extremely early post on gsc but considering that gsc zu is as active as its gonna be atm ill go ahead and give my 2 cents on problematic mons in the meta. im not going to be advocating for a qb or any specific tiering action because its far too early to assert that a mon should be banned, so i will only suggest whether or not a mon should be placed on the council's radar.
its not even controversial to argue that this is the most problematic of the new drops gsc zu has seen. Being able to consistently pass boosts to teammates with little counterplay makes it difficult to play around. More importantly, most of eevee's passers are not niche, and are incredibly prominent in the meta, allowing eevee to consistently pass to a majority of a team in order to secure victory.
growth pass beneficiaries 
The problem with eevee stems from the prominence of special attackers in RBY ZU. Many teams just have a lot of fast special attackers which greatly benefit from growth passing. This becomes problematic, when teams which utilize growth pass are freed of a notable constraint which growth pass, or any baton pass heavy team typically have. Instead of being forced to play around your designated growth pass receiver, most teams are chalked full of special attackers, meaning you go from playing a 4:6, to playing a 5:6, a position which can much more easily be played around. You're able to play much more frivolously, as eevee can easily pass to any of the special attackers on a team.
However, I'd be a fool not to mention the by far most oppressive recipient of growth pass in the tier, who's counterplay is extremely bare, and is often able to easily sweep, voltorb. To put it simply, at a +1 boost voltorb is easily able to easily clean and blow past many of the bulky mons in the tier if you bring it out in late, or even mid game. Most of its counterplay centers around either holding on to your bulky grass or other check until late game, or trading with your own voltorb to counter it.
Staryu, Charmeleon and other special attackers are able to make similar progress, albeit to a lesser extent due to lacking voltorb's speed tier. These do require significantly more thought to utilize, as they are often better as wallbreakers, and don't instantly win games in the same way that voltorb can, but nonetheless can still be utilized to a similar extent with only a slight increase in required forethought.
Of course, with the difference in success between special attackers in the tier, it should come into question whether or not this is a voltorb problem, and not a problem with eevee as a whole. After all, banning eevee will undoubtedly heavily tank growth pass viability within GSC ZU as a whole. Although I do think that Voltorb is worthy of coming under some amount of ban speculation, it is not exclusively the only mon which is made problematic by growth pass. Keep in mind that the difference in effectiveness between voltorb and growth pass recipient is only that of outright broken compared to offensively oppressive with little counterplay. These growth pass recipients can very easily break through teams when an opponent's team loses a defensive check or counter. Even when teams are able to play around these mons, the growth pass abusing team will inevitably have enough growth pass recipients to permit them to abuse the opponent's counterplay. Think of it sort of like the scenario: The opponent keeps their staryu alive and healthy in order to counter a suspected growth pass charmeleon in the back, but in the process they have made their own team vulnerable to a potential staryu sweep by being forced to play around their staryu counters to prevent Charmeleon from winning. Utilizing voltorb to counter these offensive baton passers does seem like a solid option, but now you are similarly sacrificing one of your strongest offensive mons, putting you at a major disadvantage late game.
Counterplay 
Easily the most consistent counterplay to eevee is use of phasing, mostly being done by onix. Right now, Onix can consistently gain an entry point on eevee and phase it out. Unfortunately, this is where the phasing counterplay ends, or at least the top tier phasing counterplay, that is.If your team isn't able to slot onix, your phasing options drop significantly. Croconaw is the second mon which comes to mind as a potential phaser, but slotting it on a team is far more difficult, as you'll always be doubling up on waters due to staryu being on every team. Other roar users are similarly niche and/or hard to slot onto your teams, especially considering the opportunity cost you undergo by giving up a slot which could otherwise be used by a major threat in the meta. Still, I don't think these are impossible to slot onto teams, and rather just create a momentum depression that a lot of teams are forced to account for in order to consistently account for eevee.
