Announcement NP: RU Stage 20 - Smooth Criminal [Mienshao Suspect Test]

[feen]

​

Following the April 2026 shifts, the council did an emergency slate on Mienshao and with 8/9 members suggesting tiering action, we have decided to suspect test Mienshao!

votes

Mienshao has been a storied Pokemon with RU over the years. Being banned (SM), being banned (SS), and then SV where.. it was mostly outclassed by Zapdos-Galar. It had its place to be sure, Tera Normal Double-Edge sets were nice for Fezandipiti and Weezing-Galar, and Life Orb sets were never truly poor, but it was mostly seen as a second fiddle. Fast track to the departure of all three of the above Pokemon, and Mienshao quickly shot up in viability to the highest levels. With Volcanion's departure, Noivern fell to the side on many teams for Talonflame, who's Flame body 30% chance to get an effective OHKO on Mienshao should you score that 30%. Of course, Talonflame had to be concerned about Stone Edge sets, but the equation was balanced out nicely with Talonflame in conjunction with secondary measures like Amoonguss and Slowbro. Especially thanks to the fact that Talonflame threatened an OHKO with Brave Bird. Of course, Talonflame after being knocked off without scoring that burn was not great, and Mienshao was more than capable of being paired with the tiers reliable list of Clerics and Resuscitators, like Heal Bell Blissey, Lunar Dance Cresselia, and Healing wish Jirachi.

Fast forward to now, and with Talonflames departure the equation has become far too lopsided in the eyes of the RU council. Mienshao's coverage of Triple Axel allows it to handle much of the remaining checks, such as Gligar, Amoonguss, Vileplume and Noivern. Knock off is free progress on Psychic types like Reuniclus, Slowbro of both forms, and Cresselia. Thanks to Regenerator, Mienshao was capable of both threatening to beat teams down through the course of a longer game, and invite in dangerous partners that threaten all its checks like Porygon-Z, Specs Magnezone and Gengar. Mienshao's longevity combined with its exemplary damage output made it contentious even with Talonflame, as it left a large strain on archetypes that weren't Hyper Offense or Stall.

Mienshao, however is not perfect. Priority users such as Extreme Speed Entei, Aqua Jet from Crawdaunt and Feraligatr and Thunder Wave Klefki could threaten Mienshao with a revenge kill from quite high health's due to its poor bulk, and that same poor bulk limited its opportunities for entry without being knocked out. That bulk will haunt it even further, as emergency Tera usage from Pokemon like Registeel, Slowbro, and Hisuian Goodra could easily spell an audicious Mienshao's doom. However, none of these are sure-fire, as Mienshao can very easily U-Turn at a moments notice, and it's these traits that have encouraged the council to take action with a suspect test.

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in RU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played RU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• Double check that you're listed as a voter below! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, TheFranklin, Rarelyme, or a member of staff.

>>VOTER LIST<<

​

If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2800 with a B-value of 7. The deadline for getting requirements will be Saturday, April 11th, 23:59 GMT -4. Good luck to all!

 

[colorednaem]

Im a little bit confused by this suspect to be honest. After the gapdos rise i can understand the suspect of mamo as that was something the community had been pushing for a while but i have hardly even seen anything about mienshao and it wasnt even on the last community survey. I do understand that talon significantly shifts the mienshao counterplay to where it may be pushed off over the edge and i understand rupl is on but there hasnt been any period of this new meta for us to figure out whether or not it is broken. Because of this and the fact that back to back suspects rarely happen i and maybe others will feel like for the best future of the tier we have to vote based on what we think mienshao will be in this meta instead of on anything really concrete. Would love to hear others opinions abt this if there is something im missing. (also if this is an april fools u fucking got me lol haha my post but its well past april first in my timezone)

 

[LBN]

As the writer for the OP, I have to subscribe to writing things gently, and in a specific way to seem both relatively impartial, and give a quick but intricate view of the big picture to why a suspect was decided and why a mon is contentious. Most notably, I have to write things quite eloquently.

And with replying to this OP, I am under no such niceties.

Fuck this piece this shit. The amount of strain this thing puts on the tier could be considering a disease that the WHO would take attention to. First, let's start with the longevity aspect. Regenerator is, all in all, a free opportunity to slap Life orb on this Pokemon for easy breaking and power boost without dealing too much with the flaws Life orb tends to bring. As a pivot, it needn't care about Rocky Helmets, and damaging hazards are only a problem at their max, sticky webs and toxic spikes notwithstanding of course. You guys remember Zapdos-Galar, right? Tier hero, tier staple, all that fun stuff. You remember how we handled it on average yeah? For all of Gapdos's value, good stats, great clicks, hazard resilience, its biggest fault was longevity caused by Rocky Helmet chipping it down from U-turning on turns all day freely, and Brave Bird eating into its lifespan. Mienshao, realistically, did not have these problems beyond Talonflame.

