Resource Scarlet and Violet RU Indigo Disk Viability Rankings

Yourwelcomethanku · Jul 5, 2026

Hey, I'm back with another VR post. Because this one is a bit long I compressed it with spoilers.

:sv/mew: NEW to A
Mew is back and good, no surprises. Setup sets are really potent against fat teams and potentially stall depending on the set exactly. Mew can do a lot and is good, no real shock

:sv/regieleki: to C+
Regieleki is very polarizing; it can be nearly useless in the presence of any Ground-type, but once those are lured or dealt with, it can be very potent. However, its speed is not unmatched. There are many priority users, Sucker Punch Bisharp, Aqua Jet Crawdaunt, Extreme Speed Entei and Venusaur and Barraskewda outpace it under their respective weathers so even without an Electric immunity it can struggle and be checked.

:sv/Yanmega: A- to A
Yanmega is very consistent as a wallbreaker. Only really Blissey can reliably switch into it

:sv/ninetales: :sv/scovillain: :sv/venusaur: to B+ and :sv/shiftry: UR to B-
It should be no surprise to anyone that has been keeping up with tournaments that Sun is a very potent strategy. The amount of options to revenge kill the weather sweepers is limited, Ditto, Gardevoir, Scarf Noivern (speed tiers Venu but outspeeds Scovillain), Regieleki (faster than Scovillain but not Timid Venu), and priority. Prankster Thunder Wave from Klefki can help check Venusaur as long as it does not have Tera Ground. Ditto stall pretty much mauls any Sun team and prevents them from doing anything because if they ever use Growth they risk losing to Ditto, and if they don't use Growth, they may be unable to wallbreak. Although, teams with Solar Beam Entei may still have a good shot against Stall teams that rely on Slowbro for Entei.

In terms of defensive answers, this is again limited. Fire resits like Noivern and Entei can straight up be OHKOd by Choice Specs Tera Fire Scovillain Overheat or Growth boosted attacks. Blissey stands a better chance but even it cannot take weather and tera boosted attacks without a Tera type like Dragon. Venusaur can even Tera Ground preventing Blissey from Thunder Waving Blissey while boosting with Growth and restoring its HP back against Blissey with Giga Drain. However, Blissey when played right can usually at least land a Thunder Wave and help a teammate to handle Scovillain. Hoodra and Alolan Muk are more fat specially defensive Pokemon that can soft check Sun but also can easily be overhwhelmed. Tera Dragon on various Defensive Pokemon like Registeel, Cresselia, and Wo-Chien can help against Sun to varying degrees as well. Other weather can help against Sun but Ninetales has the advantage against both Politoed and Alolan Ninetales. Ninetales outspeeds and threatens Politoed on the switch with Energy Ball and obviously Alolan Ninetales too. Politoed also tends to run a set with Whirlpool that is actually not very good at threatening Ninetales. Weather can help but in my opinion Sun is favored against Snow and yes, Rain too. Here's an example of what I mean
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2635547312-5yevw4mhi4yiuvnn7i6cc32ctmt5tvbpw?p2

And here are replays of Sun in tournaments
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952977?p2 ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950698?p2 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951430 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2640337565-6b6c3egk7ifhnjo7cp0fo33thydar5hpw RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-948751 RULT playoffs

Shiftry has some advantages over Venusaur. It can run better mixed sets with a strong Growth-boosted Knock Off to OHKO Hoodra and Blissey with Growth-boosted Heat Wave in sun OHKOing Chesnaught, which Venusaur cannot actually do due to Chesnaught's Bulletproof blocking Weather Ball. It also resists Sucker Punch and Shadow Sneak helping against Mimikyu and Bisharp and is immune to Prankster Thunder Wave. Another option is to run Shiftry alongside Venusaur and drop Scovillain which is also good. Replays of Shiftry
Replays with Shiftry
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951585 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644037298-ptkobb85byisvekp7gm74dfwyvc6l2dpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644041327-6d9fg7tfhkynfpjeab633sdslfotwujpw

:sv/flygon: B- to B
Particularly, I nominate Flygon due to its Choice Band set. Pairing Choice Band Flygon with another wallbreaker is a very good strategy. U-turn and a speed tier that outpaces Krookodile and Mimikyu are significant advantages over Krookodile as a Choice Bander. I also just think Flygon is versatile and good enough that it deserves to rise.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643578776-2fvptdo3n6ls0ounlh24wpc8qt3f9gvpw RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632640677
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2621576121?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2622406511?p2
:sv/grimmsnarl: C to C+
Grimmsnarl just saw more tournament uses with its RestTalk Bulk Up set. It can be very potent against the fat teams that people use.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950666 RULT playoffs
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ru-ladder-tour-vii-playoffs-round-3.3784561/ RULT playoffs

:sv/sandslash-alola: C- to C
It seems off to have Alolan Sandslash barely ranked when Cetitan and Ninetales are also ranked, and they are often seen all together. It can also be a threat in of itself with Swords Dance.

:sv/gastrodon: A+ to A/A-
Gastrodon is no doubt good but it was overshot. It is not any better than Quagsire which shuts down a lot of strategies thanks to its Unaware. It would be apt to knock Gastrodon down a rank or two. It's good but it's still exploitable, and more so than Quagsire which is ranked lower.
:sv/Basculegion-f:
A- to B+.
Basculegion-F is good but its choiced sets oftentimes have a difficult time clicking the correct moves due to Cyclizar and resists to its STABs being common. Basculegion is good but dropping is in my view more apt given how often it can struggle.

:sv/rhyperior: A- to B+
Rhyperior is good but it takes more specific teams to use its best sets and is overall more specific than the other Pokemon it is ranked with.

:sv/ribombee: B to C+
With people gravitating towards more balanced teams and Scarf Flamigo picking up in usage, Webs are more hit and miss as they mainly prey off of opposing Offensive teams.

:sv/meloetta: C- to UR
I don't know why this thing was reranked

:sv/sneasel: UR to B-
Sneasel does what it usually does. Good speed tier, good attacks, good offensive typing. It's hard to make work but it has good tools
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952690?p2 ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2609763434?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644027195-3ip74j2tijal93xo4gel0wd76sajucrpw

:sv/salazzle: UR to C+
Salazzle should be ranked. It has a really good speed tier and unlike Gengar, its Fire STAB helps it get past Alolan Muk which usually trumps any Gengar set. A speed tier above Maushold, Tornadus, Gengar, and Terrakion is all really good. It's always good at making progress against any team lacking Blissey thanks to Corrosion Toxic and even against Blissey it can at least remove its Boots with Knock Off, although I prefer Nasty Plot. I think it's a nice alternative to Gengar for teams that want more pressure against Alolan Muk. Fire STAB also means it's more reliably and immediately threatening to Pokemon like Chesnaught, Registeel, and Amoonguss.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644204418-3u61a0a51sjdgle52r8ar8fr7guouhspw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644111725-95dj83xwqmu2kwqp54rg8envr3q9menpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644203059-fai6p2cq2n8j65mcf5nrk7ptiysgye8pw

:sv/Houndstone: UR to C+
Houndstone has good defensive and offensive utility thanks to Fluffy and strong Ghost-type attacks. It can run Offensive sets with Spell Tag or I also saw people using the old Houndstone stall I posted in ssnl even if that team arguably could have some changes it's still generally good. It has a niche on stall being a good check to Kleavor, Flamigo, and lots of other physical threats. It should be Body Press over Night Shade now however.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2622354692?p2 Offensive Houndstone.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643516580-to3pvwvmxu48bsaw7993mj28c83xlutpw Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952262 Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951997 Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952312 Stall Houndstone ssnl

:sv/altaria: UR to C+
Altaria is a decent Defogger on stall over Noivern thanks to Natural Cure and having Perish trap or it can use Wisp and Brave Bird.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632664412
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632452020
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632452980?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2641650334-blpwaxadnl8s7lu8eln4x9musdbhpk5pw ssnl

:sv/sableye: UR to C
Sableye should be ranked again. It's a good check to Gallade, physical Necrozma, and setup sweepers in general on stall. It can give an out against things like Mew with Encore which are hugely problematic for stall.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643444588
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2626354450?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2623074902?p2

:sv/decidueye-hisui: UR to C
Decidueye Hisui has Defog and U-turn over Chesnaught as well as the potential for offensive sets that may catch opponents off guard and it should be ranked. It can be a decent pick for removal and momentum on offensive teams like rain, and it does have that niche of Defog.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-940960 Slam
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643444588
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952196

:sv/bastiodon: UR to C
Bastiodon has seen a little bit of tournament usage following Zugu using it RULT playoffs. It's niche is mainly due to Soundproof meaning it can counter any Yanmega set by blocking Bug Buzz and resisting Air Slash. Soundproof also helps vs Toxtricity, though Bastiodon may need to terastallize if it is a set with Drain Punch. Bastiodon is also not weak to Fire and has access to Ice type moves helping it keep Rocks up against Noivern even if it has Flamethrower, and it checks Offensive Noivern sets with Flamethrower like those Boomburst Throat Spray sets. Now, it's obviously niche but it has some qualities that give it an edge over other Steels in certain situations.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-949372 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950057?p2 Ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644034353-4u09fc50sttb1ftomgfs5do3g5gr0wupw

Here's a set
Bastiodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Ice Beam
- Body Press
- Stealth Rock

Sadly, Bastiodon's attacking stats are so pitiful that it does hardly any damage with moves based of its attacking stats. It seems Zugu's was Modest natured or heavily invested as it did significantly more damage to Noivern than it would have done had it been uninvested.

:sv/chansey: :sv/ludicolo: UR to C
These are guys Nature's Conqueror has used that I think can be ranked. You can use Chansey over Blissey on more offensive builds and benefit from the higher bulk, especially the increased physical bulk like in taking Gardevoir Psyshock. Ludicolo obviously has the niche of being a Swift Swimmer that can own typical bulky water answers.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2610664598?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2616624668?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2616622722

:sv/scyther:
Also rank Scyther back! It just got used in Slam too...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951646

I also agree with most of Heatranator's post. Wo-Chien is arguably as good as Chesnaught and while it does lose to a few things, outside of those few things, it is really good. Raikou has basically all the coverage it needs with just Aura Sphere and Extrasensory in this meta and I think B- would be more apt for Raikou. Life Orb Calm Mind is really strong. Chande is good for sun, CB Flygon is good, Torterra and Maushold should rise. Mowtom is viable and should be ranked, and Heattom is not really good and should drop.

evantheskeptic · Jul 5, 2026

Yourwelcomethanku said:
Hey, I'm back with another VR post. Because this one is a bit long I compressed it with spoilers.

:sv/mew: NEW to A
Mew is back and good, no surprises. Setup sets are really potent against fat teams and potentially stall depending on the set exactly. Mew can do a lot and is good, no real shock

:sv/regieleki: to C+
Regieleki is very polarizing; it can be nearly useless in the presence of any Ground-type, but once those are lured or dealt with, it can be very potent. However, its speed is not unmatched. There are many priority users, Sucker Punch Bisharp, Aqua Jet Crawdaunt, Extreme Speed Entei and Venusaur and Barraskewda outpace it under their respective weathers so even without an Electric immunity it can struggle and be checked.

:sv/Yanmega: A- to A
Yanmega is very consistent as a wallbreaker. Only really Blissey can reliably switch into it

:sv/ninetales: :sv/scovillain: :sv/venusaur: to B+ and :sv/shiftry: UR to B-
It should be no surprise to anyone that has been keeping up with tournaments that Sun is a very potent strategy. The amount of options to revenge kill the weather sweepers is limited, Ditto, Gardevoir, Scarf Noivern (speed tiers Venu but outspeeds Scovillain), Regieleki (faster than Scovillain but not Timid Venu), and priority. Prankster Thunder Wave from Klefki can help check Venusaur as long as it does not have Tera Ground. Ditto stall pretty much mauls any Sun team and prevents them from doing anything because if they ever use Growth they risk losing to Ditto, and if they don't use Growth, they may be unable to wallbreak. Although, teams with Solar Beam Entei may still have a good shot against Stall teams that rely on Slowbro for Entei.

In terms of defensive answers, this is again limited. Fire resits like Noivern and Entei can straight up be OHKOd by Choice Specs Tera Fire Scovillain Overheat or Growth boosted attacks. Blissey stands a better chance but even it cannot take weather and tera boosted attacks without a Tera type like Dragon. Venusaur can even Tera Ground preventing Blissey from Thunder Waving Blissey while boosting with Growth and restoring its HP back against Blissey with Giga Drain. However, Blissey when played right can usually at least land a Thunder Wave and help a teammate to handle Scovillain. Hoodra and Alolan Muk are more fat specially defensive Pokemon that can soft check Sun but also can easily be overhwhelmed. Tera Dragon on various Defensive Pokemon like Registeel, Cresselia, and Wo-Chien can help against Sun to varying degrees as well. Other weather can help against Sun but Ninetales has the advantage against both Politoed and Alolan Ninetales. Ninetales outspeeds and threatens Politoed on the switch with Energy Ball and obviously Alolan Ninetales too. Politoed also tends to run a set with Whirlpool that is actually not very good at threatening Ninetales. Weather can help but in my opinion Sun is favored against Snow and yes, Rain too. Here's an example of what I mean
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2635547312-5yevw4mhi4yiuvnn7i6cc32ctmt5tvbpw?p2

And here are replays of Sun in tournaments
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952977?p2 ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950698?p2 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951430 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2640337565-6b6c3egk7ifhnjo7cp0fo33thydar5hpw RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-948751 RULT playoffs

Shiftry has some advantages over Venusaur. It can run better mixed sets with a strong Growth-boosted Knock Off to OHKO Hoodra and Blissey with Growth-boosted Heat Wave in sun OHKOing Chesnaught, which Venusaur cannot actually do due to Chesnaught's Bulletproof blocking Weather Ball. It also resists Sucker Punch and Shadow Sneak helping against Mimikyu and Bisharp and is immune to Prankster Thunder Wave. Another option is to run Shiftry alongside Venusaur and drop Scovillain which is also good. Replays of Shiftry
Replays with Shiftry
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951585 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644037298-ptkobb85byisvekp7gm74dfwyvc6l2dpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644041327-6d9fg7tfhkynfpjeab633sdslfotwujpw

:sv/flygon: B- to B
Particularly, I nominate Flygon due to its Choice Band set. Pairing Choice Band Flygon with another wallbreaker is a very good strategy. U-turn and a speed tier that outpaces Krookodile and Mimikyu are significant advantages over Krookodile as a Choice Bander. I also just think Flygon is versatile and good enough that it deserves to rise.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643578776-2fvptdo3n6ls0ounlh24wpc8qt3f9gvpw RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632640677
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2621576121?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2622406511?p2
:sv/grimmsnarl: C to C+
Grimmsnarl just saw more tournament uses with its RestTalk Bulk Up set. It can be very potent against the fat teams that people use.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950666 RULT playoffs
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ru-ladder-tour-vii-playoffs-round-3.3784561/ RULT playoffs

:sv/sandslash-alola: C- to C
It seems off to have Alolan Sandslash barely ranked when Cetitan and Ninetales are also ranked, and they are often seen all together. It can also be a threat in of itself with Swords Dance.

:sv/gastrodon: A+ to A/A-
Gastrodon is no doubt good but it was overshot. It is not any better than Quagsire which shuts down a lot of strategies thanks to its Unaware. It would be apt to knock Gastrodon down a rank or two. It's good but it's still exploitable, and more so than Quagsire which is ranked lower.
:sv/Basculegion-f:
A- to B+.
Basculegion-F is good but its choiced sets oftentimes have a difficult time clicking the correct moves due to Cyclizar and resists to its STABs being common. Basculegion is good but dropping is in my view more apt given how often it can struggle.

:sv/rhyperior: A- to B+
Rhyperior is good but it takes more specific teams to use its best sets and is overall more specific than the other Pokemon it is ranked with.