Haze is able to function similarly to phasing moves, but really ends up amplifying a problem which both phasing and haze have. This problem is that you always have to bring these mons in on eevee turn 1, because if the gpass abuser is able to pass, phasers can easily be put out of commission by the high power level of the gpass recipients, I bring this up with the haze users, because barley any of them can consitently beat the meta gpass recipients. Even the water-type hazers struggle to come in on charmeleon due to its physical prowess. Nevermind the fact that a majority of the hazers & phasers play a critical role in a team's core, meaning they're overall susceptible to being weakened throughout a game, further forcing them into responding to eevee while still possible. This further creates a momentum depression in the phase/hazer user's team, exacerbating the gpass user's team. This ends up shifting the match in favor of the gpass user even though you are running the designated gpass counter.
And finally, there's the most consistent inconsistent counter play to eevee, offensively checking it. I actually do think that this is the best way to beat growth pass. It's one of the only ways to beat it without sacrificing to opportunity cost on your team. This way doesn't kill your momentum, and allows you to maintain access to strong options into your opponents. Is it consistent considering that eevee can still reliably pass on a lot of the prominent mons which make up defensive cores on offense? Not at all, but it leads to your team suffering less than actually running a gpass counter.
Conclusion on eevee
Eevee enables far too much of the tier to allow for any consistent counterplay. GSC ZU, in its current state, is defined heavily by offensively potent special attackers, which are boosted to broken levels with access to the boosts from growth pass. Counterplay is either easy to capitalize on by gpass teams, or inconsistent as all hell. I am in favor of Eevee being placed front and center on the council's radar, I believe it should be
DISCLAIMER: I'd recommend going into the next two with a fresh mind, because they are comparatively quite tame when contrasted with eevee. Still, I do think both of these are worth being looked into in the future.
Is that another mon in gsc which is problematic due to an incredibly wide range of options at their disposal, making counterplay inconsistent? Compared to the two other potential suspects, beedrill is oddly enough, the most counter able of the suspects in the meta, with actual checks and counters. It also helps that bee isn't really connected to eevee all that much, allowing it to be better analyzed without the others presence
Set Diversity on the strongest wallbreaker in the tier
I think it's important to point out what set diversity looks like when you're running a mon a strong as beedrill, because it really does turn this thing from being strong to being broken. Now don't get it confused, beedrill is far from the only mon to have this level of set diversity, if anything bee really isn't all that special, but what this does do for beedrill is make a large difference in response from the opposition.
Lets first look at the response to Bee's wallbreaker sets. Typically, depending on the set you can quite consistently beat it by revenge killing with charmeleon, because bee isn't going to be running that agillity to try and clean up the game, meaning that bee ends up being somewhat threatening, but not necessarily your typical definition of a wincon. You beat this type of bee with momentum and properly calling out and sacriaficing the right mons at the right time. Now, if you take this mentlity and try to beat double dance bee with it, then you open yourself up to get cooked by bee's setup if you don't play your cards correctly, and this isn't hard to do on the bee user's behalf, because bee boasts very solid vbulk, allowing it to go toe to ote with amajority of the tier. This mix-up ends up being amplified by bee's strong stats, which are what in the end makes it very problematic for the tier.
Polarity in counters 
Rather than talk about what the checks and counters of bee actually do, I think it's much more important to understand how they play into the matchcup as a whole. This may be kind of unclear, so I'll try to explain it. Bee is not un-counterable, in fact its sets can pretty easily be stopped by a handfull of mons in the tier. The issue with bee, is the exclusivity in counters. With a many mons in the tier, not directly packing an awnser can be made up for with proper counterplay and making the correct call-outs in game. This is a major component of teambuilding which you must account for in basically every tier. Where beedrill differs from this formula, is it exclusively has counters. A large majority of the tier, can't break through beedrill because they don't pack the offensive ability to break such a bulky mon. This gives beedrill a ton of opportunities to come in and sit on the opposition.
This is further amplified by the set diversity which beedrill possesses, which not only can change which of its counters it can effectively hits, but also completely changes the role which it has in a game, further making the already exclusive counterplay that much more exclusive. This ends up making certain games come down to what is almost a dice roll, because beedrill can sit on more than half of the tier and setup. This makes beedrill need to be answered as soon as possible. Compounding this, his answers are either too offensive to switch in, or lack sufficient recovery to not be hassled by it. And that's not even it. Beedrill also packs enough move pool variety, so it can even counter a lot of the common bulkier mons.