If you wish to argue for Vileplume and Bellibolt, be my guest. But let's be clear here, these are cope. As big of a Vileplume defender as I am, it is on its best days, a sidegrade Amoonguss in every other application that isn't fishing Mienshao. Bellibolt meanwhile, unless you sink Tera, is 2 shotted from life orb Close Combats from full 54% of the time vs calc set Bellibolt. Admittedly, this equation changes a little bit when we take off the fucking HIPPOWDON speed creep and put a whopping 32 more evs in defense. As far as contact punishing went, this is why Talonflame was preferred. With Helmets being useless, Talon was the only one who could really stop Mienshao from U-Turning to something like Porygon-Z all game long. While the risk of Knock off was big, let alone dying to Stone Edge, the odds to score a burn combined with being faster than Porygon-Z and most others allowed Talonflame to restrict Mienshao's otherwise vast impunity to do whatever it wanted. This is why you'd see a lot of Talonflame&Slowbro, Talonflame&Amoonguss, and so on as cores on teams whenever somebody DID load something less all-in.

And you know the best part of all of this talk of fishing status on Mienshao?

It never fucking mattered.

Now with Talonflame gone, well we just do not have sufficient tools to stop Mienshao from KnockTurning the entire tier into a blender. "But what if I just overpower it with offense!" I hear you say. Why yes, this does work quite well. But uh, do I need to explain why having balance builds be near inoperable is a bad thing?

"Why didn't we touch Porygon-Z instead! It was the one being a problem in PZ&Shao cores!" Sure, at the time. And BELIEVE ME, you will not catch me within the same county line as defending PZ as a healthy mon, trust me, that fuckass duck is still under intense scrutiny. But, I can say with 200% confidence that Mienshao without Talonflame is more nightmarish than PZ is, which is why we struck it instantly. Like, I'm sure people who use nothing but stall and HO rn think Mienshao is fine! Shit, I fell under the same trap with calling Mamoswine a bum when i spam Cresselia constantly. But the moment I said, "fuck it. Lemme load a Reuniclus." Dude it's fucking bad. Absolutely dire straights.

Case in point, this mon is pure filth. Filth in the battle, Filth in the builder. Pure, Seine River FILTH. Ban it, send it to the gallows of RUBL with the rest of the soccer team we can make out of the banlist.

 

[Yourwelcomethanku]

I would have personally preferred that something else was looked at first or that we suspected multiple Pokemon at once. The main threats in the tier in my personal view right now are Bisharp, Mienshao, Armarouge, and Porygon-Z and I would favor banning all of them except maybe Bisharp. Mienshao has no real answers outside of like Tera Fairy fats and like Houndstone (which is very nice on stall actually) or Scream Tail. Between all of its attacks it is hard to wall, and whatever fat wall it cannot answer, it can just U-turn into like Armarouge or Porygon-Z. It's very fast, it is hard to wear down due to Regenerator. I already got the reqs and intend to vote ban.

A side note, but I think stall teams are really oppressive in the tier. Between Blissey, Chesnaught, Quagsire and the other Pokemon found on stall teams, it is very difficult to make progress against these kinds of teams and there are all sorts of adaptions that stall teams can make to deal with would be counters. Many teams just cannot deal with stall on the spot, and you could say that is their fault, that is certainly true, but actively looking for ways to handle these teams is difficult. Even something like Porygon-Z or Armarouge or Mienshao is not really enough to deal with stall by itself. I laddered with this for about half or more

I made another version with Palossand over Houndstone, solely for Toxtricity but Houndstone is better in general. Tera Psychic Blissey is to check Shift Gear Tox and Psyshock Armarouge in one so they don't Drain Punch and Psyshock and beat you over. On the Palossand version I just stuck with the normal Tera Dark.

 

[lighthouses]

I think this is yet another example of the absolute slowfest nonsensical tiering that has plagued this tier for so long now, act on mienshao and ONLY mienshao and just because talonflame rose. Its the same type of tiering that led to that whole mamoswine volcanion thing.
There is no need for everything to move so slowly guys, it just comes off as lazy at this point rather than careful, because weve already seen what this decision making process leads to, and its like it just doesnt matter.

