thing, however many metagross teams use it as a crucial defensive piece, so when their metagross is stuck being hardwalled by any of the water types or steel-resisting flyers it's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either you blow up and open yourself up to tyranitar, aerodactyl, dragon dance salamence, and many more, or you switch out and have to take more hazards next time you come in.
23: :Magneton: - This isn't a hitpiece on magneton, so much as it's one on the teams magneton finds itself being used on. They're all fundamentally flawed in either having a lack of ways to force progress, or being so defensively weak that the single layer of spikes skarmory gets up before dying to a thunderbolt will ruin their prospect of ever being able to pivot around many of the powerful attackers skarmory usually surrounds itself with.
24: :Breloom: - Spore is a good move and it hits hard.
26: :Smeargle: - What i said about breloom, but instead of punching holes into teams it instead uses the power of spore to either set up hazards or engage in baton pass shenanigans. It also has way less defensive utility so it's a nightmare to switch in, forcing you to lead it. However leading smeargle leaves you open to a lot of matchup luck, especially with the rise of lead dugtrio.
7: :Aerodactyl: - This piece of shit has no business being as resilient as it is. A unique defensive typing giving it immunity to spikes AND sand means that as long as it's above 0hp it can always come in to revenge. And when it does come in you're sitting there praying to whichever deity you believe in that it doesn't flinch through whichever one of your supposed "physical checks" you have left.
8: :Metagross: - I'm not very high on metagross. It's still a fantastic pokemon that can singlehandedly blow holes through any unprepared team, but it usually ends up having to explode to force any meaningful progress into pokemon like skarmory, swampert, zapdos, suicune, or milotic. Exploding to force progress is by no means a bad thing, however many metagross teams use it as a crucial defensive piece, so when their metagross is stuck being hardwalled by any of the water types or steel-resisting flyers it's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either you blow up and open yourself up to tyranitar, aerodactyl, dragon dance salamence, and many more, or you switch out and have to take more hazards next time you come in.
23: :Magneton: - This isn't a hitpiece on magneton, so much as it's one on the teams magneton finds itself being used on. They're all fundamentally flawed in either having a lack of ways to force progress, or being so defensively weak that the single layer of spikes skarmory gets up before dying to a thunderbolt will ruin their prospect of ever being able to pivot around many of the powerful attackers skarmory usually surrounds itself with.
24: :Breloom: - Spore is a good move and it hits hard.
26: :Smeargle: - What i said about breloom, but instead of punching holes into teams it instead uses the power of spore to either set up hazards or engage in baton pass shenanigans. It also has way less defensive utility so it's a nightmare to switch in, forcing you to lead it. However leading smeargle leaves you open to a lot of matchup luck, especially with the rise of lead dugtrio.
Attachments
Blissey is still #1 if you want to minimize variance in both decision making and hax.
Claydol is #4 because spinning = longer games = more chances (and more ways) to express your knowledge/skills.
Metagross is low because meteor mash is unreliably bad and good at the same time.
That will be all.
Attachments
- The Second Image is all my Invitational and SPL games minus the ones where I brought nonsense as a joke (i.e pikachu special offense and sub rest cm raikou + entei 4BL—its crazy to think that it'd only be 2BL nowadays)
- The Third Image is my JI3 usage
- The Third Image is my JI3 usage
I'm genuinely not sure if I disagree or not, but I do think the counterargument will be valuable to someone whether or not you are wrong. With no team preview the best time to gain an advantage is early on and while that is possible with stall the reality is those advantages are less likely and usually not as big. Better players can get an advantage by having a better understanding of what doubles and midgrounds exist. They have a heightened advantage in relating the opponent's decision making to what techs, plans, and pokemon are in the back. The information gap is larger than a couple of pokeballs. Moreover, creative teambuilding is rewarded more which gives a greater edge to better players. If you have revealed choice banded salamence and have an unrevealed dugtrio in the back, well, your opponent is not going to be aware of the dugtrio (usually at all but not never) unless there is some deep understanding from your moves and team that brings them to consider it which then would take form as an example of one making a midground that only a good player would make before everything is revealed. While you get more turns to express your skill in a longer games, the consistency of your tools to do so goes down. Your opponent's ability to play a position with more complete information is much closer to yours than their ability to play a position with incomplete information. There are some people who really just can't play around stall, but that is getting rarer and rarer as the player base gets better and better.
Hello, lurker who’s bad and really wishes Weezing was more viable here (it was honestly so heartening to see Weezing not in “lmao” tier above lol).
Just wanted to post a word of encouragement that I am genuinely loving the walls of text folks are posting about their VRs. It’s like a guilty pleasure for me to read through them. And the passion people have! And the different arguments for or against ranking a mon a particular way! It’s so fascinating.
I recognize tone doesn’t come through well in text format, but I’m being genuine/not sarcastic here.
Anyway, please, carry on for the fans at home!
Just wanted to post a word of encouragement that I am genuinely loving the walls of text folks are posting about their VRs. It’s like a guilty pleasure for me to read through them. And the passion people have! And the different arguments for or against ranking a mon a particular way! It’s so fascinating.
I recognize tone doesn’t come through well in text format, but I’m being genuine/not sarcastic here.
Anyway, please, carry on for the fans at home!
I think your response is solid. I agree that being able gain and use information better than your opponent is a key part to winning games. I agree that novelty is very successful because in you are essentially starting with an information advantage. I also agree that the impact of early leads diminishes as games drag on. But In my opinion longer games still include the skills needed to play shorter games (even if less important) and they also place emphasis on new skills which all interweave with the previous skills to make a more complex and skillful game.
PP management.
Triangulation? (Pardon my chess).
Pattern recognition.
Sequencing & Sequence Breaking.
Probability Managment.
Patience (knowing when/what to reveal to your opponent).
Imo even top players cannot perfectly manage and process all the information during a game.
I also think there are some information skill checks that are only accessible in longer games. Example: knowing metagross's bulk + atk investment can give you their speed investment.
Last edited:
Been thinking about this since you posted it and I have a few ideas. I think Bliss has a case for being as high as #1 if you highly care about avg quality of mu and want absolute control and as low as the bottom of A-rank (not yours; ts is wack) because the (real) diversity of builds (i.e. not what a team looks like with CB Rock vs CB Meta) without serious and glaring flaws is quite limited. It's one of the hardest mons to rank due to that variance. I like to build a lot of teams and find ways to create (offensive) synergies that are coherent and overwhelming. Bliss can do that in reverse, but the downside is also that Bliss has very limited offensive output, and the most synergistic Bliss teams also have next to no offensive synergy. I think (without Dug, or even with in a different sense) you do have limited counterplay against certain offensive threats, too. A good example might be Meteor Mash RNG that you continue to risk with Bliss giving free openings. Still thinking about this, but this VR's an interesting portrayal of the tier
Last edited:
Just want to preface this with the fact that this is entirely predicated on my view of the tier and what works for me, and I think that I build and play pretty differently from most people. I have never really used anybody else's teams and I don't think I could if I tried. I'll try to explain any controversial or unusual placements, but understand that sweeping statements I make are specific to myself and I am not trying to prescribe the way that you play the game.
TL;DR:
EDIT: Insert Medicham ahead of Smeargle. It's not good, but it's nice to catch people off-guard with.
