SM UU Beta (Mewnium Z, Staraptor, Victini banned)

[UU ALL DAY]

This round of bans really made UU a lot more stable imo. I am starting to see a lot of different mons being used. Things like Celebi, Mew, Raikou, and Volcanion are getting a lot more usage which is awesome. The fact that different play styles, mons, and sets are viable makes UU really enjoyable. I've seen some rain spam, some hazard stack + priority spam, and even balanced and stall teams. Before these bans, bare hyper offense was the dominate play style.

At first, I thought Volcanion was such a huge threat, but after playing with and against it for some time now, I don't think it's too bad. It's a great wall breaker, sure, but it isn't so different to things like Victini (mixed or CB), Specs Primarina, and things like that. Running a Z move or non choice specs makes it lose so much power, and locking yourself into specs isn't so great considering one of its best asset is its diverse movepool.

I am surprised I haven't been seeing too many Brelooms or Thundurus, but I have been seeing a lot of Krook + Cobalion lately, which is pretty nice considering how dominate these mons were back in ORAS UU. It shows that the power creep isn't too bad!

The only things I would suspect that are gonna get quick banned would be things like Thundurus-T and maybe something like Bisharp. Other than that, the beta is going pretty nicely. I think as more and more people play, we will see a lot of cool different sets. On a side now, flame orb Conk is pretty great now thanks to the "buff" burn got for these type of mons.

In terms of things being suspected in the future, I am fairly confident things like Victini, Drizzle, Drought, and Togekiss may be suspected, but that's for another day.

 

[Moutemoute]

Agree with Drizzle & Drought. There both really difficult to handle, especially if you don't have anything on your team to delay and waste turns of weather.
Things like Kabutops Rockium Z / LO SD on the rain or Victini Band / Scarf / Mixed or Growth / Z-Celebrate Venusaur on the sun are a real pain.

I'm not sure if Bisharp deserve the quick ban, he gets couterted by Cobalion (pls don't answer me "Yeah but he can have some fighting coverage" cuz we all know Bisharp isn't played with that in the actual UU, he only has STAB : Iron Head, Sucker Punch, K-Off, Pursuit etc..) + Keldeo, Mew, Hippodown (can be flinch by Iron Head ofc), Conkeldurr, Krookodile, Infernape and Breloom can handle it.
Thundurus-T is cleary a huge threat in the Metagame but like Bisharp, I'm not sure he deserved to be quick banned. Scarf is a great Revenge Killer for sure but he get countered / checked, same for Double Dance who don't have a great coverage. To my mind, we need to wait a little bit more to see if thing thing deserve or not his quick ban.

 

[Dracma127]

With a bit more time since the ban, I've noticed the next "big three" of the tier seems to be Bisharp, Volcanion and Victini.

Bisharp's excellent STAB and setup are quite scary to deal with, and combined w/ a ghost type can permanently keep hazards on the field. Just weakening a check or two is enough to let him go nuts.

Volanion's typing and movepool is what makes it so damn good. Fire/Water typing + water immunity makes it the perfect partner for a ground type, eating ice and water type attacks and capable of launching high-power STAB attacks in return. Throw in Grassium Z, and the only thing that can switch into Volc are dragon types.

Victini... well, you probably already know why. The sheer wallbreaking and revenge killing potential in V-Create is scary to consider, and has other moves to take advantage of besides that.

They're threatening enough that I'm more than expecting the next banwave to get them, but there are ways to handle these for the time being. Running a Cobalion/Latias core helps handle all of these threats, while also providing hazard control and offensive momentum. Throwing in a grass type also helps check the increasing popularity of Breloom (Decidueye/Dhelmise for fighting immunity), though it's hardly as worrisome as the above three.