The fact that its very hard to know what the council is thinking at any given moment aside i dont understand why we are not allowed to simply suspect test all of the problematic pokemon at once, hell, at the very least suspect pz + mienshao and then look at other stuff like bisharp and arma. Its like either some rise has to happen or we just religiously adhere to what tiering surveys say despite terribly obvious disconnect between those and the vocal opinions of active participants in ru tournaments on discord and the like.

Pz is not op because of mienshao + pz teams, it simply is too much by itself. And the fact that most of the borderline pokemon in this tier are a)offensive and b) tera abusers makes it really easy to understand the current dichotomy of either use stall or cheese ho to win, the presence of pz is way more of a detriment to balance teams than mienshao, it forces you into using very passive and not-so-great pokemon like blissey and umbreon which ultimately leads you to stall. If you want to keep up with all of pz, bish, arma you need to either be running hyper offense yourself or you need to be dipping into full stall. Without some or all of these threats in the tier balance would be very safe into hyper offense right now without the need to stack ultra passive mons.

This dichotomy is extremely obviously the very thing everyone dislikes about the tier and reason for it is very clear and yet still somehow were suspecting things one at a time? Starting with a mon that is comparatively less of a problem than something like pz?
Will we ban mienshao right here then wait x amt of time before suspecting again only to only suspect pz and nothing else? Or are we just gonna keep only being reactive until scl arrives and the tournament community at large starts shitting on this tier which leads to quickbanning mons that have been in the tier for a while.

As an example PU reacted to the most recent tier shifts by freeing heracross into the tier immediately no nonsense no time wasting, and im sure every one of the drops + heracross can be looked at later.

I get that shifts suck and that sv has been going on for a while which for sure does not help but come on we can be a bit more proactive than this no?

Im not sure what i would vote on mienshao at this moment, i would absolutely have loved to see the state of a meta without pz but with mienshao allowed as i do not believe its solely making balance teams 'impossible' to use. On paper sure but on practice during the games its poor bulk and general fear of status since in sv clerics are not abundant makes it a bit hard to just switch mienshao into mons its supposed to abuse in order to make all the progress its supposed to on paper.

I suspect personally that a tier with mienshao and without pz would see all these problems being much more bearable on a teambulding perspective, and a tier without pz and arma and bisharp would make it so one can actually build a balance team that can put up a fight against HO.

 

[TheFranklin]

I think this is yet another example of the absolute slowfest nonsensical tiering that has plagued this tier for so long now, act on mienshao and ONLY mienshao and just because talonflame rose. Its the same type of tiering that led to that whole mamoswine volcanion thing.
There is no need for everything to move so slowly guys, it just comes off as lazy at this point rather than careful, because weve already seen what this decision making process leads to, and its like it just doesnt matter.

The fact that its very hard to know what the council is thinking at any given moment aside i dont understand why we are not allowed to simply suspect test all of the problematic pokemon at once, hell, at the very least suspect pz + mienshao and then look at other stuff like bisharp and arma. Its like either some rise has to happen or we just religiously adhere to what tiering surveys say despite terribly obvious disconnect between those and the vocal opinions of active participants in ru tournaments on discord and the like.

Pz is not op because of mienshao + pz teams, it simply is too much by itself. And the fact that most of the borderline pokemon in this tier are a)offensive and b) tera abusers makes it really easy to understand the current dichotomy of either use stall or cheese ho to win, the presence of pz is way more of a detriment to balance teams than mienshao, it forces you into using very passive and not-so-great pokemon like blissey and umbreon which ultimately leads you to stall. If you want to keep up with all of pz, bish, arma you need to either be running hyper offense yourself or you need to be dipping into full stall. Without some or all of these threats in the tier balance would be very safe into hyper offense right now without the need to stack ultra passive mons.

This dichotomy is extremely obviously the very thing everyone dislikes about the tier and reason for it is very clear and yet still somehow were suspecting things one at a time? Starting with a mon that is comparatively less of a problem than something like pz?
Will we ban mienshao right here then wait x amt of time before suspecting again only to only suspect pz and nothing else? Or are we just gonna keep only being reactive until scl arrives and the tournament community at large starts shitting on this tier which leads to quickbanning mons that have been in the tier for a while.

As an example PU reacted to the most recent tier shifts by freeing heracross into the tier immediately no nonsense no time wasting, and im sure every one of the drops + heracross can be looked at later.

I get that shifts suck and that sv has been going on for a while which for sure does not help but come on we can be a bit more proactive than this no?