Beedrill can be answered, in many games, but it is so bulky, and so diverse that it is both easy to get in, and simultaneously difficult to call out. I am in favor of beedrill being placed on the radar.
Voltorb is actually pretty hard to quantify as to why it is a problem for the tier, because its good attributes are spread so thin, that it's easy to be overlooked. To add insult to injury, it is the most impacted by eevee's presence in the meta
The impact of pseudo-boltbeam in a tier defined by waters
It can be tempting to look at voltorb as a simple late game cleaner with low offenses and a good speed stat as no different from the others, but i do think that a few things push it over the edge in many areas. The problem is that they're spread relatively thin across all areas of voltorb, making it kind of hard to pin down what is exactly so strong about it. For starters, we need to look at what voltorb's pseudo-boltbeam does versus the meta.
The pseudo-bolt beam (HP-Ice + tbolt) is extremely oppressive in the current meta, as it allows voltorb to hit a majority of the bulky mons in the tier. HP Ice can deal some pretty good damage to mosts of the grasses in the tier. Keep in mind, that these grasses are going to be incredibly low at the end of the game to play into orb's low damage. But even under the presumption that your opponent managed to keep the grasses somewhat healthy, orb still does maintain the sufficient bulk to chunk a handfull of the opponent's hits, meaning you can reverse a bad grass MU.
And while HP ice isn't necessarily the strongest mon, I do feel like the strength of STAB tbolt can't be understated in the meta right now, anything it doesn't hit with tbolt, it can hit with HP Ice. I do think the main problem with voltorb is that its counterplay sort of doesn't exist, especially as late into the game as it comes out. Late game voltorb's main counter is opposing voltorb coming in and trading with it, otherwise you're forced to run the game 5:6 to counter it in the late game.
Late game centralization
A lot of what is truly problematic with orb does end up appearing far later into a game than usual. Without eevee, orb isn't blatantly broken and easily able to win games, but it does lead to late game being heavily centralized around its success. Orb's bulk plays a really important role into this, because it allows it to easily 1v1 the late game offensive mons which would usually be able to trade with orb. Mons which are hit neutrally by orb and fire back just can't 1hko orb in the late game, meaning most of the time games end up coming down to an orb 1v1. This centralization can end up restricting the late game to a very binary meta which could be problematic for gsc zu.
But didn't we already have this before?
The main difference between orb and mons like diglett is that while diglett did have similar coverage in quakeslide, diglett lacked the ability to hit the bulkiest mons in the tier super-effectively with STAB. Similarly, Diglett did not fall out of a coconut tree, diglett existed in the context of a meta which was far less offensively oriented then the one today. Orb hits some of the strongest mons in the tier super-effectively with STAB, and the main mons which can awnser it are constantly being pressured due to the presence of waters hitting the field almost every other turn. it's definitely a difference of context rather than outright power.
Conclusion on Voltorb
orb is definitely the least quantitatively problematic mon in GSC ZU right now. I do think that its speed tier and solid stats should have it be looked at as a potentially broken mon. While I wouldn't be opposed to voltorb being on the council's radar, I do also believe that any tiering decisions involving voltorb would greatly benefit from experimentation after decisions are made on eevee.
General Conclusion
Overall, I do think that the meta is in an incredibly volatile state at the moment, and I do still definitely believe that we need time to develop our positions on what is and isn't healthy. The goal of this analysis is not to directly call for any bans or tiering action to take place within GSC ZU. The goal of this is to call to attention potentially problematic mons within the tier, who should be further investigated to determine whether or not they are truly problematic for the tier. Calling for an outright ban or other tiering action this early into the new metagame is, for lack of a better term, stupid and definitely jumping the gun. I'd encourage others to further develop their ideas because this forum post is far from gospel.
> However everything else I've said is gospel just not this forum post.
its not even controversial to argue that this is the most problematic of the new drops gsc zu has seen. Being able to consistently pass boosts to teammates with little counterplay makes it difficult to play around. More importantly, most of eevee's passers are not niche, and are incredibly prominent in the meta, allowing eevee to consistently pass to a majority of a team in order to secure victory.
growth pass beneficiaries The problem with eevee stems from the prominence of special attackers in RBY ZU. Many teams just have a lot of fast special attackers which greatly benefit from growth passing. This becomes problematic, when teams which utilize growth pass are freed of a notable constraint which growth pass, or any baton pass heavy team typically have. Instead of being forced to play around your designated growth pass receiver, most teams are chalked full of special attackers, meaning you go from playing a 4:6, to playing a 5:6, a position which can much more easily be played around. You're able to play much more frivolously, as eevee can easily pass to any of the special attackers on a team.
