Metagame [Gen 9] Do Not Use (DNUPL!) [Randbats is PMOTM]

[Jumpheart]

Is Budew broken?

There's been a lot of discourse over Budew lately, so I wanted to give my thoughts in an actual longform post rather than disorganized conversations on Discord.

I. Budew Crash Course
Budew, considered the best Pokemon in the tier according to our most recent VR, is ranked as such due to its litany of positive traits. Its unique typing of Grass/Poison is very good in this tier. Defensively it's decent, providing useful defensive utility into Bramblin's Power Whip, Luvdisc's Water-type STAB, and Arrokuda's Liquidation and Flip Turn. It's not amazing, though, including notable weaknesses into Hatenna's Psychic-type STAB and Litwick's Fire-type STAB, among others. Despite only having decent typing, it has a great defensive profile thanks to access to Synthesis, great special bulk, and useful abilities in Natural Cure and Poison Point.

Offensively, however, Grass/Poison is very strong. It's one of the few Pokemon that can reliably beat both Nacli and Jigglypuff, and has an easy time doing so. The only Pokemon in the tier that resist the combination are certain Poison-types, Litwick, and Beldum, both of which it gets coverage for in Extrasensory and Shadow Ball. Past its STAB combination, it gets access to Spikes to serve as an easy setter.

II. The Fourth Move Slot
When building Budew, three slots are basically pre-determined for you, in Giga Drain, Sludge Bomb, and Synthesis. This may strike you as potentially falling into 4MSS, but this is not a good example as these three moveslots are all Budew needs to function to check what it wants to. The fourth move slot allows you to get even further value out of your Budew. Sorting in order of rarity:

• Spikes is the classic fourth move. Hazard removal is decent in DNU, but every remover has some key weakness that it needs to navigate around. As such, Spikes lets Budew get a ton of progress over the course of the game.
• Shadow Ball is the classic Budew coverage option, that lets it hit Beldum and Litwick for super-effective damage. You may also think its useful for Hatenna; while true it has a higher effective base power, Sludge Bomb's chance of Poisoning Hatenna means that it actually does comparable damage on average, and is the click that will end up being more productive over the course of a game.
• Sleep Powder is the RNG check option, as it lets you sleep the opponent's switch-in. Several of Budew's better checks, such as Hatenna and Swablu, don't mind getting slept due to their ability, but others, such as Beldum and Wooper-Paldea, really hate being slept, which allows you to either go to a counter or even just break your way through; running Sleep Powder actually lets bulky Budew 1v1 SpDef Wooper-Paldea, which should be one of its better checks, using Giga Drain.
• Extrasensory is the move to slot to beat Poison-types, such as Wooper-Paldea and Zubat. It's not the strongest move in the tier, but it does the job well enough. It's not used very much but does help you beat a few specific checks. It also helps you in the ditto, but Sludge Bomb does enough that it is difficult to justify the moveslot just for opposing Budew.
• Stun Spore and Growth are niche options that have been run before as well, but these are rare enough that I don't consider them in the teambuilder.

It's also worth noting that Budew can run Choice items as well, in which case it will drop Synthesis for something else. A second Grass-type move, specifically Leaf Storm, can also be run on these sets.

III. Defensive Counterplay
I'm going to break down what can viably switch in on a standard Modest with bulk investment Budew. Note that these are all considering the long-term game, meaning able to come in on Budew consistently over the course of a game, for the purposes of fat teams. Also note that most, if not all of these, lose if their Eviolite gets Knocked.

This ended up being a very long section, so I'll wrap it in a spoiler, but TL;DR is that Budew's defensive counterplay options are limited. There's a lot in theory, but in practice there's usually something holding said counterplay back. One of the best ways to counter this set is your own Modest with bulk Budew. Also, a lot of Budew counters are RestTalkers, which means that Budew can get free turns to exploit them.

Defensive Counterplay

(Defensive RestTalk) doesn't work. If you run enough SpDef EVs to get 3HKOed by Shadow Ball, you cannot OHKO Eviolite Budew even with maximum hazards, and you even miss the OHKO on itemless Budew. This means that you need to have no chip on you whatsoever, and dodge Shadow Ball SpDef drops (or Sludge Bomb poison chance if that's what they're clicking--it works out about the same) in order to beat Budew. You're then forced to Rest. Running max SpDef isn't particularly great as the tier's offensive power leans physical.

(Bulky RestTalk) works, unless Budew is Shadow Ball. Litwick has a similar bulk profile to Hatenna but in this instance the defender resists Sludge Bomb as well. Litwick also can run more offensive EVs in order to secure the kill more consistently over Hatenna. Similarly to Hatenna, running enough SpDef EVs to survive 2 hits from Shadow Ball means you don't OHKO with your STAB (but you do more damage than Hatenna, so it works out better overall). It's the same as above, except you resist Sludge Bomb, which does make a large difference.

works, and is one of the more consistent checks to Budew. However, Swablu has few key weaknesses that it needs to work around, so a well-piloted Budew team can break through over time. If Swablu is max PhysDef, Sludge Bomb is a 3HKO after Rocks, and if Swablu has been chipped previously it risks dying to Poison damage. Thus, Swablu is forced to run some SpDef, which reduces its ability to check physical threats such as Arrokuda. Also, this is one of the Pokemon that is most burdened by Spikes on the switch-in, as it means you have to find a turn to Defog with Swablu, something easier said than done.

works, unless Budew is Sleep Powder or Extrasensory. We went over this one above, so I don't feel the need to go into detail. Also, if Wooper gets Knocked, it loses to Giga Drain, no matter what Budew's fourth move is. It's consistent into the two most common moves, though, so it's... acceptable.

(Bulky RestTalk) works, unless Budew is Extrasensory. To be honest, I have no idea if this is a real set, but it has gotten wins so it's worth mentioning here. This set farms common Budew sets, with Shadow Ball not being a guaranteed 3HKO with two layers of hazards. However, Extrasensory is a 50% chance to 2HKO without any hazards, so unless you've scouted its whole moveset it's not guaranteed.

(Bulky and Defensive) doesn't work. Rocks chip + risk of Poison damage ruins this one, but more notably, max HP Eviolite Budew doesn't even get consistently 2HKOed by Air Slash; it's a roll to 2HKO with a layer of hazards. Similarly to Hatenna and Litwick above, the more SpDef EVs you run the better this gets at checking, but you're getting considerably weaker and start to let even frail attackers in. At max SpDef, Swinub doesn't even get 2HKOed. Yikes.

(Defensive) works, with a couple asterisks. It's technically not perfectly consistent, as you can get flinched to death by Extrasensory. You also need to run Eviolite. Boots Zubat gets 2HKOed by Extrasensory, and Shadow Ball drops means that you can also lose if you try to Brave Bird the Budew instead of Roosting.

(SpDef) works, unless Budew is Shadow Ball. Bulky Meditite is a recent innovation so it's hard telling how it will fare in practice, but on paper this is one of Budew's better checks. It functions in a very similar manner to Hatenna and Litwick above: it has a type advantage so it can force Budew out, but if it gets chipped it risks getting the SpDef drop from Shadow Ball. Unlike those two, however, it gets a reliable recovery move and isn't forced to rely on Rest, so it fares a little better.

EDIT: Alon Guy Person reminded me that Meditite does actually work, with a couple asterisks, as it outspeeds bulky Budew. This means it can attack after the first Shadow Ball and not risk dying, even with a drop, or heal up immediately if it is chipped. It can still lose to two SpDef drops if you try to Calm Mind on the Budew, or if the Budew has enough investment to outspeed. Leaving the rest of the write-up as it's still mostly true, but being faster flips it to an almost-always-win. My bad for the mistake!

(SpDef) works, but it's a flawed Pokemon that is basically hard-locked to Stall. Mixed bulk is more flexible, but it's less consistent and risks getting poisoned by Sludge Bomb. Also, it's reliant on Natural Cure + Rest for recovery, which means that Budew can force it to Rest and open up a free turn, for either Spikes or a free switch out.

That's the list. In summary--wait, no, I forgot one.

(Bulky Eviolite) works, barring poor luck (losing speed ties and getting flinched by Extrasensory). Yeah, one of Budew's best defensive checks is Bulky Eviolite Budew, which I'll remind you is the set we have been analyzing in this section. Other Budew sets will fare better into the various counterplay options, including itself, but if you need a splashable check for Bulky Eviolite Budew, the most splashable and flexible option is itself. The exact same set, barring the fourth moveslot.

I'm not going to spend nearly as much time on offensive counterplay, but here's a brief synopsis: Budew's poor physical defense means that any super-effective Physical hit blows it up, and even strong neutral hits can take out less bulky variants (either fast or Itemless, the latter of which is often run as a tech for Bramblin). Pikipek, Taillow, and the Rattatas all revenge kill it (for Rattata-Alola, it needs Hustle, so it's not reliable). Swinub works if it outspeeds (aka, Budew is bulky). Nymble can U-Turn for a significant amount of chip, forcing it to burn a Synthesis. Kirlia, Arrokuda, and Zigzagoon-Galar can all hit it for big damage up to an OHKO, depending on the Budew set, but require being faster, a correct prediction, and a clean switch and the Budew being itemless, respectively. There's also more that I haven't listed here, but as a rule of thumb, Budew's biggest weakness is that, even though it is fast for a defensive Pokemon, as an offensive Pokemon, it's fairly slow.

IV: Comparing Budew to Tiering Policy
Going through the tiering policy framework, which of the criteria for tiering action does Budew fit?

I think Budew doesn't fit as uncompetitive. There is a decent amount of RNG nonsense that comes with Budew, such as Sludge Bomb poisons, Shadow Ball SpDef drops, and Poison Point activations, but it's comparable to a Pokemon like Zapdos in OU in that regard. It can be and often is frustrating to fight against, but there is no truly needed RNG management in fighting Budew; it's just tipping the scales a little in favor of the Budew player.

I'm not sure whether Budew as broken by the definition used in the Smogon tiering policy, but I lean towards yes. It is a Pokemon that is difficult to build a team without. However, you can run viable Budewless teams, but those structures tend to be far more limited in what they can accomplish because of how much Budew provides to a team. For a tournament example, Budew was used in all 6 teams in Week 1 of SoloPL. One of the Budews died turn 1, but besides that, each Budew massively contributed, and two of the games had Budew vs. Budew on the field for a good amount of their runtime (teamo vs. JeoZ had both Budews almost entirely exhausted of PP). Could these players have run Budewless balance? Sure, but it would require a much more specific build.

Is Budew unhealthy? This is a difficult question. It is undeniably centralizing. If you look at our VR, so many Pokemon are affected by Budew. Despite this, Nacli and Jigglypuff are still #2 and #3. If Budew was well and truly unhealthy, why are the defensive Pokemon it checks still ranked so highly? You'd expect them to move down at least a little. As stated before, it's very centralizing. Is its centralization a positive or a negative effect on the metagame? It's hard to say.

Is it a Landorus-Therian, where its flexible qualities let it shine in a variety of teams? Is it a Primal Groudon, where it's so good it's difficult to drop, but for its ability to let you run a bigger variety of Pokemon on the rest of the team? Or is a garden variety brokemon where the tier has been centralized around it so it's harder to separate the impact it has on both the builder and in-game?