:sv/ribombee: B to C+
With people gravitating towards more balanced teams and Scarf Flamigo picking up in usage, Webs are more hit and miss as they mainly prey off of opposing Offensive teams.

:sv/meloetta: C- to UR
I don't know why this thing was reranked

:sv/sneasel: UR to B-
Sneasel does what it usually does. Good speed tier, good attacks, good offensive typing. It's hard to make work but it has good tools
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952690?p2 ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2609763434?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644027195-3ip74j2tijal93xo4gel0wd76sajucrpw

:sv/salazzle: UR to C+
Salazzle should be ranked. It has a really good speed tier and unlike Gengar, its Fire STAB helps it get past Alolan Muk which usually trumps any Gengar set. A speed tier above Maushold, Tornadus, Gengar, and Terrakion is all really good. It's always good at making progress against any team lacking Blissey thanks to Corrosion Toxic and even against Blissey it can at least remove its Boots with Knock Off, although I prefer Nasty Plot. I think it's a nice alternative to Gengar for teams that want more pressure against Alolan Muk. Fire STAB also means it's more reliably and immediately threatening to Pokemon like Chesnaught, Registeel, and Amoonguss.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644204418-3u61a0a51sjdgle52r8ar8fr7guouhspw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644111725-95dj83xwqmu2kwqp54rg8envr3q9menpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644203059-fai6p2cq2n8j65mcf5nrk7ptiysgye8pw

:sv/Houndstone: UR to C+
Houndstone has good defensive and offensive utility thanks to Fluffy and strong Ghost-type attacks. It can run Offensive sets with Spell Tag or I also saw people using the old Houndstone stall I posted in ssnl even if that team arguably could have some changes it's still generally good. It has a niche on stall being a good check to Kleavor, Flamigo, and lots of other physical threats. It should be Body Press over Night Shade now however.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2622354692?p2 Offensive Houndstone.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643516580-to3pvwvmxu48bsaw7993mj28c83xlutpw Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952262 Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951997 Stall Houndstone ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952312 Stall Houndstone ssnl

:sv/altaria: UR to C+
Altaria is a decent Defogger on stall over Noivern thanks to Natural Cure and having Perish trap or it can use Wisp and Brave Bird.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632664412
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632452020
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2632452980?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2641650334-blpwaxadnl8s7lu8eln4x9musdbhpk5pw ssnl

:sv/sableye: UR to C
Sableye should be ranked again. It's a good check to Gallade, physical Necrozma, and setup sweepers in general on stall. It can give an out against things like Mew with Encore which are hugely problematic for stall.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643444588
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2626354450?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2623074902?p2

:sv/decidueye-hisui: UR to C
Decidueye Hisui has Defog and U-turn over Chesnaught as well as the potential for offensive sets that may catch opponents off guard and it should be ranked. It can be a decent pick for removal and momentum on offensive teams like rain, and it does have that niche of Defog.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-940960 Slam
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2643444588
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952196

:sv/bastiodon: UR to C
Bastiodon has seen a little bit of tournament usage following Zugu using it RULT playoffs. It's niche is mainly due to Soundproof meaning it can counter any Yanmega set by blocking Bug Buzz and resisting Air Slash. Soundproof also helps vs Toxtricity, though Bastiodon may need to terastallize if it is a set with Drain Punch. Bastiodon is also not weak to Fire and has access to Ice type moves helping it keep Rocks up against Noivern even if it has Flamethrower, and it checks Offensive Noivern sets with Flamethrower like those Boomburst Throat Spray sets. Now, it's obviously niche but it has some qualities that give it an edge over other Steels in certain situations.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-949372 RULT playoffs
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-950057?p2 Ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2644034353-4u09fc50sttb1ftomgfs5do3g5gr0wupw

Here's a set
Bastiodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Ice Beam
- Body Press
- Stealth Rock

Sadly, Bastiodon's attacking stats are so pitiful that it does hardly any damage with moves based of its attacking stats. It seems Zugu's was Modest natured or heavily invested as it did significantly more damage to Noivern than it would have done had it been uninvested.

:sv/chansey: :sv/ludicolo: UR to C
These are guys Nature's Conqueror has used that I think can be ranked. You can use Chansey over Blissey on more offensive builds and benefit from the higher bulk, especially the increased physical bulk like in taking Gardevoir Psyshock. Ludicolo obviously has the niche of being a Swift Swimmer that can own typical bulky water answers.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2610664598?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2616624668?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2616622722

:sv/scyther:
Also rank Scyther back! It just got used in Slam too...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951646

I also agree with most of Heatranator's post. Wo-Chien is arguably as good as Chesnaught and while it does lose to a few things, outside of those few things, it is really good. Raikou has basically all the coverage it needs with just Aura Sphere and Extrasensory in this meta and I think B- would be more apt for Raikou. Life Orb Calm Mind is really strong. Chande is good for sun, CB Flygon is good, Torterra and Maushold should rise. Mowtom is viable and should be ranked, and Heattom is not really good and should drop.

Sorry bro, but since you made some noms, I have this feeling to keep pushing for the croak

252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Grimmsnarl: 482-570 (122.3 - 144.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO. no orb or set up required.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 406-478 (93.5 - 110.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO (rhyperior has a great physical defense and hp, and solid rock reduced the power of super effective moves).
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 900-1062 (128 - 151%) -- guaranteed OHKO(how? why did they make chansey's physical defense so low? and blissey's:
252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 618-728 (86.5 - 101.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO. it makes these calcs feel less impressive)
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Registeel: 384-452 (105.4 - 124.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (okay, now an actual achievement).
252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Bastiodon: 436-516 (134.5 - 159.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Bastiodon: 218-258 (67.2 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (actually scary if you consider it can set up).
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Altaria: 343-406 (96.8 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 406-477 (95.3 - 111.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 96 Def Mew: 402-473 (99.5 - 117%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (this is one of the physically bulkier mew sets.
0 SpA Mew Misty Explosion vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Toxicroak: 102-120 (33.2 - 39%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO).
252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot/Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 330-393 (88.2 - 105%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO (this is kinda scary since, tablets of ruin). And if screen setters are rising, that's even more reason to rank the croak outside of rain(it also has poison touch, meaning contact moves have a 30% to poison(extra if the contact move in question already had a chance to poison)).

And personally for basc-f, about time it dropped but I feel b+ is too generous, only the tip of the iceberg. weakness policy requires being hit by a super effective move that doesn't do enough damage to kill it, and in some cases screens. there were orb sets. 78 base speed is mediocre outside of swift swim rain/agility(if you can get that off) and also on some occasions webs/hazards, which can be removed. her best sequences require items, that can be knocked off and no real things to balance out the drawbacks. And yes, pain Split exists but it can be predictable, leftovers sacrifices offensive power and speedf for passive recovery, but that can be knocked off(meaning it kinda needs pain Split for recovery), real bad item syndrome If you ask me. items fix some flaws but make others more apparent. And you need team support to fix the issues that aren't dealt with, lots of it. pain split gives your opponent a free turn with the only downside being same HP as basc-f(pain split can backfire if the opponent switches to a Mon with a lower hp with a predict.) and if it's so good at role compression then blocking it wouldn't be so easy, basic ahh options for it bro.And most importantly, specs is too slow unless you runnin' timid, which sacrifices power. If she weren't already ranked and i was arguing for her to be ranked with txunt! replays, you'd probably do gatekeeping on it then txunt would like my post. if toxicroak were already A- since, I dunno, 2024, and I was explaining why it should be moved down, you'd probably defend it. Blinded by legacy so one can only see part of the truth, if any at all(unless they're me, then yeah, seeing it would be easier). It's more your subconscious refusing to acknowledge the "goat" is getting a bit washed, blissey and cyclizar bro(blissey's infamous bulk and cyclizar also resists water, meaning prediction can be hard), these are some of the biggest baddest cases of basc-f wallers but there are others(gastro)

meanwhile, toxicroak has dry skin to balance out life orb damage in rain, it just hates sun/fire moves a lot
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Torkoal: 193-228 (56.2 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO,
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Torkoal: 251-296 (73.1 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
Notice that it can still take it? this is why sun is good, two setters. one outspeeds all this and the other can take +2 life orb attacks from the croak and has rapid spin.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 440-522 (115.7 - 137.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+4 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 164+ Def Forretress: 398-469 (112.4 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (this is actually scary considering how bulky forretress is, needs +4 but still.)
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot/close combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 434-512 (93.5 - 110.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO.
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Tsareena: 276-326 (79.3 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Dark Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Suicune: 390-460 (96.5 - 113.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye: 191-225 (62.8 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
and people tend to forget it has both knock off to get rid of the opponent's item and brick break to get rid of screens.but more on the set that already exists with orb
252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Umbreon: 406-478 (103 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO.252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 302-356 (97.4 - 114.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Muk-Alola: 429-505 (103.6 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Diancie: 309-367 (101.9 - 121.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 188+ Def Amoonguss: 425-500 (98.3 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO(it's Amoonguss people!)

And, in order for the hazards to keep being stacked in the replay being used against it, mew had to spend a turn to paralyze the croak, implying flabeauf thought it was a threat back then, and then he already had two layers of spikes and rocks, before the t wave. the thing is anti meta, has weaknesses(85 speed, which isn't as bad as basc-f's 78 but still, horrible defensive profile) but it can work, similar to sneasel (should I back you up on that?:

+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 474-566 (126.7 - 151.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Krookodile: 386-458 (116.6 - 138.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO (intimidate won't work thanks to inner focus)
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 412-494 (108.4 - 130%) -- guaranteed OHKO(helmet procks three times unless you do knock off before hand)
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 344-408 (87.3 - 103.5%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO.
252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Breloom: 386-458 (119.1 - 141.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 379-451 (87.3 - 103.9%) -- 7.2% chance to OHKO/
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Ice Shard vs. 104 HP / 0 Def Cyclizar: 300-354 (97.7 - 115.3%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO, dang, absolute nuke. triple Axel one shots two to three times over, more likely than not three.
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 508-604 (135.8 - 161.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Sneasel Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Basculegion-F: 362-428 (95 - 112.3%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO).

And, yes, you can let the gates down, I do have evidence:
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tsareena: 348-410 (122.1 - 143.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO(already showed the calcs for defense tsareena, croak still outspeeds offensive tsareena so it's a bit of a bottleneck.)
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Mew: 320-376 (79.8 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (actually really scary when you consider mew's base stats.) (and the replays, and the calcs I laid out before that aren't sneasel).
2k didn't even have that much normal rain mons on there active in rain, it was more semi rain than anything.

Flabeauf · Jul 5, 2026

Evan the wise said:
Sorry bro, but since you made some noms, I have this feeling to keep pushing for the croak

252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Grimmsnarl: 482-570 (122.3 - 144.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO. no orb or set up required.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 406-478 (93.5 - 110.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO (rhyperior has a great physical defense and hp, and solid rock reduced the power of super effective moves).
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 900-1062 (128 - 151%) -- guaranteed OHKO(how? why did they make chansey's physical defense so low? and blissey's:
252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 618-728 (86.5 - 101.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO. it makes these calcs feel less impressive)
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Registeel: 384-452 (105.4 - 124.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (okay, now an actual achievement).
252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Bastiodon: 436-516 (134.5 - 159.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Bastiodon: 218-258 (67.2 - 79.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (actually scary if you consider it can set up).
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Altaria: 343-406 (96.8 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 406-477 (95.3 - 111.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 96 Def Mew: 402-473 (99.5 - 117%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (this is one of the physically bulkier mew sets.
0 SpA Mew Misty Explosion vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Toxicroak: 102-120 (33.2 - 39%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO).
252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot/Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 330-393 (88.2 - 105%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO (this is kinda scary since, tablets of ruin). And if screen setters are rising, that's even more reason to rank the croak outside of rain(it also has poison touch, meaning contact moves have a 30% to poison(extra if the contact move in question already had a chance to poison)).

And personally for basc-f, about time it dropped but I feel b+ is too generous, only the tip of the iceberg. weakness policy requires being hit by a super effective move that doesn't do enough damage to kill it, and in some cases screens. there were orb sets. 78 base speed is mediocre outside of swift swim rain/agility(if you can get that off) and also on some occasions webs/hazards, which can be removed. her best sequences require items, that can be knocked off and no real things to balance out the drawbacks. And yes, pain Split exists but it can be predictable, leftovers sacrifices offensive power and speedf for passive recovery, but that can be knocked off(meaning it kinda needs pain Split for recovery), real bad item syndrome If you ask me. items fix some flaws but make others more apparent. And you need team support to fix the issues that aren't dealt with, lots of it. pain split gives your opponent a free turn with the only downside being same HP as basc-f(pain split can backfire if the opponent switches to a Mon with a lower hp with a predict.) and if it's so good at role compression then blocking it wouldn't be so easy, basic ahh options for it bro.And most importantly, specs is too slow unless you runnin' timid, which sacrifices power. If she weren't already ranked and i was arguing for her to be ranked with txunt! replays, you'd probably do gatekeeping on it then txunt would like my post. if toxicroak were already A- since, I dunno, 2024, and I was explaining why it should be moved down, you'd probably defend it. Blinded by legacy so one can only see part of the truth, if any at all(unless they're me, then yeah, seeing it would be easier). It's more your subconscious refusing to acknowledge the "goat" is getting a bit washed, blissey and cyclizar bro(blissey's infamous bulk and cyclizar also resists water, meaning prediction can be hard), these are some of the biggest baddest cases of basc-f wallers but there are others(gastro)

meanwhile, toxicroak has dry skin to balance out life orb damage in rain, it just hates sun/fire moves a lot
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Torkoal: 193-228 (56.2 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO,
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Torkoal: 251-296 (73.1 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
Notice that it can still take it? this is why sun is good, two setters. one outspeeds all this and the other can take +2 life orb attacks from the croak and has rapid spin.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 440-522 (115.7 - 137.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+4 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 164+ Def Forretress: 398-469 (112.4 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (this is actually scary considering how bulky forretress is, needs +4 but still.)
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot/close combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 434-512 (93.5 - 110.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO.
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Tsareena: 276-326 (79.3 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tera Dark Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Suicune: 390-460 (96.5 - 113.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye: 191-225 (62.8 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
and people tend to forget it has both knock off to get rid of the opponent's item and brick break to get rid of screens.but more on the set that already exists with orb
252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Umbreon: 406-478 (103 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO.252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 116 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 302-356 (97.4 - 114.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Muk-Alola: 429-505 (103.6 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Diancie: 309-367 (101.9 - 121.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 188+ Def Amoonguss: 425-500 (98.3 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO(it's Amoonguss people!)

And, in order for the hazards to keep being stacked in the replay being used against it, mew had to spend a turn to paralyze the croak, implying flabeauf thought it was a threat back then, and then he already had two layers of spikes and rocks, before the t wave. the thing is anti meta, has weaknesses(85 speed, which isn't as bad as basc-f's 78 but still, horrible defensive profile) but it can work, similar to sneasel (should I back you up on that?:

+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 474-566 (126.7 - 151.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Krookodile: 386-458 (116.6 - 138.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO (intimidate won't work thanks to inner focus)
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 412-494 (108.4 - 130%) -- guaranteed OHKO(helmet procks three times unless you do knock off before hand)
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 344-408 (87.3 - 103.5%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO.
252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Breloom: 386-458 (119.1 - 141.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 379-451 (87.3 - 103.9%) -- 7.2% chance to OHKO/
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Ice Shard vs. 104 HP / 0 Def Cyclizar: 300-354 (97.7 - 115.3%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO, dang, absolute nuke. triple Axel one shots two to three times over, more likely than not three.
+2 252 Atk Sneasel Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 508-604 (135.8 - 161.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Sneasel Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Basculegion-F: 362-428 (95 - 112.3%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO).