However, I'd be a fool not to mention the by far most oppressive recipient of growth pass in the tier, who's counterplay is extremely bare, and is often able to easily sweep, voltorb. To put it simply, at a +1 boost voltorb is easily able to easily clean and blow past many of the bulky mons in the tier if you bring it out in late, or even mid game. Most of its counterplay centers around either holding on to your bulky grass or other check until late game, or trading with your own voltorb to counter it.
Staryu, Charmeleon and other special attackers are able to make similar progress, albeit to a lesser extent due to lacking voltorb's speed tier. These do require significantly more thought to utilize, as they are often better as wallbreakers, and don't instantly win games in the same way that voltorb can, but nonetheless can still be utilized to a similar extent with only a slight increase in required forethought.
Of course, with the difference in success between special attackers in the tier, it should come into question whether or not this is a voltorb problem, and not a problem with eevee as a whole. After all, banning eevee will undoubtedly heavily tank growth pass viability within GSC ZU as a whole. Although I do think that Voltorb is worthy of coming under some amount of ban speculation, it is not exclusively the only mon which is made problematic by growth pass. Keep in mind that the difference in effectiveness between voltorb and growth pass recipient is only that of outright broken compared to offensively oppressive with little counterplay. These growth pass recipients can very easily break through teams when an opponent's team loses a defensive check or counter. Even when teams are able to play around these mons, the growth pass abusing team will inevitably have enough growth pass recipients to permit them to abuse the opponent's counterplay. Think of it sort of like the scenario: The opponent keeps their staryu alive and healthy in order to counter a suspected growth pass charmeleon in the back, but in the process they have made their own team vulnerable to a potential staryu sweep by being forced to play around their staryu counters to prevent Charmeleon from winning. Utilizing voltorb to counter these offensive baton passers does seem like a solid option, but now you are similarly sacrificing one of your strongest offensive mons, putting you at a major disadvantage late game.
Counterplay Easily the most consistent counterplay to eevee is use of phasing, mostly being done by onix. Right now, Onix can consistently gain an entry point on eevee and phase it out. Unfortunately, this is where the phasing counterplay ends, or at least the top tier phasing counterplay, that is.If your team isn't able to slot onix, your phasing options drop significantly. Croconaw is the second mon which comes to mind as a potential phaser, but slotting it on a team is far more difficult, as you'll always be doubling up on waters due to staryu being on every team. Other roar users are similarly niche and/or hard to slot onto your teams, especially considering the opportunity cost you undergo by giving up a slot which could otherwise be used by a major threat in the meta. Still, I don't think these are impossible to slot onto teams, and rather just create a momentum depression that a lot of teams are forced to account for in order to consistently account for eevee.
Haze is able to function similarly to phasing moves, but really ends up amplifying a problem which both phasing and haze have. This problem is that you always have to bring these mons in on eevee turn 1, because if the gpass abuser is able to pass, phasers can easily be put out of commission by the high power level of the gpass recipients, I bring this up with the haze users, because barley any of them can consitently beat the meta gpass recipients. Even the water-type hazers struggle to come in on charmeleon due to its physical prowess. Nevermind the fact that a majority of the hazers & phasers play a critical role in a team's core, meaning they're overall susceptible to being weakened throughout a game, further forcing them into responding to eevee while still possible. This further creates a momentum depression in the phase/hazer user's team, exacerbating the gpass user's team. This ends up shifting the match in favor of the gpass user even though you are running the designated gpass counter.
And finally, there's the most consistent inconsistent counter play to eevee, offensively checking it. I actually do think that this is the best way to beat growth pass. It's one of the only ways to beat it without sacrificing to opportunity cost on your team. This way doesn't kill your momentum, and allows you to maintain access to strong options into your opponents. Is it consistent considering that eevee can still reliably pass on a lot of the prominent mons which make up defensive cores on offense? Not at all, but it leads to your team suffering less than actually running a gpass counter.