S: Probably optimal to use 85+%, difficult to play without
1. Tyranitar
:dp/tyranitar:
Impossible to overstate how important sand is, especially right now when Tyranitar has become a bit less ubiquitous. Sandless adv is just incredibly painful to play. Also, Tyranitar just has insane stats and can do everything. Probably the most versatile mon in the tier and the most threatening when unrevealed. I still don't like pursuit, and I haven't for years - it just doesn't feel like it can both trap gengar and also do anything else at all in a game.
2. Swampert
:rs/swampert:
Nothing else remotely comes close to the security that Swampert provides. Recently I have felt that any team with any sort of balanced game plan absolutely needs to bring Swampert - Metagross can function alone on all-out offense, but even those teams are equal or better with pert (or meta + pert), and the only team styles that pert doesn't really fit on are stall, which is mediocre at best, and those terrible Suicune / Claydol / Restzap balances that nobody uses anymore.
A+: Consistently very strong, easy to fit
3. Skarmory
:gs/skarmory:
Skarm faces competition from Cloyster and Forretress on offensively oriented teams, and because of that I think it gets edged out by pert who doesn't really have much competition in his role. However, it's still obviously the best and most consistent spiker, and spikes are easily the strongest way to play the game.
4. Gengar
:rb/gengar:
(Almost) Indispensable on spikes offense, which is the best type of team. The trends of Registeel and Blissey which can't hit ghosts helps gar out quite a bit, and I think we are seeing a bit of a resurgence of suittar + 5 guys that lose to gar, which Gengar is extremely good against. There are extremely few matchups where Gengar can't contribute heavily, and his worst-case scenario is usually that he has to hit a wisp.
A: Consistently very strong but more specific, OR a bit weaker and easier to fit
5. Aerodactyl
:rs/aerodactyl:
Absolutely ridiculous mon, clicking double edge just wins every game pretty much. I don't really have that much to say other than that I always feel like I should win with aero spikes and using other teams kinda feels like throwing a lot of the time. Adding in because I'm listening to Spreek's commentary right now - I think Aero is pretty strong against Registeel teams as they typically end up pretty grounded and a lot of players hard steel early on aero, making EQ a pretty good click early a lot of the time.
6. Metagross
:rs/metagross:
Carries spikeless on his back but spikeless isn't very good. Meta can work on spikes but you kinda have to do meta pert or meta mence dol and hope that that's enough, which it frequently isn't. Anyway there are one trillion really obvious upsides to Metagross that I won't go into here I'm just talking about why I don't like it as much as I used to because this is a pretty low placement.
7. Celebi
:gs/celebi:
Calm mind is always really good and leech sets also feel pretty good into what's popular now.
8. Zapdos
:rb/zapdos:
Great pivot for offenses, I do think that rest zap is still ok on defensive teams as well, even if I don't like those teams much. Sub pass is good with setup guys and bulky attackers and Gengar too. Max special attack modest smacks shit around, and his poor matchups against Raikou and Registeel are overblown.
B+: Important players on good teams
9. Salamence
:dp/salamence:
DD is good, mix just feels terrible to be honest. DD Fire Blast is super annoying to play against but always misses when I try to use it so I don't think it's that good. Fly EQ Slide is the only set that doesn't get walled by random stuff (Solrock I guess). Sub is cool and refresh is cool... I think refresh with 3 physical attacks can be good.
10. Starmie
:gs/starmie:
Modest offensive Starmie (with Surf) is just a baller. Recover is nice, Psychic / HPGrass / Hydro are all nice, and Rapid Spin is OK but it's better off not running it most of the time. Defensive Starmie is almost entirely useless and never accomplishes anything without a million lucky full paras. The matchup against tox skarm OR Gengar is extremely dire, much less both, and it also just doesn't really beat the stuff it's supposed to beat.
11. Suicune
:gs/suicune:
Offensive suicune is as good as ever. Rest sets can be nice but boldcune is just too passive.
12. Claydol
:rs/claydol:
He's the best spinner but spinning isn't that valuable. Kinda mandatory on a lot of mediocre teams BUT also optional on a handful of good teams.
13. Jirachi
:dp/jirachi:
I used to really like physically defensive Jirachi but I think I've come to realize that there's no way to build a competent team with it. You're always really weak to fires or physical attackers. It is the only thing that makes you feel really good against Aerodactyl, which is very valuable, but your team always ends up too frail to fires or setuppers or unable to make offensive progress. SubCM is still good as always, and benefits from the prevalence of twave bliss and registeel, and superrachi is also very good.
B: Fills a unique role or an inferior sidegrade to something listed above
14. Magneton
:dp/magneton:
Has a ton of defensive utility with leftovers and protect - it's one of the best Gengar switchins around. It shouldn't be relied on in the builder to fulfill that role because of Dugtrio, but once it traps Skarm any additional utility you get out of it is really valuable and extremely likely to win the game. However, similar to defensive Jirachi, it can be pretty hard to fit Magneton on a team that is otherwise competent.
15. Blissey
:rs/blissey:
Obviously uniquely good at stopping special attackers but too easily taken advantage of. Twave Stoss Soft Wish/Aroma is pretty broken in a vacuum, but can only be fit on teams that are already passive and have a lot of other issues.
16. Jolteon
:gs/jolteon:
Very valuable and underexplored on physical offense especially. I don't really value subpass on this, the best set is just Tbolt HPGrass/Ice Toxic Roar. Classic joltspikes is still good as always.
17. Forretress
:rs/forretress:
I was initially a hater on Ghost Spin forre but it's actually OK. Spike Zap Bug Boom is still the best set. Not nearly as good at spiking and maintaining spikes as skarm, but the explosion can be really important for some teams. It's still pretty terrible at spinning but the threat can be important sometimes. Oh yeah forre dol is a good setup as well, still misleading to your opponent early in the game and can ask some interesting questions.
18. Vaporeon
:dp/vaporeon:
Subpass bot, which it's really good at. 110 base special attack is no joke. Lots of teams fold to really strong water / ice coverage, and those that don't typically need to send Blissey or Suicune in on it, which are easy subpass targets.
C+: Typically not fully optimal but good enough to bring in tournament against any opponent
19. Raikou
:gs/raikou:
Nice offensive utility but I think his defensive abilities are overstated with the huge weakness to Dugtrio and vulnerability to Aerodactyl.
20. Registeel
:dp/registeel:
The other OU newcomer. He's pretty much capable of what people thought Snorlax should be doing 10 years ago, which is comprehensively answer special attackers early and then trade itself away later. When that goes right it's extremely valuable, and it's somewhat consistent at that, but it's definitely possible to abuse as well. It can also be pretty difficult to play it correctly as it usually needs to come in early and with a lot of unrevealeds on your opponent's side it is difficult to know how much HP you need to preserve to get value later. I have a lot more thoughts about Registeel after testing it for a pretty short time but I don't really want to elaborate much more right now. Note after picking a sprite for this - why the hell is he doing this in his dpp sprite...
21. Cloyster
:gs/cloyster:
Like Forretress but spamming surf early is pretty good and it's somehow even worse at spinning. Even the threat of spin is only rarely valuable. It's pretty easy to set up a spike sac with cloy though as a lot of special attacks only barely miss killing it in one, and cloy teams should be built to capitalize off of single-turn advantages anyway. A lot of the mons it draws in to explode on are nice targets as well, and also it has uniquely good utility against waters if sand isn't up.