And, yes, you can let the gates down, I do have evidence:
252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tsareena: 348-410 (122.1 - 143.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO(already showed the calcs for defense tsareena, croak still outspeeds offensive tsareena so it's a bit of a bottleneck.)
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Mew: 320-376 (79.8 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (actually really scary when you consider mew's base stats.) (and the replays, and the calcs I laid out before that aren't sneasel).
2k didn't even have that much normal rain mons on there active in rain, it was more semi rain than anything.

Hej bro, it would be very cool if you read other arguments and answering them instead of dropping random calc to show that yeah a 120bp super effective move will indeed OHKO a weakness. Like yeah i could say, bro look my rampardos OHKO a bike with lorb rock slide to argue it's viable which isn't true because it has lots a big flaws which makes it super bad. It's kind of the same case for croak, it's super easy to rk, it doesn't have that much insane damages even after sd, it's hard to set up because of mid bulk and weak to commun type such as psychic or ground. I agree that walling slowbro after tera is cool but first, you have to commit tera and second the mon in itself isn't so it tera and do nothing. If you want rain abusers there are better options, like Overqwil for instance who does have the same poison typing.
For bascu-f case, OF COURSE the coverage of a 100 spa adapt mon will be weak but it isn't really bad because it does enough damages for what it wants:OHKO vern and 2HKO bike/ches which is already big progress. This mon is really restrictive for lots of teams because if we don't run stuffs like Hoodra, Umbreon, Empoleon, Muk or a bike it will just pick one BUT this mon knows the move FLIP TURN which allows it to keep momentum against those and let the bascu f player having good momentum and let the other mon free breaking. But bascu is also a good breaker in itself with specs that allows it to be way more threatening against his good checks:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculegion-F Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Goodra-Hisui: 170-200 (46.7 - 54.9%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculegion-F Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 162-192 (41.1 - 48.7%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculegion-F Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Empoleon: 170-202 (45.6 - 54.3%) -- 47.7% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Basculegion-F Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Muk-Alola: 194-230 (46.8 - 55.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Basculegion-F Ice Beam vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 208-246 (67.7 - 80.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Basculegion-F Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Cyclizar: 384-452 (111.6 - 131.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

LBN · Jul 10, 2026

I love the current trend of actual noms being made. So let me take a spin at it, yeah? Some noms that honestly just got missed last slate, and I'll prolly also touch on some noms I agree / disagree with.

-> A
Mew is back and for once, I wish UU kept it. Good god this shit is ANNOYING. NP Dkiss sets have been, and will always be aids and cringe, but they are not what I'd consider broken. Though, I have been malded enough to claim otherwise in the past I'm sure lmao. Either way, suicide lead sets are good, Volt spikes set are shit and have never not been shit, NP sets are very potent, though I can it struggling into this more offensive meta. Sun in particular just doesn't care. Might be time for some innovation on Mew. What that is I have no idea its fucking mew see what you can cook with this.

-> C-
This shit is ass LMFAOOOO
Like, I had relatively low expectations, but I did see a new potential removal guy for offensive teams. That much was enticing. Who cares if all it does is spin vs offense, because you can still mess with HO by just clicking spin / tbolt and revenge killing wincons. Oh, how the tables turn. This shit can barely clock in that man. I pressed Tbolt on a maushold and did 70. I'm sorry thats kinda ass. And especially since you need timid to accomplish anything. The mon predicated around revenge killing shit does no damage. Do I need to get the belt, game freak? This shit did work in 1 gen of VGC clicking fucking electro web and yall said naw to the gallows it goes. Transistor didn't need a fucking nerf. That shit was all this thing had.

What can it do then? It can blow itself up. Yup, thats the bar. Clear Amulet Spin Boom. Clear amulet in particular lets you block intimidate from krook and sticky webs, so you can do 80% and die to krook instead of doing 50% and dying to krook. Yeah, C- is generous. Keep this shit dropping cuz imma be genuinely surprised if it doesnt hit ZU.

-> S-
Yeah, this will be a bit of a hot take, mostly because some people just hate S- to a hairbrained extent. But let's be real here, these two are very comfortably ahead of the other mons in A+ right now, to the extent where a rise should be considered. Noivern has seen exploration with Draco Eject pack sets on offense, mostly a mind gaming tech but that set is glorious in that context. Noivern is very comparable to Crobat in SS. Where, yes, alot of people default to slapping it on teams, but also in the sense that Defog Vern is wack. The literal moment you stop pidgeonholding Noivern to Defog duty, the better it gets. Swaths of set variety and approaches. Hurricane has been on a slow uptick over Draco, Flamethrower/Draco sets for a secondary click, Psynoise is still solid. Super Fang has always been amazing utility, and Specs Boomburst is still the same niche-but-solid indulgent set it has been for a year now.
Krookodile is also exemplary. I don't use this mon anywhere near enough, but this thing has been hot shit ever since Hippo left and every tier change besides Yanmega dropping back has been the equivalent of bribery. Not a ton to say, I've been on the S- / S Krook train for awhile now and that hasn't changed.
With Talon likely comin back with TTar/Heatran back in UU, odds are this will not age that well. But who cares about that, RIGHT NOW these two are elite.

-> B
Keep em climbing. I would say sun is around the same level as peak snow at the moment, and snow is sitting in B ranks rn so you know what that means. The sun discussion has been done to death at this point so I'm not gonna paraphrase it, but I think those clammering about sun being broken are starting to become audible for the average person. All three of these are equal in my books, and while some teams ditch venu n some ditch scov, strictly speaking they are close enough to where they really should be considered as a package.

-> B
Team player himself has been seeing a nice uptick lately. With the meta getting more offensive in nature, Swamperts value on offense has been highlighted. Earth Power > EQ has been a nice thing to hit Registeel harder, as well as being less afraid of getting Sacred Fire burned by Entei. Sure, less against Muk but like, eh. Another set worth highlighting is the Substitute Bulk Up set. For awhile it was kinda wack with the prevelance of Chesnaught, but I think its still good. What does it have over just.. using Krookodile for it? Two things, one is having base 100 HP, which helps vs Blissey and thus smashing stall.
The other is the Quag matchup. Krook subs will break every time to EQ. Swampert however doesn't have this problem. (It's a roll but you can absolutely tune Swampert to taking it more comfortably. Or you can creep past Crawdaunt and Chesnaught who sometimes do similar with a nascar approach), and thus you can reasonably engage Quagsire w the set, thus giving it a decent stall niche. Whether you choose Tera Fairy/Dark/Dragon, this thing is nice as hell. Sleeper pick, use it more.

-> C-
I can't fucking believe I'm saying this shit bro. Is this a joke? Bastiodon, despite being dogshit in just about every regard, is a hyper-specific wall that specifically dunks on three very prevalent Pokemon that tend to be nightmarish for fatter builds. Super Fang Noivern, Toxtricity, and Specs Yanmega. With Soundproof and its admittedly pretty cracked movepool, Bastiodon found itself to be a VERY specific but good fit on some fat comps. I'm well aware this shit is mostly treated as a meme, but honestly I have to be real. I see the appeal. I think this thing solves a very specific problem for specific comps, and is thus worth calling viable. C- is pretty much that entire category for me. Very specific guys that fit on specific comps in specific scenarios, but are very good in that situation. Niche end weather abusers, offensive/defensive value picks, and stuff like Bastiodon, who solve an extremely specific problem for people. Oh and who can forget?

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-949372

-> UR
It's not an LBN VR post if its not taking a shit over a C tier. The meta is more offensive than its been in awhile, and lets be real Scrafty was never special for that being its calling card. If I want to put Balance in a never-ending suicidal spiral I'm picking atleast 10 guys before Scrafty who have a lick of a chance of doing things into other matchups. Man this shit can barely even beat stall properly you try to tell me this thing has a purpose.

-> Agree
My goat Wo-Chien is NOT washed. Agree with Heatranator. Except B+ on Tort. Think that's a little high, B is better.

Luiz010. · Jul 13, 2026

Gallade is Rank A because of my Trick Room team on the ladder; I also think that if Volcanion stays in the tier, it will be a strong counter to Rain. VOLCANION - A

Miyami~~~ · Jul 20, 2026

:bw/ludicolo: UR > Cish

I would be fine with C- but I think it's about as good a pick as Kingdra on rain and competes for the same spot so I'm gonna nom it to C. Ludi combines the defensive profile of Kingdra for rain (namely, the all-important quad water resist, but the electric neutrality does come up, and the ground resist is something it has over Kingdra) with access to Focus Blast, which lets it break past Empoleon and AVless Hoodra (70% of the time, at least...) for Barraskewda without having to catch your opponent with CC. Access to Giga Drain is also super nice for stuff like Storm Drain Gastro/Water Absorb Quag, and the self sustain lets you run Life Orb and shrug off the recoil pretty well, plus letting Ludi switch moves since it really does need to hit stuff super effectively if it can't click hydro freely.

I'm no Nature's Conqueror, but I got fairly high on ladder and qualified for the Volcanion test with a Ludicolo rain team, so here's some replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2649183173 - This one has Volcanion on it, but the principle of "Ludicolo takes strong water moves for the team and heals them off while being an offensively threatening swift swimmer" is still sound, and it is rain's best option into tera water diancie since it can option select it with giga so I thought i'd include it.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2649842544-b4bh2qvvg37chwlwbps84d270jailmnpw - Ludicolo's ability to switch moves comes up here, since after bee fulfills its sacred duty and dies immediately it's suddenly hitting my opponent's entire team for super effective damage. Milotic is a bit of an odd choice for a webs team but taking rain boosted water moves is great for Rain in general.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2648919428-xo6kwgwn89puf5qb9ra9dbnxlh5pmcnpw - once again, Ludi's ability to switch moves gives it an insane threat level for my opponent's team, while my opponent admitted to not knowing Ludi actually got Focus Blast every single one of my opponent's switchins to Focus Blast was in danger of dying and thus had to take a gamble on coming in.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2648778328 - Focus blast is a good move for a swift swimmer to have despite also being a meme

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2648127844 - My opponent does the right thing and attempts to switchstall Ludicolo but the ability to heal off Lorb recoil and thus switch moves makes it a lot more difficult than it would've been against, say, Kingdra or skewda.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2652218864-kk3leqr9pmk1vdrmigt94tq7tk7p0wepw - another decent attempt at switch stalling here, somewhat thwarted by my opponent's lack of AV on bike meaning everything gets 2hkoed in rain. Tera fighting Focus Blast picks up the kill on regi to give me the edge in the late game, where my opponent needed to get every prediction right to avoid me giga draining up to full and couldn't keep it up forever.

:bw/flygon: B- > Higher
Not much to really add besides Tera Bug First Impression being a nice option for CB sets, I'm mostly just supporting Heatranator and YWT's noms here. Choiced Flygon generally only really needs stabs + u turn to function effectively and can pretty easily devote the last slot to whatever. The more aggressive the meta gets, the better this tech becomes. It's a great get out of jail free card vs almost every offensive style and will save you from lost games. Use it!

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2648147209-0nkn7quiindvwkxkk4pw7n3jy5ab9bapw

:regieleki: NEW > D
We're stuck with this for three months. Don't use it, it's a fraud.

Heatranator · Jul 21, 2026

might be a bit too late for noms, but whatever, imma make them anyways.

:pmd/vaporeon: C+ -> B+
Yes, this is a massive jump, but i still firmly believe vaporeon is one of the most underrated pokemon in the tier. I brought it to both round 2 (basically my first round) and finals of RULT. R2 it got a rain MU and thus kinda farmed, while finals it did face garde+possibly storm drain gastro which wasn't exactly great but it did help check entei (and lets be so fr here, slowbro would have done even worse LOL). Anyways, vapo is a great softcheck to large portions of the meta while even in bad mus it can wish up a teammate if needed. With haze you are the single best suicune answer in the tier bar none and as long as you have something in the back that can take neutral scald, you should win. Haze isn't the only option though. Roar, cm, ice beam, shadow ball are all viable options that can be used. The last two in particular I think are very good. Both help into garde (with shadow ball doing 40% to it), and help with other awkward mus for vaporeon. Ice beam chunks loom and vern hard, while shadow ball does great damage to slowbro and herscu. Your tera types are also flexible, poison is ofc standard, but tera dark completely walls herscu and cm bro, dragon with a bit of spdef invest does very well into sun, grass entei and elecs and tera fairy can check noivern and crawdaunt. Overall, vapo is a very good pokemon that softchecks a lot of things while being flexible af.

:pmd/bisharp: A+ -> A
Yes, bisharp is a great pokemon, but I think it def isn't the A+ tier mon when compared to the other A+ ranks. The first issue, is that its a steel that doesn't actually deal with garde. It can take a moonblast once, but thats kinda it. For certain offensive teams this is fine, but anything bulkier and that can be an issue. Its why lucario despite having lots of good attributes, is ultimately niche. It forces you to double up on alternative fairy resists with options like entei or poisons, or double up on steels which both can feel weird. This is definetely something that can't really be ignored when building with bisharp and is a big constraint on which teams it can fit on. Secondly, sucker punch simply put, sucks as prio. I know I referenced my RULT games in the nom above, but if you check finals g2 you can see that bisharp, just loses an endgame that should have been won. Having a prio move that is unreliable at best is not exactly the greatest. Stuff like trick, sub, encore etc can screw it over immensly and force it into uncomfortable scenarios of trying to predict around these options.

:pmd/sandslash alola: C -> C+
Hail is good, alolaslash on hail is very good :). Okay so this is more then one line, alolaslash does compound fire and fighting weaknesses that hail already starts with, but it more then makes up for it with spin support (which snow desperately wants), hazards, knock off, and the ability to customise its item heavily. Weakness policy, eject button, rocky helmet, red card, life orb etc. It was used in two RULT semi games and in a RULT final game, its just a really good role compression mon for the playstyle which means you can flex your options a lot more.

:pmd/bronzong: C+ -> B
Bronzong is def very good in this meta. Mew counter, stuffs eq venu, can check a lot of annoying pokemon like terrak, garde, breloom, rhyperior, necrozma etc. Its able to reliably get up rocks then spread around good damage with night shade while letting that damage stick with psynoise. Also has other options it can experiment with like trick+toxic orb, id, gknot etc.

:pmd/mew: A-
I'm ranking this lower then others, but while mew does very well against fatter builds, said fatter builds are less important then ever. Against balance and BO it can usually trade, but something faster will come in and either revenge kill it/force it out, or make it dedicate tera to stop it, which only leads to the next thing then taking the KO. Against offensive builds, it struggles a good amount as while its bulk is fine, its initial power isn't great and thus it does need chip to secure the OHKO (for instance, psynoise doesn't even do 85% to terrakion, which is not exactly a great hittaker). Idk, in the right mu it can be a demon, but a good amount of the time its going to take one thing max it feels.

:pmd/regieleki: C
Eleki is a spinner, so it automatically has a niche. Saw usage in slam with tera normal hyper beam which is cool, but if you don't face something like a krook or quag as the ground you kinda die on the inside. Does have the fact its hard to spinblock since something like gastro can't tera on it easily, but overall, it just struggles to fit onto teams. Also outspeeds scov even under sun which is funny, scov is dicks and somehow keeps getting worse lmfao.

LBN · Jul 25, 2026

Alright, VR update for the month of July has arrived! With Mew and Regieleki's arrival, we got some shakeups. You know the drill, Benadryl. Additionally, Seed has stepped down from VR Council, so we'd like to thank their prior contributions.