Conclusion on eevee Eevee enables far too much of the tier to allow for any consistent counterplay. GSC ZU, in its current state, is defined heavily by offensively potent special attackers, which are boosted to broken levels with access to the boosts from growth pass. Counterplay is either easy to capitalize on by gpass teams, or inconsistent as all hell. I am in favor of Eevee being placed front and center on the council's radar, I believe it should be
WARNING: This does not have anything to do with the reasons for banning eevee, but rather the impact the eevee question has on the meta currently
I think it's worth noting that eevee is an incredibly large question for the meta right now, and I think that it really does mess up the meta perspective on other potentially problematic mons. It creates a sort of "Clouding effect" which makes it hard to visualize a meta without it. And of course, this is true with every meta in existence when suspecting a mon, but I do think here it is especially prominent, because eevee directly plays a role in other top tiers influence in GSC ZU. If the meta continues to play out as it has in the past week, I believe it would be beneficial to answer the eevee question first.
I think it's worth noting that eevee is an incredibly large question for the meta right now, and I think that it really does mess up the meta perspective on other potentially problematic mons. It creates a sort of "Clouding effect" which makes it hard to visualize a meta without it. And of course, this is true with every meta in existence when suspecting a mon, but I do think here it is especially prominent, because eevee directly plays a role in other top tiers influence in GSC ZU. If the meta continues to play out as it has in the past week, I believe it would be beneficial to answer the eevee question first.
DISCLAIMER: I'd recommend going into the next two with a fresh mind, because they are comparatively quite tame when contrasted with eevee. Still, I do think both of these are worth being looked into in the future.
Is that another mon in gsc which is problematic due to an incredibly wide range of options at their disposal, making counterplay inconsistent? Compared to the two other potential suspects, beedrill is oddly enough, the most counter able of the suspects in the meta, with actual checks and counters. It also helps that bee isn't really connected to eevee all that much, allowing it to be better analyzed without the others presence
Set Diversity on the strongest wallbreaker in the tier I think it's important to point out what set diversity looks like when you're running a mon a strong as beedrill, because it really does turn this thing from being strong to being broken. Now don't get it confused, beedrill is far from the only mon to have this level of set diversity, if anything bee really isn't all that special, but what this does do for beedrill is make a large difference in response from the opposition.
Lets first look at the response to Bee's wallbreaker sets. Typically, depending on the set you can quite consistently beat it by revenge killing with charmeleon, because bee isn't going to be running that agillity to try and clean up the game, meaning that bee ends up being somewhat threatening, but not necessarily your typical definition of a wincon. You beat this type of bee with momentum and properly calling out and sacriaficing the right mons at the right time. Now, if you take this mentlity and try to beat double dance bee with it, then you open yourself up to get cooked by bee's setup if you don't play your cards correctly, and this isn't hard to do on the bee user's behalf, because bee boasts very solid vbulk, allowing it to go toe to ote with amajority of the tier. This mix-up ends up being amplified by bee's strong stats, which are what in the end makes it very problematic for the tier.
Polarity in counters Rather than talk about what the checks and counters of bee actually do, I think it's much more important to understand how they play into the matchcup as a whole. This may be kind of unclear, so I'll try to explain it. Bee is not un-counterable, in fact its sets can pretty easily be stopped by a handfull of mons in the tier. The issue with bee, is the exclusivity in counters. With a many mons in the tier, not directly packing an awnser can be made up for with proper counterplay and making the correct call-outs in game. This is a major component of teambuilding which you must account for in basically every tier. Where beedrill differs from this formula, is it exclusively has counters. A large majority of the tier, can't break through beedrill because they don't pack the offensive ability to break such a bulky mon. This gives beedrill a ton of opportunities to come in and sit on the opposition.
This is further amplified by the set diversity which beedrill possesses, which not only can change which of its counters it can effectively hits, but also completely changes the role which it has in a game, further making the already exclusive counterplay that much more exclusive. This ends up making certain games come down to what is almost a dice roll, because beedrill can sit on more than half of the tier and setup. This makes beedrill need to be answered as soon as possible. Compounding this, his answers are either too offensive to switch in, or lack sufficient recovery to not be hassled by it. And that's not even it. Beedrill also packs enough move pool variety, so it can even counter a lot of the common bulkier mons.