22. Heracross
:rs/heracross:
BKC can call me a coward but I really like jolly sub 3atks. Jolly hera doesn't just smoke everybody the way it did about a year ago, people are better about running mons with 300+ speed, but it is still an enormous threat in the right matchup, so much so that the rest of your team can have large weaknesses to certain things and you can expect Heracross to cover them. 85% accuracy on Megahorn is just miserable though.
23. Snorlax
:rb/snorlax:
Kinda similar to Heracross in its feast-or-famine nature depending on the matchup. Utility lax has a higher floor but a lower ceiling, and curse rest lax the opposite, but neither set is especially effective. Sometimes you just have to use it though, and you can usually figure out a way to get it to trade 1-for-1.
24. Flygon
:dp/flygon:
Sub 3atks and Sub 2atks toxic are good but pretty hard to fit. I don't really think defgon is valuable without support from Jirachi or Swampert though.
C: Good enough to bring in tournament on one or two teams or against specific opponents
25. Smeargle
:gs/smeargle:
Horribly nerfed by the speedpass ban, even (especially?) on spikes sets. The threat of passing dragon dances forced all kinds of suboptimal plays from your opponent, and now that is completely gone. Spikes and status are still good and I am begging you do not lead this thing it is a terrible lead but backgle is still ok.
26. Moltres
:rb/moltres:
It's fine but people respect it in the builder these days. Very freely revenged by aero which is tough because those are some of the few teams that molt can really be a strong offensive threat against.
27. Charizard
:dp/charizard:
See Moltres but at least molt has wisp. Can be threatening but gets outpaced by opposing offense and totally blanks into opposing stall. Who's even running big 5 these days?
28. Dugtrio
:rs/dugtrio:
Unviable Garbage. The most exploitable mon in the tier, by far. You must play extremely aggressive with dugtrio, if you just use it as a revenge killer you'll be a sac down the whole game.
29. Gyarados
:rb/gyarados:
Seems hard to justify. Twave sets are aight but twave taunt still loses to skarm. It prevents a spike a couple times I suppose but it's such a dead slot against so many things, and missing DD or a coverage move means you lose to so many things that you really want Gyara to cover.
30. Hariyama
:rs/hariyama:
Very disappointing, I think I probably just play at a pace where knock isn't extremely valuable to me, but yama also just dies to everything and doesn't put out enough damage to be that useful.
D: Can be decent but I don't see a reason to bring in tournament
31. Jynx
32. Weezing
33. Regice
34. Venusaur
35. Milotic
36. Steelix
1. Tyranitar
:dp/tyranitar:
Impossible to overstate how important sand is, especially right now when Tyranitar has become a bit less ubiquitous. Sandless adv is just incredibly painful to play. Also, Tyranitar just has insane stats and can do everything. Probably the most versatile mon in the tier and the most threatening when unrevealed. I still don't like pursuit, and I haven't for years - it just doesn't feel like it can both trap gengar and also do anything else at all in a game.
2. Swampert
:rs/swampert:
Nothing else remotely comes close to the security that Swampert provides. Recently I have felt that any team with any sort of balanced game plan absolutely needs to bring Swampert - Metagross can function alone on all-out offense, but even those teams are equal or better with pert (or meta + pert), and the only team styles that pert doesn't really fit on are stall, which is mediocre at best, and those terrible Suicune / Claydol / Restzap balances that nobody uses anymore.
A+: Consistently very strong, easy to fit
3. Skarmory
:gs/skarmory:
Skarm faces competition from Cloyster and Forretress on offensively oriented teams, and because of that I think it gets edged out by pert who doesn't really have much competition in his role. However, it's still obviously the best and most consistent spiker, and spikes are easily the strongest way to play the game.
4. Gengar
:rb/gengar:
(Almost) Indispensable on spikes offense, which is the best type of team. The trends of Registeel and Blissey which can't hit ghosts helps gar out quite a bit, and I think we are seeing a bit of a resurgence of suittar + 5 guys that lose to gar, which Gengar is extremely good against. There are extremely few matchups where Gengar can't contribute heavily, and his worst-case scenario is usually that he has to hit a wisp.
A: Consistently very strong but more specific, OR a bit weaker and easier to fit
5. Aerodactyl
:rs/aerodactyl:
Absolutely ridiculous mon, clicking double edge just wins every game pretty much. I don't really have that much to say other than that I always feel like I should win with aero spikes and using other teams kinda feels like throwing a lot of the time. Adding in because I'm listening to Spreek's commentary right now - I think Aero is pretty strong against Registeel teams as they typically end up pretty grounded and a lot of players hard steel early on aero, making EQ a pretty good click early a lot of the time.
6. Metagross
:rs/metagross:
Carries spikeless on his back but spikeless isn't very good. Meta can work on spikes but you kinda have to do meta pert or meta mence dol and hope that that's enough, which it frequently isn't. Anyway there are one trillion really obvious upsides to Metagross that I won't go into here I'm just talking about why I don't like it as much as I used to because this is a pretty low placement.
7. Celebi
:gs/celebi:
Calm mind is always really good and leech sets also feel pretty good into what's popular now.
8. Zapdos
:rb/zapdos:
Great pivot for offenses, I do think that rest zap is still ok on defensive teams as well, even if I don't like those teams much. Sub pass is good with setup guys and bulky attackers and Gengar too. Max special attack modest smacks shit around, and his poor matchups against Raikou and Registeel are overblown.
B+: Important players on good teams
9. Salamence
:dp/salamence:
DD is good, mix just feels terrible to be honest. DD Fire Blast is super annoying to play against but always misses when I try to use it so I don't think it's that good. Fly EQ Slide is the only set that doesn't get walled by random stuff (Solrock I guess). Sub is cool and refresh is cool... I think refresh with 3 physical attacks can be good.
10. Starmie
:gs/starmie:
Modest offensive Starmie (with Surf) is just a baller. Recover is nice, Psychic / HPGrass / Hydro are all nice, and Rapid Spin is OK but it's better off not running it most of the time. Defensive Starmie is almost entirely useless and never accomplishes anything without a million lucky full paras. The matchup against tox skarm OR Gengar is extremely dire, much less both, and it also just doesn't really beat the stuff it's supposed to beat.
11. Suicune
:gs/suicune:
Offensive suicune is as good as ever. Rest sets can be nice but boldcune is just too passive.
12. Claydol
:rs/claydol:
He's the best spinner but spinning isn't that valuable. Kinda mandatory on a lot of mediocre teams BUT also optional on a handful of good teams.
13. Jirachi
:dp/jirachi:
I used to really like physically defensive Jirachi but I think I've come to realize that there's no way to build a competent team with it. You're always really weak to fires or physical attackers. It is the only thing that makes you feel really good against Aerodactyl, which is very valuable, but your team always ends up too frail to fires or setuppers or unable to make offensive progress. SubCM is still good as always, and benefits from the prevalence of twave bliss and registeel, and superrachi is also very good.
B: Fills a unique role or an inferior sidegrade to something listed above
14. Magneton
:dp/magneton:
Has a ton of defensive utility with leftovers and protect - it's one of the best Gengar switchins around. It shouldn't be relied on in the builder to fulfill that role because of Dugtrio, but once it traps Skarm any additional utility you get out of it is really valuable and extremely likely to win the game. However, similar to defensive Jirachi, it can be pretty hard to fit Magneton on a team that is otherwise competent.