---

This write-up took a while but, as a certified yapper, I enjoy doing them and plan to continue. If you've played DNU lately, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts. A Budew suspect is absolutely in the cards, but not one I want to do hastily considering how influential it currently is on the tier; a theoretical Budew ban would upset the status quo more so than any other tiering action we've had in this tier, in my opinion even more so than the Diglett-Alola ban. Were we to suspect Budew tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'd vote.

 

[Jumpheart]

We held a survey and received 11 responses, 7 of which were from voters considered qualified. Sharing some of the more important results here:

First, here are the scores for Pokemon that were asked about for tiering action to remove from the tier:
2.45 overall, 2.00 qualified
1.73, 1.57
3.27, 3.29
2.36, 2.57
1.82, 1.71
1.73, 1.43
2.27, 2.14
2.27, 2.43
2.00, 1.43
2.09, 1.57
3.18, 3.14

Standouts here are Budew and Venipede both scoring above a 3.0 in both qualified and non-qualified voting. No other Pokemon scored above a 2.5, except for Hatenna, who got a 2.57 among qualified voters (and was interestingly one of 3 Pokemon whose qualified score was higher than non-qualified, along with Budew and Rattata-Alola). The council will discuss action on Budew and Venipede, and we'll continue to monitor Hatenna, Pikipek, and Rattata-Alola in particular. This will likely be the last time the survey asks about Bramblin, Jigglypuff, and Nacli due to incredibly low scores there, at least for now. In addition, Swablu and Swinub received a write-in vote, as were Sleep Moves.

As far as additions, there was no clear consensus this time. Spheal will have to wait, but Goomy, Steenee, Tympole, and a suspect out being our next course of action are all on the table. There was also a write-in of revisiting Shedinja (and I know of one SoloPL player who didn't fill out the survey with a similar opinion), which is personally not something I would like to revisit but would begrudgingly do so with more support, so I'll plan to ask about it in the next survey.

No announcements for the next suspect yet, but the council will discuss where to go from here. Please let me know your thoughts and opinions!

 

[Jumpheart]

Do Not Use is now suspect testing Venipede!

Over the last several months, DNU has locked in on our most recent target: we're gonna be putting Venipede under the microscope!

Suspect Reasoning
Venipede, simply put, is a nearly perfect hyper offense lead, with access to Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Endeavor, and Speed Boost. This lets it put immense pressure on the start of games by getting up a layer of hazards, potentially two, and then trading with the opponent. In addition, it's not particularly weak, able to do enough damage to not be considered passive. In addition, its bulk is surprisingly decent, with 30/59/39. This means on bulky Eviolite sets, it often gets a Spike in at the beginning and can come back later. In DNU, a tier where there are a few Pokemon teetering on the point of broken, the ability to get a free 12-18% on most switch ins is very useful, and hyper offense teams exploit the hell out of this.

However, Venipede lacks a lot of set variety. While Spikes are guaranteed, you have 3 moveslots left, where the only four moves you want to fit are Endeavor, Toxic Spikes, Protect, and Poison Jab. You do miss whichever you drop in some matchups but there's not really anything else that fits here. This leads to it being fairly predictable: if you see a Venipede, you know you're facing Spikes offense, and it is either going to led or come in very early. This lets you play around it with Pokemon such as Nacli, Bramblin, and Hatenna, which all have interesting options to stop Venipede from doing what it tries to do.

Suspect Information
There are three ways to qualify for this suspect test.

1. Win 5 games during the suspect period, sending replays to Jumpheart to confirm.,
2. Play 15 games during the suspect period, sending replays to Jumpheart to confirm.,
3. Win a suspect roomtour, which will be held on Pokemon Showdown over the course of the suspect period. There will be 3 tours, with times TBD (will send out a schedule when I know for sure).,

In addition, winning 3 or more games of DNU during Solomods Premier League II will autoqualify you. This means that JeoZ, veti, Alon Guy Person, and goldmason automatically get reqs.

A single opponent can only count for up to 2 wins / 5 games if qualifying via method 1 / 2.

The suspect will last for 13 days, lasting through June 1st. Voting will work the same as last time. Good luck!

 

[Noglastica]

Nog Blog #19: My 10 to 15 Games of DNU
Hello everyone, former spl champion and Modern Generation 2 the Sequel, Just the Birds tier leader here for yet another NOG BLOG. For those of you wondering about my credentials on the tier, do not worry. I have just finished obtaining my reqs, and I have additionally amassed a 2-0 record against Jumpheart (pinged for added disrespect) in DNU Randbats, 2-0 record in DNU OU, and 1-0 record in MG2 DNU. I have additionally been rated as the greatest DNU player of all time by council member Zpice (pinged because I have a crush on them). I am also just now realizing it is spelled Zpice and not Zspice which is why my attempted ping didn't work and when I tried to search for them it also didn't work.

As DNU is the largest and most successful solomod, I didn't want to dilute a prestigious thread with a new player's perspectives and ramblings, even if I am known for my ability to condense my ideas into a short passage. I made sure to ask my good friend and tier leader Jumpheart if she was fine with me posting my thoughts in the DNU thread to which she responded with a resounding "yes" as you can see from the image below.

On a genuine note, I do want to express my support and approval for the tier because, I'll be honest, solomods/petmods suck for the most part, and this is one of the few ones that has actual support given to it. It's also one of the only ones that follows the "standard" in terms of tiering action with suspect tests, though that's largely unique to DNU among solomods not so much out of attitude but out of playerbase sizes, and the lack thereof. In addition to thanking Jump for creating said tier and giving me free wins, I would also like to thank the DNU council, as well as R8 who has not only played a role in developing DNU as a metagame, but also introducing me to Jump, who I now consider a good friend. Without R8 and Jump, I would not have been able to get the requirements for this suspect test. I would also like to thank my other opponents, Natalie, and Anna, for tolerating my frequent outbursts of rage and reminding me that abilities in fact DO exist in this generation and trading toxics against a magic guard Pokemon is in fact not optimal.

Now, to bash the tier...

The Team

NEO built this for solopl 2 and used it week 1 against shreyashhy and won, linked here. Though I won't be giving a review of this game because I don't know what I'm talking about, I do think turn 1 of the game is very funny. I also think it's dumb that (soon to be discussed about mon) Budew eats non-specs Kirlia!

252+ SpA Kirlia Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 186-218 (84.1 - 98.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Anyway, I think that the team is pretty cool. I initially tried another NEO spl team as well but that one kinda sucked imo and NEO said pretty much the same thing and said to just use the specs kirlia team. One of my issues with this tier is somewhat evident on this team: every non-HO team NEEDS to have Budew or you're throwing, and every team NEEDS to have either Nacli or Roggenrola. I don't have so much an issue with needing Nacli/Roggen because while they're extremely good Pokemon, they're not as strong as budew, AND they can be situationally better than each other. I also went into this overestimating how good Bramblin was because I remember it used to be the best mon in the tier and it definitely didn't feel like that. With all due respect to the DNU community, just recently coming up with itemless Pokemon to check poltergeist seems crazy to me, and then deciding to do so on Litwick out of all Pokemon (a mon that really wants boots! and also dies to literally any other set lol) I also don't understand at all.

The Games
I'm not going to link the games because I only saved the games I won and only posting them feels a) disrespectful and b) doesn't show all the games I made incredibly embarrassing plays. I still have no idea how much any of my attacks are going to do at any point. One thing that I do like about this tier is how important EVs are. Maybe my favorite thing about micrometas and drafts are how creative you can get with EV optimization, and I think that's something that, just because how the tier works, DNU really benefits from. But, at the same time, it really led to me making some boneheaded plays. Part of it is also just I don't know what anything is running in terms of EVs, items, moves, and I don't know the base stats of mons. I'm watching super effective brave bird do 60% to my Budew and then watching my Nymble take 70% from resisted stuff.

I mentioned earlier how I frequently had fits of rage and most of that was just due to learning the tier and my frustrations trying to figure out how to check/switchin to certain mons and, SPOILER ALERT, SOME OF THEM I STILL DO NOT KNOW!!!! I spent all of solopl 2 hearing about how broken Budew was and I thought "ok Budew is probably good" and I was watching all of the games and thought "yeah Budew is good" but then I load in and I'm like "Budew isn't that good, right?" I brought the venipede (ICBB) sample and thought wow I have (itemless) Litwick to check Budew, I'm perfectly fine in this matchup. I switchin one time, force it out, and think I have the meta solved. The next time I try to switchin, I learn that Budew learns shadow ball which I still don't understand why it learns that to begin with, but that was a great revelation for me that litwick, in fact, does not check budew. Certain stuff like that was mildly annoying, but this is also 100% all my fault for not utilizing the readily available and updated tier resources! Now I am starting to understand why outside players are annoyed during PMPL when half the tiers actually don't have any resources!

Metagame Complaints
My main issue is the over-centralization of Budew on the tier. I think you better have a really good reason for not bringing it, and I think it's just so obnoxious trying to deal with defensively unless you have one of the very few options for it on fat teams.

I mentioned it earlier as well, and it's not so much a complaint as just an observation, but it also does feel like one of the two rock types needs to be on your team.

My other biggest gripe that seems to "plague" the tier as a whole is how everyone just cheats on speed evs. I've already ranted about this to two separate people and didn't get the attention that I craved so this entire post is just a ploy in order to have this conversation. Why is it that every single offensive Pokemon refuses to run 252 timid/jolly on Pokemon? I understand NOT running 252+ in speed on every single Pokemon, but I'm serious, it seems like no Pokemon actually runs 252+ EXCEPT for the LITERAL fastest Pokmeon in the tier, Luvdisc. If anyone should be cheating on speed evs or running non-speed boosting natures, it should be luvdisc, and yet, for whatever reason, it seems like that's the one Pokemon that everyone IS running 252+ on. There's a reason that 90% of offensive Pokemon in other tiers run 252+ for speed. Winning speed ties, and actually outspeeding other offensive Pokemon that you should be outspeeding is very important! Earlier I said how I really like and respect EV optimization, but this is the one caveat that I have in DNU. I really don't understand dropping speed EVs and dropping speed boosting natures as much as it happens. Something like Nymble? Sure, absolutely, run adamant no speed, you have a priority move. Quick feet zigzagoone-galar? Yeah, run adamant, you're super fast without it. Taillow? Yeah, if you're just trying to break with it, absolutely, run adamant/modest, you're already super fast as well. But then I look at other Pokemon running 144 modest or something and I don't get it. Every single Pokemon is running adamant to the point where, the first Pokemon to actually run a 252+ speed nature, is 100% going to just dominate. My first few games I was genuinely terrified and confused because I'm looking at my adamant (sample team!) arrokuda's speed, and it says it's slower than max speed Bramblin and I think that's it, I lose the game. But no, because the Bramblin is also not running + speed. It feels like offense is so worried about being able to break through balance and fat teams that they're afraid they cannot do it without running adamant/modest. But then I just think about how easy of a matchup it is in offense v offense if I'm running timid/jolly on everything, and my opponent is running adamant/modest on everything, right? Like yes, your Arrokuda is dealing 5% more to my Pokemon, but now my rockruff is outspeeding it anyway and OHKOing it anyway so does it even matter? You can show me 15 relevant calcs where Rockruff needs adamant instead of jolly, and I will show you the one relevant calc of my jolly rockruff outrunning and still OHKOing your faster mon that you're not running max speed on.

