So yeah, I had to edit the OP. If you're interested in helping with the creation of a non-arbitrary NU tier, or are interested in playing a new metagame, click here!
Discussion thread okayed by Phuquoph.
With all the emphasis on resolving uber/OU and higher UU conflicts, there has been one topic that has been as neglected as the Pokémon in it: defining the NU tier. I find that there are several reasons that the NU tier needs to be defined, ignoring just the fact that the subject arises on the Tier Discussion – BL and UU sticky often. Amongst UU players, the decision to discuss and define the NU tier was unanimously positive. While there are many players out there objectively defining what they believe is NU vs. UU and its curious inclusion to the list of tiers on the site and even Shoddy, the time has come to drag this topic out for discussion.
Why is it necessary to discuss this anyways?
One of the reasons that it does something beneficial to define NU is the current size of UU. From Smogon’s own statistics, the tiers read as follows:
Tier & #of Pokémon
Uber 18
Overused (OU) 49
Borderline (BL) 58
Underused (UU) 150
Neverused (NU) 0
Limbo 0
Not Fully Evolved (NFE) 223
Many UU players have commented that the vast majority of those included in the UU tier are either unviable or simply just not used. Splitting up the sheer number of UU Pokémon could also assist in highlighting the real threats of UU, making any BLs selected to test in UU a bit easier or for new players to situate themselves into UU team building.
Moreover, Smogon constantly strives to be the premier competitive Pokémon community. There is no other competitive site that has a clearly defined NU tier; even UU Stadium, a community sometimes frequented by premier UU players, states:
Seeing as the Tier Discussion sticky often brings the subject up, as well as many people questioning what exactly NU is and expressing the desire to participate in it, there certainly is the interest and enthusiasm. Once again, amongst UU players, novice and prominent alike, it was unanimous that filling the gap between what truly is UU and what is NU would be beneficial, and perhaps attract even more new interest into the lower tiers if we were to obtain our own discussion thread, the one you are viewing right now and reading this huge block of text.
What defines an NU?
NUs are generally Pokémon who are considered unviable to compete even in the standard UU environment. Although the purpose of this thread is to discuss some of the more controversial ones, obvious Pokémon stand out. For example, Pokémon like Ditto and Unown have awful base stats and such a movepool with only one move. Other examples include the ever-popular (for jokes) Luvdisc, Pachirisu, Delibird, and Volbeat. Because there is no UU ladder, we cannot objectively place a UU Pokémon into NU simply due to lack of usage: but after all, an unviable Pokémon simply isn’t used because it doesn’t work!
So NU is basically the bottom of the barrel? How can it be competitive or any fun?
Because NU is also by far the most versatile of all the tiers and is plenty of fun. It is pretty decentralized, meaning that you do not have to worry about a certain Pokémon or strategy sweeping away your entire team like in OU or UU, but you still have to prepare for certain things. Not every NU Pokémon are as extreme as the examples listed above; they in fact are very useful team members whose reason for unviability simply results from being outclassed by another staple UU Pokémon. In fact, the examples listed above are the bottom of the bottom. The beauty of NU is that it involves strategy more so than setting up a super-powerful sweeper or preventing from the opponent from doing so as can be the case in higher tiers. Note that several NU Pokémon have huge movepools but lack the stats the use them in UU, so creativity is also encouraged in team-building.
Ok, so there’s some Magikarp grade competition that are definitely in NU. But how do we determine what stays in UU and what goes to NU?
As mentioned before, that’s what this thread is for: determining what really does belong in NU and what should be banned, i.e. remain in UU exclusively. There are some obvious UU staples that we would never even consider to include into NU: Scyther, Lanturn, Meganium, etc. We will post a rough draft tier list containing Pokémon that should not be discussed at all, but anything else is up for discussion and we encourage you to bring up anything truly questionable. But please, provide solid reasoning why you think something belongs in UU or NU: remember, the reason why this thread was made was to clearly define the NU tier, not throw out purely objective opinions like “This Pokémon is absolutely terrible, I’ve never seen it used by anyone anyways, and that’s why it should be in NU!” As always, it is highly preferable that you have actually had some battling experience with the Pokémon you are talking about, but sometimes we all have to just fall back on theorymon.
As soon as Cynthia posts the tier list, happy discussing the neglected and rejected!
Discussion thread okayed by Phuquoph.