15. Blissey
:rs/blissey:
Obviously uniquely good at stopping special attackers but too easily taken advantage of. Twave Stoss Soft Wish/Aroma is pretty broken in a vacuum, but can only be fit on teams that are already passive and have a lot of other issues.
16. Jolteon
:gs/jolteon:
Very valuable and underexplored on physical offense especially. I don't really value subpass on this, the best set is just Tbolt HPGrass/Ice Toxic Roar. Classic joltspikes is still good as always.
17. Forretress
:rs/forretress:
I was initially a hater on Ghost Spin forre but it's actually OK. Spike Zap Bug Boom is still the best set. Not nearly as good at spiking and maintaining spikes as skarm, but the explosion can be really important for some teams. It's still pretty terrible at spinning but the threat can be important sometimes. Oh yeah forre dol is a good setup as well, still misleading to your opponent early in the game and can ask some interesting questions.
18. Vaporeon
:dp/vaporeon:
Subpass bot, which it's really good at. 110 base special attack is no joke. Lots of teams fold to really strong water / ice coverage, and those that don't typically need to send Blissey or Suicune in on it, which are easy subpass targets.
C+: Typically not fully optimal but good enough to bring in tournament against any opponent
19. Raikou
:gs/raikou:
Nice offensive utility but I think his defensive abilities are overstated with the huge weakness to Dugtrio and vulnerability to Aerodactyl.
20. Registeel
:dp/registeel:
The other OU newcomer. He's pretty much capable of what people thought Snorlax should be doing 10 years ago, which is comprehensively answer special attackers early and then trade itself away later. When that goes right it's extremely valuable, and it's somewhat consistent at that, but it's definitely possible to abuse as well. It can also be pretty difficult to play it correctly as it usually needs to come in early and with a lot of unrevealeds on your opponent's side it is difficult to know how much HP you need to preserve to get value later. I have a lot more thoughts about Registeel after testing it for a pretty short time but I don't really want to elaborate much more right now. Note after picking a sprite for this - why the hell is he doing this in his dpp sprite...
21. Cloyster
:gs/cloyster:
Like Forretress but spamming surf early is pretty good and it's somehow even worse at spinning. Even the threat of spin is only rarely valuable. It's pretty easy to set up a spike sac with cloy though as a lot of special attacks only barely miss killing it in one, and cloy teams should be built to capitalize off of single-turn advantages anyway. A lot of the mons it draws in to explode on are nice targets as well, and also it has uniquely good utility against waters if sand isn't up.
22. Heracross
:rs/heracross:
BKC can call me a coward but I really like jolly sub 3atks. Jolly hera doesn't just smoke everybody the way it did about a year ago, people are better about running mons with 300+ speed, but it is still an enormous threat in the right matchup, so much so that the rest of your team can have large weaknesses to certain things and you can expect Heracross to cover them. 85% accuracy on Megahorn is just miserable though.
23. Snorlax
:rb/snorlax:
Kinda similar to Heracross in its feast-or-famine nature depending on the matchup. Utility lax has a higher floor but a lower ceiling, and curse rest lax the opposite, but neither set is especially effective. Sometimes you just have to use it though, and you can usually figure out a way to get it to trade 1-for-1.
24. Flygon
:dp/flygon:
Sub 3atks and Sub 2atks toxic are good but pretty hard to fit. I don't really think defgon is valuable without support from Jirachi or Swampert though.
C: Good enough to bring in tournament on one or two teams or against specific opponents
25. Smeargle
:gs/smeargle:
Horribly nerfed by the speedpass ban, even (especially?) on spikes sets. The threat of passing dragon dances forced all kinds of suboptimal plays from your opponent, and now that is completely gone. Spikes and status are still good and I am begging you do not lead this thing it is a terrible lead but backgle is still ok.
26. Moltres
:rb/moltres:
It's fine but people respect it in the builder these days. Very freely revenged by aero which is tough because those are some of the few teams that molt can really be a strong offensive threat against.
27. Charizard
:dp/charizard:
See Moltres but at least molt has wisp. Can be threatening but gets outpaced by opposing offense and totally blanks into opposing stall. Who's even running big 5 these days?
28. Dugtrio
:rs/dugtrio:
Unviable Garbage. The most exploitable mon in the tier, by far. You must play extremely aggressive with dugtrio, if you just use it as a revenge killer you'll be a sac down the whole game.
29. Gyarados
:rb/gyarados:
Seems hard to justify. Twave sets are aight but twave taunt still loses to skarm. It prevents a spike a couple times I suppose but it's such a dead slot against so many things, and missing DD or a coverage move means you lose to so many things that you really want Gyara to cover.
30. Hariyama
:rs/hariyama:
Very disappointing, I think I probably just play at a pace where knock isn't extremely valuable to me, but yama also just dies to everything and doesn't put out enough damage to be that useful.
D: Can be decent but I don't see a reason to bring in tournament
31. Jynx
32. Weezing
33. Regice
34. Venusaur
35. Milotic
36. Steelix
TL;DR:
EDIT: Insert Medicham ahead of Smeargle. It's not good, but it's nice to catch people off-guard with.
Last edited:
Some thoughts on the current meta and my rankings:
- I think the Registeel trend is excellent for the meta. Firstly, as it slashes the idea that your spikes team needs spin/mag to support it and secondly because it's lack of recovery forces games that aren't centered around PP stall or recover spamming.
- Raikou is being used in a cool, new way on offence where it doesn't need dug support for bliss removal.
- My fav fighters are sub medicham on offence and bulky machamp on bulky offence.
- forgot to add snorlax but its in after aero
1 - :skarmory: On the most consistent teams and still ruins you if you don't have the relevant counter measures.
2 - :blissey: Biggest gatekeeper in the tier still. Perhaps it could be be #1, however, I just haven't been building as much with it.
3 - :tyranitar: Sand teams don't feel as consistent as sandless to me but sand is the best counter to rest suicune and other bulky fats in the game. DD is evergreen.
4 - :swampert: Only real metagross counter in the game. One of the tiers biggest gatekeepers and people don't really notice it because of how unpretentious it is, but it's phenomenal. Beats DD tar better than milo+dug+dol together. Great damage vs nearly everything and has nothing that traps/punishes it too hard. Mwah
5 - :gengar: One of the biggest momentum shifters in the game. Nothing it doesn't threaten and is the main reason spinning isn't just completely OP. Claydol would be well inside the top 10 without it
6 - :salamence: Most slappable mon in the tier. Every physical variant is great. dd sub is amazing, dd sets for breaking and sweeping are all great too. I've even been using defensive wish, and that is the star of the show every game as well. Amazing as usual
7 - :metagross: Much lower on this guy this time around. I would have it behind zap and cune only for the fact that it does a better job of damaging everything in front of it than they do. sticking hp grass on the free slot is honestly something people need to do more. It has a cool niche on offence with impish nature + tpunch where registeel feels too passive.
8 - :suicune: Extremely high suicune this time around. Part of me thinks it could be a top 4 mon. Huge huge gatekeeper for slower teams. sub and sleeptalk are awesome. I put it on every type of team and it is instrumental on every single one. The defensive variants even destroy the things that are supposed to wall it on slow teams like celebi by stalling leech.
9 - :zapdos: It being down this low is more of a testament to everything else being great than it being bad. Still amazing and irreplaceable on special/physical offence hybrid teams. If you drop it off these sorts of teams, they immediately go from being awesome to totally unviable.