I know that's a somewhat long rant, and I know that I'm new to the tier and I don't know the rolls and stuff, and I'm sure that there's plenty of stuff that really wants the attack boosting nature in order to secure 2HKOs and stuff, but all I'm saying is, right now, every single offense team looks like it loses to any offense team that just runs 6 speed nature Pokemon. Now, whether or not that speed nature team will ever beat stall? I don't know for sure. But I also keep hearing about how offense is already the "best" playstyle in the tier (which also seems to be the reason that venipede is getting suspect tested) so I'm not sure how much you need to worry about your opponent bringing stall in the first place, and if they do, how difficult it is to actually deal with anyway.

Not a complaint but actually a compliment, I do LOVE how there's not a bunch of regenerator mons because they're just obnoxious in every tier.

General Thoughts on Pokemon (that I saw)
Budew: Seems quite obviously the best Pokemon in the tier. Not super sure why veni is getting suspected before budew because not only is budew better, but if budew does get banned, that presumably changes the landscape of the tier and might make veni more manageable for teams. I don't know. Feels like there's no checks to its dual STABs other than Zubat (who I will talk about more later). I was also informed that budew can run extrasensory to beat zubat and, even if that's fake, that's still annoying! The set that I used most was just STABs + spikes + synthesis which does seem like the best on balance teams for sure. I'm not sure how much the ability to break stuff really matters on fatter teams, but getting to run shadow ball on offense, or growth, does seem very, very strong. Especially because for whatever reason people like itemless litwick. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to go into when the enemy budew has comes in, and it seems that often times they also do not know what they're supposed to do, because every single game felt like it had several budew mirror turns. Also, this mon has really solid bulk and I feel like eviolite doesn't even help it that much. Obviously I'd say still run it but my knocked Budew was taking absolutely nothing from some things so... yeah. Broken mon. Also natural cure is definitely good, I was surprised that everyone is running poison point because you surely have enough poison distribution as is with sludge bomb. I suppose that there's not much twave usage in the tier which I guess helps, but I definitely think natural cure is good, even if it's not as good.

Nacli: The second best mon in the tier. I originally thought it was #1 before I played any games, and yeah, it's still really good. Not bringing a rock type means you lose to 1/3 of the tier, so you should bring Nacli (or roggen!) No 32pp recover made me sad, but it's probably for the best. Unfortunately, even though I think Nacli is super broken, I think there's no way you can realistically ban it because the tier becomes unplayable without it. I also didn't go against curse sets but that seems super good as well, and will 100% be better if budew ever gets banned.

Jigglypuff: Ok, full disclosure, I know small sample size, but I was not that impressed by puff for a mon that's supposed to be a top 3 mon in the tier. Yes it's good, but I think the abundance of Budew makes it significantly easier to deal with. It might be super stupid though if budew does ever gets banned, so that's annoying!

Zubat: I'm definitely NOT doing this in any particular order because Zubat is not my 4th best Pokemon, but I did want to say that I think this is a really solid Pokemon on fat at least right now. You check some scary physical attackers and more importantly wall Budew forever, AND zubat is a defogger so. So that's nice.

Bramblin: I thought this guy was broken but it's really not. I was using special bramblin because now people like their itemless so much, and special is so mediocre. It's fast which is nice, but I really don't think it's that good. It's like the only spinner in the tier and you don't really want to switch into opposing bramblin obviously to spinblock so I feel like it doesn't accomplish anything in that regard.

Litwick: I'm sure if you try running not itemless Litwick and also don't get boned by shadow ball Budew, Litwick can actually be good. Trick room seems neat and you do kinda just get to click your fire moves which is super nice, but I think just bringing boots HAS to be better than itemless. If they go into their bramblin, I will simply switch out? I don't need it to check bramblin. I would much rather not be OHKOd by rocks.

Rattata-Alolan: Ok this guy is actually so broken. I'd seen it do damage in solopl and didn't really pay attention to it's speed so I thought "ah it must be a slower wallbreaker" but no it's actually just one of the fastest Pokemon in the tier. People should be running + speed on their other mons for THIS GUY RIGHT HERE. YOU. ARROKUDA AND PIKIPEK USER. YES YOU. RUN + SPEED FOR THIS GUY. Yes I know it has sucker or whatever but they think everyone is running adamant as well so you outspeed and they die. A-Rat is actually so stupid, it feels like nothing really checks it. Band seems almost excessive because, again, nothing REALLY checks this guy and you 2HKO everything without CB as long as you get your reads right. The main counterplay felt like I was hoping they were banded and I would just guess right and then I know if I can go into my dark resist (jigglypuff) or my normal resist (nacli.) And even then, they can realistically make a safe double and I'm screwed. I would much sooner ban this stupid guy from the tier than venipede! One of the issues is now you're kinda restricted on dark types to zigzagoon-galar or uu mon impidimp which might suck for the tier, but I'm probably not playing it again so that seems like problem for all of you. This guy is also just so fast anyway it lets it click free CB pursuit on every psychic type and you die unless they miss. That doesn't seem super healthy for the tier.

Luvdisc: This is one that I'm super confused by because offensive seems good and defensive seems not good. I really don't understand why this mon would ever run max speed. I asked NEO and they said because there's a bunch of scarfers in the tier (I only remember facing one scarfer to be completely honest) but even then, meh! If you're scarf, you're scarf. That item has a pretty exploitable downside to it! The next closest OU mon is taillow, a full 12 base speed lower than you. I'm not looking at the speed tiers in front of me, but surely THIS is the one we can run modest on, right? Unfortunately you're 1 point too slow to run modest on it, but you can just run 160+ to still outspeed + speed taillow and now congrats you have 92 evs you can throw on HP.

Nymble: This guy was on the team I kept using and it felt so awful. I mean, I didn't have a horrible time keeping rocks down so running life orb wasn't that bad for that reason, but it has literally no bulk so even switching into resisted stuff was crazy. I initially thought that it was my Budew switchin (I'm sure all the DNU players are laughing while reading that) and I'm watching my 252 adamant life orb first impression do significantly less than 0 investment budew sludge bomb. No natural bulk + life orb seems pretty bad (It's literally just clicking bug moves, I feel like insect plate is surely just better for longevity). Even boots seems relatively good on it as well. Choice band seems meh because I do like the idea of fip + uturn on switches into something like nacli, but this guy really seems not great in general. The only time I really felt like it did something was when they had a-rat in and I could force it out.

Abbreviated Thoughts on Other Mons: Swinub seems really scary and if it were 1 speed point higher it could run jolly and literally 6-0 every offensive team. Swablu seemingly has very little usage but it's ranked A- which is funny. While I didn't play against it, it seems super good in theory. Zigzagoon-G seems really good too, taking toxic chip sucks but on HO it's not a huge deal and it's also now the fastest mon in the tier, congrats. Taillow I thought was broken initially and didn't really go against it but it's probably super good vs offense but just walled forever by Nacli so meh. Rockruff seems really strong and if people keep running adamant and you run jolly rockruff then it probably also 6-0s every offensive team (because apparently rock doesn't resist rock? I still don't get it.) Pikipek I didn't play against but I saw exactly 1 game of it and it seemed broken in that because of bullet seed (hits nacli!) Only Kirlia set I used was specs and that seemed cool and I really enjoyed it as a wallbreaker and it helped me basically have an unlosable matchup in two separate games. Hat I don't even remember if I played against it. I played with it two or three times at the beginning when I really had no idea what I was doing during this time instead of near the end when I just had also still no idea what I was doing. Hm. But in those few games I used hat, it didn't feel particularly overwhelming. No recovery move so it didn't feel bulky, and it has to run eviolite, so your only way of gaining health is with non STAB dkiss which is obviously not super great.

Everything else that I didn't mention I either didn't play against, didn't play against enough to really formulate an idea on it, or though it sucked. I'll let you guess which mons fall into which category. Category 4 is that I forgot to mention a mon which is equally likely.

Tiering Decisions
First of all, I'm not sure why I wasn't given immediate voting permissions for this suspect test? I've read thousands of lines of DNU metagame discussion during both solopls, though I think it's safe to say from my games that I retained none of it.

Second, I am voting DO NOT BAN on venipede. This mon really doesn't seem that strong to me. Yes, it's annoying with endeavor, I understand that, but at the same time, this is a tier with defog and stuff. It seems like more of an attack on hyper offense as a playstyle than anything else. I'm not really sure what other sets that it runs other than pjab, end, spikes, tect, but I feel like there's surely some great ways to exploit that, or at least minimize its effectiveness. Suicide leads are LITERALLY giving you a free mon for just a little bit of chip. If veni got taunt, I would understand banning it, but veni literally just finds itself on HO which doesn't really seem to have any hazard removal on it, so you can literally just trade hazards and not be threatened by it. Also, I'm sure there's some usable mons/sets that can deal with it. I only used it once or twice and lead matchup feels like they have to go rock type to 2hko or else I get 3 spikes, OR I go into rock type abuser t1 like arro and can double/pivot move into veni or something.

There's so many better Pokemon in the tier, and in particular, I think there's two that I would have 100% looked at before venipede: budew and arat. I mean, this is a mon that's currently ranked 10th on the vr.

Conclusion
All in all, I think DNU is a fine tier. It's probably not one that I'm going to play again, even though I didn't dislike it. I will say that, in it's current state, I did not enjoy the existence of Budew. Other than that, I think DNU is still one of the better solomods on the site, as low of a bar as that is.

 

[PalpitoadChamp]

budew has comes in, and it seems

Grammar error. Point invalidated.

 

[Jumpheart]

Short write-up because I'm about to load up some Hypixel Bedwars, but Venipede will remain legal in Do Not Use following a 4-5 vote! Results can be found here (along with mason, who voted DNB, but was accidentally left out of the list because of an error on my part). As such we'll continue in our current metagame. Next up is a VR update and updated samples as we look towards a summer tournament!

 

[Jumpheart]

Gonna drop some scattered thoughts I have on the tier right now.


Yeah, I voted ban. I'd do it again. I think Venipede enables some really despicable team compositions due to how well it enables hyper offense squads. It's not a perfect lead, nor is it unstoppable, but it almost always provides value as a lead and pushes the tier in a very offensive direction. One user I talked to said that all teams are either Venipede HO or teams meant to counterteam Venipede HO. I do think that this is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much--all non-HO teams need stuff for the so-called "venipede 5 brokes" archetype. I think the ship has sailed with a DNB vote, however; with that said, though, Venipede is only as good as the mons it enables, so removing some of the top offensive threats is a good idea.

During the Venipede suspect, there was a lot of discussion around how much pressure defensive cores are currently under in the tier due to how many strong offensive mons there are. I was testing a Wooloo stall team through a couple iterations, but couldn't find the right combination that allowed me to even get playable matchups into every mon in the tier; even swapping out a defensive mon for a trapper in Rattata-Alola wasn't enough to make stall better than a matchup fish. I got some wins with it, but some pretty brutal losses as well. I'm sure there is some stall combination that works well but I was unable to find it. I think that this plus the "venipede 5 brokens" teams is pretty telling how dominant offensive threats are is in this current metagame and how hard it is to build suitable balances. It's possible, but the cores are pretty restricted, and certain off-meta mons just completely annihilate common cores. I'll name Nidoran-F and Beldum as examples.