 

[PShine]

Even though the tier doesn't have anything extremely broken right now, I believe Victini and Togekiss deserve the "honor" of being sumo UU's first suspect test.
I don't have much trouble with Victini myself, since 100 speed gets worse every gen, V-Create kills your momentum, and a weakness to Dark-Type attacks always suck. However, it has several set options, 100 Bulk all-round is deceptively good, and V-Create DO hurt a lot, making your check switch into Victini surprisingly hard.
As for Togekiss, beating it sums up to faster Electric-types or bust. Togekiss can Nasty Plot her away through most Special walls, Thunder Wave anything faster and make the Flinch chance even more likely to happen, Roost away most damage, or carry a coverage move to beat things who resist Air Slash. Add to that defensive stats that Let It somewhat easily survive super-effective attacks, and Togekiss is a true menace.

 

[fanyfan]

Why do people keep saying that Bisharp is such a big issue? It's not like uu is lacking in fighting types to check it. Conkeldurr, Cobalion, Bewear, Infernape, Keldeo, Breloom, Mienshao, and Lucario are all options that beat Bisharp 1v1. And it's not like fighters are the only way to check Bish. There's bulky grounds like Hippo and Swampert and fire types like Infernape, Volcanion, Entei, and Arcanine(?). There's a wide variety of checks and counters that, at least in my own personal experience, keep Bish in line. Not to say it isn't great, it is, but I don't think it's broken rn or deserving a quickban in the current state of the meta.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

I feel like both Togekiss and Victini are just good in the meta, but nowhere near as "broken" as they were in previous gens. The power creep really made them weaker (relative), but they still have things going for them. While Victini sports great bulk, good speed tier, good movepool, it doesn't have the offensive capabilities of destroying offense like something like Scarf Keld.

Togekiss is great vs stall, has good typing, but things like scizor, bisharp, and even nidoqueen are able to take advantage of it quite nicely.

I've been seeing not too many Latias and Keldeos which is a surprise, since they are great mons. Those, while really good, I don't see as too borked either. I feel like the meta has settled down really nicely, and the qbs and suspects will probably have a decent amount of time between them.

 

[Amane Misa]

please no hate ^^

Since everyone is spamming fast offensive teams, I decided to make a trick room team. I have built a trick room team and played with it on my alt on the high ladder (top~100). In my opinion, trick room is really good right now.

Nobody prepares for it in this fast metagame.

I will provide some tips for trick room in this post...

Trick Room Setters:

Physical Trick Room Abusers:

Special Trick Room Abusers:

There are way more setters and abusers but these are the ones I can think of right now.

Sample Team:

Importable

Carbink @ Mental Herb
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Trick Room
- Explosion
- Toxic

Victini @ Life Orb
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- U-turn
- Trick Room

Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Crabhammer
- Knock Off
- Aqua Jet

Cresselia @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 40 Def / 220 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Lunar Dance

Drampa @ Life Orb
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Thunderbolt
- Flamethrower
- Roost

Description

I wanted to build a trick room team based on Victini because it's a deadly monster right now, though, I ended up making a dark spam team. oopsie ^^.

Carbink is the suicide lead. Against taunt users or pokémon that can OHKO or 2HKO Carbink, use trick room first and then set up rocks. In other cases, set up rocks first and only then use trick room.

Bisharp + Crawdaunt are really good partners. Both weaken each other's switch-ins (mainly Keldeo) and are extremely threatening under Trick Room.

Victini makes a really good partner for both. It can somewhat take Fighting type attacks while Crawdaunt and Bisharp can somewhat take Ghost type attacks. Not only that, Victini sets up trick room for them and weakens if not kills their common switch-ins such as Hippowdon.

I wanted something that can take hits, set up trick room and heal up my really offensive team so I could play pretty aggresive with it. Cresselia was the obvious choice here lol.

My entire abusers were physical so I wanted a special wallbreaker. Drampa seemed like a really good option. Its coverage it fantastic - you don't know what to expect from it. It is really slow so it can outspeed min speed Araquanid under trick room (Araquanid gives some troubles to my team).

Have fun! Hope you enjoy it!

 

[Samoyed]

Why Carbink over Diancie?

 

[guan123]

Also of note for special trick room abusers include dragalge (adaptability) and exeggutor-alola. Crabominable, Araquanid, and Machamp could work for physical TR abusers but those are much more niche.