10 - :jirachi: A well played defensive wish rachi kinda feels gamebreaking. Its the most capable user of wish in the tier; wish is the most broken move. The sub cm sets never got bad and the backlash against them was silly fearmongering.
11 - :dugtrio: You completely lose if you get the wrong thing dugged. Needs to be scouted for perhaps more than any other mon. It enables more variance in the tier than perhaps any other mon. Half the game is gone without it.
12 - :claydol: Amazing in every aspect possible; stats, typing, moveset, abilty. I honestly don't think it should be ranked higher though as it still often needs multiple hits to ohko gar, which absolutely does not guarantee a spin. Offensively, it's extremely lack lustre and often feels like if you switch into it on your offence team that it will kill your momentum. It's awesome, but I firmly challenge the idea that sticking it on the last slot of your team automatically sorts out your teams spikes problem.
13 - :aerodactyl: Unbelievably evergreen and punishing as ever. Even when you have multiple measues left for it, it still feels like if you don't play perfect, you could lose. Not as hot in the registeel era admittedly.
EDIT Snorlax here
14 - :starmie: I used to call it trash, but the new, offensive variants are great. Recover offensive is definitely its best set. It doesn't need spin at all to be good. Modest tbolt really makes a difference on suicune, and modest surf has taken it to a new level.
15 - :magneton: Very high on it even though I haven't been using it too much. Always seems to makes signifcant progress. It's so problematic with status and the salac variant has definitely stopped me from winning a game or 2
16: - :celebi: Way down on it. The passive recover sets are unviable. Even the versions designed to beat suicune just get pp stalled and lose. The best way its used is just clicking unpredictabe attacks or switching out of it aggressively when your opp expects a leech seed.
17 - :forretress: Ranking it highly. So many new composition types that didn't exist before. I kinda hate the old standard of pairing it with suit tar, pert, bliss and co. It's main value add is just forcing skarms to switch out againts it in the spike war, and that is just huge.
18 - :milotic: does no damage and gets crit
19 - :jolteon: Paired with gar and skarm, its always gonna be oppressive to everything. Jolt spikes teams are weirdly consistent and effective. I find if you can avoid eating a twave the first 1-2 times you switch it in, you usually don't mind it that much when youg get twaved later.
20 - :flygon: Really down in the double edge era. dd counter also ruins it. It honestly feels like a raikou check more than anything.
21 - :medicham: I know the ranking is high, but it's high for a reason. Subzap + sub cham is so ridiculously good on the right offence team. Destroys big 5, superman, and V5. It's the best fighter atm until I build a weather change endRev team that tops it.
22 - :raikou: I know it's probably vogue to rank it higher but as much as I've been really liking it, it belongs here. It's amazing in sandless, a super-glue +wincon for offence, and honestly one of my fav emergency zap switch ins.
23 - :registeel: Super bulky and amazing. The trend of using it over bliss and dropping a spinner is awesome. It's hard to fully gauge it's use case as its best trait its just adding bulk/resistance points to your team without stopping its momentum dead like steelix. Stopping agilimeta and sitting on waters is huge. I honestly feel like we've barely scratched the surface with it. Not ranking it any higher than this as it's damage output is BL level and it feels really predict heavy at times. It's biggest issue for me is the damage output. Even though it doesn't die to +2 ttar, it's still kinda iffy because the best thing you can do in return is boom it.
Last edited:
Below is my submitted VR. I don't play tours so this is more a reflection of how I think about the tier when building teams. I have tried to describe different tiers in terms of the roles mons fill at different levels of viability. Obviously there isn't going to be a one size fits all way of doing this given the breadth of offensive/defensive sets on mons, as well as stuff like trappers, but I am decently happy with how it turned out.
S: Meta defining
A-: Still splashable but require more support
B+: define/enable specific styles but not cannot be used as broadly
B: Solid choices on certain styles
B-: More specific but still just about OU worthy
C: Non OUs that have well defined niches on specific teams
Explainations:
: Sandless teams have so many headaches to contend with and get cheesed way more easily IMO, so Tar is immediately great. Probably the most diversely threatening mon in the game.
I love Crunch Tars on any team with spikes - maybe the most spamable atk in the game and great vs Spinners and Spinblockers.
BKC Tar is a fantastic Bliss punish when spikes are down and has good defensive utility.
Not a huge DD fan - early breaker DD sets have a huge target on their back in the slop meta, whilst late game DD sets don't feel that consistent since they often need to dodge crits, secondary effects and then hit Slides to set up and win. Often "winning" positions with these sets are only ~ 70% in practise. Huge upside, and probably should be brought in a 50/50 or unfavoured game, but not great if looking for ultimate consistency.
Sub Tars are great now early DD and Registeel are everywhere.
CB always feels awkward to me - wants to be played super aggressively to take advantage of the surprise value and distribute a lot of early damage, but also needs a strong backbone so that it's lock doesn't get taken advantage of. There are a few teams that do this but it's not easy.
: Skarm teams will probably always be most consistent. That being said, modern offences have gotten better at powering through Skarm+friends and it does sometimes make you wonder if you would rather take a different approach, given you often also have to dedicate another slot to support you in spike wars (SuitTar/Gar). But, when the chips are down...
: Bliss Fats are a top tier style. Takes with Aroma+Rest users, although feeling like they lock things down/autowin a little less than the Milo + CM Bliss teams, have a lot more flexibility which is huge. Only issue with this stuff is that you often have to accept you will have at least 1 of your mons crit through in a game.
Bold + Twave is unfair.
More balanced and offensive takes on Bliss teams are still fine. Perhaps they aren't "optimising" this mon, but there are still many valid teams in this style - Bliss is sometimes just what you want for defensive security and has enough tools to influence games (sing, Toxic + Flame, Counter) even if it's not gonna feel like an immortal blob.
: Lends itself to consistent teams for obvious reasons. Good variety with Curse/FP Sets for more offensive builds. EndPert trades up vs many teams but I hate the Surf vs Hydro conundrum. Still, it's cool that this thing has become a staple of spikeless offence.
: I honestly think Agil Meta with Boom has the highest game-to-game value of any mon in ADV. The issues are that it's not a study rock resist and it doesn't pair particularly well with many special checks/walls (outside of JoltSpike stuff). It often creates imbalances in your team which makes things kinda interesting - you get this broken offensive threat at the cost of defensive integrity. Murders opposing offences.
CB often feels kinda cheesy - bring this vs someone you are unfavoured against and watch it Mash raise it's way through anything.
Defensive sets with protect aren't playing to this mons strengths, but there are a few good teams like U6 on which it is the right fit.
Mixed sets struggle to break modern teams and so often have to resort to premature Booming. There are some reasonable fits though.
: Gar Spikes is just an elite team style. Metagross-like in terms of how it often creates imbalances in your team, but so often worth it.
Offensive takes with things like Smeargle, CloyJolt can overwhelm teams very quickly. More balanced takes are nice for the ability to withhold Gar from spinblocking early and use it later or just use it to break open games. I think these teams have an amazingly rich theory from a playing perspective that really rewards someone for investing the time into learning how to play well with Gar. Beyond just getting 50/50 blocking turns right, there are a lot of tricks you can pull. Obviously Wisp misses suck, but I think things like Taunt + 3Atks do a good job in the current meta with all the Registeel and MonoBliss running around if you want to avoid that. There are even bulkier fat approaches to Gar Spikes which are Sandless and have cleric support. Fat Gars really appreciate this to help dual Dol better and not have to live in fear of stray Twave or Fire Punch Burns from Jira.