Im not sure what i would vote on mienshao at this moment, i would absolutely have loved to see the state of a meta without pz but with mienshao allowed as i do not believe its solely making balance teams 'impossible' to use. On paper sure but on practice during the games its poor bulk and general fear of status since in sv clerics are not abundant makes it a bit hard to just switch mienshao into mons its supposed to abuse in order to make all the progress its supposed to on paper.

I suspect personally that a tier with mienshao and without pz would see all these problems being much more bearable on a teambulding perspective, and a tier without pz and arma and bisharp would make it so one can actually build a balance team that can put up a fight against HO.

I would like to reply, since I don’t fully agree with most of these points.

To start with, I don’t think the tiering process has really been that inactive the last few months. We have discussed multiple times within the council and the overall consensus was that nothing was deemed broken. Our view aligned with the last survey that we have done, though it is important to note that that survey moreso acted as confirmation than the reason nothing was suspect tested.
Calling us lazy here just doesn't make any sense. We acted right after the shift and went for a vote. That the vote turned out to be suspect and not ban immediately has nothing to do with lazy, only with the opinions of the council.

The fact that its very hard to know what the council is thinking at any given moment aside i dont understand why we are not allowed to simply suspect test all of the problematic pokemon at once, hell, at the very least suspect pz + mienshao and then look at other stuff like bisharp and arma.

Lack of transparency is a fair point for the past though I don't think it applies for this case specifically. It has already been discussed in the cord that council is thinking about mienshao -> PZ. Calling for a double suspect is something that is obviously just not on the table and a moot point.

Its like either some rise has to happen or we just religiously adhere to what tiering surveys say despite terribly obvious disconnect between those and the vocal opinions of active participants in ru tournaments on discord and the like.

I think you are greatly misrepresenting the sentiment of ru mainers in the past months here. The fact that there are some people vocal about it does not mean that is the main sentiment in the community. As said previously, the majority of the council did not see PZ as problematic in that time, same for both the non-qualified and the qualified (read mainers/ru tour players) part of the survey. I'm talking about the past months here, because this sentiment has been starting to shift since the start of rupl.

Now onto the timeline: questioning the timing of this suspect and calling the council reactive is very puzzling to me. Talonflame leaving, the only pokemon in the tier that can actually punish mienshao spamming knock + uturn (through rng), is a very logical moment to look into mienshao. The entire tier can not switch in safely to mienshao. Even slowbro is threaten by knock into tera dark knock KO. Furthermore mienshao can now actually run Ice Spinner/Triple Axel comfortably so gligar and ches are way worse into it. So yea, to me the timing of this suspect is just very logical and makes perfect sense.

I do agree that suspecting shao is gonna make things a bit slow. I personally preferred an immediate ban. I think talon leaving has the potential to push multiple mons (arma//pz/bisharp/krook) over the edge. Both BO and stall lose an important piece, which will likely shift the metagame in favor of HO. Assuming we are gonna do mienshao into PZ, it will actually take another month before we can look into one of the other threats.

Lastly, my completely personal view on Porygon-Z. I think people cope a lot about Porygon-Z. It is possibly the biggest tera hog we have in RU. In 90% of games it has to tera to be effective. Don't get me wrong, it does that very well. But it does come with a big cost of using it effectively. I also don't think it puts that much strain on teambuilding. An effective team in current SV RU should be equipped to handle all kinds of different HO's (normal/weather/cetitan/webs). I never have trouble accounting for PZ in the builder, because if you want to be well equipped into those styles you automatically cover PZ. Stuff like cetitan, a lot of mons on webs (for example torterra) feel much more annoying to cover than PZ for me. I think people are just lazy in their BO builds, load a BO without solid priority and then act surprised when they lose.
Personally i think PZ is not broken and I would not ban it right now. However, the overall consensus seems to be different so we will most likely get a PZ suspect soon.

 

[Cold07]

I got suspect reqs pretty easily, ladder variance aside, so I wanted to share my thoughts on this.