I've said this a few times and I'll say it here too: this is the worst broken mon I have ever seen in a format. It's honestly kind of incredible. But yeah, when this thing is firing on all cylinders it is just completely insane. It can do so much for a team, check half the tier in one slot, including the incredibly valuable role of being our best Pursuit trapper in a tier where half the top 6 are weak to Dark. It's especially nice to trap and remove Bramblin, as after Bramblin goes down you can stack Spikes from Budew to your heart's content. Obviously comes with the downside of Hustle being unreliable, but that means if you lose, it's not your fault :p


Budew is dumb. Budew is also important to the tier. I voted to suspect test Budew in the slate of votes that gave us the Venipede suspect, but I don't blame people who voted to not suspect it. I think it's dumb but could also be more reasonable in a tier where you can more reliably fit counterplay to it. I do think it is less crucial than it used to be, though; there's more viable Poison-types than ever and there are a lot of Grass-types who are completely neutered in viability by Budew that would rise up the ranks, such as Fomantis and the Sun duo of and Petilil. I'm definitely still interested in looking at it but I understand if it's not the top priority.


This mon has been an on-again off-again broken for me, but as time passes I think it well and truly is a broken mon that makes the tier worse. While a lot of Pokemon can reliably 1v1 Arrokuda after it gets Choice locked, there's not a lot that stops Arrokuda from just clicking Flip Turn with a layer of hazards and racking up damage over the course of the game. Sure, it requires some smart prediction. But with that said, here is a list of mons that can reliably counter Arrokuda with Stealth Rock up on the field: Water Absorb Wooper and... shit, really? Swablu can take two of anything, even with Rocks up, but if it gets Knocked it no longer wins.

That's a bit exaggerated, as Arrokuda does face a bit of 4MSS in what coverage it wants. It wants all of Aqua Jet (revenge killing), Psychic Fangs (Budew and Wooper-Paldea), Crunch (Bramblin), and Poison Jab ( Cottonee and Gossifleur) in the two moveslots that aren't locked in. In reality, though, you end up clicking Water STAB most of the time anyways, and the coverage move of choice is often used going for a hard read to end the game earlier, where clicking Flip Turn again probably would have also worked. So, in practice it honestly flops a fair bit, but in the builder it can be a headache to play around and often is a mon you just have to say "okay, I'll outplay it".


I've come around to the brokemon allegations. This Pokemon is stupid. Yes, its bulk is pretty bad since it really needs Life Orb, which causes it to wear itself down quickly. Yes, it has a bit of an awkward speed tier. I don't think that matters though when this mon has so few actual switch-ins. I went through a phase of spamming PhysDef Hatenna just coping about a soft counter to this guy, ignoring all the flaws that set has. PhysDef Wooper also works here, which means that you can actually cover Arrokuda and Swinub in one slot (this mon is 100% being ranked higher in my VR next slate), but that mon has some flaws and annoyingly doesn't actually check a few mons you'd think it would. Swinub is not even particularly prediction reliant as nothing in the tier is comfortable taking both STABs. PhysDef Jigglypuff is the closest but is... just not a good Pokemon, lol. MixedDef Puff is a better mon overall but loses to two Earthquakes with just a little chip (if Rocks are up, you enter 2HKO range at 98%, with it being confirmed at just 84%.) Marill can live hits but similarly to Hatenna is reliant on RestTalk and is just a worse mon overall. Past those options you have to really dig deep to find checks: bulky Surskit resists both STABs? The D-ranked Togepi and Lotad?


I hate this bird so much. It's the poster child of what is plaguing DNU right now, this legion of frail but incredibly powerful attackers who force you to load, like, at least 2 speed control options per team. It's not a particularly good broken, as it shares a lot of counterplay with other fast and frail attackers (preserve Nacli or be ready to revenge kill it), but it just is a nightmare for defensive teams. Any stall composition is basically forced to run Unaware Wooper-Paldea for this mon, which means you're locked out of normal Wooper, which if you look above... yeah. Also the closest thing this mon has to counters only do so once, if the Pikipek clicks Knock Off, which it often will.

I'll also give dishonorable mentions to Yungoos and kiiiinda Surskit in this category, but they are worse mons that are much less splashable and abusable. I also have been side-eyeing Litwick a bit but that is a down-the-line mon for me.

I would appreciate some thoughts on people on my alleged broken Pokemon. Are they really broken? Is there some counterplay I've overlooked? Is there a mon not mentioned here that you want to draw attention to? While an official survey is probably not going to happen, we do have time for a theoretically suspect test before any summer tournament. What would you want to look at the most?

If you made me select the next suspect today, I think I'd go after Arrokuda personally, but I could easily be convinced to go after any of . is also a possibility for me but I'd need a biiit more convincing to be the next target over the alternatives considering the benefits it brings, compared to the others I mentioned which are mostly just unga bunga attackers.

Finally, to end this on a nicer note, I'll gonna glaze a mid tier I've been spamming the hell out of lately:


This mon is so good! Not sure why everyone just kind of forgot about it, but it is a super flexible defensive build that, in my eyes, has singlehandedly revived balance. I really like SpDef Toss/Toxic/Amnesia/Soft-Boiled as a set as it allows you to beat Budew in a 1v1 (yes really you take 49.5% max from Modest Budew), but Wishtect over Amnesia also works, and this mon has a deep deep movepool. Thunder Wave, Aromatherapy, Shadow Ball, Calm Mind, Encore, Counter, Magic Coat--there's a lot you can do here and it has a surprisingly flexible kit, really only needing Toss and a recovery move (the former is even droppable if you commit to running Calm Mind 2A sets, which I haven't tried recently but are probably good?) You can't just throw it to the wolves like you can often with Jigglypuff and Nacli, but whatever you have it set up to beat, it is probably the most reliable mon in the tier at doing so.

 

[Jumpheart]

DNU has updated our sample teams! We have a whopping 12 samples to pick from, all of which have been tested and deemed effective for use. Not all samples are created equal, but all are created viable, and I hope you enjoy using them and this can help people get into the tier!

 

[Jumpheart]

Today the DNU council published a new viability ranking!

VR Shifts

Rises

Zigzagoon-Galarian rose from A to A+
Makuhita rose from A- to A
Wooper rose from B to A
Cleffa rose from B+ to A-
Nidoran-F rose from B+ to A-
Surskit rose from B+ to A-

Rattata rose from B to B+
Meditite rose from B to B+
Impidimp rose from C+ to B-

Diglett rose from C- to C+
Pidove rose from C- to C
Dreepy rose from C- to C
Skitty rose from C- to C
Wimpod rose from C- to C
Fomantis rose from D to C-

Rellor rose from UR to D
Bunnelby rose from UR to D

Drops

Nacli fell from S to S-
Jigglypuff fell from S to S-

Bramblin fell from S- to A+
Roggenrola fell from A+ to A
Luvdisc fell from A to A-

Cottonee fell from A- to B+
Wooper-Paldean fell from A- to B+
Hoothoot fell from B+ to B
Marill fell from B+ to B
Nymble fell from B+ to B
Swablu fell from A- to B
Bidoof fell from B to B-
Happiny fell from B to B-

Tadbulb fell from B to C+
Snorunt fell from C+ to C

Hoppip fell from D to UR

Now some assorted thoughts:
This may be sacrilegious, but I think Bramblin is closer to A than it is to S- at this point. While it is still probably the best hazard removal in the tier, some recent trends have been horrendously unkind to it, such as the innovation of Rattata-A teams, the continued meteoric rise of Zigzagoon-G, and Swinub having a great showing lately. I have Bramblin possibly as low as #7 on my list--I don't typically order my entire list but I like to at least determine top 5, and I have a hard time placing Bramblin in it.

I'm surprised that of the unga bunga HO threats this is the one that rose, but I can't say it's not deserved--it's great at what it does, which is serve as a general-purpose anti-offense mon and speed control using Quick Feet. It's a mon I want to build with more. Not a lot to say here.

I went over why this mon is so good in my last post, but tl;dr, checking Arrokuda and Swinub in one slot is heavenly for teambuilding and lets you focus a lot more resources on other mons. It's not a perfect Pokemon but it's a damn good one. I actually only ranked it A- so I was pleasantly surprised to see it in A proper.

I have to say I vehemently disagree with this drop because it feels like Nymble is better than ever in a lot of ways and I considered it for A-. Sure, it's a pretty flawed mon in some ways, but man, it is so good at what it does: blowing up the many fast and frail mons in the first with priority. It helps balance teams ease the offense matchup a ton by being able to just trade sacs as Nymble whittles down their threats. It's not really a Pokemon you build a team to withstand, which is a point against it, but it is so incredibly useful and surprisingly versatile in what matchups it helps with. I don't know, famous DNU player Noglastica thinks it sucks, so maybe I'm the bad one.

We were really close to seeing this mon drop to DNU UU, which would have been funny. I don't have a lot to say here honestly, Marill is a polarizing Pokemon. Some say it sucks, others say it's really good, but I think even the people who have historically been high on Marill are realizing the flaws this Pokemon has in the current metagame. It's a bad sign considering that Swinub and Arrokuda, two mons that are kind of dominating team compositions right now, are two of Marill's on-paper good matchups, yet it is doing this poorly.

This Pokemon just... completely vanished. Where did it go? I honestly think the B- rank is generous and would personally put it below multiple Pokemon ranked below it. Both setup variants are outclassed by other Physical attackers and share a lot of their counterplay. They're strong, but they're clunky to actually get going and not as strong as you might expect. They're powerful and aren't entirely unviable, but hard to use properly, which has led to no one loading Bidoof in a while. Also, while Unaware utility sets were never actually good, they're entirely dead in the water now.

Underrated Pokemon that I ranked in B- and considered higher. Find me a switch-in. Spoiler: there is a single one, and it's not good. While it's true that Diglett suffers from a lack of bulk and entry points, a skilled player piloting Diglett on a team built to support it can cleave through teams, especially considering that Diglett is faster than a lot of speed control options (Jolly outspeeds Scarfed Yungoos, for example). Band is the real set, not Swords Dance. I think the reason this Pokemon was so slept on is that Gossifleur entirely shuts it down, but Goss has been on the verge of dropping to UU for two VRs now, so Diglett has less of a problem there.

Finally, a shitmon rapid-fire round:
Normalize Sucker Punch is a really funny anti-offense tool and Return chunks most Pokemon. Obviously Normalize is a super flawed ability so you need a team built around it, but run the calcs, there's some goofy stuff.

It's a Normal/Flying that actually wants to click Defog (sorry Swablu) and can punish the Nacli switch by clicking U-Turn. Cool guy, recommend giving him a shot if you haven't.

R8's been looking into this mon again and I've been pleasantly surprised by its calcs and matchup spread. It hates Budew being tier king, though, and until Budew goes it will have a hard time rising higher than this. Fomantis + Budew farmer 3000 (Zubat) might be a viable comp, unsure.

ALL HAIL THE GUNKER! I have no idea if this mon is actually real or being propelled by meme power but we've all lost to the gunker at some point so maybe it's actually good idk

Finally, DNU UU shifts:
have fallen to DNU UU

No Pokemon have risen to DNU OU

 

[R8]

R8's been looking into this mon again and I've been pleasantly surprised by its calcs and matchup spread. It hates Budew being tier king, though, and until Budew goes it will have a hard time rising higher than this. Fomantis + Budew farmer 3000 (Zubat) might be a viable comp, unsure.