Spikeless Gar is real, but I haven't had many positive experiences with it. Gar can be a good trading piece if that is what you want it to do, but its probably more of a good one-off game idea than a staple to rely on.
: Most splashable flyer. Variety of DDsets has unlocked a lot of potential, to the point where it has become seen as a near mandatory piece on Spikeless Offence. I must admit I am not sold on mixed DD sets with Blast cause it feels like people can sus it out now and just go Zap/Pert/Aero, but maybe I have just had a bit of a mid experience with them/have been misplaying.
Mixed is a goodstuff mon that you can throw on a lot of teams, preferably with (but even without) spikes.
I cannot make CB not feel awful right now.
Intim + Mences Typing + decent Speed will forever be high value.
: Annual Jirachi hit-piece from me - broken mon. SubCM is honestly ridiculous when well supported/played with patience as I think Padeli has shown. Being a CM user that heals in Sand and beats Bliss is an elite trait.
Defensive sets lock down certain games well, and even when they don't, they can just hax. These compete with Registeel a lot now on more offensive teams which has some more desirable traits.
I never find myself wanting to use standard SuperRachi so I think that says something. The bulky CM + 3 Atks sets can be good traders.
Genuinely put this so high cause I feel like Jira is super malleable and has a large amount of unexplored potential. I have had success with Sub + Tox + 2Atks, Wish + 3 Atks and weird mixed stuff. Should also try Doom Desire. It's always gonna have a good amount of secondary defensive utility thanks to its stats and typing, so I think it can be used a lot.
: Necessary piece on a lot of defensive teams - unlocks the potential of a lot of other mons. You also notice how annoying its defensive profile can be when playing against it - it helps lock down a lot of endgames. Dol offences/beatdowns can be a bit yucky (idk how else to say it).
: DefCune is the tiers premier long-term win-con for good reason. It does need decent support though. Calm Rest sets on things like MagOff or Skarm Beatdown can be pretty good at compensating for things like Lax/Bi weaknesses to Special overload.
Sub sets are good fishes.
Offcune (Subless/Restless) feels kinda dead but maybe someone can revive it.
: Another GoodStuff mon. Feels like it thuds as a progress maker even more than ever now, even with Spikes support. Always a good general pivot due its good defensive properties - I always run this with bulk. I think Rest Sets on Balance or even Bulky Offence are pretty useful (à la Quad Band) - having a mon that stalls really struggle to kill gives your offence so much more breathing room. TBolt is strong even with little/no investment.
Obviously this is a Spec-Off staple but I struggle to make this style work in general.
BP- Zap MixOff can still work, but we see Raikou > Zap used a lot now on such styles.
MixZap stuffs many Celebi teams and with Agil is an underrated cleaner.
Stall is where the real innovation with this mon is happening due to EvilZap.
: Aero Spikes is probably a timeless style. Aero has good breaking properties, meaning many stalls can be troubled by it + 1 spike, lessening the need for spinblocking. Also has nice defensive properties in terms of helping vs Zard, MixMence and Stat Pass Celebi. It can thud into certain DefRachi + Flygon teams though and so you need other solutions for those. Good no-BS ladder mon.
: Celebi is great at making Sandless (and even Sand) feel safer vs CuneLax stuff which is nice. Leech is just amazing.
Leech + 3Atks is crazy if you get turns right, and can completely lock down certain game-states vs SkarmBliss teams whilst still having good immediate power.
Recover isn't really my Jam cause I think it's an insane hax magnet, but it does have huge upside in terms being able to pressure teams more than Bliss say. Obviously you can use Celebi + Bliss or Celebi + Lax to relieve duties and this is valid. You need good hazard control but it can work.
Stat passing sets can break games, but these teams can feel awkward in terms of when this gets blocked. Your team should be able to break without stat-passing, but then why even bother? Obviously there are clever MU division solutions you can do here vs Aero teams, or even try to outlast them, but there will always be some very bad opposing MUs. I am not sure the upside is worth it cause it's not like speedpass where you can autowin in a lot of situations when passes are achieved. Ironically, even though it's probably overall worse, SD pass might be a stronger fish in this regard as +2 Aero/AgilMeta can autowin some games. CM pass is cooler though there is no denying.
SuperBi is decent on a few teams - good at luring flyers. Feels like there is a lot of potential but I haven't seen too many approaches outside of a few Slop variants.
:Offmie is good if it either has Recover or it's not the fastest mon on the team. Otherwise, it feels like Offmie Comps end up with serious Aero + Spike issues. Modern Offmie lead teams can be very scary.
DefMie is good just cause TWave is broken. Also helps a lot vs passive damage alongside other NatCure mons. Not a great spinner without Suit support, but being able to often force Para onto Skarm and Gar is good. The DefMie vs Tox Skarm interaction is one of the worst parts of the tier - RNG fest.
: Only really good cause of it's fit on 1 style, but that style is top tier. Enables stall to be far more consistent. Other Dug styles can work but have much more limited viability IMO.
The extent to which people can cheese with this mon on ladder to quite reasonable success is worrying.
: A cautious A- Rank from me. Obviously strong and has some nice variety in terms of move options. TWave is broken. Could be higher but we will have to see how things develop since it has some exploitable weaknesses alongside its obviously strong traits.
: If it were just for traditional Forre balances, this mon would be solidly B tier. However, modern Forre offences and dual spinner teams give this mon has a much broader range of applicability. I don't think it can ever be too much higher than this though due to how much it can be set-up bait/an entry point for breakers.
: Biggest limiter of Sandless, but probably hates Sand more than anything else.
Trades well on offence teams provided you have good secondary special check/momentum reversers like Celebi/Raikou and support from Mag or Dol.
Needs a lot of support to function as a curse Rest win-con, which makes it hard to justify. Can completely take over games though.
Idk if this it a hot take at this point, but 90%+ of Lax should have Curse.
: Superman will always be good as long as spikes are a dominant strategy. Taken a bit of a hit with the proliferation of DE Tar, but still solid. Defensive sets play best to the mons strengths, though CB has a good mix of power and speed when you have a good plan vs SkarmGar.
Offensive lefties isn't really a Pokemon atm, but I have found Endure-Salac surprisingly effective at being a late game momentum reverser vs DDers and AgilMeta.
: I feel like Mag introduces inevitable defensive issues and so the best Mag teams either:
- Are offensive
- Use MagDol and go all in on hazard control + scary setup threats. One advantage here is take lefties Sp.def Mag is a much more real Mon.
People probably think MagOffs are worse than they are cause they seem to predominantly be used by people on ladder in 1500s. If you avoid the Medi/BlueOffencewhythefuckisthismixMence sample traps, they can be good.
: JoltSpike teams are amazingly fun and pretty good at having ways to win almost any game (Gar also helps here). Bulky SubPass or WishJolt sets are also good on certain teams. <3 you Jolt.
: From a certain quite valid POV, this mon is terrible. Sand/Spike Weak, cannot progress vs any well built Balance/Stall, doesn't support its team with any cleric/utility moves. Plus the hax magnet issue. However, it does farm a lot of offences which seem ill-prepared to deal with it. It seems most MixOffs are better equipped than those of the past to deal with it, and Big5 style teams which it works well into are also less popular. Despite this, it still seems to win quite often, probably cause there is enough strain in the builder atm that means people have to cut corners somewhere (+ Dugtrio support makes it strong). Would still use CuneV5 > MiloV5 most of the time.