(We admittedly forgot to put Gallade and Basculegion-F on the slate, so those two will be automatically added to the next one)

New Arrivals

-> A

-> C-

Rises

-> S

-> B

Drops

-> A-

-> C

Unchanged

SimpleOri · Jul 25, 2026

VR thoughts I have:

Malamar

Unranked -> C-ish

With the recent rise of reverse webs in both tour play (*cough* zause losing to it in seasonal) and on the ladder, I think it’s about time it get some recognition, Tera fly + taunt malamar even without the contrary speed boost is very powerful against mons such as Quagsire who are left with very little options to deal with it, allowing for Malamar to get free turns to either knock off, or set up with superpower, or even trick room in some cases as some variations of reverse web rely on Trick Room heavily. Malamar hits a very respectable 403 speed with the webs boost and has quite decent bulk for what it is, allowing it to punish an opponent positioning poorly against it and begin to snowball from there. I believe Malamar is arguably better for its own gimmicks than anything currently in C- and thus think C is a quite fair ranking for it, as it’s extremely niche but CAN work even without the nice bonus of the self-sticky web.

I have personally seen quite a bit of success with this set

(Malamar) @ Leftovers

Ability: Contrary

Tera Type: Flying

EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Knock Off

- Superpower

- Taunt

- Trick Room

and in my opinion it is arguably the best reverse webs mon as it doesn’t have to rely on trick room and can snowball freely without it while also being able to provide that support for the other mons on reverse web (e.g. Bisharp, Milotic, Empoleon), other useful moves over trick room include Psycho Cut for coverage or Destiny Bond to trade against things with your very useful speed stat.

Gallade: B+ -> B-
I don't understand how this mon keeps flying under the radar as being one of the most overrated mons in this tier, there's a reason it has the name shitlade. 284 speed is just not enough and relies far too heavily on having to use one of or both of SD or Agility to be able to actually get major value. It's far too easy to build against and I personally don't even consider it a threat compared to anything else in the B+ category.

MC Squared · Jul 25, 2026

LBN said:
-> C-

What the Tera Blast ban does to a mf

t44Torkoal · Jul 26, 2026

Ampha said:
A- Rank
:rhyperior: Rhyperior

can someone explain to me why this thing sees so little usage when its A-?

evantheskeptic · Jul 27, 2026

Hey, it seems my lurk more notice is over and i have gotten some tournament experience so i’d like to make a nom, more detailed than Yourwelcomethanku and Miyami’s noms for this mon since i feel it was lowballed after my brain storming, miyami went into detail but i felt i should go into more(some similar stuff but i’ve been working on this before miyami made his post):

Ur->b-
Yup, Ludicolo. This thing is basically The Venusaur of rain. Giga drain for reliable recovery, dual typing with a secondary type that has a super effective resist matchup with grass(the primary type), and double speed in weather abilities. It has water for stab meaning no tera required to get the stab on rain boosted water moves(venusaur has to invest tera fire to get stab on weather ball). One of it’s main weaknesses is it’s speed tier, base 70. Not that good but hey, on pikalytics it’s directly shown above empoleon in terms of usage(6.36% vs 6.11%), showing people do use it relatively often already(if rises weren’t banned this would be ru right now). It commonly runs orb since giga drain can heal that off and it allows you to switch moves, unlike specs, which is an option for special attackers that don’t happen to have attacking recovery moves. Focus blast(Especially with tera fighting) checks steels and umbreon. Giga drain can heal off life orb damage so orb is actually good on it.

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2648802520 Aside from that one hydro miss, a solid sweep up until reuniclus
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2649764934 tera grass and entei still lost 85% hp to hydro pump? insane
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2649957969
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2649855511

I cut out replays where it didn’t do much

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krookodile: 361-429 (109 - 129.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO(imagine surf and hydro pump)
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 330-390 (101.8 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO(yup, orb i beam ohkos breloom, these calcs are panning out a lot better than i thought)

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Goodra-Hisui: 205-242 (56.3 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Goodra-Hisui: 307-361 (84.3 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Empoleon: 208-247 (55.9 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Empoleon: 312-369 (83.8 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 76 SpD Registeel: 192-229 (52.7 - 62.9%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 76 SpD Registeel: 192-229 (52.7 - 62.9%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 116 HP / 56 SpD Assault Vest Magnezone in Rain: 204-242 (65.8 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 116 HP / 56 SpD Assault Vest Magnezone: 200-237 (64.5 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 116 HP / 56 SpD Assault Vest Magnezone: 299-354 (96.4 - 114.1%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Bisharp: 520-614 (178.6 - 210.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon in Rain: 179-212 (45.4 - 53.8%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 177-208 (44.9 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 265-312 (67.2 - 79.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

And also, it can 2hko alolan muk in rain with hydro pump:252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Muk-Alola in Rain: 218-257 (52.6 - 62%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery(whether this is bad or not i’ll leave to the readers, but i said c+/b-, not somewhere in a like a total idiot.).

And it 2hkos suicune with giga drain, meaning it pressures bulky waters that other rain sweepers don’t exactly enjoy
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune: 242-289 (59.9 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery or after a calm mind:252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune: 164-195 (40.5 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Vaporeon: 283-335 (60.9 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 224-265 (72.9 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Cyclizar: 411-486 (119.4 - 141.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Cyclizar: 309-367 (89.8 - 106.6%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 224-265 (72.9 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 169-200 (55 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 335-398 (109.1 - 129.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Chesnaught: 278-328 (73.1 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Wo-Chien: 172-203 (45.9 - 54.2%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Tera Fighting Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Wo-Chien: 257-304 (68.7 - 81.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 330-390 (101.8 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 68 SpD Amoonguss: 242-286 (56 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Entei in Rain: 624-736 (168.1 - 198.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kleavor in Rain: 658-775 (234.1 - 275.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mimikyu in Rain: 234-277 (93.2 - 110.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Noivern: 408-480 (109 - 128.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Maushold: 367-434 (126.9 - 150.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Surf vs. 252 HP / 92 SpD Forretress in Rain: 324-382 (91.5 - 107.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Slowbro: 328-385 (83.2 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Why It’s not b or higher is, gets outsped by timid regieleki, even in rain, with a speed boosting nature(so unless for some weird reason you choose to run modest Regieleki, Ludicolo is cooked against it). And outside of rain, very prone to revenge kills. It’s not the fastest swift swimmer, in fact one of the slower ones(basculegion kingdra overqwil and barraskewda are faster as a baseline, and they are also rain abusers. Rain allows Ludi to outspeed nearly the rest of the ru meta(unless factoring in other swift swim users, or opposing weather sweepers). And, it gets walled by blissey like many other special walls, and Blissey is common already. As i said earlier, Both Focus Blast and Hydro Pump are inaccurate so these are weaknesses to consider. And it needs rain for maximum speed yet still gets outsped sometimes. Surf isn’t as powerful as hydro pump though, so the four move syndrome is still an issue.
Now for somethings that are a little(okay, a lot) simpler, this is not one of them:

A+->A-/B+. Look, Bisharp is still good but as soon as it faces a fighting type or sees a fighting type move(they’re pretty common), it has to click a defensive tera(burning it for the whole team so it can’t help with an offensive sweep later) if not switch out, even with eviolite in mind and the tera is never for offensive benefit.

Common Fighting Coverage

252 SpA Gardevoir Aura Sphere vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Bisharp: 304-360 (104.4 - 123.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Krookodile Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 488-576 (167.6 - 197.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Mimikyu Drain Punch vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 224-265 (76.9 - 91%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 632-744 (217.1 - 255.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 544-640 (186.9 - 219.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Gengar Focus Blast vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Bisharp: 472-556 (162.1 - 191%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Barraskewda Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 552-652 (189.6 - 224%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Stab(yes offensive)

252 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 520-616 (178.6 - 211.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Sharpness Gallade Sacred Sword vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 576-676 (197.9 - 232.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

0 Atk Chesnaught Close Combat vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 372-436 (127.8 - 149.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Body press
164+ Def Forretress Body Press vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 256-304 (87.9 - 104.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
204+ Def Chesnaught Body Press vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 360-424 (123.7 - 145.7%)
-- guaranteed OHKO
180+ Def Registeel Body Press vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 272-324 (93.4 - 111.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

If you clicked the spoiler directly above, it becomes very clear that if an invested fighting move hits bisharp without tera or switch, it is cooked(either pressured or ohko’d depending on the fighting move user’s base offensive stat and the power of the move itself, couple that with hazard damage and the calcs get scary, but without hazards, still effectively cripples the sharp but in some cases not in one hit.). Especially if the fighting move is stab, then the cooked-ness is up to the max. Since fighting moves are common offensively. Other A+ pokemon don’t have to tera nearly as often(ice coverage isn’t as common as fighting offensively, so vern can stay s-.). And heatranator’s post about it on top of that. The fighting weakness be milked every time the chance comes, meaning:has to tera. The mons won’t always run these fighting moves but they can pack the coverage realistically often and force sharp into tera/death.

ur->b-
Literally just me agreeing with heatranator with only up to date replays to back him up since his enthusiasm doesn’t seem to match the c rank he asked for. And some points in it’s defense;you berate chandy for low base speed and frailty, but ga twins are even frailer physically(68/65 vs 60/90, on the special side the ga twins are bulkier by a longshot but physically they frailer than chandelure.), and while hazards are an issue, quad resisting u turn is really nice and poisons don’t immediately cook it(neither do flying types) and the ghost cooking is more mutual, an immunity to fighting(fire too if running flash fire, and a power boost to it’s own fire moves.) and resist to fairy is also nice. So is a whopping 145 special attack vs 125. It's better than c+ mons because u turn can give it a free calm mind, and as Heatranator mentioned, Tera fairy cm sets can make cyclizar set up fodder. And never genuinely struggles against resists of one type when it can use the other. Scarf is, the exact same speed tier as voir. Walls sun to a degree if you're running flash fire(immune to fire moves and resist solar beam/blade), so not only is it viable, it can also wall sun setters and make them borderline useless, all tales can do is encore and all tork can do is set up rocks(which can only be done once, if rocks are already up tork effectively has nothing to do. healing Wish is suicide for tales, that is the other option. encore won't help against choiced sets much. As for tork, rocks will if chandy ever switches out and back, but likely not against a choiced/cm set.)

Chandelure @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Fire Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Clear Smog/Dark Pulse
I think this is one of the sets heatranator tested.

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2653361223

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2652261779

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2652257639

A+ ->A-/B+
SimpleOri said Gallade is overrated so i think voir is overrated too when I think about it. Scarf is literally the best it can do when it comes to consistency and farming off weather(i know all too well):82.284%. Specs is too slow and easy to revenge kill, boots loses out on both power and speed and needs a calm mind or two and to face a slower mon that doesn’t have priority. I don’t even know what the other items could be:0.437%. Leftovers, orb, can’t tell. And, this thing is also pretty frail. so yeah, as of now voir is pretty overrated

something simple again,this is just words:C+/C/B->A-/A/A+ or A for ninetales specifically. What? Scov venu and tales might be a package but tales is the one setting the weather, without it setting sun scov and venu aren’t as fast and growth isn’t as spontaneous, fire moves don’t hit as hard, etc, and the utility tales provides on top of setting sun, which could disrupt opposing weathers(same goes for all weather setters, they’re the only check to each other, and is the fastest so it doesn’t need to depend on weather wars to have utility, and tales is more talked about by the experts so this is the A+, or just A flat).

Torkoal and toed are pretty similar cases, with torkoal in particular being the slowest so if two weather setters switch in on turn one and torkoal is one of them? You better bet that it’s gonna be sun first.And tork has rapid spin for removal, stealth rock to set hazards, even a solid base 140 physical defense to take in physical hits and dish out body presses, if not, lava plume(coverage like solar beam and earth power work too but the main thing is the role compression torkoal provides, more people talked about sun so torkoal is the A flat).

Politoed in particular? basically the odd one out. Slower than tales so it gets the jump over tales(but the previously mentioned torkoal? Not so much) and the trapping of whirlpool is undervalued for mons that really don’t wanna face toed, especially coupled with perish song. Encore is something tales and toed both have to disrupt the opponent(tales does it best since tales is the fastest) and toed has rest for recovery. Toed is used 10.9% of the time, more than voir. Skewda is also common(more so than voir too, in fact skewda is used 10.22% of the time, compare that to voir’s 10.03% and it becomes clear that rain is common and something you need to prepare for.) Toed enables:basculegion(both genders), barraskewda, Ludicolo(which i just nommed b-), and hurricane users. So yeah, i think A- works for Politoed.

A- ->A.
It’s quite simple really:orb technician. I think Breloom is just better than voir aside from special attackers being better than physical attackers. Can set up, has more varied coverage, higher offensive stat, not dependant on the opponent, and speed control outside of scarf that also does damage. Sure, you won’t get as much recovery as you would poison heal but this is a massive boost offensively as it has lots of good moves with base power under 60.

Aerial ace for chesnaught(252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Aerial Ace vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 333-395 (87.6 - 103.9%) -- 25% chance to OHKO), rock tomb for flying types(252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Rock Tomb vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 309-364 (82.6 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/252 Atk Life Orb Technician Tera Rock Breloom Rock Tomb vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 463-546 (123.7 - 145.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO. won't feature yanmega 'cause I think it's obvious yanmega would get ohko'd) and to slow down the opponent without the need for webs(built in speed control, and it can slow down faster flying types like Vern and Yanmega), even priority stab in mach punch. The coverage and the stab is insane, especially when you consider their effects. I added tera rock because it not only boosts rock tomb but also makes you resist flying and poison(sure, weak to ground but tera almost always has tradeoffs and isn’t used right off the bat.).

As for base loom, resisting both of krook's stabs is great since it needs gunk shot to hit you for super effectively and needs to burn tera for that to be stab, croak has stab gunk shot to begin with).
saw a replay of hisuiheat vs horrii, date was July 15th, in the seasonal's 4th round. check that forum and you'll get the gist.

return to details since i’m nomming a new mon again:ur->c/c+.
I thought of doing this back in june but deleted it from the golduck post since i saw replays of it doing great with dragon dance and stab ice which can clock vern and has a water immunity with water absorb so it can check rain/vaporeon pretty well(terastalizing doesn’t remove the immunity, instead it adds one to fighting, which is great investment long term and makes you less weak to grass and electric too.)Icicle spear and ice shard do not make contact so they’re not prone to helmet.Understandabledad was the lapras user in the Lapras replays

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2651394937[/URL] (more arguments to support mew’s greatness, tera fighting meteor beam power herb but more importantly icicle spear broke mimikyu’s disguise and did more damage than just that and ice shard is stab priority)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2647690220 Tera ghost works for clapping banded skewda’s close combat, an excellent play and use of it since i fang and waterfall are resisted by lapras’s standard typing and skewda often runs close combat, and two dragon dances means the opp of lapras utterly cooked unless in weather/agility
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2646191974 Eq coverage for steel types like jirachi and registeel.