 

[Kink]

In Gen 7, Diancie can learn Explosion from:

• anywhere (all moves are level-up/tutor/TM/HM in gen 7)

 

[Saria]

I've been using Z-Thunderbolt Thundurus-T and shit is legitimately stupid.

Thundurus-Therian @ Electrium Z
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Thunderbolt
- Agility
- Grass Knot

You cannot use bulky teams vs that Pokemon; it doesn't even need coverage to brute force its way through everything.

+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 92 SpD Amoonguss: 366-431 (84.9 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 522-615 (73.1 - 86.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Celebi: 312-367 (77.2 - 90.8%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

And it holds it weight vs offense with minimal support.

252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 135-160 (44.8 - 53.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Hydreigon: 185-218 (56.9 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

That's pretty much the best offense has vs +2 Spe Thundurus-T, and regular Tbolt does a significant amount of chip damage. Even the usual "naturally fat Pokemon" die.

252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Victini: 339-400 (99.4 - 117.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 372-438 (102.1 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I've been running it with Memento and Tailwind support, so getting to +2+2 isn't that hard and that point offense just gets rolled over. You can't give this Pokemon any free turn or you lose.

Staraptor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- Return / Double Edge

This mon is still insane vs offense.

252 Atk Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raikou: 140-165 (43.6 - 51.4%) -- 65.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aerodactyl-Mega: 127-150 (42.1 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

You click Brave Bird, you get a kill. Your opp lacks priority, you get 2+ kills or 1 kill + 90% of the HP of most Pokemon.

Fat teams fare better against this, but I've been running Staraptor + the aforementioned Thundurus-T, so not like those kind of teams worry me at all. I haven't used Normal STAB once.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

I've been playing with rain lately.

Prior to this, I was under the impression that rain is probably the most broken of all the weathers. It allows swift swim abusers to run free, boosts up water type attacks, and makes fire types pretty neutered. To add onto this, it allows fire weak Pokes to have a bit more of a defensive presence. Things like Scizor and Celebi are able to stomach a weak fire type attack without being punished as harshly. Because of this, I thought rain would be a dominate force and should go, as it did in the previous gens.

After playing with it, I do not think drizzle is overpowered or broken, but I do think it should be suspected in the future. Here are some reason why I think rain isn't as dangerous as I originally thought:

1.) Rain is almost always limited to hyper offense. Since XY, the auto-weather ability nerfs made weather weaker in general. Without the ability to permanently summon weather, game play puts an emphasis on keeping the weather inducer alive, while the other player has to take out the weather inducer. Because of the average stats of most weather inducers in the lower tiers (ie toed, or ninetales (both forms), the weather abuser must run hyper offense in order to beat down the opposition before losing their weather inducer.

Because toed will most likely be running damp rock, specs, scarf, or basically anything other than leftovers or chesto berry, the life of toed is pretty small. Switching into hazards to set up the weather, especially if the enemy has weather of their own, while having to stomach attacks with its average defenses, makes it quite easy to take out toed. This along with the fact that weather lasts 5-8 turns makes it more sensible to run some sort of offense in order to take away some reliance on toed.

Since hyper offense is the chosen play style for rain, it makes it just a different form of hyper offense, just like trick room is. This means rain is just another extremely effective, niche way to play hyper offense. I would draw similarity to deosharp in Gen 6.

2.) Weather abusers are not as effective outside of their weather. This one is pretty obvious, but it is an important reason why weather is not the dominate playstyle on the ladder (at least from my experience). Things like Stoutland in sand, Kabutops in rain, and Venusaur in the sun, aren't very good outside their weather. Stoutland basically runs CB or LO, and its able to run Adamant due to Sand rush, but if your sand ends, its basically a decently strong poke that has bad speed for a sweeper, bad defenses, and nothing else going for it. Even has a shallow movepool. I would argue that a weather abuser outside their respective weather is even worse than a TR mon outside of TR. At least in TR, the mon is always able to abuse their invested bulk, whether or not TR is set up. Kabutops is okay outside of rain, but waterfall isn't nearly as powerful outside the rain, and its speed is not doing it any huge favors, especially when running a neutral nature speed. These mons are strong, but things like Draco from Latias, CB Bullet Punch from Scizor, and LO Thunderbolt from Thundy-T are all a lot scarier.