Also, OffMilo is kinda real.
: Recent development which is very real. Not much to add here - Raikou Mixoffs are well established and these Raikou Semi-Stallish teams with (often bulky) Raikou can go crazy in the right MUs. Kou does sell out a little vs V5 for my liking but each to their own.
: Quite good in the current meta. I love using Modest Wisp+Tect sets cause they absolutely farm a lot SpikeOffs - genuinely can make Skarm feel like a liability which is rare. It just requires a good plan for punishing Bliss, or some disgusting Rest stall set (not a fan of getting a bunch of Roar mind games right).
Main issue is that Molt's speed tier is awkward at times and it means it doesn't provide good form of speed control to make up for its lack of defensive utility.
: Feels awkward right now. Struggles against a lot of common comps on both the offensive and defensive sides of the spectrum. Also no set feels good right now - Sub eases prediction but causes Zard to lose a lot of utility vs things like Gar, MixMence and DefMie/Cune. Non Sub is way too prediction reliant.
Still fine on Spikes teams. Timid + Overheat can be a great speedy Blaze nuke.
: Good mon to build around since it dominates a large portion of the tier. Have had a lot of success with this on ladder across a variety of teams.
CB is fearsome to face T1 with Tar or with Bliss and no Dug.
Sub-Punch is a pretty consistent Skarm-Bliss Beater and can help circumvent Dug issues.
Raw SD needs Mag or Skarm Beatdown support, as well as things like Mence being chipped, but if you achieve this it is completely dominant. Probably the premier P2 partner if you are so inclined.
I have lost to cheesy weather clear stuff so many times now that I am wondering if I am not giving it the credit it deserves.
: Good on both the offensive and defensive sides of the spectrum.
More abusable than Milo with status so needs support, but has big upsides.
Vape lead offences are very scary for a lot of common comps.
: Otherwise terrible mon with Spore ends up in B-. Frustrating to play against at times, especially if you can employ it late game. I really should try and build around this concept more. It is also a great sub-Pass abuser early on - premier Vape partner.
: Always feels at least decent. Hybridises some of Tar, Meta and Pert's good qualities. Stuffs a lot of Phys-Offs. Only issue is that it is hard to fit with Tar and it feels like a mon with its offensive qualities sometimes likes Sand.
I generally pair it with CB Meta on Skarm beatdown stuff or with Skarm + Dol on spikes balance.
CB is also valid with stuff like AgilMeta.
: Better defensively than offensively. Good Paralysis spreader - premier fighter partner. Rest sets can also be surprisingly annoying.
: I have to be honest and say I haven't found a Gar+Cloy team concept where I think Cloy > Skarm in general. Though there are ones where it's close, enough that you could probably consider using Cloy into a certain scout in tours.
Cloy without Gar is kinda interesting and often builds and plays more like a MixOff with a spikes option. I think this is where the real value lies, but these teams are hard to build and pretty sequence dependent and require very deliberate planning/plays. Using Cloy as a Mie Lure to enable things like Zard, Meta is an example I used and liked.
Less detail from now on.
: Smeargle offences are powerful but Sleep turns/lead interactions make them inherently volatile. High Skill ceiling in terms of buidling/sequencing.
: Phan + Forre team are good.
: Worse Leech + Atks Celebi with Sleep that sometimes makes it feel broken. Good at switching into mono waters but bad into Gar. Can be very good at applying pressure with spikes down, or as a sleep lead.
: I feel this needs Dug since it struggles by giving Tar/Meta entry otherwise without ways to trade them out. Can be good on these comps.
I feel like Dugless can be made to work well but I personally struggle to - even though it is a great spikes abuser in theory, it just feels like it tends to trade down damage wise whenever I run Dugless cause of the aforementioned Tar/Meta issues.
: Eugh - alternate Ghosts are annoying.
: Eugh Part 2, but at least this guy has aura.
: Unique in terms of its ability to trade well with MixMence and Skarm. Also Unique in terms of its ability to miss when you need to hit.
: Frailty means it basically trades badly with the entire tier that isn't Bliss/Tar. Only feels strong when it is forcing switches, which basically means leading it and hoping for a good MU.
CB is a delete button if you are a gamer.
Bulky recover sets are actually decent, but for them to be able to switch into Tar's sets well, you need to start subtracting from atk EVs, which feels awful. Probably the way I would try to use it though.
: Has uses outside of just being a sweeper which is nice. Was using a Sub-Seed set recently and it impressed me.
: No analysis, just anger.
: Kingdra can be strong, but Spec-Off is mid. Still had decent success with it when runny slightly cheesy weather clear stuff.
: Good at using Knock on teams that want it.
: Good at pretending it's going to knock and then being a mini Machamp.
: WoW + Crunch are 2 of the most spamable moves in the tier. An underrated progress maker and owns Pixies. Not as solid vs Gar as you would like if your opponent sees a Pursuit trapper coming since it gets chipped down by spikes. Frail as all hell + Dug means it will always be limited.
: Owns Gar long term by Wisp Sync and Suit, but I have found Forre + Umbreon teams get overwhelmed by Gar Offences. Also there is the Alternate Ghost issue.
Decent wall and support mon that can be made into setup fodder. Why does this not get Roar like Jolt/Vape?! It would help it so much. Charm is funny.
: Maybe the hate is overblown now? Not that bad. Niche but it does enable some interesting offences and is very good vs Fliers. Its passivity just requires you to make slightly unintuitive plays to win.
: Funny delete button mon. Dopamine king.
: Teams relying on Para to enable Wak are incredibly inconsistent. Better to lead it and get it done with via trading early.
: Probably best for its surprise value. Can trade with Tar well on lead which can enable some interesting stuff.
: Good but worse than Gar 90% of the time. Only really useful on spikeless Boomspam stuff.
: Very interesting traits that can make it feel worth it sometimes. Near immune to Boom which is funny.
: Use Heal Bell, Focus Punch or Nite + Mence. Otherwise it's not worth it. Obviously got great stats but gatekept by Mence.
: Genuinely valid on some teams looking to cheat elsewhere. It can just about scrape by with near full Def and good play.
: Eugh Part 3. Negative Aura.
S: Meta defining
A+: Fulfill near-indispensable roles extremely well
A: Spalshable mons which provide solid defensive utility/progress making toolsA-: Still splashable but require more support
B+: define/enable specific styles but not cannot be used as broadly
B: Solid choices on certain styles
B-: More specific but still just about OU worthy
C: Non OUs that have well defined niches on specific teams
D: Mons you can make work in OU but I personally have less faith in. Don't take this too seriously if you think I am underrating any of these.Explainations:
I love Crunch Tars on any team with spikes - maybe the most spamable atk in the game and great vs Spinners and Spinblockers.
BKC Tar is a fantastic Bliss punish when spikes are down and has good defensive utility.
Not a huge DD fan - early breaker DD sets have a huge target on their back in the slop meta, whilst late game DD sets don't feel that consistent since they often need to dodge crits, secondary effects and then hit Slides to set up and win. Often "winning" positions with these sets are only ~ 70% in practise. Huge upside, and probably should be brought in a 50/50 or unfavoured game, but not great if looking for ultimate consistency.
Sub Tars are great now early DD and Registeel are everywhere.