The biggest issue in practice is that Mienshao replaces multiple roles at once, it is a fast pivot with U-turn , it can force progress with knock off and with Life Orb it can also wall break, and it effectively ignores Life Orb recoil thanks to Regenerator, which also allows it to do all these roles over long games over and over again. It’s similar to Cyclizar which trades rapid spin and speed for insane offensive power. Close Combat and Triple Axel creates a deadly combo, which, combined with Knock Off, can 2HKO common walls of the tier after chip

Some examples of how difficult it is to switch into:

Calc

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 213-255 (56 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 227-269 (53.2 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 133-156 (33.7 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 182-216 (46.1 - 54.8%) -- 58.2% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 122-146 (30.9 - 37%) -- 69.2% chance to 3HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 199-235 (50.5 - 59.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 116+ Def Suicune: 181-214 (44.8 - 52.9%) -- 85.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao U-turn vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cresselia: 179-213 (40.3 - 47.9%) -- 58.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cresselia: 250-294 (56.3 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cresselia: 166-198 (37.3 - 44.5%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Even if some walls can check this mon once, they have to do it again and again because Mienshao will simply come in, knock off, U-turn and repeat. Unlike other subjects like Porygon Z and Bisharp which has sweeping potential, Mienshao often creates a structural advantage before the game even starts. This is also why comparing it directly to something like Porygon-Z can be misleading, Porygon Z is a dedicated wincon
while Mienshao is a system enabler that amplifies multiple threats at once

Even with its flaws (poor bulk, priority weakness), those don’t really offset this because it rarely needs to commit, can usually pivot out safely and Regenerator removes long-term punishment

So the issue is not Mienshao being broken, but it giving too much structural advantage for one teamslot. Personally, I think that’s the real reason it feels overwhelming post-Talonflame, not just the loss of a single check.

 

[Attacker 98]

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Following the April 2026 shifts, the council did an emergency slate on Mienshao and with 8/9 members suggesting tiering action, we have decided to suspect test Mienshao!

votes

View attachment 820611

Mienshao has been a storied Pokemon with RU over the years. Being banned (SM), being banned (SS), and then SV where.. it was mostly outclassed by Zapdos-Galar. It had its place to be sure, Tera Normal Double-Edge sets were nice for Fezandipiti and Weezing-Galar, and Life Orb sets were never truly poor, but it was mostly seen as a second fiddle. Fast track to the departure of all three of the above Pokemon, and Mienshao quickly shot up in viability to the highest levels. With Volcanion's departure, Noivern fell to the side on many teams for Talonflame, who's Flame body 30% chance to get an effective OHKO on Mienshao should you score that 30%. Of course, Talonflame had to be concerned about Stone Edge sets, but the equation was balanced out nicely with Talonflame in conjunction with secondary measures like Amoonguss and Slowbro. Especially thanks to the fact that Talonflame threatened an OHKO with Brave Bird. Of course, Talonflame after being knocked off without scoring that burn was not great, and Mienshao was more than capable of being paired with the tiers reliable list of Clerics and Resuscitators, like Heal Bell Blissey, Lunar Dance Cresselia, and Healing wish Jirachi.

Fast forward to now, and with Talonflames departure the equation has become far too lopsided in the eyes of the RU council. Mienshao's coverage of Triple Axel allows it to handle much of the remaining checks, such as Gligar, Amoonguss, Vileplume and Noivern. Knock off is free progress on Psychic types like Reuniclus, Slowbro of both forms, and Cresselia. Thanks to Regenerator, Mienshao was capable of both threatening to beat teams down through the course of a longer game, and invite in dangerous partners that threaten all its checks like Porygon-Z, Specs Magnezone and Gengar. Mienshao's longevity combined with its exemplary damage output made it contentious even with Talonflame, as it left a large strain on archetypes that weren't Hyper Offense or Stall.

Mienshao, however is not perfect. Priority users such as Extreme Speed Entei, Aqua Jet from Crawdaunt and Feraligatr and Thunder Wave Klefki could threaten Mienshao with a revenge kill from quite high health's due to its poor bulk, and that same poor bulk limited its opportunities for entry without being knocked out. That bulk will haunt it even further, as emergency Tera usage from Pokemon like Registeel, Slowbro, and Hisuian Goodra could easily spell an audicious Mienshao's doom. However, none of these are sure-fire, as Mienshao can very easily U-Turn at a moments notice, and it's these traits that have encouraged the council to take action with a suspect test.

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in RU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played RU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• Double check that you're listed as a voter below! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, TheFranklin, Rarelyme, or a member of staff.

>>VOTER LIST<<

​

If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2800 with a B-value of 7. The deadline for getting requirements will be Saturday, April 11th, 23:59 GMT -4. Good luck to all!

I'm new to suspect testing qualifying. what's COIL?

 

[Lhions]

So, first time I play this tier in 3/4 years and I saw a total of 5/6 mienshaos, Nice to know is not destroying ladder exp at least. Gotta see some replays of rupl to see how broken it is I guess.