I would like to expand a bit on this mon since i think it is very interesting, as it can help building interesting offensive cores aiming to overwhelm Budew: it does lose to Budew, but not much else wants to deal with it, so it can quite reliably land a leaf storm + a +2 hp ice against budew which can open up a teammate. It can hit really hard and, for example, boots litwick just super easily get farmed while evio also is at risk after rocks/hazards:

252+ SpA Contrary Fomantis Leaf Storm over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Litwick: 313-369 (102.9 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed KO in 2 turns
252+ SpA Contrary Fomantis Leaf Storm over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Litwick: 208-246 (68.4 - 80.9%) -- 47.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

So you survive a Sludge Bomb from Budew and can hit it back with +2 HP ice:
+2 252+ SpA Fomantis Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 144-170 (50.7 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Fomantis Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Budew: 29-34 (10.2 - 11.9%) -- possible 9HKO

So they are left with a 30-40% budew (+ hazards), and you can just pair it with something that enjoys Budew being at that range. I tried Capsakid but that's probably ass, maybe offensive Cottonne (which i think has a lot of potential!) or offensive luvdisc? Keep in mind you might be hitting a random Zubat occasionally instead though

https://pokepast.es/eec667b1a9032100 here is an example too lazy to complete the luvdisc set feel free to do it

 

[Jumpheart]

Last night into this morning, the Do Not Use council held a few votes on controversial pieces of the metagame in preparation for Do Not Use Premier League. These options were decided by a recent survey. We have two unbans to announce, along with an unban (?!):

	Jumpheart	Melody	Zpice	M0onStarr
Rattata-Alola	Ban	Ban	Do Not Ban	Ban
Hustle (ban overturns Rattata-Alola ban)	Ban	Ban	Do Not Ban	Ban
Sand Veil / Snow Cloak	Ban	Ban	Ban	Ban
Nidoran-M (conditional on Hustle ban)	Unban	Unban	Do Not Unban	Unban

As such, Hustle, Sand Veil, and Snow Cloak are now banned from Do Not Use, and Nidoran-M is now allowed!

Rattata-Alola:
This Pokémon is truly absurd in every sense of the word. While it serves a valuable niche as a Pursuit trapper in a tier where that is viable, Hustle gave it truly absurd calcs while leaving a very flexible set. Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Life Orb, Black Glasses, Eviolite, Heavy-Duty Boots could all be viably ran, and Silk Scarf and Wide Lens were theorymonned as well. Along with Swagger Mirror Herb. My bad. It has good flexibility in movepool as well: Pursuit obviously, U-Turn, Crunch, Return, Double-Edge, Quick Attack, Sucker Punch, Taunt, Switcheroo... you can really tailor this rat to achieve whatever goal you desire. Thick Fat saw some fringe use, but Hustle served as a poor man's Huge Power (a week 1 ban here, as a reminder) that let Rattata-A get away with absurd stuff. Guts Rattata-K might seem just as good on paper, but that Pokemon is item-locked. Banded Hustle Adamant Rattata-A gets this truly absurd calc:

252+ Atk Choice Band Hustle Rattata-Alola Double-Edge vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Fluffy Wooloo: 98-116 (34.1 - 40.4%) -- 34.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes

For context, here is how FERROTHORN takes that hit:

252+ Atk Choice Band Hustle Rattata-Alola Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 80+ Def Ferrothorn: 96-114 (27.2 - 32.3%) -- 5.1% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery

Illegal. Obviously, this calc is absurd. However, there is the elephant in the room in that this 2HKO means hitting an 80% move twice. The mantra going around is that Rat-A was broken 80% of the time, and dead weight 20% of the time, which takes us to...

Hustle:
If Rattata-Alola was the first Pokémon we'd had issues with abusing Hustle, this probably would not have even crossed my mind. However, after I initially proposed banning Hustle, it got enough traction to be included on the survey.

We had our initial problems with Hustle early on into the tier with Nidoran-M getting quickly banned last Spring after I discovered the Hone Claws Sucker Punch set that basically mandated Run Wooper or Die. While Nidoran-M would have been a decent Pokémon without Hustle, with it, it was well and truly broken and needed to go pronto, so it did.

Over the last few months, Rat-A went from an underrated Pokémon who was inconsistent and hard to use and slowly climbed up the rankings to be enemy #1, in large part due to Hustle. As I said earlier, Thick Fat was ran on occasion for consistency, but it was considered very much worse and you do really feel the power difference using it.

Finally, Nidoran-F has been getting more attention lately, and while it was never included on a survey, it has been called broken by a few users (myself included) due to a similar Hone Claws build that got Nido-M banned. It's not quite as bad as Nido-M in that regard, but the increased bulk allows you to often get two Hone Claws boosts which allows you to sweep in the endgame.

The common thread here is Hustle. There's two angles, and I think that if it was just one, this ban wouldn't be justifiable, but there are two.

There are other Pokémon with Hustle, but they all have massive issues holding them back: Rattata-K is completely outclassed as a Hustle user by its Alolan forme, Combee is... I don't have to justify that one, Togepi gets a single usable Physical move and is working off a base 20 attack stat and it still 2HKOs Nacli if Nacli gets Knocked:

252+ Atk Choice Band Hustle Togepi Play Rough vs. 248 HP / 120+ Def Nacli: 141-166 (45 - 53%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes

This is the first issue: Hustle is uniquely broken in the context of DNU. Due to the way EVs and stat boosts interact with lower stats, a raw 1.5x boost to stats is more effective in DNU than any other tier. In that Togepi calc from above, the base 20 attack stat Pokémon is working with an effective base attack of 54.5. That is just a good stat in DNU. This is a Pokémon that is as unoptimized to run Hustle as you can get, and I still think it is probably fringe viable. With any amount of optimization, Hustle breaks the Pokémon running it.

The second issue is the uncompetitive nature of Hustle. Admittedly, this is more of a Rattata problem due to the Nidos running Hone Class, but since it is an uncompetitive argument I don't think that matters. Due to the centralization around Rattata-A, Rattata clicks moves a lot. When it misses 80% of its moves and is as frail as it is, it effectively because a 1-mon swing skill check every time it comes in. It also means, often, your best bet is to stay in on Pursuit and hope Rattata misses so you can blow it up, considering how frail it is. It is not a fun game for either side to play. This is not even mentioning Rattata vs. Rattata situations and how frustrating and complex and uncompetitive that decision tree is.

Nidoran-M:
A much smaller paragraph, with Hustle gone, this little guy is far more manageable and will be given another shot for the first time in a year and a half. I'm happy to have him back! I was the originator of Nido-M and also was the most notable user of Nido-F as of late, so I'm curious to see how these little guys fare in a more relaxed climate. (Get it? Because there's no Hustle?) I do honestly think there is a small chance it ends up unhealthy anyways, either the same 3A Hone Claws or Band, but those chances are small enough I am more than happy to give it another shot.

Sand Veil and Snow Cloak:
Don't have nearly as much to say here. These abilities are certainly niche but they are uncompetitive by definition and are only used to fish for misses and have no place in the tier.

 

[Jumpheart]

DNUPL Teamdump and Teardown
Hi all, I originally introduced this post with a "gonna keep the yap to a minimum" but if you know me you know that is complete bullshit, so here's a giant ass post about my teams, some overall thoughts on the tier, and my experience playing in DNUPL this year.

Teams
I also built for naere and Stories but won't be posting their teams (except one ), instead focusing on the stuff I built for myself.

Week 1 - vs. evakiyama! - L
(what an alt jump lmfao)
Going into this week I wanted to intentionally build something off-kilter, knowing the Skitties were mostly a clicker team and would be relying on Mason's outdated tier knowing insofar as what they run. I don't know how much research they did ahead of time or if they just relied on their own prep, but I wanted to build something out of my previous comfort zone. I... didn't end up doing that, as I built an iteration of a core I have come to rate very highly over the course of this PL: Hatrat. I originally tried Rolycoly in the Hatenna slot but needed to swap it out.

This is, as far as I am aware, Skitty's first usage in a DNU tour, but it had been something I had been testing for a couple months prior to tournament. Most mains were aware of it, but there was no public documentation of it. It's a super interesting set because it has a completely dominant offense matchup and falters into balance, but that is what the rest of the team is for--at least in theory. Psywave Jigglypuff is cool and uniquely fits this team because it compresses a Stealth Rock user onto Jigglypuff, which normally struggles to fit it as that would leave you total Bramblin bait.

The team was built expecting something offensive, possibly even full on HO cheese. Unfortunately, my prep was not sufficient, as they loaded Budnaclipuff (on paper something I don't struggle with) with a Makuhita (oh shit). I remember loading into this team and immediately swearing because I just forgot to prep for Makuhita, a sentiment that I think other people will agree with--perhaps not that specific mon, but the idea in general. A crit and some misplays in the game itself sealed the game out from my reach. Tough start.

Week 2 - vs. a fairy - W

Honestly, going into this week, my mental was in the gutter (for those in certain servers this was the week I was swearing to retire from Pokemon after DNUPL). Despite this I wanted to fight back and get a win with a team that I truly felt comfortable with.

The team I went with went through a ton of iterations. As you can tell from the team name, it originally had a Yungoos on the team. That was a Scarfed Yungoos, with Swinub being a bulky Trailblaze set instead. Unfortunately, Yungoos sucks, so I dropped the shitmon for Hatenna for the second week in a row. Scarf Swinub is a cool set that I wanted to load at some point in the tour and this seemed like a good week to do it, since my Rattata-Alola was using Choice Band as a wallbreaker.

Gossifleur was chosen as the Spinner of choice because I wanted something reliable into Arrokuda and neither Wooper really fit here. In addition, people were spamming the hell out of utility Luvdisc week 1, and I know Mushroomtester (who was building for a fairy this week) likes that set, so I wasn't too worried about Specs Luvdisc running me over. In hindsight, Surskit just destroys this team and needs to be Pursuit trapped, but hey never punished. In the game itself a fairy loaded Mareep and Arrokuda and I laughed seeing how Gossifleur was the perfect matchup fish. I was actually scared of the Jigglypuff on her team because I don't have a reliable way to break it--a horrendous oversight on my part--but it was the bad max physdef set (not sorry Mushroom xo) so Litwick just won even if I didn't wear it down with Paralysis. Apparently they prepped really hard for Budew stuff since I am notorious for loading that and were caught off guard by Goss so that is quite funny to me, she's still S-tier to me.

Week 3 - vs. Dead by Daylight - W

Another week, another Hatrat core. Whoopsies :3

This week, I really wanted to load Meditite because I noticed that a ton of builds were losing to this mon, including some stuff that DBD had been running. The main overall idea with this team was to use Wooper and Roggenrola to wear down Hatenna with time and trap and remove it with Rattata to enable a Meditite win in the endgame. Wooper provided useful compression as well in the form of a Luvdisc check and a secondary win condition. Seeing Roggenrola and Curse Wooper, I had the idea to go all-in on being slow and fat by bringing a pair of Trick Room setters: OTR Litwick and Hatenna, using what would normally be a Nuzzle slot on my teams for Trick Room instead.

In the game itself, Curse Wooper vs. Strength Sap Bramblin and SD Pikipek was a funny interaction. To be honest when Pikipek clicked Swords Dance I started sweating because I was worried about Flame Charge but he didn't have it so we ball. I also made a horrible play by going Meditite after Hatenna died on turn 12--I miscalced horribly and thought I took one, but I died to Pin Missile had he chosen to click it, but he opted to get a Spike up and not take the kill. I should have gone Litwick here and clicked TR, it put him in a horrible position. Was able to get back into it and Meditite won in the endgame. Never punished.