Beedrill can be answered, in many games, but it is so bulky, and so diverse that it is both easy to get in, and simultaneously difficult to call out. I am in favor of beedrill being placed on the radar.
Voltorb is actually pretty hard to quantify as to why it is a problem for the tier, because its good attributes are spread so thin, that it's easy to be overlooked. To add insult to injury, it is the most impacted by eevee's presence in the meta
The impact of pseudo-boltbeam in a tier defined by waters It can be tempting to look at voltorb as a simple late game cleaner with low offenses and a good speed stat as no different from the others, but i do think that a few things push it over the edge in many areas. The problem is that they're spread relatively thin across all areas of voltorb, making it kind of hard to pin down what is exactly so strong about it. For starters, we need to look at what voltorb's pseudo-boltbeam does versus the meta.
The pseudo-bolt beam (HP-Ice + tbolt) is extremely oppressive in the current meta, as it allows voltorb to hit a majority of the bulky mons in the tier. HP Ice can deal some pretty good damage to mosts of the grasses in the tier. Keep in mind, that these grasses are going to be incredibly low at the end of the game to play into orb's low damage. But even under the presumption that your opponent managed to keep the grasses somewhat healthy, orb still does maintain the sufficient bulk to chunk a handfull of the opponent's hits, meaning you can reverse a bad grass MU.
And while HP ice isn't necessarily the strongest mon, I do feel like the strength of STAB tbolt can't be understated in the meta right now, anything it doesn't hit with tbolt, it can hit with HP Ice. I do think the main problem with voltorb is that its counterplay sort of doesn't exist, especially as late into the game as it comes out. Late game voltorb's main counter is opposing voltorb coming in and trading with it, otherwise you're forced to run the game 5:6 to counter it in the late game.
Late game centralization A lot of what is truly problematic with orb does end up appearing far later into a game than usual. Without eevee, orb isn't blatantly broken and easily able to win games, but it does lead to late game being heavily centralized around its success. Orb's bulk plays a really important role into this, because it allows it to easily 1v1 the late game offensive mons which would usually be able to trade with orb. Mons which are hit neutrally by orb and fire back just can't 1hko orb in the late game, meaning most of the time games end up coming down to an orb 1v1. This centralization can end up restricting the late game to a very binary meta which could be problematic for gsc zu.
But didn't we already have this before? The main difference between orb and mons like diglett is that while diglett did have similar coverage in quakeslide, diglett lacked the ability to hit the bulkiest mons in the tier super-effectively with STAB. Similarly, Diglett did not fall out of a coconut tree, diglett existed in the context of a meta which was far less offensively oriented then the one today. Orb hits some of the strongest mons in the tier super-effectively with STAB, and the main mons which can awnser it are constantly being pressured due to the presence of waters hitting the field almost every other turn. it's definitely a difference of context rather than outright power.
Conclusion on Voltorb orb is definitely the least quantitatively problematic mon in GSC ZU right now. I do think that its speed tier and solid stats should have it be looked at as a potentially broken mon. While I wouldn't be opposed to voltorb being on the council's radar, I do also believe that any tiering decisions involving voltorb would greatly benefit from experimentation after decisions are made on eevee.
Really just bringing this up because I think that voltorb's screen set is pretty much unproblematic right now. Like yes, it does enable the two mentioned above, but I do not think it's really exclusive to voltorb, and can more or less be replicated. On the flip side I do think that this in no way protects voltorb from tiering action, as this can be easily replicated by other mons. Still, I feel like the indifference this set poses should be mentioned.
General Conclusion
Overall, I do think that the meta is in an incredibly volatile state at the moment, and I do still definitely believe that we need time to develop our positions on what is and isn't healthy. The goal of this analysis is not to directly call for any bans or tiering action to take place within GSC ZU. The goal of this is to call to attention potentially problematic mons within the tier, who should be further investigated to determine whether or not they are truly problematic for the tier. Calling for an outright ban or other tiering action this early into the new metagame is, for lack of a better term, stupid and definitely jumping the gun. I'd encourage others to further develop their ideas because this forum post is far from gospel.