252 SpA Noivern Draco Meteor vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 181-214 (42.6 - 50.4%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO/252 SpA Noivern Flamethrower vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 85-100 (20 - 23.5%) -- guaranteed 5HKO/252 SpA Noivern Hurricane vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 153-181 (36 - 42.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Entei Sacred Fire vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 271-319 (63.9 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO(can stomach a sacred fire depending on the set assuming no burn. Band can’t ohko still but boots)/252 Atk Choice Band Entei Stone Edge vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 362-426 (85.3 - 100.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO252 Atk Choice Band Entei Extreme Speed vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 145-171 (34.1 - 40.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO(stomachs a lot of entei’s kit so retaliating is easier, especially against boots sets)
252 SpA Gardevoir Moonblast vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 159-187 (37.5 - 44.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO/252 SpA Gardevoir Psychic vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 150-177 (35.3 - 41.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO/252 SpA Gardevoir Focus Blast vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 266-314 (62.7 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Krookodile Close Combat vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 438-516 (103.3 - 121.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Choice Band Krookodile Earthquake vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 273-322 (64.3 - 75.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/252 Atk Choice Band Krookodile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 265-313 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Bisharp Iron Head/Throat chop vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 169-199 (39.8 - 46.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO/252+ Atk Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 147-174 (34.6 - 41%) -- guaranteed 3HKO/252+ Atk Bisharp Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 336-396 (79.2 - 93.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
148+ SpA Empoleon Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 248-292 (58.4 - 68.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/148+ SpA Empoleon Flash Cannon vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 124-147 (29.2 - 34.6%) -- 8.5% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Sharpness Gallade Psycho Cut vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 202-238 (47.6 - 56.1%) -- 82.4% chance to 2HKO/252 Atk Sharpness Gallade Sacred Sword vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 516-608 (121.6 - 143.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Gengar Focus Blast vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 274-324 (64.6 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/252 SpA Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 162-192 (38.2 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO/252 SpA Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 136-162 (32 - 38.2%) -- 95.9% chance to 3HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Close Combat vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 704-830 (166 - 195.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO/252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 588-692 (138.6 - 163.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO(not safe)
252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 396-466 (93.3 - 109.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
204+ Def Chesnaught Body Press vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 320-378 (75.4 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/0 Atk Chesnaught Seed Bomb vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 218-260 (51.4 - 61.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Krookodile: 272-336 (82.1 - 101.5%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to OHKO
180+ Def Registeel Body Press vs. 92 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 246-290 (58 - 68.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 0 SpA Suicune Shadow Ball vs. 92 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 219-258 (51.6 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 180 Atk Lapras Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 336-396 (89.8 - 105.8%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO/+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 832-1008 (222.4 - 269.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO(if you bother to believe this is impressive)
+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Entei: 260-308 (70 - 83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Empoleon: 254-300 (68.2 - 80.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mimikyu: 208-252 (82.8 - 100.3%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to OHKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Gardevoir: 244-292 (88 - 105.4%) -- approx. 15.2% chance to OHKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 832-1008 (222.4 - 269.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 224-272 (58.9 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kleavor: 180-216 (64 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 154-182 (52.9 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 408-480 (145.1 - 170.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 160-192 (37.5 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 113-133 (24.3 - 28.6%) -- possible 5HKO/+1 180 Atk Lapras Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Suicune: 102-120 (25.2 - 29.7%) -- 0.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery(at least breaks the sub)
Sadly, this thing is not breaking past suicune at +1, but it would win the 1v1 ‘cause water absorb blocks scald so suicune can hardly even touch lapras, neither can vaporeon. Just, more and more dragon dancing until it can. This is one edge the lapras has over other dragon dancers, water absorb to not care about scald from vaporeon or suicune so unless suicune’s running roar/i beam/shadow ball, there is no beating the lapras, you need shadow ball to even respectably damage it. All vaporeon can do is try to haze it over and over, flip turn and scald don’t do squat. Why does vaporeon matter? ‘Cause Heatranator nominated it up to b+ for arceus’s sake! B+!. Suicune gets pressured to run coverage instead of protect

Simplest of them all:A–> B+/B.
This thing is basically basc-f but physical, even frailer, higher offensive stat(120 vs 100), more coverage, and has set up and can afford to slap on utility more often. The calcs for this thing are actually scary but with all the special attackers running around and hazard stack is getting common(meaning it needs hazard removal on it’s side, so it’s hard to be brought in safely, even listed on smogdex).

A->A+/S.

It has become very clear that this thing is hated by many of you guys. A flat is too low due to the sheer versatility it boasts(eq is also available for dd sets to hit steels and electrics and rock types, psychic noise shuts down recovery, you probably know the rest). It’s on par with voir at least due to it’s superior overall base stats(100 each) and number of viable sets(i still think there could be more), truly an independent mon since it can do set up on both sides of the offensive and be a physical wall on top of that so it’s hard to deal with, you don’t know what set it could be. It could be krook/vern/bro level at most. NP is serious, dd is for real, helmet sets are tough, utility sets can tick people off, it compresses these roles while keeping it’s amazing base stats, forces uncertainty at team preview to a level no other mon can copy/replicate, and fits on a wide, wide array of playstyles/archetypes. And if you ask me if it’s more or less centralizing than krook/vern, personally i think it’s more centralizing, multiple good sets with varied items and roles and the array of coverage, krook just has scarf/band to be physical and either intimidate/moxie, vern may be faster but at least mew doesn’t have a quad weakness. And as you’ll see in my next nom, these still aren’t the only good sets on ladder and there is more right below. When it’s using an offensive set, not as much struggle against offensive builds, and drain punch is there to self sustain, lemme say it again.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2653705011
Triple axel bro! Triple axel as a multi hit move to check mimikyu and an ice move so vern is cooked no matter what.

Also I agree with SimpleOri's noms on gallade and malamar now that I look at it, checked, did have success with the mar. But gallade? bit harsh considering Luiz made a trick room team that got far on ladder with it. b flat makes more sense to me

As for T44torkoal's questioning of rhyperior, I think it's gonna drop a subrank or two next slate.

Shadow Crystal · Aug 1, 2026

So since my last nom was completely ignored i have decided to nom even higher
:diancie:
B- -> A
Cmon literally everybody agrees this mon is good and consistent af at its job it is one of the best counters to fast paced teams which are incredibly common in the tier, its even good into sun and with Tera even rain completely ruins these archetypes who purely rely on their speed to break let's not forget how diancie completely ruins sticky web teams. It's been proving to be quite a good pokemon for a while now and has been super consistent at its job, stealth rock support sets are good with broken encore which still checks a ton of setup sweepers and in general really frustrating to deal with and quite contrary to what most think the cm kiss demon diancie is good especially into bulkier builds and kiss heals A TON but its otr thats the best diancie set by a countrymile, the sheer flexibility it offers in battle is hard to ignore but it is not a one trick pony either.
Other noms include
:mew:
A-> A+
Broken setup sweeper
Sun->A-/A
Really good playstyle might be bro6ken genuinly

Flabeauf · Aug 1, 2026

Shadow Crystal said:
So since my last nom was completely ignored i have decided to nom even higher
:diancie:
B- -> A
Cmon literally everybody agrees this mon is good and consistent af at its job it is one of the best counters to fast paced teams which are incredibly common in the tier, its even good into sun and with Tera even rain completely ruins these archetypes who purely rely on their speed to break let's not forget how diancie completely ruins sticky web teams. It's been proving to be quite a good pokemon for a while now and has been super consistent at its job, stealth rock support sets are good with broken encore which still checks a ton of setup sweepers and in general really frustrating to deal with and quite contrary to what most think the cm kiss demon diancie is good especially into bulkier builds and kiss heals A TON but its otr thats the best diancie set by a countrymile, the sheer flexibility it offers in battle is hard to ignore but it is not a one trick pony either.
Other noms include
:mew:
A-> A+
Broken setup sweeper
Sun->A-/A
Really good playstyle might be bro6ken genuinly

Nobody agrees with diancie A tier and there are good reasons why your nom was ignored btw

evantheskeptic · Aug 1, 2026

This thing is underrated:C- →B-/B. What? With a timid nature it happens to outspeed scarf gengar, Ludicolo(even in rain, i nommed ludi earlier) and vern. It may be frail but it forces you to pack an electric immunity(reisists don’t block the switch) and/or priority and/or weather and/or a spinblocker just to deal with it right.
it has volt switch for momentum(with that speed it makes a difference)

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Normal Entei Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Regieleki: 312-367 (85.7 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO. heavy duty boots usage stats:59.161% vs
12.366% for band. Bruh, boots being nearly five times as common as band means entei can burn tera and still not ohko regieleki depending on the set.
252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Regieleki: 236-278 (64.8 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2652128278 Regieleki can help electric terrain be less of a gimmick(role expansion, so if you ain’t impressed by the calcs it enriches an archetype, that being electric terrain, abuses it well with electric stab.), even if it’s special coverage is, literally just ancient power(you need to use the other attacking stat for coverage
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2651201048-iah0ga2k0ovtqoebjpsp717v44l6fw4(pw Sadly, air balloon acrobatics is the one and only way not to get walled by chesnaught or one shot by grounds so the item syndrome is cooked(4 Atk Regieleki Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 208-248 (54.7 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO(not one hit but for some reason, actually works). Weirdly, versatile. Each choice fixes a certain con.
252 Atk Regieleki Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Chesnaught: 260-308 (68.4 - 81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2651208235-arj3dc4wiajqdms226fjm5ssjc4bxekpw Has utility in t wave so again, unless you go up against a ground(like in the replay) or kilowattrel, golden.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2652172455 Hyper Beam for some reason? Okay, milking normal moves works for tera normal sets.

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krookodile: 408-480 (123.2 - 145%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Quagsire: 435-513 (110.4 - 130.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Torterra: 348-411 (105.1 - 124.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Gastrodon: 358-423 (84 - 99.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 68 SpD Amoonguss: 339-400 (78.4 - 92.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 308-363 (95 - 112%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Chesnaught: 259-305 (68.1 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Chesnaught: 388-457 (102.1 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Normal Regieleki Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 462-544 (142.5 - 167.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2649418229 Forces tera ground as specific prep for it.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2653405869 Banded supercell slam, okay

252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cyclizar: 207-243 (60.1 - 70.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 318-375 (98.4 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 392-464 (99.4 - 117.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp: 195-229 (67 - 78.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Entei: 331-391 (89.2 - 105.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Noivern: 351-414 (93.8 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Empoleon: 644-762 (173.1 - 204.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 400-472 (153.2 - 180.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 265-313 (65.5 - 77.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Suicune: 470-554 (116.3 - 137.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 289-342 (89.4 - 105.8%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 80 Def Politoed: 608-716 (158.3 - 186.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 356-422 (90.3 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

Weirdly, versatile. Each item fixes a certain con but leaves others wide open

252 SpA Choice Specs Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Empoleon in Electric Terrain: 444-524 (119.3 - 140.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kleavor in Electric Terrain: 279-328 (99.2 - 116.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Maushold in Electric Terrain: 262-310 (90.6 - 107.2%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gardevoir in Electric Terrain: 276-325 (99.6 - 117.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Noivern in Electric Terrain: 373-441 (99.7 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune in Electric Terrain: 552-650 (136.6 - 160.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune in Electric Terrain: 368-434 (91 - 107.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Transistor Regieleki Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Slowbro: 384-452 (97.4 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Transistor Regieleki Supercell Slam vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro in Electric Terrain: 464-548 (117.7 - 139%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The rain team pressuring matters because it can kill the toed

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2658225104
Also it has t wave for speed control outside of webs, fastest non prankster t wave user in the tier. And electro ball
Common grounds like quagsire and krookodile cook this thing hard, meaning, switch required due to a lack of coverage. But if you saw the e terrain replay you know it enriches that playstyle, making it more than simply a gimmick. If you want to run a power boosting nature instead of speed, Scarf terrakion and gengar gon’ cook you alive. So i wouldn’t say it needs a speed boosting nature to function, it does need it to outspeed many scarfers in the tier, there’s a difference. Weather is an either way you’re done situation. And cyclizar outspeeds after one spin but it needs that spin.c

You know what can be a spin blocker and ground type at once? golurk:

c→c+/b-

What? Sets up hazards(rocks, idk about), no guard dynamic punch/stone edge, either high power stab in poltergeist(depends on if the opp has an item) or knock off for utilityc. It has seen larger tournament presence as of late, not always winning but not always losing either. It has an immunity to normal moves(like hyper beam and rapid spin) due to the ghost half and immunity to electric moves via the ground half, so i’d say it’s the best regieleki check in one specific team slot. Ancient power is resisted for the special side and for air balloon strats:252 Atk Regieleki Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Golurk: 120-142 (34.3 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO. Yeah, golurk can beat Regieleki bad, worse than most i’d say since literally no way to hit it outside of acrobatics, which is just one set and ohko’d right after

c- → c+/b-

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2658218225
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2658208908

Look, this thing can be useful outside of electric terrain. It can run booster energy for quark drive speed, take a body press from chesnaught, and set up hazards so unless you face a ground type/ground move, gonna be gonna be golden(oh i know). and the lbn replay I used to argue against basc-f;saw dd iron thorns. this combined with electric terrain becoming less of a gimmick thanks to;regieleki(I nommed it to rise earlier), I believe iron thorns should get an upsurge

ur→b-

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657783390?p2 The terrain pops psychic seed and unburden, gets an sd and teras into flying then acrobatics for ches and a muk, eq empo and then forfeit
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2658248745 Stops only due to a reuni-crit(idk if regular psychic noise in psychic terrain would ko scep from 42% honestly, but reuniclus did survive the leaf blade). And outspeeds bike after unburden.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657505844?p2 Critical blade and took a body press from ches(the chip from helmet put it down though, if not for helmet would have probably cleared)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657493250?p2 knock off don’t do much since scep already consumed the seed, sd then eq then blade suicune for the win.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657225379?p2 1v1’d registeel even after iron defense body press, tera’d flying but still, intimidate was not helping krook survive, it only helped delay the inetivable(eq since krook tera’d poison)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657216826?p2 just another sweep that ended in a forfeit.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2683911391 Drain punch too omg scep can self sustain.

The only even slightly relevant mon that resist the combination of grass ground and electric is kilowattrel(check the coverage calculator, trust, the others are either in a higher tier;locked in natdex, or wattrel/rotom-fan), there is a way to resist it completely. And with unburden, no need for set up, just proc the seed, all it takes is one switch, not even one that requires to take damage(Can but not always).

ur→b/b+
The sceptile replays(yup, i’m using them again here) show it can enable potent psy terrain sweepers. And on it’s own, expanding force hits pretty hard(+1 cune protected itself from it_. And since the terrain it enables is immune to priority, no sucker punching to deal with it. And it has utility in encore so it can do more than just sweep in the terrain it sets. After one psychic seed proc, suddenly not so viable mons like hitmonlee are taking super effective moonblasts from voir!. Yeah, psychic terrain is viable in ru(as is terrain in general for me honestly, except maybe misty terrain.)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2651196088-1kr7rl571xudqbusyok84r78ffi1gnopw
Here’s a standalone if you want one(Indeedee is the enabler in the sceptile replays and in the nom below)

ur→c+/b-.
Sd for set up and knock off for ghosts(see in the first sceptile replay, and in general knock off is useful for removing the opponent’s item.), and like sceptile, unburden works well on psychic terrain, as it helps it survive the aforementioned gardevoir’s moonblast like i said with indeedee's nom.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2649356861-3jwrbbya8p2ud9evi6d2gn2j2p532m0pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2657187055?p2
Here are two replays since accidentally the sceptile nom has much more and since this is one fluid post i think i can use replays from one nom in the other if they were the same team(tried to find more users of the lee, explaining why one replay has a different user than the other.)
man, Hitmonlee is faster than scarf Gengar after unburden

Also I agree with Shadow Crystal's diancie nom for a rank(don't judge, it was very detailed and I don't know what reasons it could have against an a ranking, if it's about the steels then body press and earth power are counterplay so that matchup isn't a total checkmate, just pressure, there's a difference(as I said earlier bisharp should drop due to a quad). if it's about how slow it doesn't have to be fast outside of trick room because it has other viable roles. if it's about the waters? well, good point. maybe a- makes more sense since Tera water is a necesity for it and if they're switching in, can't exactly do it without taking damage if it's offensive diancie but I don't know the ev spreads for the calm mind and stealth rock sets. to shadow, can you please post them in the vr thread to explain what spreads you had so we can understand it better? and I think there's an iron defense/diamond storm body press set too. or even level 99 to be even slower, saw that in a tournament. but alas, I believe if the statements are evaluative shadow tested them out themselves)

LBN · Aug 11, 2026

Aight. Pre SCL Noms. There's a back log we forgot from last time; Gallade, Kilowattrel, etc. So I'm skipping those, but I agree w them. Anyways, lesgitit. I'm also feeling vulgar today so have a ton of swearing as a little cherry on top!

