shalom, aloha, hola, etc.
We (UnderUsed) will be suspecting Meowscarada!
Essentially this cat outpaces the entire tier bar Deoxys-Speed and long term has very few reliable answers. The cat shapes the meta rather aggressively by putting hazard BOs to the forefront of the meta, with it itself abusing and enabling the hazards placed exceptionally with a fast Knock Off and the item: Heavy Buty Doots.
Triple Axel is a dumb move.
Most checks that are sturdy against boots sets are not sturdy against Choice Band sets and/or simply choosing Low Kick > Flower Trick. Meowscarada also doesn't force trades often, usually only being damaged throughout an entire game by the initial Rocky Helmet chip it takes when it first clicks Knock Off onto an incoming Skarmory. Essentially, this pokemon's floor is extremely high, and ceiling even higher. Skarmory is habitually vortexed, Fezandipiti needs large amounts of physical defense and can also be simply vortexed especially by Heatran teams, Heatran takes one Knock Off and then is cooked, or simply dies to Low Kick from the jump. Cobalion has its own issues, but also is going to be habitually vortexed with no recovery behind it. In a small sequence of turns checks the cat most reliably though probably, resisting all attacks and not insta dying to Low Kick (but with just a little chip this all changes lmao).
With that said the cat isn't necessarily all bad, mostly speaking from a personal perspective with this but having something that actively pressures Torn cores reliably offensively is really nice and a breath of fresh air, especially something with U-Turn as a floor raiser, in comparison to its other offensive dark that left as it came in, Weavile. It also doesn't outright explode things turn 1 whatsoever I would argue, it just conditions its checks in a rather unavoidable manner, but this does leave more room for outplay against it.
NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!
The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
- Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in UU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played UU before the test, full stop.)
- At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
- Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, Lily, or a member of staff.
- If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me/Lily or post here!
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900. The deadline for getting requirements will be Wednesday May 28th. GLHF chaps
If you're currently participating in UULT Cycle 1 and you meet the requirements, please shoot myself or Lily a DM on Smogon or on Discord (vivalospride / drilbur) and we'll manually verify your account. Note that this only applies to UULT cycle accounts (so they must be prefixed with UU25KE). Cycle 2 accounts and onwards will natively qualify for the test, so no need to go through the DM process.
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or Shells 
.
) that they so desperately need while compressing the necessary offensive utility to allow the multitude of defensive Pokemon to also thrive. Since Meowscarada's arrival - we have seen diversity and balance like we've never seen before, with so many Pokemon players would call "mid" like 
and others now THRIVING thanks to Meowscarada's presence, with the cat either acting as a perfect partner to limit the REAL brokens (big Regen) or giving these Pokemon a new role as a check it and other relevant Pokemon (Latios in Klefki's case or Tornadus-T in Bellibolt's case, etc.).
, 
, and 
limiting Meow on more offensive structures and the classic trio of 
and 
, still working as well as ever. Many of these arent permanent checks mind you, but they do a good enough job of staving off Meowscarada while forcing it into uncomfortable loops into spamming risky moves (like Axel in Skarms case) or Flower Trick to avoid being screwed over by contact effects. A common core I have seen on ladder is Heatran + Mandibuzz, which discourages Axel from Meow when Mandibuzz is in and allows it to more safely Defog entry hazards. And I am sure with time, we will see new checks like G-Weezing (A-Rank mon in OU for its ability to Defog on Ghold that isn't beholden to that here, why isn't it used more???) rise up. As usual, Terastalization saves the day, letting many defensive and offensive Pokemon Interrupt Meowscarada's vortexing shenanigans that rely on the safe line being played. Tera Fairy Dirge (which I would be Tera'ing most games anyways) completely owns the cat while helping against its common partners like Hydrapple or Latios, breakers like Manaphy and Hydrappl can Tera on the cat to setup for a devastating sweep (esp vs the balance teams Meow so commonly finds itself on), and various Priority mons like Scizor and Arcanine-Hisui, can boost their priorities power to revenge kill it from lower ranges. In fact, I'd go a step further and will say that Meowscarada's ability to force Teras is a GOOD thing for balances specifically because it enables them to more proactively gameplan lines in the early game against the dominant HO teams that terrorized the prior metagames. Balance and more defensive teams generally will not need to Tera to handle Meowscarada thanks to Skarmory acting as a perfect check, but playing that line does exist for them should things go ary in the game - or the bring back crucial momentum in key positions.