CB always feels awkward to me - wants to be played super aggressively to take advantage of the surprise value and distribute a lot of early damage, but also needs a strong backbone so that it's lock doesn't get taken advantage of. There are a few teams that do this but it's not easy.
Bold + Twave is unfair.
More balanced and offensive takes on Bliss teams are still fine. Perhaps they aren't "optimising" this mon, but there are still many valid teams in this style - Bliss is sometimes just what you want for defensive security and has enough tools to influence games (sing, Toxic + Flame, Counter) even if it's not gonna feel like an immortal blob.
CB often feels kinda cheesy - bring this vs someone you are unfavoured against and watch it Mash raise it's way through anything.
Defensive sets with protect aren't playing to this mons strengths, but there are a few good teams like U6 on which it is the right fit.
Mixed sets struggle to break modern teams and so often have to resort to premature Booming. There are some reasonable fits though.
Offensive takes with things like Smeargle, CloyJolt can overwhelm teams very quickly. More balanced takes are nice for the ability to withhold Gar from spinblocking early and use it later or just use it to break open games. I think these teams have an amazingly rich theory from a playing perspective that really rewards someone for investing the time into learning how to play well with Gar. Beyond just getting 50/50 blocking turns right, there are a lot of tricks you can pull. Obviously Wisp misses suck, but I think things like Taunt + 3Atks do a good job in the current meta with all the Registeel and MonoBliss running around if you want to avoid that. There are even bulkier fat approaches to Gar Spikes which are Sandless and have cleric support. Fat Gars really appreciate this to help dual Dol better and not have to live in fear of stray Twave or Fire Punch Burns from Jira.
Spikeless Gar is real, but I haven't had many positive experiences with it. Gar can be a good trading piece if that is what you want it to do, but its probably more of a good one-off game idea than a staple to rely on.
Mixed is a goodstuff mon that you can throw on a lot of teams, preferably with (but even without) spikes.
I cannot make CB not feel awful right now.
Intim + Mences Typing + decent Speed will forever be high value.
Defensive sets lock down certain games well, and even when they don't, they can just hax. These compete with Registeel a lot now on more offensive teams which has some more desirable traits.
I never find myself wanting to use standard SuperRachi so I think that says something. The bulky CM + 3 Atks sets can be good traders.
Genuinely put this so high cause I feel like Jira is super malleable and has a large amount of unexplored potential. I have had success with Sub + Tox + 2Atks, Wish + 3 Atks and weird mixed stuff. Should also try Doom Desire. It's always gonna have a good amount of secondary defensive utility thanks to its stats and typing, so I think it can be used a lot.
Sub sets are good fishes.
Offcune (Subless/Restless) feels kinda dead but maybe someone can revive it.
Obviously this is a Spec-Off staple but I struggle to make this style work in general.
BP- Zap MixOff can still work, but we see Raikou > Zap used a lot now on such styles.
MixZap stuffs many Celebi teams and with Agil is an underrated cleaner.
Stall is where the real innovation with this mon is happening due to EvilZap.
Leech + 3Atks is crazy if you get turns right, and can completely lock down certain game-states vs SkarmBliss teams whilst still having good immediate power.
Recover isn't really my Jam cause I think it's an insane hax magnet, but it does have huge upside in terms being able to pressure teams more than Bliss say. Obviously you can use Celebi + Bliss or Celebi + Lax to relieve duties and this is valid. You need good hazard control but it can work.
Stat passing sets can break games, but these teams can feel awkward in terms of when this gets blocked. Your team should be able to break without stat-passing, but then why even bother? Obviously there are clever MU division solutions you can do here vs Aero teams, or even try to outlast them, but there will always be some very bad opposing MUs. I am not sure the upside is worth it cause it's not like speedpass where you can autowin in a lot of situations when passes are achieved. Ironically, even though it's probably overall worse, SD pass might be a stronger fish in this regard as +2 Aero/AgilMeta can autowin some games. CM pass is cooler though there is no denying.
SuperBi is decent on a few teams - good at luring flyers. Feels like there is a lot of potential but I haven't seen too many approaches outside of a few Slop variants.
DefMie is good just cause TWave is broken. Also helps a lot vs passive damage alongside other NatCure mons. Not a great spinner without Suit support, but being able to often force Para onto Skarm and Gar is good. The DefMie vs Tox Skarm interaction is one of the worst parts of the tier - RNG fest.
The extent to which people can cheese with this mon on ladder to quite reasonable success is worrying.
Trades well on offence teams provided you have good secondary special check/momentum reversers like Celebi/Raikou and support from Mag or Dol.
Needs a lot of support to function as a curse Rest win-con, which makes it hard to justify. Can completely take over games though.
Idk if this it a hot take at this point, but 90%+ of Lax should have Curse.
Offensive lefties isn't really a Pokemon atm, but I have found Endure-Salac surprisingly effective at being a late game momentum reverser vs DDers and AgilMeta.
- Are offensive
- Use MagDol and go all in on hazard control + scary setup threats. One advantage here is take lefties Sp.def Mag is a much more real Mon.
People probably think MagOffs are worse than they are cause they seem to predominantly be used by people on ladder in 1500s. If you avoid the Medi/BlueOffencewhythefuckisthismixMence sample traps, they can be good.
Also, OffMilo is kinda real.
Main issue is that Molt's speed tier is awkward at times and it means it doesn't provide good form of speed control to make up for its lack of defensive utility.
Still fine on Spikes teams. Timid + Overheat can be a great speedy Blaze nuke.
CB is fearsome to face T1 with Tar or with Bliss and no Dug.
Sub-Punch is a pretty consistent Skarm-Bliss Beater and can help circumvent Dug issues.
Raw SD needs Mag or Skarm Beatdown support, as well as things like Mence being chipped, but if you achieve this it is completely dominant. Probably the premier P2 partner if you are so inclined.
I have lost to cheesy weather clear stuff so many times now that I am wondering if I am not giving it the credit it deserves.
More abusable than Milo with status so needs support, but has big upsides.
Vape lead offences are very scary for a lot of common comps.
I generally pair it with CB Meta on Skarm beatdown stuff or with Skarm + Dol on spikes balance.
CB is also valid with stuff like AgilMeta.
Cloy without Gar is kinda interesting and often builds and plays more like a MixOff with a spikes option. I think this is where the real value lies, but these teams are hard to build and pretty sequence dependent and require very deliberate planning/plays. Using Cloy as a Mie Lure to enable things like Zard, Meta is an example I used and liked.
I feel like Dugless can be made to work well but I personally struggle to - even though it is a great spikes abuser in theory, it just feels like it tends to trade down damage wise whenever I run Dugless cause of the aforementioned Tar/Meta issues.
CB is a delete button if you are a gamer.
Bulky recover sets are actually decent, but for them to be able to switch into Tar's sets well, you need to start subtracting from atk EVs, which feels awful. Probably the way I would try to use it though.
Decent wall and support mon that can be made into setup fodder. Why does this not get Roar like Jolt/Vape?! It would help it so much. Charm is funny.
Last edited:
Between Hydro or Surf, I use surf only if Endpert is my only water, but with offCune will I use Hydro simply for water spam & bc it grants me 16 Hydros.: Lends itself to consistent teams for obvious reasons. Good variety with Curse/FP Sets for more offensive builds. EndPert trades up vs many teams but I hate the Surf vs Hydro conundrum. Still, it's cool that this thing has become a staple of spikeless offence.