Week 4 - vs. SHIMA - W

This week, I went in with two goals: load Scarfed Budew and deviate from the cores I had been building by avoiding Rattata-Alola and Hatenna entirely. I originally built a different version with Roggenrola and Bramblin but had been frustrated with the team's performance in test games, with some pretty gaping holes in the team's composition. I noticed Nymble in tests (a matchup that is admittedly difficult to patch up on offenses like this) and violet river noticed a bad weakness to Hatenna, so we swapped some stuff around: drop Roggenrola for Beldum as our Normal resist, give Rocks to Swinub (had experimented with Protect and Trailblaze there), and drop Bramblin for the offensive Swablu set that got a lot of play this PL.

Getting into the matchup, you can see that SHIMA definitely fished a little for my usual stuff with both a Rattata-Alola and a Skitty of his own, something I hadn't accounted for fully but felt okay into on preview. Despite this, I immediately went into a huge deficit when his Skitty was revealed to be Silk Scarf Double-Edge and it murdered my Makuhita. I... I don't exactly know why I stayed Makuhita here rather than bailing to Beldum. I normally run Return on my Skitties so I tunnel visioned on that move and forgot Double-Edge existed as an option. I think my idea was to either Knock or Drain Punch it, trading HP on my Maku to make Skitty less of a threat (considering it was Skitty vs. offense--this is basically a dream matchup for Skitty). In hindsight though bailing to Beldum was incredibly free.

I was able to claw my way back into the game thanks to Beldum, which is a mon I have been gaining more and more respect for and this was the game that sealed it as an official A tier Pokemon for me. Getting Rattata out of the game with my Swablu was also huge. Still, things looked dire for me, but SHIMA made a crucial mistake by Nuzzling my Budew instead of just attacking it. If he clicks Psychic on turn 25, he just won the game, but Scarf Shadow Ball allowed for me to kill Hatenna and let Arrokuda win the game with Psychic Fangs. Tough match with one very swingy mistake on each side.

Week 5 - vs. OceanicGamer - L

Pikipeks were already clinched for playoffs and I was not motivated to build so I threw together a Skitty hyper offense to try and counter-team the Nymble spammer. This was, quite literally, thrown together in 5 minutes because I realized "oh shit I don't have a team yet and we play in a bit". Weakness Policy Roggenrola was a mon I wanted to try and this was a fine team to try it on, same with SD Rockruff. I honestly think this matchup was winnable and I just played and built poorly. PhysDef Cleffa and Nacli was tough but I think I had outs but I didn't find them. Oh well, on to the playoffs.

Semifinals - vs. Scizor Boladao - L

I'm not going to talk about the match much because I'm still not over it, but I will still talk about the team. Anyone who knows me in DNU knows I have tried tremendously to make SPOODER work and I finally found it with this set, which I was so thrilled to find and actually find success with. The idea is that it is a Makuhita sidegrade that suits different needs depending on the team--they have similar weaknesses defensively but very different offensive profiles. Specifically, I know JeoZ (my original opponent) was being supported by Zpice, and there was Marill in the scout, and I knew Marill had a really good matchup into my scouts. SPOODER, compared to Makuhita, completely dunks on Marill. It also has a better Budew matchup, which JeoZ had a lot in scout. The rest of the team was designed to support the SPOODER-Taillow-Luvdisc offensive core. The itemless Swablu was originally an itemless Budew but I made the swap after testing. It should probably just be Eviolite but I wanted to try Thief Swablu and didn't want to drop Pursuit here.

Bonus:
naere W1, W3, W5 - W, W, L

This team was loaded 3 time and was very successful, so I thought it would be important to post the paste for history's sake. Taillow offense was what naere originally seemed interested in and it took her to a 5-1 record so she was definitely on to something :p this specific team used ideas similar to my old double spam team, except by removing both of the spam--specifically, the offensive core of Budew, Roggenrola, and Surskit, and how they synergize with each other. Basically nothing in the tier can take on this trio of mons, and they work together to crumble any and all defensive cores and make room for Taillow to crush the rest. naere did a good job of piloting Taillow, finding plenty of use with it in the mid-game. In hindsight this is definitely a Jumpheart team but hey.

Pikipeks and Support
The Pikipeks were a fun group that I enjoyed being around! It a small but fun team and I think that the vibes were great, there were some really good discussions between the people who were active in chat.

Thank you to violet river and Evie for drafting me, and for genuinely taking the time to really engage with the tier--it was very cool seeing you two theorycraft DNU and VGC respectively. Building was a bit tough for me sometimes because of how emotional of a player I can be but you guys had my back the whole way and I appreciate you massively for that, and I wish we could have taken it all the way. Violet, you're a player and a person I really respect, so having you drop 30k on me, while a bit stressful, made me really want to produce good results for you, and overall while I think I could have done better I'm satisfied with how I did overall. Evie, you were an amazing VGC slot and took down an impressive set of players despite never having played the tier. Hell of a run.

naere, you did a great job picking up the tier and running with it, putting up an incredible record. Even in a lower-stakes team tour like this one 5-1 is impressive as hell, especially with no prior experience in the tier. You were a great sport and I really appreciate you genuinely engaging with me in what I was building for you and testing the teams out. I'd happily team with you again in the future!

gephicka, you were so good at UU you basically invented the current direction of the tier. Even if the back half wasn't what you wanted you did a great job picking up and playing well in what was a very underexplored tier going in. You were the perfect person to take that task and run with it. Your support of Evie in the VGC slot is also not to be underestimated, you did great helping her there. Great teammate and person!

I'll also take the chance to thank R8 for our countless tests throughout the PL. I might have played you in more DNU games the last 6 weeks than I have with everyone else the entirety of 2025, and I play this tier a fuckton so that is saying something. I genuinely could not have prepped as many teams as I did and stayed sane without you. You're a wonderful friend, incredible moral support, and a knowledgable player. If you told me Weedle was viable my first instinct would be to wonder what you saw in it that I had missed. I know you're still in so I'll keep your tech under wraps dw--besides the Weedle thing whoops my bad ;)

The Tour as a Whole & Some Introspection
I think the tour, though a bit scuffed at times, went very well and it seems like the majority of players had a great time with it. I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout and I think we have some wonderful momentum going forward. The tier was developed massively by this tournament thanks to several new players pitching their ideas along with mains being forced to build their asses off each week, and I think we have a wonderful direction for where to go next. I'm probably going to do another post with VR thoughts but this post is already far too long. I hope everyone who played considers playing DNU again in the future, especially if we do another iteration of DNUPL in the future (which I certainly hope to!).

Honestly, seeing DNU, a tier I started on a whim over 3 years ago now (jesus), having a full blown premier league with notable tour players playing and engaging with the tier was incredibly surreal. We've come so far as a tier and a community. We're past my biannual yearns of retirement so right now I am by all means full steam ahead! After DNUPL wraps up I'm already determining what the suspect test(s) will be, in preparation of a fall/winter seasonal double elim extravaganza. I can't wait!

Honestly, I'm getting a bit emotional writing this. I didn't expect this tier to last as long as it has nor make such a large impact on my life. I have a complicated relationship with mons as a whole that leans on negative, but at the same time, it has undeniably been a huge positive impact on my life. I met several of my now-best friends and closest relations directly because I founded this tier and it has entirely changed the course of who I am as a person. While I kind of hate the game itself, the people will always keep me coming back--both to DNU specifically and mons as a whole. I don't know how much longer I will be active as a player (don't worry--as I said my whims of retirement are currently at bay) but I will always be around in the community. It would be impossible to shout out every player that has made an impact on me for the better. It's been a wonderful ride and I am looking forward to continuing our journey to find the best of the very worst. Love you all <3

 

[Alon Guy Person]

Post DNUPL Personal VR and Meta Analysis
With the team I was on getting eliminated, I no longer have to hide the dark and twisted truth(!) about DNU. This will mainly be my personal thoughts on the meta along plenty of hot takes, a few example sets and a horrifically long rant about rat-a.

Before I begin though, I want to say my team on DNUPL was fucking awesome. Even though we didn't win the whole thing, we preformed extremely well in the swiss bracket, and the general morale and vibe in the team server was amazing. I'm not planning to do a full glaze post (shrey already did that for me), but it was genuinely incredibly fun the whole way through.

This tournament had a lot of innovation throughout, drastically changing my opinion on the metagame. This is my updated personal VR.

I will not be going over every pokemon here. I'm sure I don't need to explain why Taillow is so good or why Pichu is bad. I'll just be talking about the ones I find interesting/have had drastic shifts in position.

- Without a doubt, this is the best pokemon in the tier, and its not even close. Hatenna provides incredible support in the builder with a lot of the most threatening offensive pokemon and is also probably the only reason the hazard game is even manageable in the tier in the first place - since defoggers can't hold boots for the most part - it can switch in to the most common stealth rock setters such as Nacli, Rogg. or Swimub. Additionally, Hatenna has incredible set variety - from calm mind to nuzzle to resttalk or even future sight (innovated by r8), you can mix and match this pokemon to do almost anything you want it to do. It is also one of the very few pokemon that can tank 2 hits from life orb swinub (assuming defensive investment). Not to be entirely relied on for bulkier teams, but is certainly a nice property and it can serve as the sole swinub switchin if need be, especially so with pursuit support. I fully believe this pokemon is nearly mandatory on the large majority of non-HO teams, and would have ranked it in S+ if not for HO. Incredible mon.

- The "second best pokemon"... sure doesn't feel like it. Litwick is only ranked #2 because there is nothing else to be #2. As a wise a lot of people once said, "this tier has 1 top 5 mon and 30 top 10 mons". Of course, though, litwick would not rank this high if it wasn't excellent in it's own right. This is perhaps the single most threatening pokemon to switch into in the whole tier, as nothing can consistently beat all of its sets. There are 2 main litwick sets: taunt and trick room. Other niche options exist (overheat, calm mind, pain split, resttalk....) but I won't get into them here. Both of these sets, as well as most other sets, consist of shadow ball, a fire move, energy ball, and the final slot. I personally believe taunt is the best move in that slot - it has incredible breaking potential. Barring Marill and Happiny (both of which are rest reliant), every pokemon in the tier is 3HKO'd by fire blast with very minimial chip. Thanks to litwick's bulk, this means it can beat just about anything in a 1-on-1, living hits from offensive pokemon and OHKOing back. Most teams will not have a short-term defensive answers to this, and the ones who do will be overwhelmed with a bit of support. The second main set, as mentioned before, is Trick Room. This essentially serves as a super powerful cleaner. With litwick's absurd OHKO potential Vs. Offensive mons, if your opponent does not have a defensive answer to this in the lategame, they will almost certainly be put on the backfoot, at least until trick room is over. Unfortunately though, this set is quite easy to answer defensively - pwoop, jigg, swablu and cleffa can all take it on pretty easily. Additionally, if your opponent has a pokemon with a base speed lower than litwick's (:roggenrola rogg, / either wooper, etc'), they may have intentionally lowered their pokemon's speed to outspeed litwick under trick room, a tech I implemented on my teams throughout DNUPL. That being said, trick room's cleaning potential and ferocity into offensive teams who may lack these pokemon is not to be undermined.