-> B+ / B
This is not an A- Pokemon anymore. It has been a while since the time where Hisuian Lilligant and Scarf Gengar was everywhere, and thus people turned to this guy to curb the gengar spam. Now, we're in Sun and Krookodile hell. Not horrid into sun don't get me wrong, but Krookodile is where I have big problems. Especially since switching into Krookodile is like bashing your head against concrete, I don't like using mons that take their sweet ass time killing it, especially when it relies on RNG off Poison touch to actually get it low. It doesn't beat Gardevoir, Necrozma chokes it and take it out back behind a fucking Swiss Chalet and empties a fucking clip in its neck like he's Charlie Kirk, and I'm not listening to the strawman of "Oh b-but CM Slowbro!" as if Alolan Muk was the only way to get that to happen.

-> UR
Look. I know I am entering HIGHLY contested territory here. But we need to be serious here. The whole archetype of "Yo static fish the Cyclizar and then let the broken guys win!!" is an archetype that hasn't seen use in fucking eons. We have no Mienshao, we have no Talonflame. If I want to bait a Cyclizar to get paralyzed I have Twave Gengar, Stun Spore Wo-Chien, Cresselia and Slowbro, Blissey and like 5 other options. "Oh but Bellibolt is fat with tera and has toxic!" Man Imma keep it a stack if I wanted to click Tera and Toxic I'm turning to leech seed breloom and I'm not looking back. I'm mainly arguing the cyclizar point because that's all this Pokemon has had! Its worthless otherwise! All of our physical attackers don't give a shit about this thing. Krookodile rams this living squishmallow into a meat grinder. Breloom is immune to status. Bisharp just doesn't care. You beat Mimikyu! That's amazing! So, why not use Quagsire?

DO YOU SEE THE FUCKING PROBLEM?

-> B+
I need to set my biases aside, my beloved goat has not been A- for a good bit now and the only reason I've not nommed it down is because my goat does not tend to get the respect it deserves. But I gotta face facts. Chesnaught is shooting this thing in the chest, and Krook/Loom/Bro is a hard enough group to get past as is. It's possible, don't get me wrong. SD Megahorn / Ice Punch shreds and its not like you really need rock stab that badly. At the same time though, its sometimes a bit clunky, and you aren't throwing this on a team willy nilly. It's absolutely fantastic don't get me wrong, but its very much a "road less traveled" mon and we have about 4 of those in B+ already. There's also the issue of why put in effort using Rhyperior when I can shave my brain down to be as smooth as a slice of fucking ham loading Krookodile.

Yourwelcomethanku · Aug 12, 2026

Some quick nominations

:ludicolo: UR to C+
Ludicolo is a good Swift Swim Pokemon, I think it's better than Kingdra given its access to Focus Blast for Empoleon and Hisuian Goodra. Grass STAB allows it to threaten Gastrodon handily which is a good qualify for a Swift Swim Pokemon. Only really Blissey or certain Tera Pokemon wall it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-960506?p2 ssnl and I and others have shared other Ludicolo replays in the thread before.

:decidueye-hisui:& :goodra: UR to B- and UR to C
Both of these have seen use on a particular rain team, although Hecidueye is not restricted to it by any means. Goodra is a decent bulky attacker with useful resistances for rain and it can make use of Rest + Hydration. Hisuian Decidueye is not restricted to rain but Defog + U-turn are good qualities for any offensive team that needs entry hazards dealt with. I also think offensive Swords Dance sets with Sucker Punch as priority are viable; and Sucker Punch is a much more threatening priority move than Breloom's Mach Punch would be vs Gengar, Noivern, and other things.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-940960 Slam
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-962416 Ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-952196 ssnl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2660727466

:ribombee: B to C+
This thing has stayed in the same rank since Armarouge was here even though the kinds of teams that Ribombee dominated with back then are far less prominent and arguably good now.

Also, vote on Sneasel. I nominated him last time... and actually Hecidueye and Ludicolo too but it was also not seen to...

Lowering Alolan Muk also seems apt; it's mainly good on stall, otherwise I'd rather use other things

t44Torkoal · Aug 21, 2026

Quick nom

:chandelure: UR to C-/C

this mon isn't even bad lol, its fine. Dude this thing has 145 SpA with a ghost/fire typing and STAB overheat that threatens to 2HKO even fire resists. Its actually pretty decent at its choice of a choice specs wallbreaker, but you could prolly go scarf for the extra speed. Would prolly opt for C- but C is good enough. Its fairly quite solid and should be ranked.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2627220820-iuo71k683lol00g169bh5j29lqy3bxkpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ru-951112

LBN · Aug 22, 2026

The pre SCL VR update has arrived! Not gonna say a ton, because I don't have a ton to say. Well I do, but you know. We got some very optimistic placements lowered by a smidgen, which is nice.

New

-> C-

-> C-

Rises

-> C

Drops

A- -> B+

A- -> B+

A- -> B

B+ -> B

B -> B-

C+ -> C

C+ -> C

C -> C-

Unchanged

evantheskeptic · Aug 26, 2026

c+-->c/c-.
look, the rise of sun hurt forretress. sun is being talked about a lot. sun boosts the power of fire moves. forretress is quad weak to fire moves. you get the memo. forre appreciates rain weakening fire moves but sun is seen as the better weather by you guys so yeah, sun is a major reason forre should drop.

the main reason i'm making this post though, is toxicroak and basc-f(yes I looked into the points used against me)

ur→c+++(believe me if I could nom it higher I would, c+ is the point for ur mons where if I could nom them higher I just might if I was practically allowed to, this just applies for ur mons though if it's already ranked boys being nommed to rise to c+ i believe they could be at that level and no if a ur Mon is c+ that doesn't always mean it's c+.how many extra plusses is for how many subranks higher I believe it should be without actually going into b or a territory, just for currently ur mons though.)

https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-956011(i lost the overall set though, did win this particular battle though)
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2657113288 tera dark makes gastro semi-set up fodder, i'll say it again later(and don't even need a rain team for croak to be good, it's not exactly Krookodile but it's good enough to be ranked)
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2656525862 don't even need an sd or tera dark
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2656573871 cleared the rest of the game as soon as it tera'd dark on golurk
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2663024816 actually setting up on suicune
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672259254-f5dbdu0097nmbadd1xpf6ouihyg2l2opw knocked off opposing torterra's helmet even if overall tort farmed it knocking the helmet off was good for overall progress
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672643445 took +2 shadow claw from mimikyu after a drain sucker combo on kleavor and drain punch draining the momentum, even if it did get killed by maushold
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672638657 sucker punch helped not get killed by maus so faster attackers don't completely cook it.

I tried this in july but failed so i’m gonna try again, and do better. If you aren’t packing a psychic or ground type this thing can do quite a number on teams, and the psychic issue is pressure but not that bad if you’re willing to use tera, in this case tera dark is a great investment since not only does it help with psychics(quad weakness to immunity), it also grants stab on knock off and sucker punch, so if you burn it at the right time, good for momentum, not even that, just sucker punch(pressured op enough to tera their gallade tera fighting:+4 252 Atk Tera Dark Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gallade: 423-498 (152.7 - 179.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO(apparently setting up on gastro is easy when you’re tera’d dark since you can get up to plus four and earth power only does 44%)). Is this not crazy:+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Muk-Alola: 429-505 (103.6 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO.). A pro of orb is if you got chipped low(10% or less) by a previous attack and a faster threat comes in, sucker punch means you faint right there and the faser threat effectively does nothing that turn so not really that easy to revenge kill with sucker punch in mind. And about the other rain abusers, does overqwil get free recovery from rain/being hit by a water move?Yeah without tera pretty much blanks crawdaunt outside of knock off(252+ Atk Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 156-184 (50.8 - 59.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, this is because i checked pikalytics and focus sash was 56.9%.). It also blanks standard empoleon sets:148+ SpA Empoleon Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Toxicroak: 125-148 (40.7 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO. And are we all gonna forget how barraskewda is blanked:252 Atk Choice Band Barraskewda, one of the most common swift swimmers in the tier:Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 133-157 (43.3 - 51.1%) -- 5.9% chance to 2HKO. So not only does it abuse rain, also counters it pretty well.

Assault Vest
29.548%
Heavy-Duty Boots
16.038%
Choice Scarf
15.487%
Leftovers
11.093%
Life Orb
10.732%
Choice Band
4.031%
Scope Lens
3.848%
Lum Berry
3.511%
Covert Cloak
3.085%

Another note:it’s basically bisharp. Only can’t evolve again, 15 points faster and frailer, i mean, both are weak to ground, resist dark, have swords dance and sucker punch and some other quadruple weakness in the fighting-psychic-dark type triangle and have some sort of resistance to the other(immune in bisharp's case) due to their dual typings(And neither exactly appreciate sun)

252 Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 167-197 (54.3 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Lycanroc-Dusk Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 161-190 (52.4 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Accelerock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 84-99 (27.3 - 32.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 112-132 (36.4 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

And about the psychic types, Gallade doesn’t run scarf as often as voir so more likely than not:252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gallade: 313-370 (112.9 - 133.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
Mew?issue but how manageable without Tera dark Depends on the set. Nasty plot needs just one psyshock to deal with it(so Tera dark is required here).
Jirachi? Apparently

0 Atk Jirachi Iron Head vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 123-145 (39.9 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Jirachi Body Slam vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Toxicroak: 87-103 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- 0.1% chance to 3HKO.
Encore can force swords dance spam but stealth rock gives a free turn to sd if you do that before encoring.

Iron Head steel
85.887%
Stealth Rock rock
66.702%
U-turn bug
65.962%
Encore normal
43.550%
Body Slam normal
33.964%
Healing Wish psychic
18.849%
Wish normal
17.539%
Trick psychic
12.517%
Protect normal
7.346%
Thunder Wave electric
7.323%
Psychic Noise psychic
6.716%
Aura Sphere fighting
4.628%
Energy Ball grass
3.991%
Thunder electric
3.822%
Zen Headbutt psychic
3.649%
Other
17.555%

Notice that u turn is more common than psychic noise and zen headbutt combined and multiplied by five? U turn is quad resisted, prime time to sd.Yeah, jirachi ain’t packin’ an attacking psychic move that often.
Necrozma?i have tested it a bit, if you tera dark on the photon geyser and gunk shot right there(after swords dancing on a previous turn) you ohko with cc if it teras steel to block gunk shot. Wasn’t even the ideal meteor beam scenario i had in mind, somehow registeel makes great set up fodder. But i did test croak for myself, low ladder testing but still testing)
Cresselia?

+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cresselia: 313-369 (70.4 - 83.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO), yourwelcomethanku was right, when it comes to lunar dance sets. Calm mind(the more common set) basically forces tera dark, even then, draining kiss cooks that.+2 252 Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 120+ Def Cresselia: 331-391 (74.5 - 88%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, still doesn’t ohko. +1 0 SpA Cresselia Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Dark Toxicroak: 228-270 (74.2 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. What the actual heck? Tera dark croak surviving a fairy move from +1 cress.

Reuniclus?

(heard that matchup wasn’t that bad(+2 252 Atk Toxicroak Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Reuniclus: 294-346 (69.3 - 81.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, tera dark means you block psychic noise(the only attacking move outside of knock off, which does 10-12%) yeah, looking back the psychic thing is not that bad considering tera dark)

Voir? Genuine issue.
Azelf? Also issue.

So for a psychic type to truly check it(even after tera, which yourwelcomethanku said wasn’t that bad on rain teams, meanwhile bisharp has to tera all the darn time against fighting types, and fire now that sun is growing more and more common and prevalent, which hurts croak too but still.), it has to be using a psychic move(most important), be bulky enough to take a hit from it, and/or outspeed(same for grounds only ground is much more common than psychic offensively so actually running a psychic move isn’t that much of an issue considering krookodile exists. But water is more common than psychic). People only really tera dark on the croak against psychics(flipping a matchup, like tera is commonly used for) or to weaken incoming ground/ghost moves(from say, gengar even though they’d survive if they didn’t tera but tera'd make it more comfortable) or to boost the power of the dark moves, so you flip these but now you’re weak to bug and fighting instead of resisting them(in bug’s case quad resist) like you used to. Indeedee, which i just nommed, usually is packing expanding force so psychic terrain is an issue.

And if you don’t tera, resist everything kleavor can throw at you and the common chesnaught sets, so unless chesnaught has some niche high horsepower/earthquake tech, chesnaught is not beating this thing(and is set up fodder, much like kleavor).
So what i’m saying is, psychics are common enough to be a genuine drawback(psy terrain? No idea how common that’s gonna be yet, can only tell with time.) but disproportionately more favorable water interactions are broader for toxicroak, the favorable part? Dry skin. That’s what makes it’s niche stronger than the type chart says(waters are broadly more common:Slowbro is on both sides so that doesn’t count.).
As for grounds aside from krook?Torterra needs shell smash to actually outspeed(opportunity to gunk shot or attack first), rhyperior could predict a switch and get up stealth rocks(free sd opportunity, unless rocks are already up then yeah eq or stone edge. Plus rhyperior isn’t even that common) Quagsire’s toxic is blocked by toxicroak’s poison typing.
And both can be vulnerable to set up. So the ground part(like eqs) can threaten toxicroak, not a universal answer for the overall matchup.
It can do stuff without tera dark, but tera dark is optimal by a large margin for switching up the psychic matchups while improving sucker punch and knock off.

Said it before, gonna say it again:the recovery it can get from dry skin and drain punch make up for the frailty and it can stay around.
Rain? Hard checked if you clicked the calc spoiler for that
loom? Technician aerial ace punishes you if you get too greedy with swords dancing but in general it is prone to gunk shot, very.
Why it’s unique from overqwil(stands out from it instead of there being a better option)? An ability to check rain too, sustainability from checking rain(and drain punch, reliable recovery, meaning more sustainable), and close combat(which threatens steels more immediately.

252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Water Overqwil Liquidation vs. 80 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Bisharp in Rain: 183-216 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO/252+ Atk Life Orb Overqwil Crunch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Empoleon: 188-224 (50.5 - 60.2%) -- 87.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery/252+ Atk Life Orb Tera Water Overqwil Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Registeel in Rain: 153-183 (42 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery. still can't ohko(or even 2hko in registeel's case).

meanwhile croak can ohko both empo and bisharp with close combat and 2hkos registeel without set up and does ohko with an sd, pasted the calcs earlier in the thread.)

edit:Need I mention the fact it's the best crawdaunt check in the tier? sludge wave cannot stop it like with chesnaught. immune to aqua jet, craw needs to burn tera just to win the 1v1.