> However everything else I've said is gospel just not this forum post.
NEW --> A
NEW --> A+
NEW --> A+
NEW --> A
NEW --> A
B+ --> A-
B --> B+
B- --> B
B- --> B
C+ --> B-
C+ --> B
C --> C+
A+ --> A
A --> A-
A --> A-
A --> B+
B+ --> B
B --> B-
B --> C
B --> C+
B --> B-
B- --> UR
C+ --> C
C+ --> C
C+ --> C
C --> UR
C --> UR
C --> UR
C --> UR
C --> UR
> B+
> UR
> S
> High A
> Low A
> High B
> High B
> High B
> High B
Charmeleon
Wartortle
Aipom
Bayleef
Grimer
Mantine
Onix
Togetic
Quilava
Voltorb
Croconaw
Diglett
Doduo
Geodude
Ivysaur
Koffing
Magby
Meowth
Nidorina
Omanyte
Poliwag
Slowpoke
Tentacool
Weepinbell
Butterfree
Dratini
Goldeen
Mareep
Natu
Nidorino
Parasect
Sandshrew
Shellder
Smoochum
Snubbull
Teddiursa
High A -> Low A
High B -> Low B
High B -> Low B
Low B -> High C
Low B -> High C
, 
Low A -> High A
High B -> Low A
Low B -> High B
Low C -> High C/Low B
- Ernie's been on a roll in SS ZU, really spiking in popularity over the past few months, and I think it's pretty safe to say that he might be one of the best fighters in the tier. Excellent bulk allows Throh to pull off resttalk sets quite well, while flame orb sets are quite strong as well, although a lot more MU fish in nature. It's pretty great at making progress through absorbing sleep from Tangela, spamming Knock Off on everything, and phasing once there's hazards up and boots gone.
- Seen in past years as a cheesy or ladder exclusive offensive poke, Lunatone has really shown its place to excel on all sorts of playstyles; from a 6th on sun teams to keep pressure going, to a cleanup focused setup sweeper, to a dedicated breaker, Lunatone's managed to find several different roles for itself.
- Silvally-Dark has pretty much cemented itself as the best Silvally form at this point. Resttalk SD Multi-Attack sets serve as a devastating lategame win condition, while more offensively inclined setup sets with Flame Charge do excellently as well. Mixed offensive sets are something I haven't seen explored as much with Darkvally, but I think would still perform solidly. Just an excellent mon all around.
- While its Kanto form has traditionally seen a lot more use in SS ZU, Galarian Rapidash has been an excellent force in its own right with both CM and SD sets, though the latter have typically seen more use than the former. Its ability to pivot into opposing Toxic lets it sneak its way into matchups against Pokemon like Miltank and it just goes to work from there.
- While I've seen very little of it recently, I still think Silvally-Water is an excellent offensive Pokemon - with excellent coverage in Ice Beam and Thunderbolt it's able to easily pressure a lot of different foes, including Altaria and opposing Qwilfish, and I think SD sets in general are going pretty under the radar right now. I'm hoping more people build with it soon to see what I mean.
- Offensive Fire-types are scarce at best in SS ZU outside of Rapidash, so Ninetales' rise as a specially offensive one isn't the most surprising thing in the world - especially when you consider how easily it can pressure Articuno, the tier's premier special wall. Access to Hypnosis also makes it a pretty devastating spreader of sleep, and Nasty Plot sets are effective at both breaking and sweeping if they catch the right matchup. Not a tierbreaker or anything, but certainly a solid mon.
- As Jynx's #1 fan, I really can't deny that Jynx is not appreciative of the increase in mons that outpace it like Rapidash-Galar and Silvally forme speedties. Similarly, it doesn't enjoy seeing two of its favorite victims, Sawk and Palossand, dropping off in usage. Jynx is a flawed Pokemon that would be broken with 100% accuracy, but the combination of shaky Focus Blast accuracy and Lovely Kiss's similarly abysmal hitrate often make it difficult to justify sets other than choiced, which are easily abusable.