- This pokemon, is, infamously, "fucking broken". Swinub is probably the single most broken pokemon in the tier, only facing competition for that title from Pikipek. While Swinub's offensive stats are not particularly insane, it has an absurd STAB combo. With the exception of Surskit (an offensive pokemon with no recovery) and Snom (lol), there is not a single pokemon in the tier that resists Swinub's stab combo. I will mainly be talking about the set most people consider broken - Life Orb 3a + rocks. With ice shard and a half-decent speed tier, swinub has plenty of opportunities to come in and try to revenge offenive pokemon - , , /, the birds, etc'. Considering how many pokemon this thing revenge kills and threatens out... it puts on an extreme amount of pressure. Only Marill, physically defensive Cleffa, Jwoop and the gunker consistently switch in throughout a game, and half of those are forced to click a recovery move. And then it sets up rocks, getting value for the whole game. Physically invested Hatenna can switch in to deny rocks, but only once. This leads to swinub being one of, if not the single most consistent progressmaker in the tier, with the only competition being, once again, Pikipek (we'll get to this one a bit later...), all while having extremely useful defensive utility. Please ban this stupid pig which I hate.

- The Nacli falloff is insane. And I'm probably its biggest supporter. It has dropped almost 2 tiers since the last VR, and most people probably rank it even lower than me. So, what happened? Basically, Nacli is weak. Rather, rock slide is weak. If you have been spectating DNUPL, you've probably seen stone edge Nacli pop up (due to my propaganda). In the current DNU enviorment, rock slide, uninvested Nacli is simply too weak and abusable. It is food for pokemon like Hatnna, Bramblin, Budew, and etc'. This circumstance all but forces nacli to switch to stone edge, and run attack investment. This comes with multiple issues. Perhaps the least important one is PP. Stone edge has a mere 8PP, which means throughout long balance mirrors (the teams Nacli is most often found on), it is not unrealistic for Nacli to run out of attacking PP and be far less threatening. The other 2 issues, however, are far more pressing. Firstly, Stone Edge is simply less consistent than rock slide. 80% accuracy really sucks and Nacli will miss quite often, missing out on a lot of potential damage. That being said, this is not completely backbreaking - Nacli's sheer bulk and access to recover means it can afford to miss once or twice, as long as it doesn't get abused. Still, you don't want to see it happen - which it very likely will in longer games. The other main problem is that having to run attack investment means you are far less bulky - especially with eviolite making EVs more potent. In the current enviorment, I believe Nacli simply cannot run special investment if it doesn't want to be abusable and still wants to check key pokemon like the birds. This means Nacli now has a far worse matchup into pokemon like or specially-based Nidoran. Despite this though, Nacli's fundementals still hold up. The rock typing is as incredible as ever, and so are rocks. I find it hard to imagine a metagame where Nacli is truly bad.

- Another insane falloff, and not the last one coming. Unlike Nacli though, I am one of the bigger budew "haters". The biggest thing making budew rank lower on the VR is simply other pokemon shifting. Nacli and puff both fell off massively, and a lot of its biggest checks like Beldum, and pwoop have rosen. Budew simply does not fare as well into the current metagame as it used to. That being said, it still has great fundementals and is rather unexplored with options like stun spore and especially sleep powder which is actually kind of stupid (hashtag ban sleep). I think it's rather unfortunate how little innovation this mon recieved in DNUPL considering how much it was brought, especially compared to the other top tiers.

- Broken mon ban now, electric boogaloo. Pikipek is absurd. To start off, its stats are simply ridiculous. 75/65 is better than just about anything in the tier in raw stats, with the only thing better being , which does not get to hold an item, and arguably just as importantly... does not get knock off. This will be a recurring theme from here on out - any pokemon that gets knock off is made significantly better because of it. Due to almost all defensive pokemon being reliant on eviolite, knock off is stronger than ever and cripples just about any pokemon who takes it. Combine that with pikipek's 75 base attack and high speed, and you get an absolute monster. Very few pokemon can switch into stab brave bird from pikipek, and the ones who do get heavily crippled by knock off, getting 2hkod later in the game by pikipek itself (/, ), are weak to it () or take massive damage from skill-link bullet seed, amplified even further, by, of course, knock off (, , , , ). This creates a fast and nearly unstoppable breaker with just its base kit. The main thing holding pikipek back previously was the difficulty to get it in the game. It is very frail, and while fast, many offensive pokemon can outspeed it and OHKO it. A lot of the ones that couldn't simply had a priority move anyway, and pikipek cant exactly switch in on seismic toss or a stone edge. This has been ripped apart by the recent innovation of choice scarf (by yours truly). Scarf lets pikipek outspeed, quite literally, every relevant offensive pokemon in the metagame, except scarf jolly rat-a, which was a response to scarf piki in the first place. This means piki gets plenty of opprotunities to get in the game and either kill an offensive threat or heavily cripple a wall. Of course, the scarf makes it easier to play around, but it still isn't a prediction game you want to play. Personally, I believe this to be more broken than Swinub, though most people would disagree.

- The single biggest falloff in this entire VR. I used to regard this as the best pokemon in the tier a little over a year ago. I'll get straight to the point. Wish is dogshit. This is the single worst 50% recovery move in the game and it's not even close. It's good when paired with other recovery (wish + soft boiled such as ADV Blissey for example), but it is ass by itself. This mainly stems from wish being extremely reliant on protect and leading to jigglypuff being extremely abusable. And unlike in Nacli's case, there is no workaround. Clicking wish (when you actually need to heal and are not passing it) results in one of two things: you either click protect, the opponent switches, and they get free momentum, or you use an attack, risking your puff dying every time you do this. Both are equally unappealing. Luckily for puff, however, every other part of the mon is insane. Stoss and knock off are the 2 best attacks in the tier, and jigglypuff can spam both to its heart's content. The reliance on wishtect, however, means you can't actually switch in to an attacker and click one, heavily weighing down their value. Its bulk, while great at first glance, ends up being undesirable. If you fully invest into one spectrum, the other ends up pitifully bad. If you go mixed, both are just kind of ok, especially considering how prone this mon is to chip damage. Puff does however have the somewhat absurd quality of locking down games if the puff answer goes down. Teams that are overreliant on something like Budew to beat puff may end up having puff killing all 5 of their other pokemon without switching once. Though this isn't very hard to account for considering how status weak wishtect is....
While I do believe puff has room for innovation, such as Nasty Plot (which was brought a few times in DNUPL) or full utility sets without recovery, in it's current state I can't bring myself to rank it any higher than this.

- One of the best glue pokemon for offense teams in the tier. Beldum has the absurdly broken typing in DNU of steel - steel resists are incredibly rare and most teams will straight up not have one. This leads to beldums Iron Head being a very threatening move that can end up making a surprising amount of progress. However, well built teams will be able to handle it, at least in the short term, with pokemon like Litwick or jwoop. The main reason you put beldum on a team is for its incredible defensive profile. Beldum is one of the very few offense-viable pokemon (alongside rogg and roly) that can actually comfortably switch into Taillow, possibly the best attacker in the tier. This, already, gives it an incredible niche, but the defensive qualities far from end there. Beldum also acts as a consistent check for Budews not carrying sball (which is the large majority of them), Hatenna, and as an emergency switchin to , piki , maku, , puff, // the rocks and many, many more. This makes it invaluable on offense teams as it can ward off almost every offensive pokemon at least once, letting it and the other attackers start to break. Unfortunately this pokemon literally doesnt have room for innovation, as it only gets 9 moves (most of which are useless), but it really only needs its STABs anyway.

- Hot take #1. There's 3 total on this VR, and this is the "coldest" one. Pidove has one of the most unique toolkits in DNU and most of its viability is carried by one move - and its not knock off this time. Pidove's main selling point is its bulk and typing paired with u-turn, andto a degree wish as well. Pidove's defensive profile is incredible. Notably, it is the single best Bramblin switchin in the tier, bar none. It also switches into Beldum, gzig, / the woopers, rat-a, and many more. However, unlike the pokemon with similar defensive profiles, pidove has access to u-turn, as mentioned previously. Instead of being easy to switch into and being used as food for the rocks, it baits them in and clicks u-turn, generating free momentum and dealing chip damage that is not unnoticable thanks to pidoves relatively high 55 base attack for its role. Due to it being so bulky, it can easily shrug off hits and come back in again, taking only 20% from pokemon like Bramble. The high base attack also means offensive pokemon can't boldly switch into it - a dual wingbeat (it unfortunately does not learn brave bird) can heavily punish an offensive pokemon trying to predict a u-turn:
8 Atk Pidove Dual Wingbeat (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikipek: 134-158 (63.5 - 74.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This means Pidove has unnaturally high bulk considering it can fit on offense teams and has access to reliable recovery. It is also an incredible wish passer, so it has that going for it as well. Perhaps there is room for innovation with defog, taunt or toxic as well. Overall, great mon.

- Hot take #2. I believe this is the single most underrated pokemon in the entire tier. The main sets impidimp has been used for before have been as a screens setter and as a nasty plot breaker. While I don't think these sets are bad, they are very flawed and need a lot of support, or don't fit on great archetypes in the case of screens imp. The main reason imp recieved this ranking is due to the specially defensive utility set, starring prankster parting shot. This combination of move and ability is completely vile. Prankster parting shot means, that as long as impidimp's team is alive, nothing truly "beats" it. The offensive drop from these 2 moves let impdimp's teammates take on just about any hit very comfortably, with pokemon like / the woopers being able to take 2 adamant guts facades from Taillow, without even needing full investment. This is paired with both thunder wave and a surprisingly good defensive profile. Thunder wave is a broken move - it steals turns and disables offensive pokemon, and is even more potent coming off prankster. It also ensures puff, the most prominent stosser (which is unaffected by the offensive drop of parting shot) has to think twice about trying to switch in. The defensive profile is actually incredible and pleasently surprised me in testing. Impidimp shrugs off hits from hat, Litwick, disc, Kirlia and Surskit while gaining back momentum and threatening a paralysis. Hatenna cannot set up with calm mind as it gets forced out by parting shot. This pokemon has incredible utility and can function as a great glue on both offense and bulky offense, especially considering some more niche options such as taunt or sucker punch.

- Hot take #3. They're all lined up, how nice of them. Anyway, yap is incoming. Let me preface that as much as I am going to go down on rat-a here, I fully believe it is a good pokemon and a lot of the things I will say can be half-dismissed by "it has the strongest and fastest pursuit in the tier". With that being said...
Rat-a is the single most overrated pokemon in DNU. I will mainly be talking about choice scarf rat-a, as that is by far the most common and most respected set.

Issue #1: Power
56 Attack, for an offensive scarfer meant to act a
s your main revenge killer, is very, very undesirable, and the base power of its moves does not make up for this. The rat's main click is crunch, a move with only 80 base power. Considering it wants all of switcheroo, u-turn, and pursuit, this often leads to it not being able to run a normal stab, which has higher base power. Even if it does choose to drop switcheroo or u-turn though, locking into normal is extremely dangerous as it lets in the very ghosts rat is supposed to beat. Crunch example calcs:
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Rockruff: 115-136 (49.7 - 58.8%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Swinub: 172-204 (71.3 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (is prone to chip to life orb, so this calc isn't too bad. Still, you flop into eviolite)
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Hatenna: 212-252 (73.8 - 87.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 248 HP / 164+ Def Eviolite Hatenna: 146-174 (50.8 - 60.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (defensive)
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Surskit: 133-157 (60.1 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Luvdisc: 136-162 (59.9 - 71.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Litwick: 186-218 (61.3 - 71.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think you get the point by now. Rat-a has a very hard time revenge killing just about anything without pretty significant chip damage. Double-edge, if you do decide to run it, is able to kill things like surskit, but still doesnt do a lot into things like dog or hat.
Rat-a is only able to revenge the frailest of the frail, and even then...
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pikipek: 208-246 (98.5 - 116.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
It's not even guaranteed. Against one of the frailest offensive pokemon in the tier, not holding an eviolite. The only relevant offensive pokemon rat consistently revenge kills are bramble and guts bird.