Pd: I had 0 problems with him, but I suppose than using stall with the ghost doggy kinda helps

 

[toinha]

Just got reqs and honestly... Mienshao it's obviously too much for this tier since he can just knock and u-turn freely without ever being punished. I'll vote for ban because I'd really like to see the meta change a bit, but with him gone, we should really look forward to threats like P-Z, Bisharp and honestly, Armarouge. I've been complaining about armarouge for at least 1 year and I still fucking hate this mon so much. It's such a powerfull mon that outspeed almost everything after a weak armor boost and honestly, at least for me, really hard to play around, especially because it can hit almost every single wall in this game and do tera mind games as well.

 

[Yourwelcomethanku]

Just got reqs and honestly... Mienshao it's obviously too much for this tier since he can just knock and u-turn freely without ever being punished. I'll vote for ban because I'd really like to see the meta change a bit, but with him gone, we should really look forward to threats like P-Z, Bisharp and honestly, Armarouge. I've been complaining about armarouge for at least 1 year and I still fucking hate this mon so much. It's such a powerfull mon that outspeed almost everything after a weak armor boost and honestly, at least for me, really hard to play around, especially because it can hit almost every single wall in this game and do tera mind games as well.

I also support looking at Armarouge next over anything else. Our defensive checks are like Umbreon, Muk-A, Empoleon, Diancie, and Tera Dark Blissey. And the aforementioned aren't counters asides Blissey which must use its Tera. Tera means that Armarouge can resist just about any move, or possibly even make itself immune to certain priority and just sweep teams like that with its extremely powerful attacks. Porgyon-Z I feel is a bit more reasonable considering how much it relies on Tera compared to Armarouge but it is still extremely potent. I also feel like Bisharp is very unreasonable to deal with.

 

[fluff!!]

Mienshao should be banned.

Balance is still struggling VERY hard to keep up with HO and now Stall so breathing room has to be made for the archetype to have a chance. Mienshao was the better target as of right now since it both threatened Balance HARD while being a very important mon for Balance itself to beat other Balance teams, but Mienshao also happens to have a trash matchup into HO and well-built Stall. So by banning Mienshao, you both remove a threat to Balance while letting Balance run other mons that improve its problem MUs. But enough about Mienshao, it's an obvious broken now that Talon is gone.



First, something should have been suspected much earlier. Like, right after Hilligant's ban earlier. I think this was the last ban right? right? please? My personal choice would have been Bisharp, as it's the most random 50/50 factory Tera roulette bullshit in the tier that can abuse the hell out of its answers by just having the correct Tera on preview. Many games were lost to Talonflames wisping a Tera Fire Bisharp or a Chesnaught Body Pressing a Tera Flying or Tera Fairy Tera Blast Bisharp.

This should be a moment where I shit on RU leadership, present in every fluff post. But listen: I understand.

We're past the obvious giga broken mons now. Today's a different case where it's much more difficult to argue for a specific mon's brokenness in a nutshell. Mienshao, Porygon-Z, Armarouge and Bisharp, and add Suicune to the list while we're at it, are nowhere near as egregious as Blastoise/Yanmega/Revavroom.
Similarly to SV OU, this has led the playerbase at large to be unable to reach a consensus as to what to target first. Propose a Mienshao suspect, and people will argue that actually Porygon-Z is the issue because Shao pivots into it. Suspect Porygon-Z instead and actually it's Mienshao that enables Porygon-Z lmao council so dumb xDDD. Suspect Bisharp instead and many will complain about how Porygon-Z or Mienshao should have been targeted first as they're more pressing issues.
Even before Talonflame's rise to UU, which made it easy to point fingers at Mienshao, the issue of who to target between P-Z/Bisharp/Armarouge and getting shit thrown at you regardless of which one you pick would have still been here in full force. Add to this the fact that (I'm guessing) RU leadership still has to convince tiering leadership to suspect a mon that isn't necessarily broken as per the common definitions, and you have a literally impossible situation to solve in your hands. Luckily, Talonflame rising gave a free pass to suspect Mienshao (which is the real reason why it was the one being suspected btw, it's because it was much easier to convince tiering leadership thanks to the Talon rise). I like to imagine that a Bisharp suspect was actually the original plan, but met a LOT of resistance from tiering adminstration. Obviously this is a complete guess, as tiering administration is as transparent as a wall of concrete and RU leadership is probably told not to say anything...
I could tell RU leadership to be more proactive, but it's not that easy. So, whoever's in charge, if you listen to me screaming into the void, let more suspects happen, then let the playerbase argue about whether an element is banworthy or not. Yes, even if you don't agree that something should be banned. We could have reached this point in the tier 2 years ago if we tried. (still blaming ru leadership for Blastoise/Yanmega/Revavroom meta though :3)