3.) The tier has adequate answers to each weather. I played with Rain, and I always found things like Raikou, any set, was such a huge problem. A rain team needs Toed and a secondary inducer, so Tornadus. Need SR, so most likely going to grab a suicide lead like Azelf. Also need a swift swim abuser, so Kabutops is the way. Usually fat blobs are a problem to rain teams, so something like CB or SD Scizor could be thrown into the mix. Lastly, glue is needed to make the team stick. Putting something like Swampert to try to beat electric types just doesn't make too much sense, so something like Keldeo to abuse the power of rain is most likely a good choice. Things like Thundy-T and stuff just drop to Raikou, and teams don't need to just throw in Raikou just to keep rain in check; Raikou is a fantastic mon on its own. High speed, decent SpA, great typing and speed.

Things like Hippo and Ninetales can afford to switch in. Hippo has recovery. Even things like Gigalith can be bothered to switch in since the SpDef boost.

Latias is another great answer to most rain teams. Its natural special bulk, typing, and movepool allow it to match up well against rain teams.


I do think Rain should be suspected in the future because in my experience, Rain Hyper Offense is very effective against weather-less teams that lack proper rain counters. This isn't to say it's broken, but I do think people should prepare for Rain the same way teams should prepare for CB or SD Scizor, or CroCune back in gen 5 and 6. I find myself having to put hippo on a lot of my balanced teams because I want to give rain a run for its money, tho hippo is pretty awesome with reliable recovery, great typing, phasing, and stealth rocks!

Anyone have anything else to add regarding rain?

 

[Amane Misa]

Why Carbink over Diancie?

Diancie can be used but I like Carbink more because it has Sturdy.

I will add Diancie to the list though, thanks.

 

[tmacbalanced]

I think it's pretty interesting how through most of these bans, Salazzle has been getting a lot better. Salazzle isn't a great mon but, it can be decent/good depending on what kind of team it's going up against. VS Rain it sucks, that's obvious. Salazzle is pretty good vs fatter teams and hyper offensive teams, though, even stall can have some trouble against it due to it's typing. With base 117 speed, Salazzle finds itself outspeeding most of the meta. The base 108-115 speed tier an important speed tier to outspeed so having a mon that resists bullet/mach punch that blazes through this speed tier is really good. Obviously it has no bulk but, it does resist what it needs to to live and be a threat. Setting up nasty plot can be easy sometimes due to how many pokemon it forces out like, breloom, scizor, tsareena, forretress, and amoonguss. At +2 it can be quite the tough pokemon to take down due its speed and resistances to most common priorities (and you can get away with flame/toxic plate so you don't always have to run LO).
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Salazzle Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 343-406 (94.2 - 111.5%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Salazzle Dragon Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 264-312 (72.5 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Flame Plate Salazzle Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Raikou: 385-454 (119.9 - 141.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Toxic Plate Salazzle Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 363-427 (112.3 - 132.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Salazzle Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 394-464 (121.9 - 143.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Salazzle Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 199-234 (61.6 - 72.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

You'd be better off with HP Grass / HP Ice rather than Dragon Pulse IMO. HP Grass OHKOes Swampert most of the time after Spikes and Quagsire unconditionally if you're running a Life Orb or Expert Belt. HP Ice retains coverage on the Dragons, but also hits Ground types hard. You could also run Toxic, should you come across something you can't break you could just put it on a timer.

 

[tmacbalanced]

You'd be better off with HP Grass / HP Ice rather than Dragon Pulse IMO. HP Grass OHKOes Swampert most of the time after Spikes and Quagsire unconditionally if you're running a Life Orb or Expert Belt. HP Ice retains coverage on the Dragons, but also hits Ground types hard. You could also run Toxic, should you come across something you can't break you could just put it on a timer.