With all the emphasis on resolving uber/OU and higher UU conflicts, there has been one topic that has been as neglected as the Pokémon in it: defining the NU tier. I find that there are several reasons that the NU tier needs to be defined, ignoring just the fact that the subject arises on the Tier Discussion – BL and UU sticky often. Amongst UU players, the decision to discuss and define the NU tier was unanimously positive. While there are many players out there objectively defining what they believe is NU vs. UU and its curious inclusion to the list of tiers on the site and even Shoddy, the time has come to drag this topic out for discussion.
Why is it necessary to discuss this anyways?
One of the reasons that it does something beneficial to define NU is the current size of UU. From Smogon’s own statistics, the tiers read as follows:
Tier & #of Pokémon
Uber 18
Overused (OU) 49
Borderline (BL) 58
Underused (UU) 150
Neverused (NU) 0
Limbo 0
Not Fully Evolved (NFE) 223
Many UU players have commented that the vast majority of those included in the UU tier are either unviable or simply just not used. Splitting up the sheer number of UU Pokémon could also assist in highlighting the real threats of UU, making any BLs selected to test in UU a bit easier or for new players to situate themselves into UU team building.
Moreover, Smogon constantly strives to be the premier competitive Pokémon community. There is no other competitive site that has a clearly defined NU tier; even UU Stadium, a community sometimes frequented by premier UU players, states:
There is much to disagree with this statement: the fact that a rough draft list compiled by Cynthia and myself that consists of only uncontroversial definite NUs (that is: we made a rough draft list consisting of only Pokémon that clearly belong in either UU or NU, and dumped anything that could be debated into a borderline list to be discussed if such an official thread were ever created) consists of about 55 Pokémon only proves that whatever NU tier that comes into fruition would certainly be more diverse and interesting to play than past NU metagames, and that there is the diversity to actually be distinct from UU rather than a nonessential split.
Seeing as the Tier Discussion sticky often brings the subject up, as well as many people questioning what exactly NU is and expressing the desire to participate in it, there certainly is the interest and enthusiasm. Once again, amongst UU players, novice and prominent alike, it was unanimous that filling the gap between what truly is UU and what is NU would be beneficial, and perhaps attract even more new interest into the lower tiers if we were to obtain our own discussion thread, the one you are viewing right now and reading this huge block of text.
What defines an NU?
NUs are generally Pokémon who are considered unviable to compete even in the standard UU environment. Although the purpose of this thread is to discuss some of the more controversial ones, obvious Pokémon stand out. For example, Pokémon like Ditto and Unown have awful base stats and such a movepool with only one move. Other examples include the ever-popular (for jokes) Luvdisc, Pachirisu, Delibird, and Volbeat. Because there is no UU ladder, we cannot objectively place a UU Pokémon into NU simply due to lack of usage: but after all, an unviable Pokémon simply isn’t used because it doesn’t work!
So NU is basically the bottom of the barrel? How can it be competitive or any fun?
Because NU is also by far the most versatile of all the tiers and is plenty of fun. It is pretty decentralized, meaning that you do not have to worry about a certain Pokémon or strategy sweeping away your entire team like in OU or UU, but you still have to prepare for certain things. Not every NU Pokémon are as extreme as the examples listed above; they in fact are very useful team members whose reason for unviability simply results from being outclassed by another staple UU Pokémon. In fact, the examples listed above are the bottom of the bottom. The beauty of NU is that it involves strategy more so than setting up a super-powerful sweeper or preventing from the opponent from doing so as can be the case in higher tiers. Note that several NU Pokémon have huge movepools but lack the stats the use them in UU, so creativity is also encouraged in team-building.
Ok, so there’s some Magikarp grade competition that are definitely in NU. But how do we determine what stays in UU and what goes to NU?
As mentioned before, that’s what this thread is for: determining what really does belong in NU and what should be banned, i.e. remain in UU exclusively. There are some obvious UU staples that we would never even consider to include into NU: Scyther, Lanturn, Meganium, etc. We will post a rough draft tier list containing Pokémon that should not be discussed at all, but anything else is up for discussion and we encourage you to bring up anything truly questionable. But please, provide solid reasoning why you think something belongs in UU or NU: remember, the reason why this thread was made was to clearly define the NU tier, not throw out purely objective opinions like “This Pokémon is absolutely terrible, I’ve never seen it used by anyone anyways, and that’s why it should be in NU!” As always, it is highly preferable that you have actually had some battling experience with the Pokémon you are talking about, but sometimes we all have to just fall back on theorymon.
As soon as Cynthia posts the tier list, happy discussing the neglected and rejected!