That is where I originally intended to end my post, but I have 1 problem here. 1 huge, ominous problem that throws a wrench in my reasoning:​

I don’t think the tiering process has really been that inactive the last few months. We have discussed multiple times within the council and the overall consensus was that nothing was deemed broken. Our view aligned with the last survey that we have done, though it is important to note that that survey moreso acted as confirmation than the reason nothing was suspect tested.
Calling us lazy here just doesn't make any sense. We acted right after the shift and went for a vote. That the vote turned out to be suspect and not ban immediately has nothing to do with lazy, only with the opinions of the council.

Lastly, my completely personal view on Porygon-Z. I think people cope a lot about Porygon-Z. It is possibly the biggest tera hog we have in RU. In 90% of games it has to tera to be effective. Don't get me wrong, it does that very well. But it does come with a big cost of ucsing it effectively. I also don't think it puts that much strain on teambuilding. An effective team in current SV RU should be equipped to handle all kinds of different HO's (normal/weather/cetitan/webs). I never have trouble accounting for PZ in the builder, because if you want to be well equipped into those styles you automatically cover PZ. Stuff like cetitan, a lot of mons on webs (for example torterra) feel much more annoying to cover than PZ for me. I think people are just lazy in their BO builds, load a BO without solid priority and then act surprised when they lose.
Personally i think PZ is not broken and I would not ban it right now. However, the overall consensus seems to be different so we will most likely get a PZ suspect soon.​

I will say, TheFranklin's post above does instill some doubt in me on how much tiering adminstration is actually holding back action being taken and how much they actually wanted a suspect.
btw, the Porygon-Z explanation is giving me HUGE Yanmega vibes and raising all alarm bells in my mind and I'm screaming just reading it because history really does repeat itself. "bro it's a tera hog so it's not broken, bro just run 3 priorities, I play chansey and have no problem with yanmega" I want to get up and go for a run just READING thissgweoignoewgieowg
​

To start with, I don’t think the tiering process has really been that inactive the last few months. We have discussed multiple times within the council and the overall consensus was that nothing was deemed broken. Our view aligned with the last survey that we have done, though it is important to note that that survey moreso acted as confirmation than the reason nothing was suspect tested.​

Ok so I'll try to piece everything together here now. It's going to take a while but it is worth it. I am doing it in good conscience, with no goal to stir shit up.
First, reading through the few posts made on suspect threads and the general discussion thread, and even that one post on policy review about rises and drops, I thought people were shitting on the tier day in and day out, tournament players included. I am not on the Discord so I can't know what's happening in there, but according to Tuthur's post about "low player morale among people who play [RU]" on the thread I talked about in policy review, quote:
"at first I just thought you were some random mainer who complained about non-issue and would get shut down immediatly by UU/RU staff. However, I was wrong; it's been almost 2 weeks; nobody has objected and many seem to relate, even among UU/RU auth, given the reactions on the post.".
This quote seems to indicate that the Discord is following the same trend. Again, piecing things together. I add to this the fact that council members themselves seem to have gripes with specific mons, case in point from the goat:​

BELIEVE ME, you will not catch me within the same county line as defending PZ as a healthy mon, trust me, that fuckass duck is still under intense scrutiny.​

seriously, shoutouts to LBN for actually being active, I have no fucking idea who else is council because no one ever fucking posts. But seeing you post brings a smile to my face everytime.

As a side note, it'd be easier to do this if the forums were more active and there was more transparency blah blah blah you know the drill I blame discord for everything
So, the last ban happened on December 5th of 2025, and this suspect was made the 2nd of April 2026. Surely, if the situation is this dire, then something, ANYTHING should have happened in this 3 months gap, no? like, correct me if I'm wrong, but 3 months is actually a good amount of time for a tier, and nothing happened? I would argue that the tiering process has, in fact, been inactive since literally nothing tangible came out of it. I would not mind it if everyone loved the shit out of the tier.
Clearly, either the unhappy part of the playerbase and community is actually infinitesimal and we're only hearing from them while the other 98% of the playerbase that is content with the current state of the tier is silent, OR it's not that fine and dandy and, in fact, nothing happened. So, which one is it? Naturally, I'm led to believe that the 2nd option is the correct one, in which case, can we try to make concessions and suspect stuff even if we don't have a supermajority vote for a suspect to happen? Maybe let the playerbase actually give their input?
TheFranklin, instead of answering remarks in suspect threads and then going back to the shadow realm for 3 months, please post somewhere, not this very thread here but on the general discussion thread or the tiering and forum rules thread, anywhere, what happens behind the curtains. How are we supposed to propose solutions and have community input if it's apparently so impossible to get any tiering action started? Outside of the occasional survey post that could be resumed to "no concensus, see you next shifts" that is. Just because there is no concensus doesn't mean nothing should be done. Suspects are here to give a voice to the playerbase. Idk what to say anymore. We've been through this I don't know how many times this gen.