Dragon pulse is better than hp Ice against dragons tbh and fire blast will hit harder than hp ice against ground types. Hp grass is useful of course against swampert and quagsire, that goes without saying. I didn't really give a moveset in that post though, just provided some calcs on moves that I use on it. I tried hp ice tho before using dragon pulse and realized that 85 x2 is bigger than 60 x2. I tend to use d-pulse over hp grass though because latias, haxorus, and kokomo dragon have more usage than quagsire/gastrodon and swampert lacks recovery and will often be warned down before being used as a check to salazzle, considering how swampert is used for rocks, phazing, and scalding. If salazzle does become a threat though, then I could see people preserving swampert better for it.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

Since Pokémon Bank is now out, please stare in awe to our lovable pink floating blob, Mew, as he will be graduating from UU and reaching new heights of OU with his diploma in the Mewnium Z

 

[guan123]

Since Pokémon Bank is now out, please stare in awe to our lovable pink floating blob, Mew, as he will be graduating from UU and reaching new heights of OU with his diploma in the Mewnium Z

Sample set (I tried to get perfect neutral coverage with his other moves besides psychic)
Mew @ Mewnium Z
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Aura Sphere
- Nasty Plot
- Shadow Ball

 

[YABO]

Dragon pulse is better than hp Ice against dragons tbh and fire blast will hit harder than hp ice against ground types. Hp grass is useful of course against swampert and quagsire, that goes without saying. I didn't really give a moveset in that post though, just provided some calcs on moves that I use on it. I tried hp ice tho before using dragon pulse and realized that 85 x2 is bigger than 60 x2. I tend to use d-pulse over hp grass though because latias, haxorus, and kokomo dragon have more usage than quagsire/gastrodon and swampert lacks recovery and will often be warned down before being used as a check to salazzle, considering how swampert is used for rocks, phazing, and scalding. If salazzle does become a threat though, then I could see people preserving swampert better for it.

Try out Poisinium Z with that set. Just theory here but running Z Sludge Bomb gives you the power to one shot Lati after rocks while then freeing up the last slot to run HP Grass. Unfortunately it still cant touch Bliss but anything thats just supposed to be naturally bulky will drop.
+2 252 SpA Salazzle Acid Downpour vs. 252 HP / 136+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 280-331 (74.8 - 88.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Salazzle Acid Downpour vs. 72 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 408-480 (127.8 - 150.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

I hope people here know now that Body Slam HA Tauros is legal, getting an amazing normal STAB move which works with Sheer Force

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

What's the point - with Pokebank you can run Rock Climb which is even stronger albeit less accurate.

Question about the Pokebank - do the Pokémon exported from Red / Blue / Yellow Virtual Console have their hidden abilities, and are genders randomised?

 

[guan123]

I hope people here know now that Body Slam HA Tauros is legal, getting an amazing normal STAB move which works with Sheer Force

Tauros will be RU at best (I don't think that would break NU due to the power creep coming into NU this gen). Don't see why you would ever use Tauros over Snorlax. Anyone try flame body moltres? (HA, will be available from virtual console transfer.) This could deter physical attacks but honestly moltres' worst enemy (rock and water moves) are usually non-contact.

 

[DiscoDucky]

What's the point - with Pokebank you can run Rock Climb which is even stronger albeit less accurate.

Question about the Pokebank - do the Pokémon exported from Red / Blue / Yellow Virtual Console have their hidden abilities, and are genders randomised?

A loss of 15% accuracy for only a 10 BP increase is hardly worth it if Hiddenfreezer's claim is true.

 

[6ft Torbjorn]

What's the point - with Pokebank you can run Rock Climb which is even stronger albeit less accurate.

Question about the Pokebank - do the Pokémon exported from Red / Blue / Yellow Virtual Console have their hidden abilities, and are genders randomised?

Depends on what you want on your team, or what risks you want to take. By your logic Azu would be running Aqua Tail over Waterfall tbh.

Also yes G1 transfers have their hidden ability. Gender... I'm not sure tho.

 

[MaroGod]

Tauros will never be relevant to g7 uu
Tauros will very unlikely be relevant to g7 ru (wasnt last gen and the amount of power expected just drops it further)

As for the argument on power v accuracy dont start it...this is very dependent on the pokemon at hand some do require the power where others do not.