Issue #2: Trapping Problems
In practice, rat-a has a very hard time trapping a large majority of the offensive metagame due to the absurd amount of chip it needs to do so. Pursuit trapping is the main quality of the pokemon, yet it can't do it against most of the tier without risking a stay in.
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Pursuit (40 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Luvdisc: 69-82 (30.3 - 36.1%) -- 46.9% chance to 3HKO
Getting this much chip on pokemon like disc, sursk, kirlia and etc' is unrealistic and means you can only really expect rat-a to trap / the birds (which chip themselves with brave bird, meaning you need to sacrifice a lot of HP on your other mons......) and Bramblin. Maybe offensive Hatenna and CB fish as well.
Even against those pokemon, you need pretty considerable chip damage:
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Pursuit (40 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Taillow: 105-124 (47.5 - 56.1%) -- 81.6% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Rattata-Alola Pursuit (40 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arrokuda: 87-103 (39 - 46.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Issue #3: Bulk&Priority
Rat-a has a pretty unimpressive defensive profile of 30/35/35. This means that if it isn't killing the pokemon it is trying to attack, it's likely dying itself:
252 Atk Rockruff Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 232-274 (115.4 - 136.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
96+ SpA Hatenna Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Rattata-Alola: 204-240 (101.4 - 119.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

This, on its own, already poses a problem when combined with the rat's unimpressive power - it means it can't revenge a full hp pokemon even a single time. However, this becomes a far bigger problem when you take into consideration how strong priority is in DNU - rat-a can often find itself taking a lot of damage from a priority move, leaving it vulnerable to combinations of pokemon that carry them:

252+ Atk Guts Taillow Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 139-165 (69.1 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Rattata Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 142-168 (70.6 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Rockruff Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 108-128 (53.7 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Makuhita Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 98-116 (48.7 - 57.7%) -- 95.7% chance to 2HKO (you don't exactly deal good damage to this mon anyway....)
252 Atk Choice Band Arrokuda Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rattata-Alola: 136-162 (67.6 - 80.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Swinub Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Thick Fat Rattata-Alola: 58-70 (28.8 - 34.8%) -- 4.6% chance to 3HKO

On their own, some of these already pose an issue. It is not unrealistic for rat-a to come in enough times on hazards and get in range of something like k-rat quick attack. When combined, rat-a can only revenge kill at most 1 pokemon, dropping to the next used priority move. This makes it very inconsistent at revenge killing more than 1 pokemon against a lot of offense teams. Of course, this isn't exclusive to rat-a, scarf Piki shares this issue, but it is a problem nontheless.
It also can't revenge kill medi (vacuum wave) or skitty (sucker punch OHKOs) so there's that I guess. Both of these aren't exactly easy to beat with defensive pokemon, especially considering rat-a teams often drop the rock in skitty's case, but there are definitely worse mons to be unable to revenge kill.

Issue #4: Hatenna
Hatenna, of course, is not exactly a problem pokemon in the sense that it switches into rat-a and abuses it. Rather, Magic Bounce is the problem here.
Hazards are the easiest and most consistent way to get chip damage onto most offensive pokemon. Hatenna denies almost all common hazard setters in the tier. This proves to be a massive issue for rat-a's gameplan.
The #1 reason to run rat-a is that it has both the fastest and strongest pursuit. However, said pursuit still needs major chip to trap even the frailest pokemon - / even the birds require around 50%.
Hatenna denying rocks is extremely problematic for it and essentially denies consistent trapping in the early game, letting frail attackers come in more than you'd like them to, with a team that is somewhat less well-equipped at handling them due to containing rat-a and relying on it to some degree in the first place.

Issue #5: Specs Taillow
Rat-a teams very often drop the normal resist as rat-a can usually trap most offensive normal types in the mid-game. Specs Taillow proves to be a huge problem to rat teams for this reason, as it is not worn down by brave bird recoil or by it's flame orb, being a massively threatening attacker on a speed tier pokemon except rat itself are unlikely to pass.

Issue #6: Scarf Pikipek
Scarf Pikipek, similarly to Hatenna, is not a direct problem to rat-a, rather a roundabout one. Choice scarf piki outspeeds adamant max speed rat, and due to rat teams being extra weak to birds without the trap, this often forces rat-a to run jolly in the modern metagame. This is a massive problem. Jolly makes chipping things both into crunch and especially pursuit even harder than it already is. Moreover....
252 Atk Rattata-Alola Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Taillow: 189-223 (85.5 - 100.9%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
Jolly is exceedingly unlikely to revenge kill a specs Taillow. This is, of course, really bad.

I do believe Pikipek is likely to get banned in the near future, allowing rat-a to comfortably run adamant again. However, all of the other issues I listed above are still very prominent and hold the mon back from being a true top-tier.

good mon tho
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- Knock off user spotted. Kirlia has 3 main sets: Specs, Scarf, and Eviolite utility (in order of prominence). The main reason I ranked it in A- was due to the utility set, so that will be the main one I go over. However specs is an incredible breaker and scarf has a strong combination of power and speed with knock off. Both are not to be undermined.
The utility Kirlia set is knock, and then some combination of psychic stab, will-o-wisp, teleport, fairy stab, wish, thunder wave, and encore. In particular, the combination of knock-wisp-psychic is something almost no pokemon in the tier wants to switch into, with thief shed skin Gunker being the only one that can take all 3 comfortably. WIth teleport, kirlia becomes one of the best punishes to hat in the tier, knocking it off and then teleporting into a breaker while taking pretty minimal damage from all of its attacks and warding off nuzzle with synchronize. However, its relative lack of defensive utility into a lot of non-hatenna common threats is minimal and holds it back from recieving a higher tier.

- With the fall of budew, comes the rise of the cloud. The biggest thing that used to hold this pokemon back was itemless budew - an incredibly common set at the time that used its lack of item to switch into bramble (to avoid polter) and used hatenna as free entry into the game. In the modern meta though, not only has budew gotten less prevelant, itemless has all but disappeared from most teams. This means cottonee is finally able to unleash its absurd utility movepool paired with prankster - defog, encore, thunder wave, knock off, etc'. Due to knock off, most pokemon automatically do not like switching into it, and its grass typing means disc, our only mon which is not completely cripped from losing its item, has a hard time switching in. When paired with cottonees decent defensive typing and absurd bulk, you get a pretty good utility pokemon on offense teams, though it inviting in / the birds holds it back.

- This is one of the single best attackers in the tier. Why is it so low then? It is almost entirely outclassed by guts Taillow. It is only barely stronger, but it is significantly slower than guts taillow and lacks that valuable secondary STAB. Lacking the rocks weakness is nice, and extra coverage in the form of iron tail and utility in super fang and taunt are nice as well, but they still make it worse than Taillow on the large majority of teams. Its main niche is to act as a secondary Taillow - which is luckily probably the best pokemon to be a slightly worse version of, considering it is the best attacker in the tier. Great mon, unfortunate circumstance.

- A very recent DNUPL innovation (by me :3), the gunker has a unique defensive profile and toolkit that give it a very special niche. This pokemons defensive stats are kind of absurd - 41/60/58 is only matched by gossifleur, famous for its passivity. These amazing stats along with shed skin allow gunker to be the single best hatenna answer in the tier, shutting down every set incredibly consistently. It is also one of the most consistent swinub switchins, shrugging off hits and recovering back to full with ease. Additionally, access to thief means you can run itemless and heavily cripple a pokemon trying to switch in, like a // rock, /, a defensive bird or even a Litwick. This pokemon is not without its pitfalls, though. Firstly, reliance on thief to make progress means it won't be very bulky at the start of the game, so it needs careful managing. Additionally, while bug is surprisingly nice in DNU, it also has the problem of being weak to rocks and / the birds, meaning it needs extensive support, especially considering that swinub will likely set up rocks on gunker itself. Reliance on gunk shot accuracy to beat pokemon like puff can also prove problematic, due to accuracy. It gets compound eyes to circumvent this, but that requires giving up shed skin - whether this is a good trade or not depends on the team.

- haha balls. This mon is, in a lot of ways, a worse Litwick. However, it has 2 things giving it a valuable niche: access to rocks and recover. Slugma is almost certainly the single most consistent pokemon at setting up rocks. Unlike other setters, Slugma consistently 2HKOs hat, and scares away bramblin. It also deals extremely big damage to defog pokemon with Fire Blast. The other main thing is recovery - this lets Slugma function as a defensive answer to the pokemon it switches into throughout the game. Unfortunately, due to having a worse typing and worse stats than Litwick, the only really relevant one is Beldum, though being able to consistently abuse one of the least abusable pokemon in the tier certainly has its merit. Recovery also has the side benefit of allowing you to play slugma more aggressively as a wallbreaker - its special attack is even higher than Litwicks, and with access to earth power, it is not a far cry to say Slugma is one of the most potent wallbreakers in the tier. However, it has a very, very large amount of defensive liabilities (rock weakness, water weakness, Taillow.....) which significantly hold it back, as well as of course the competition from the overall better fire type.

- I LOVE DREEPY!!!!!!!

 

[R8]

There is a LOT to say about this tier and most of it is stuff i'm waiting for the tour to end to comment on, but there is a mon i already want to talk about

Lotad (nominating it to be in C / C+ rank)

Lotad is mostly outclassed by Johto Wooper, but has a place in balance teams that already have Paldea Wooper that would want to use Johto Wooper too but can't. Paldea Wooper teams appreciate additional help against Nacli, Swinub, Water Types and to some extent Rockruff. More precisely, Leech Seed is not only an annoying move to deal with for some teams but also helps Lotad checking curse Nacli in the long run, and Scald gives it some security against Ice Beam freezes, which is something Wooper Paldea teams can be vulnerable to as opposing Luvdiscs sometimes gets lot of opportunities to fish for freezes against the usual Water resists (Paldea Wooper being one). Under some circumstances Lotad can also allow Paldea Wooper to run Unaware over Water Absorb, though not being able to block Flip Turn can make Arrokuda annoying.

Here is a showcase of Lotad from DNUPL
Using this 6, which i'll give a paste of after the tournament:


On this team built around Curse Skwovet, Lotad is appreciated for its ability to deal with Curse Nacli long term as it is one of the few things that can hardwall Skwovet in the long run. In returns, Skwovet sets up on Budew which is one of the few mons that don't care about the Leech Seed + Scald + Toxic combination. We ended up facing Curse Nacli + Budew but that didn't prevent Lotad from doing its job. It's not an amazing Pokemon but it definitely has its place in the tier as it has the right traits for some specific Paldea Wooper teams, hence why i think it deserves to be higher than D rank which seems to be where most pple rank it at the moment.

 

[scionicle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1971388353636675678

UU is a tier that exists