Currently, SV OU is heading towards a Tera Blast suspect, something that was thought impossible after repeated low survey scores and constant mentions from Finch that Tera Blast ain't happening. But now that some voice has been given to the pro Tera Blast ban crowd after years of shunning, there seems to still be a strong sentiment within a sizable part of the playerbase that Tera Blast should be suspected.
From Finchinator himself:
"I am happy to retract my sentiment in the OP about Tera Blast being a waste of time and resources. I was jaded on the topic as the last two threads on it went nowhere, survey results repeatedly flopped, etc. In the end, as I noted later in the OP, we should not be weighing the past or surveys too substantially in this moment. It is most important to just make the best decision in the moment.

I’ll be the first one to admit when I was wrong or spoke too soon (like this part of the OP). That’s entirely on me. I encourage more discussion of Tera Blast even."
taken from here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-discussion.3780060/#post-10936230

This is exactly what seems to happen in RU if I believe TheFranklin's post. A tier leadership that seems blighted by their own belief of what is or isn't broken, holding back and even punching down on opinions and decisions that they do not agree with. Alternatively, a council so divided on what to tackle first that any action would be met with resistance from both your own council and tiering adminstration. Finchinator understood this and the playerbase previously mocked for wanting action on Tera Blast might actually get their wish granted. Maybe there is some wisdom to be found here.

Just allow suspects on highly contentious mons like Bisharp, Armarouge, Porygon-Z, and Suicune. These should have happened months ago. A suspect concluding in a Do Not Ban vote is not a failure, it is not a defeat, it is not a proof of bad leadership. If we suspected only mons universally seen broken, then there would be no need for suspect tests. This Mienshao suspect test may as well have been a quickban.
If these mons are so contentious and under such scrutiny, then that means they should be suspected. That is the role of a suspect test. They are not glorified quickbans.

I do not want to point fingers. I do not want to blame anyone.​

 

[FlamPoke]

tldr Mienshao: Ban

Mienshao is the definition of a progress maker, with teammates like Porygon-Z and choose-your-special-breaker punishing a plethora of team comps and mons in general. Talonflame was always a pseudo check, usually trading its timbs for a Flame Body fish and occasionally catching a Stone Edge for a clean 100, but still somewhat deterred Mienshao teams from playing as momentum-based as they'd like since a burned Mienshao could struggle to actually break and its teammates may lack the longevity it has to keep pace over a longer game. As somebody that has skewed a lot more bulky offense in my builds the past few weeks, Mienshao is something that is always at the forefront of my mind with regards to consistent disruptors I have to be ready to play against. I've also used the "shao + pz" core in some teams I've passed to my teammates which have had some pretty good wins, as is the case for a lot of well structured shao + pz builds.

Mienshao at this moment has like five mons that want (want being a stretch) to switch into it - Chesnaught, Slowbro, Glowbro, Bellibolt, and like I guess Palossand if you're feeling retro and wanna load PaloKlef in the big 26. All of these get Knock'd the first time in and will sink their momentum to the VoltTurn nonsense later if the shao player has any level of competency in the builder and in-game. Bellibolt I guess has the broken Static fish but like it's a Bellibolt bffr.

RU has for the better part of a year (or 2?) been really, really reactive in tiering as a whole, letting some demons roam free for reasons I can't bother explaining here. This should have been a pretty consensus quick ban, even with the meme Feli 1-day vote I feel like 4 ban votes + 4 suspect should probably skew more towards a ban than a suspect but whatever. Would be cool if RU practiced council vote explanations like some other tiers, or at least had actual council involvement beyond the twice yearly Franklin post defending council - which, to his credit, is kickass from a TL, like defend your guys and all, but they ought to make it a little less hard on you at the same time. At least this version of council plays and builds the tier... enough for most of them to get reqs at least, probably.