As for the basc-f case, flip turn is useful in general as a move(for other mons) but not all basc-f sets can utilize flip turn equally. Specs sets are better off spamming special moves so have to hard switch anyway. and agility? Removes the darn boost(especially bad if weakness policy) peoples. Scarf is the only way to properly utilize flip turn on basc-f, and the power there isn’t as much but you’re faster(basc-f’s thing is being a special breaker), boots? No hazard damage but not as fast or strong. So yeah, flip turn is not really the thing one should use to try and say she’s worthy of an a rank. And yes, ice beam does give what it wants but on the over 60% used choice sets, it’s a liability for the rest of it’s time before switching(I mean it bro).
I’d say:

high splashability(can fit on many teams but not really role compression, ghost types block spin by default, many sets but they all have the role of a special attacker, fits on lots of teams though, even then not even that great at spinblocking).
Low-Mid threat level since specs hits hard but isn’t fast, scarf is fast but not as powerful, agility needs a set up turn to reach potential threat level(if weakness policy, that has to be activated, the only truly threatening set as far as i know is substitute. lefties? not that great since power is flatlined and metronome has no real longevity like lefties and vern's draco breaks the sub immediately and it has to set it up over and over, and depending on the target you have to switch coverage moves.
Meta impact? Plenty o’ checks offensively and weaknesses and knock off exists.(competes with gengar, doesn’t dictate broad teambuilding. And tournament impact doesn’t seem especially visible compared to other mons, sets don’t create that many different pressures. And not really pushing other pokemon out of viability. Water presence isn’t unique, and competition with Gengar is a bit much:252 SpA Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 24 SpD Basculegion-F: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock/252+ Atk Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 52 Def Basculegion-F: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.).
Inconsistent since:the sets have many notable tradeoffs between each other, agility needs a set up turn, prone to knock off(Extremely), replays don’t show dominance, and low reliability since:item/set dependence(specs is strong but too slow, scarf is fast but not strong enough, agility needs a set up opportunity, weakness policy tries to turn attacks into set up opportunities but your opponent has to give you the right activation) and knock off hurts almost all of them(weakness policy is the only one that benefits from it) since, super effective and removes the item it usually needs to be threatening. For registeel it just removes leftovers, still good defensively since it has set up to boost it’s bulk(more on that later). But basc-f? Not meant for longevity and literally weak to dark on top of item dependence.
Even on rain, kingdra is a better option since at least kingdra has hurricane(better synergy) and is slightly faster and is part dragon so electric and grass moves are no where near as problematic(especially regieleki and opposing sun sweepers).
Maintenance? high(this is self explanatory due to all my previous posts, for once this point is bad since mimikyu has disguise and drain punch so it has more longevity by a landslide as a spin blocker.).
Type combo? mid(blocks rapid spin and stabs are unresisted combined with ice beam aside from crawdaunt, the near perfect coverage becomes less relevant on choiced sets, which are common.
How much you have to prepare for her? depends, she is common after all. not like I have to dedicate half my team. heck, by the "common" logic forretress would be better.
And with how common mixed solar beam orb is basc-f doesn't beat Entei anymore
the cyclizar mu is greatly exagerrated in terms of how free it could be because:if you flip turn out you're not pressuring bike with I beam and if you ice beam free opportunity for bike to knock and either slow you down(scarf) or nerf your power(specs) on the common sets;agility weakness policy exists but as i'll get into later after weakness policy procs very prone to revenge killing. if you flip turn? the Mon that comes in loses their item
ches blocks shadow ball and takes less than half from surf so more likely than not ches will force a switch and the Mon that comes in instead of basc-f(like with the bike mu) gets knocked and loses it's item(like with bike only true for both sets).
Slowbro can exploit basc-f if she locks into surf or I beam;more likely than not I mind you;calm mind slack off repeat(and scarf sets struggle to break through Slowbro if they lock into the wrong move, so foresight is counterplay on that front too since specs isn't the majority set and in a direct 1v1 basc-f can't exactly beat Slowbro if she locks into surf/ice beam.)

cut the glaze. She can do stuff but not as much as an a ranking would imply(as in;barely anything. not nothing but not a lot either.). sure, sub is good but it needs an opportunity(a good one, a safe one that isn't sniped immediately), kinda like setup moves, eh?(I remember set up moves being a point docked in my previous noms) and as I mentioned earlier, less power and speed. and it costs 25% health each time, even if it makes you less prone to being revenge killed(which is an issue I have) but it doesn't erase the other issues I have with it.

https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-962998. sure the basc-f team won but basc-f did nothing, just coasting on her teammates.
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-962992. see what I mean? literal bombirdier did more. and bombirdier is currently unranked.
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-962112. all it did was sub on Vern once and kill with ice beam, then switched out, and later got ko'd by shadow ball.doing something useful-ish for once. even then, literal fraxure did more.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2660536056-6iir6pcsad4qavw5x4oy1vy920bhmibpw. needed Araquanid and smeargle to be weakened by more than 30%(Araquanid heavily. okay:252+ SpA Choice Specs Basculegion-F Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Smeargle in Rain: 561-661 (223.5 - 263.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO. it does ohko smeargle two times over but it's not particularly impressive since after that empo ohko'd it from full, webs backfired in this case.)
252 SpA Adaptability Basculegion-F Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Barraskewda: 252-298 (95.8 - 113.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO. heck, scarf can't even ohko 0/0 skewda for certain. more likely than not but still
i'm going with, c+/c.
doing something useful-ish for once. even then, literal fraxure did more.
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-962171
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-956962 killed a chipped slowbro and coasting again. yet rain beat sun, Tornadus skewda and rachi carried.
C/C+ Mon that occasionally looks fantastic(webs are growing less relevant so that)
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-959761. did as much as iron thorns, only iron thorns killed ribombee from full then got cc'd into oblivion by kleavor and basc-f had to come in after necrozma on a 76% kleavor and got killed by mimikyu right after. easy to revenge kill(see?)
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2668982508 even after being hit by a super effective move and triggering the weakness policy, priority revenges her and she dies, see why I rated her consistency so low?
more on the choiced sets;with gengar's 110 speed, it's scarf sets are much faster. basc-f's 78 speed and 100 special attack(with adaptability), still quite easy to revenge since one leaves the other's boosted stat pretty mediocre compared to the advertisement(u know what i mean)
Maybe I was wrong about needing hazards and all that, that's standard ho, but even with the standard offense requirements, still pretty inconcsistent
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672432438-io5dghxf2i93ktr9b73isc7l958nfoapw more okay actually pretty good stuff.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2675985052 mew did most of the work
there are more I found but;https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2675989012 I guess this counts since wood hammer is mentioned other options for chesnaught legitimately and the waters mentioned there are Slowbro and gastrodon/quagsire?
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2675983371 see what I mean with krook being an issue?
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2675977569 more good so i'm not cherrypicking.
deleted the ladder achievements replay since there was nothing else I could really add/felt like adding about it, not much enthusiasm
so to make up for it, more of the high ceiling:https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2676779287
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2679554356 Tournament level btw. But the agility failed miserably and bisharp throat chopped her into oblivion, basc-f did nothing;absolutely nothing
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2680171032 low ladder but the f blast switch is something Gengar could do too and herscu immediately got nuked by giga drain after and previously got 50% chip from skewda's flip turn
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-971342 see what I mean with sun nerfing her? can't even ko tales from 54% all the time, or even do over half to maus
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2681898919 more of the ceiling but it's when cyclizar is already dead and kyu removed empoleon and krook was worn down by kyu and the opp was already in a compromised endgame;she can make progress but it requires certain conditions to be met for it to be safe.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2682478213 more ceiling
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2682470950 more ceiling
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2682471402 if she trades 1v1;won't bulky offense want more repeatable value?
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2682422071 heck even with rain muk could take her out with knock off instantly since hazards ruined her HP substantially. and this boosts my croak point since croak made progress while in the sweltering sun;more than basc-f. hence why I like to call her basc-fraud these days:coupled with her other weaknesses.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2684569800 killed a sac kleavor then immediately got ko'd by yanmega;who came back in later and killed Entei;repeatable value at the tournament level.
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2684567665 biggest thing she did was delete slowbro and as soon as tales burned her? ticking time bomb until scovillain killed her. even then for the rest of the game it was regidrago torterra ribombee and bisharp doing the heavy lifting. can produce tournament level progress when things line up but this doesn't demonstrate sustained, universally threatening presence you'd expect from b+. this Is an exception to the broader tournament struggles. not all the replays in this spoiler are tournament level but the tournament ones matter

Not even a single mention in metagame discussion since 2024, if she's really as good/meta warping as people say then she should get some mention in the metagame discussion on what do even do with her in the current era please share upload and put in replays that show her being consistent if you can find any and prove me wrong, she is so mediocre that I think she's worse than iron thorns(yes;iron thorns. I am one hundred percent serious here, sure iron thorns is somewhat inconsistent but at least it can pull off booster energy speed utility around 65% of the time and not be totally passive.) if you wish to defend her dm me with lots of replays of her being as good as it's said you personally experienced.

b-->a

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ru-next-best-thing-week-14-flygon-submissions-open.3776621/page-7

yup, me using the next best thing as an argument for rises. personally I believe it's a valid strat since it's people actually testing out new sets/posting them and explaining what they do(flygon is more drastic than infernape since that got replays from slikkles, even with my bucket load of calcs, mine didn't work in practice. tubular yourwelcomethanku and slikkles though? theirs paid off and worked.)

c(that it dropped is a violation bro)-->a/a+

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ru-next-best-thing-week-14-flygon-submissions-open.3776621/page-6

doin' it again with infernape n' comfey. comfey is more drastic since i can’t just lean on the nbt, comfey is also quite common on sun.
this is coupled with the fact that comfey has seen lots of usage on sun. even outside of sun, did great on ladder in general

c-->a-/a
surprising honestly(+2 252 Atk Punching Glove Iron Fist Tera Electric Infernape Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Suicune: 492-578 (121.7 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO/+2 252 Atk Punching Glove Iron Fist Tera Electric Infernape Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 542-642 (116.8 - 138.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO. 0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Infernape: 210-248 (71.4 - 84.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 0 SpA and Vaporeon Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Infernape: 248-294 (84.3 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO(pretty reliable at surviving))
won't drag yanmega into this because that stuff was done before regieleki and mew dropped.
Infernape @ Heavy duty boots/Air balloon/Expert belt(tried boots the most)
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Solar Beam
- Fire Blast
- Vacuum Wave
and I also made my own infernape set partially inspired by the sun flygon by yourwelcomethanku and it had success(Serves as a special revenge killer with priority that doesn't require tera to become stab. it can make progress if it hits the field. literally only scarf voir(specific item) Gengar and chandy can check this thing reliably.)

+2 252 SpA Infernape Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Slowbro: 536-632 (136 - 160.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO or just:252 SpA Tera Grass Infernape Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Slowbro: 404-476 (102.5 - 120.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Infernape Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 76 SpD Registeel in Sun: 612-722 (168.1 - 198.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Infernape Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Maushold: 284-336 (98.2 - 116.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO(quite easy to rk if you try to switch maus in, then you use a nasty plot. if both hit the field at once, either population bomb into oblivion or risk the tidy up. and maus has to burn tera ghost just to survive the risk.)
+2 252 SpA Infernape Vacuum Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krookodile: 300-354 (90.6 - 106.9%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO(part of me wasn't expecting a ko at all after seeing how maushold took it)
or just regular vacuum wave depending on the situation so not that revengable(for free).

and what a coincidence!
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2669933545
someone used calm mind instead of nasty plot for ssnl and orb(need a replay for this one since it wasn't my own of set, for the nasty plot version? no replays required since that was my idea and I tried it myself and infernape is already ranked.)
Edit:I saw yourwelcomethanku talk about the life orb rock tomb/stone edge set in the personal vr project thread. infernape with it's raw versatility is truly op.

A+→A/A-
I did see solar beam tech used in ssnl(a lot), i’ll give it that(good on sun) but it has other weaknesses that make it not a+. No reliable form of set up(needs items for power, band or mirror herb swagger, the only way to boost power and still switch moves), prone to hazards if it runs these power boosting items, and it does have a better speed tier and more coverage(Trailblaze, stone edge, crunch) but it’s not really as consistent as it used to be. Sacred fire is a genuine nuke though(so is tera normal extreme speed) so somewhere in b makes more sense to me, it should fall but not as much as basc-f(trailblaze is good on non choiced sets to boost up speed as well, but banded entei is prediction reliant like basc-f but at least entei is consistent.)

b+→a-.
What? Boomburst throat spray sets are hard to truly break through(especially with tera normal and sludge wave in mind) and if you argue it can be blanked by special walls, shift gear drain punch can fix that(costs you either sludge wave or overdrive but still, physical coverage that also happens to be reliable recovery.) and after that throat spray procs and tera normal, punk rock boombursts hit hard(as do overdrives without tera normal), but the coverage can clap grounds that supposedly check it(literally, torterra takes neutral from sludge wave, needs shell smash to outspeed which also gives a free turn to start, shifting gears if you know what I mean. yup, toxtricity consistently snowballs out of control when it's too late,I mean it. "but the grounds"-krook is weak to drain punch and takes neutral from boomburst:252+ SpA Punk Rock Tera Normal Toxtricity Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krookodile: 397-468 (119.9 - 141.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO. special walls? just slap on drain punch.)

a→a+(more comfortably than diancie honestly)
Allow me to explain(aside from the fact i’ve pretty much destroyed a+ and have to restore it, evan praising an a mon? What a shocker!) An amnesia set that i don’t exactly know the evs for showed up in ssnl and completely walled the opposing team’s diancie(even earth power). This shows it has a way to wall special attackers too(and unlike with physical attackers, no way to ignore the boosts like with sacred sword). As for ghosts? the fact you even need a ghost type, there are only three of them, shows the pressure registeel can force onto a Metagame, you know?.

also I deeply pity Heatranator and Yourwelcomethanku/Cold07;Cinccinno didn't even go anywhere and Vaporeon/comfey dropped! someone make Cinccinno and Vaporeon b+(at least, maybe cinccino a- since to me it's basically maus-population bomb+more coverage to make up for it.) they should be where basc-f is right now.
as for cinccino:+1 252 Atk Technician Cinccino Bullet Seed (4 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 272-320 (69 - 81.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
Vaporeon? heatranator wrote a whole essay on it(in short questions,short answers I even asked why) and I better get a reasonable response that can't be corrected/is over exagerrated according to heatranator with explanation.

back to lower down noms

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2669726045

b+-->a-/a
what? scale shot swords dance earth quake means gligar has a new reliable set and it's a shocker(I don't even know the fourth move but I don't care if I do or not, this scale shot loaded dice type stuff and snowball, not as good as krook or mew obviously but it can still do the job pretty well. if I were to guess move four is, fire fang or ice fang. maybe gunk shot, don't really know what the fourth move is but I have guesses). wait, since on the personal vr ranking yourwelcomethanku put gligar in just b flat despite this discovery so I think i'm missing something.

c- -->c+(according to me)/b-(if you want a triple b, I can go into b territory since Bellibolt is already ranked)
same reason as gligar;saw a new set that put in good work(blunder policy charge beam muddy water.) i'm tellin' you, this set absolutely cooked(tera ground politoed got punished by muddy water, charge beam missing made it actually fast, quite a rarity, how this is different from weakness policy is I value mons that can trigger their own consumable items independently more than mons who need outside triggers.)

b -->a-/a
See the metagame discussion, venu is the best sun sweeper in this entire tier and deserves a spot in a. Ground coverage or weather ball is unpredictably versatile, bulky enough to set up, need I go on? yeah venu is the best sun sweeper in this entire tier. replaceable-ish, sure(victreebell for the t spikes immunity and lilligant I mentioned earlier for quiver dancing) but never truly replaceable(I'd put it with torkoal at highest, and to me torkoal is a worthy).

b -->A/A+
what? the metagame discussion from before and I nommed tales to rise before(even if it is easy pickings for scarf krook, much more than torkoal, who can survive. i'm nomming venu to rise so tales should rise even higher since tales is the enabler people! it is not simply on par with sun sweepers, it is above!. who cares how weak to rocks it is if it sets literal sun?!? the greatest weather in the tier!?!)

Also, can y'all please re vote on chandy? three people(including myself) nommed it, the first one(heatranator's) was in detail, detail! since I saw t44torkoal nom chandy too for being a specs breaker, and I defended chandy's flaws since I compared it to llade and voir. personally? I'd say chandelure is, c+++++
edit:https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2665136312
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2664125025
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-966579(sub cm means sub could give chandy time to increase it's bulk)

felt bothered to do more and I shared replays before in this thread(if that works, does it?). apparently chandy has access to taunt to slow down set up sweepers/halt utility mons. c++++ before seeing it use taunt. basically Gengar but slower, bulkier and WAAAYY better into sun(the only way sun sweepers can hit it for super effective and not resist is venu's earth power, which means sacrificing weather ball or sludge bomb) and hits harder. any Mon that blanks sun is better than a Mon that abuses sun(or at least comparable to the best sun abuser)
but, despite my opinion, the ceiling

other edit:felt bothered to paste more of my practiced Google doc:As for the diancie case?