- Bert's tragic fall from grace continues. While Scarf certainly can do well, I think Black Belt sets are generally agreed to be the better of the two at this point - utilizing Sawk's excellent coverage, lack of switchins, and abusing Miltank. Scarf Sawk being outpaced by Rotom really doesn't help its case and Sawk doesn't appreciate Rapidash-Galar's resurgence, either. It's still a great mon, but it's not the S-tier monster it used to be.
- Time to face the music: this castle's washed up. Being easily pressured by Rotom's no good, and struggling against Miltank and Articuno doesn't help either. It also doesn't really appreciate metagame trends being against the mon it's best at checking, Sawk, and it doesn't appreciate Silvally-Dark prospering in the current metagame as well.
- If there's one drop I'm uncertain about, it's this one. Froslass has a strange relationship with Miltank, where Miltank theoretically dominates it while the reality is that Froslass often taunts it and wins once it's switched in; everything just sort of becomes a messy guessing game once you realize this fundamental fact, though Froslass usually ends up on the better end of it as a result. Still, with this murky relationship with Miltank on top of struggles with Silvally-Dark, Rapidash, and the ever lurking Klinklang, Froslass may not be quite the demon it used to be. Again, though, I can really see an argument either way, so this is probably my 'weakest' drop nomination - I could easily see Froslass staying at A+ and being just fine there as well.
- Specially offensive Water-types are rare in SS ZU, so Golduck's niche as not only a specially offensive attacker, but one that can boost its stats and find occasional beneficial matchups, is pretty sick. I think it's definitely worthy of a spot on the VR, maybe at C- or C.
- When I realized that Lickilicky wasn't actually rated on the VR, I was genuinely surprised. It's not a world beater or anything, but its niche on stall teams is fully legitimate and probably its best role in the tier. I don't like it much outside of stall, but a niche is a niche; I think it fits solidly into the C tier.
to hell alc is god
he’s great
small
best clicker in the tier
Rapidash A -> A+
Silvally-Dark A -> A+
Stunfisk A -> A+
Liepard B+ -> A-
Shiftry B+ -> A-
Uxie B+ -> A-
Lilligant B -> B+
Rotom-Fan B -> B+
Silvally-Water B -> B+
Roselia B- -> B
Bouffalant C+ -> B
Cramorant C+ -> B-
Golbat C+ -> B-
Raichu C+ -> B-
Silvally-Flying C+ -> B-
Abomasnow C -> C+
Ditto C- -> C
Shiinotic C- -> C+
Silvally-Poison A -> A-
Cofagrigus A- -> B+
Lycanroc-Midnight A- -> B+
Morpeko A- -> B+
Poliwrath B+ -> B
Thievul B+ -> B
Flapple B -> C+
Appletun B- -> C+
Type: Null C -> C-
Leafeon A -> A+
Torterra A -> A+
Beheeyem A- -> A
Mr. Mime B+ -> A-
Sandslash B+ -> A-
Toucannon B+ -> A-
Grimer Alola B -> A
Kecleon B -> A-
Lapras B -> B+
Purugly B -> B+
Trevenant B- -> B+
Duosion B- -> B
Electrode B- -> B
Fraxure B- -> B
Swoobat C+ -> B-
Armaldo C -> B-
Beartic C -> C+
Swanna S -> A+
Komala A+ -> A
Furfrou A+ -> A-
Crustle A -> A-
Mareanie A -> B+
Muk A -> B+
Simisear A -> A-
Silvally-Fighting A- -> B+
Silvally-Ground A- -> B+
Silvally-Electric A- -> B
Pinsir B+ -> B
Bellossom B -> B-
Camerupt B -> B-
Vigoroth B -> B-
Volbeat B -> C+
Monferno B -> C
Silvally-Grass B -> UR
Basculin B- -> C+
Machoke B- -> C
Golem Alola C+ -> C
Jumpluff C+ -> C
Natu C+ -> C
Vullaby C+ -> C
Metang C+ -> C-
Relicanth C+ -> C-
Chimecho C -> C-
Hakamo-o C -> C-
Regice C -> UR
Flareon C- -> UR
Frogadier C- -> UR
Gabite C- -> UR
Leavanny C- -> UR
Murkrow C- -> UR
Palpitoad C- -> UR
Mankey
Yanma
Pidgeotto
Machop