“yea I have ran a lot of diancie sets I like a lot of em tbh, for the encore set I either run 3 attacks encore (storm press blast) or 2 attacks sr encore. 248/156/20 with +def nature is good from my experience it let's it avoid a 2 shot from +2 shadow claw from life orb mimikyu a 2 shot from slowbro scald survive a +2 Gengar sludge wave after sr. Encore is key move here as it let's dian do a lot of funky stuff like locking slowbro into slack off or empoleon into roost chesnaught into knock/spikes prevents dian into being a setup foughter for many many setup sweepers of the tier. U can run speed on the set to creep with mons like goodra emp and ches if u really want to u can even creep upto umb, the loss of bulk is admitting annoying but the faster encores also are super important. Diancies ability to sit on noivern and cycl is huge this set is not good on bulkier playstyles its best on balanced and offensive teams it provides a good defensive backbone while being not passive. This is the important part. Diancies bulky sets r sometimes passive but encore flips that completely, like slowbro thinking its free calm mind gets completely screwed.”

Dude knows what he’s talking about! He actually tested it! I was right! I commented three times, once asking to post the spreads, second for it to be on the vr thread and third wishing him a late happy birthday, before the yea he thanked me for the birthday wishes.

“Yes I believe so, look at the ru waters, slowbro can get completely screwed up locking into cm/slack off suicune can get locked into sub/cm basculegion is setup fought for the cm sets especially if it looks into shadow ball and Tera water still sits on it. Quagsire is kinda bad mu tbh. Gastrodon again kinda setup foughter(shadow meant fodder) for the cm sets. Obviously water mu r not ideal and u aren't running the multiple sets at same time but diancies water mu aren't as horrible as it looks at first. Diancies main thing is its support sets are meant to fill a gap in ur team as a noivern+entei counter while not being passive. Support sets aren't meant to sweep teams and counter everything while bulky setup sets of course need checks weakened like other setup sweepers. Otr is still best set by countrymile and its explosive as well”
That was shadow’s response when i asked about the waters. The waters aren’t that deadly.

As for steels? Bisharp is prone to body press, forretress doesn’t commonly run gyro ball,Jirachi is prone to earth power(0 Atk Jirachi Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 156 Def Diancie: 220-264 (91.2 - 109.5%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO, not being able to ohko a quad weakness more than half the time with your common set is bad), empo is prone to earth power AND body press, magnezone is especially prone to earth power. The only commonly used steels are jirachi bisharp and forretress, the last of which was blacklisted from the vr once. After that, usage isn’t in the two digits anymore. Registeel is the most consistent steel check. I’m saying most of the steels in this metagame have to respect the coverage(body press or earth power) and by far no completely safe answers(except maybe registeel).and empo don't even run steel moves most of the time
Figured grounds weren’t that bad. Torterra can be locked into shell smash, gastro and quag were already mentioned in the water section, and krook is cooked unless it locks onto eq against it.
I doubt offensive trick room is the best set by a countrymile, best set immediately but stealth rock-encore(tested well so likely better) and calm mind draining kiss(long term also tested) are better.

Just arrogance tbh, I talked with a lot of higher members they agreed diancie was better than B-, I think they are waiting for tournament results to finalize I think so it doesnt become a 1 month wonder pokemon, more diancie sets are being discovered rn AV I think has been thrown around and more defensive cm sets aswell. I have even saw this funk set trick room diamond Storm body press rest. It(that particular set, not diancie as a whole)s not good but there r many sets being experimented. Also there r some staunch diancie haters in the tier, some think this mon is worse than kelfki and swampert, they didn't even support rise from C to B- tbh now they want it only in B- and not rank higher, stubbornness tbh

dude even admitted that not all diancie sets were as good as others but there are still good diancie sets(and people just be trying everything). can someone explain an actual reasoning to confirm it's more than simply stubbornness? I need somethin' like that(Actual reasoning) to prove it's less than just people hating diancie.

b- →a(great tournament success when it was brought)
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2681411757 and it beats fletchinder easily if diamond storm hits(only 5% chance to miss btw) and if it's got a custap berry.

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672354667-u4ni24t6at0p3u96i1b7omji9t5jg7jpw
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-965350
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-962175
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2655377908-341yawu1ulaxpa7g7wg6moun6yg2jgspw
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-970120 What do we have here? Diancie succeeding in a tournament proving to not just be a one month wonder. And beat registeel

ur-->c+++/c++++
What? it helps already good mons like necrozma chesnaught and comfey(mentioned earlier) benefit from the +1 phys def of the grassy seed(So comfey can pop recovery moves more) and necrozma can pull calm minds off on physical attackers more. more importantly, chesnaught can abuse belly drum grassy Glide sets with drain punch(it has seen success in ssnl and ladder). i'd say it's decently but not perfectly consistent, not perfect but still consistent as it enables already viable mons, sometimes making them even better

Would like to make some noms for sun abusers:

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2670891521
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2667239888
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2666012178
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672374310
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2646916537
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2647692274
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2651351938

ur-->c++/c+++
it's a decent sun breaker with solar power fire moves and you know sun is booming right now. it has natural stab on fire moves to begin with and tera fire makes the fire moves hit even harder. it even has solar beam to blow up stuff like Slowbro. it's main weakness is it's frail and easy to rk if it's running specs(literally, population bombed by literal maushold since It was likely not running scarf but specs, I checked the damage calculator.).zard has dragon pulse to beat dragon spam/tera dragon sun sweepers also. this thing is quite consistent
more replays for zard in particular:https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2656416881-4m8smxmo5t98bgajk78sjjcshnnn6nqpw https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2686859060

ur-->c++
less consistent than zard and eruption spam is quite a nuke(if at high hp). come on, scarf in sun ohko'd flygon and it still chipped Vern signifigantly. and the eruptions consistently cleaned(Frisk provided useful information and it was running scarf to not be easily rk'd by krook). so while it is a one trick pony, that one trick is deadly(like scarf voir, which to me is a-). yeah I just believe sun abusers if they get three replays or more, do something and aren't already ranked should be ranked by default since sun is very very viable in this new meta. and if you saw the replay from earlier with basc-f hyphlo can also set sun on it's own with sunny day;active set bro.
for Milo in particular:https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2670683388

ur-->c++++.
Great bulk(with marvel scale flame orb), good slow pivot(could use flip Turn to it's advantage instead of simply being able to learn it) and came back in healthy many times and it has recover to counteract the burn damage(and scald to not be completely passive against physical attackers and to burn them and wall them even harder. even if it is prone to encore if it just recovered on a u turn Vern and switches into maushold.) and it's a better user of flip Turn than basc-f since it's bulk and recovery mean it can come in repeatedly.

c- -->~~b/b+~~ b-
What? it's not totally passive either since it ran leaf blade in the replays and it's pivoting;ROLE COMPRESSION!(and it was good on a sun team;a sun team people.) it's official, we found a reliable removal option on sun other than torkoal. And yourwelcomethanku's og post for it was b- but I saw the four replays above so you might wanna give this thing a rise asap;it's one of the most underrated mons in this entire tier. pretty splashable and should be accounted for/dealt with when you get the chance. but gweez dropped

ur-->c
Look, this should be easy but lemme go into depth anyway. it's a great user of the substitute and behind it;pretty nasty. it has leech seed for even more free recovery and horn leech to have something to do if it got taunted. a sun abuser(with harvest to keep getting the sitrus berry back) and even will o wisp to burn opposing physical attackers

b- --> a-/a.

Big Boned (Torterra) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Shell Armor
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Synthesis

this was part of the team on the most recent ladder achievements post(hisuiheat's) and heatranator's praise of shell smash torterra on top of this. and in the replays torterra was more of a contributor than herscu honestly

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2658494589-hdh22gpjupat9ngwdq2tqxybbg6bnj5pw
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2673996845

c -->b+/a- on rain I'd say it's about the same as toxicroak but the other thing is:qwil has another niche apparently, it's quite the;intimidating spiker. even packing taunt,full intimidate package. it has barb barrage over krook(krook don't get spikes either, overqwil is quite consistent in setting spikes too.)

b-->b+/a-
Did decently fine on hisuiheat's bulky offense team so it's not really just a stall Mon anymore

Silly Watch (Muk-Alola) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 200 HP / 80 Atk / 52 Def / 168 SpD / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Poison Jab
- Drain Punch
- Shadow Sneak

This set had decent success, slightly more than herscu but a Muk was b while being considered mainly a stall Mon so I believe this means it could either rise to b+ or return to a-.

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2654451032-48n0fv4lnkyc8m2ne3wkg9q7hf9yfdlpw

c -->stay c/c+. yes I saw a dd set that could do good against the opposing team and had encore(taking a super fang and tera poison it got to the dance of drakes, got hurricaned, which it lived thanks to the tera, used Vern as dd fodder and yes it got a dd on the quag switch into blissey.). and it was a case of shed skin being useful since there were toxic spikes up. literally the only thing that stopped scrafty was quagsire(and even then quagsire got encored into passivity before switching out and back in, and that process got blissey removed outright.);a common roadblock for set up sweepers in general so you can't dock scrafty in particular. Yes i'm probably the only person who thinks scrafty should still be ranked but I have my reasoning for it. not even limited to bulk up anymore;this is clearly the superior set that should at least keep it ranked.does grimmsnarl get knock off? no. it should but for some reason it doesn't. scrafty does. scrafty has encore, dragon dance, and drain punch on top of this and shedskin. yeah scrafty should stay exactly where it is at least;maybe rise if being generous. someone identify the stall structures that beat it. just because scrafty struggles versus quagsire doesn't mean it loses to all of stall;it can still make progress versus the rest of the structure.

noms from these replays!(part of me tells me making my own style is bad but the other part says replays then spoiler in the noms means it's neat)

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2667160521
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2667108628
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2667060302

ur-->c+.
Look, it's not exactly as good as herscu but it is good enough to be ranked. growth giga drain dragon tail and recover is quite a set with eviolite, as it can reliably grow(unless facing an ice type) and recover away chip damage and get certain threats to it's plan the heck outta there. it's c since, it's consistent but modest. all I do know outside of the moves is the set is tera poison.

ur-->c
It's more immediately physically defensive hoodra. don't get me wrong;it has things of it's own that sets it apart from hoodra(say, rocks? sets them pretty consistently) and draco means it's not totally passive on the special side(and for general non passivity it has body press;let that sink in with Eviolite in mind.) so yeah, Hoodra doesn't outclass duraludon completely, rather;almost completely. there are teambuilding situations where you'd want

ur-->c+
for dragalge in particular:https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2647692274
Look, dragalge has t spikes(sets it consistently so this isn't just theorymon.) pretty consistent flip turn pivot? double check. Draco/focus blast to not be completely passive? triple check. Long story short;dragalge is good enough to be ranked based on the replays. since I don't know the Evs of the set I can't put in calcs for certain(like with duraludon and dipplin). you'll see it can use sludge wave later in this post for good effect and that it works on snow.

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672061359 (was seen in some Beartic replays too and dragalge was in the dipplin replays)
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2664136524
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672520458
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2665585122
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2656990250-2hqe979uc9w1k51ve4rw80wupxsauy4pw
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2669736221
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2656988175-wm7pi8xi1ctpaqpeuoi6l1r9a31l2yfpw
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-956013
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2664842181
(can I use the same replay twice to showcase different parts of it? cause I really wanna use a milotic replay here to showcase beartic's cc)

ur-->c+/c++
what? it's good on snow(blizzard). has reliable coverage for waters In t bolt(got the para), and she took a psycho cut from llade after breaking llade's sub, and consistently tricks specs onto utility mons and has destiny bond to force opps into awkward situations, banshee even sets spikes and uses t wave! yeah this lady could be a good utility ghost. it can run either helmet or sash based on the replays i've seen(even icy wind to slow the opp down, that's an edge the lass has over other ghosts, and yes will o wisp isn't exclusive to frosslass but hey, fross is quite consistent so if there's a reason she isn't ranked tell me now)

ur-->c/c-.
Simple really:slush Rush;swords dance;and throat chop to threaten psychics and ghosts plus eq to threaten steels. man, as soon as it gets an sd or two(Thanks to veil support), it can punch a hole in teams(especially with loaded dice icicle spear, I believe it was loaded dice because if not why not run icicle crash?) it can break a whole in teams. even without it, eq(as I mentioned earlier) is good for magnezone and you can use throat chop if it's jirachi to save eq pp for later. even the standard cc for air balloon type steels. why one would use Beartic over sandslash-a? greater general bulk and better defensive typing

ur-->c/c+
Allow me to explain what it has over Ninetales-a with the replays in mind;
in replay one;ice shard picked llade and abomba could consistently come in safely.
https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-956013 sub blizzard bro. sub blizzard, In ssnl. and beat me
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2665123232 took 39% from heavy slam from hoodra(0 Atk Goodra-Hisui Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ninetales-Alola in Snow: 436-520 (124.9 - 148.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO)has earthquake to pressure hoodra more too and ice shard did, just about half(51%) to bike and craw regretted taking that wood hammer
last replay;ice shard took out vern and did 47% on venu and could consistently come in safely replacing sun a lot, and denied a full growth on venu, sun is supposed to be a bad mu for abomasnow but no, abombasnow honestly cooked since it could consistently switch in against the sun team and is great if you want a snow setter that doesn't get pressure cooked by steels.
So while it can set veil good portion of the time, it doesn't need to copy alolatales to be relevant:it's got it's own niche.
i'm not saying aboma is better in a vacuum;the situations you need it in are common enough to call for it.
but now i will say aboma's better;sun is the best weather in the tier;who is fried versus the relevant setter(kantonian ninetales?) it's alolan twin. who wins the weather war;abomasnow. marginally. so while the replays here are outdated(gweezing dropped);i think that nerfs abomasnow more than alolatales as;exact same speed tier and aboma might have to run speed evs to creep gweez. i made this nom before gweezing dropped so i figured editing it now that gweezing is here makes sense. maybe it affects both equally as higher special attack stat and less need for bulk investment means abomasnow needs just 4 speed Evs, some special attack investment and bam;2hkos gweez with blizzard;8 SpA Ninetales-Alola Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Weezing-Galar: 135-159 (40.4 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO(a tales can merely 3hko it for comparison). just editing this because levitate makes eq irrelevant

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2672824295
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2685328822
specs too?

c- -->c+
Apparently it can set screens on top of my previous post on why it should rise to b-/b(and now the more I think about it I was glazing the versatility before). man eleki is a jack of many trades and teams can't truly account for it with simply a ground type. it's just too versatile for c- and can do more than spin boom so it's not just bare minimum ranking worthy like you all say. even specs breaking. so it is quite the varied wallbreaker;even if mid at breaking

Nootathotep · Sep 1, 2026

Ampha said:
:Bastiodon: Ditto

live

reaction

Davis · Sep 9, 2026

Comfey C --> B+

INTRODUCTION

Comfey is currently ranked C in the SV RU Viability Rankings. I find this to be far too low considering the power of Comfey when factoring in terastallization. Comfey can muscle through would-be counters with the power of a 60BP life orb, STAB, tera fairy draining kiss boosted further by calm mind.

SETUP OPPORTUNITIES

The power of Comfey does not just come from its potential to do damage when set up, but also the ease at which it can set up and the number of metagame staples it can farm a free boost on.

Noivern is the highest usage Pokémon in the format, and it cannot do anything to Comfey unless it is running taunt, and even then, all it does it prevent set up at the cost of opening itself up to a super effective draining kiss. Chesnaught and Cyclizar can only knock off the life orb and then they too are forced to switch while often forfeiting a second calm mind boost which nullifies the power reduction of removing the life orb. Weaker defensive Pokémon like Gastrodon, Quagsire, Umbreon, Slowbro, and Empoleon give up boosts to Comfey as well (some of which must be taunted beforehand).

ANTI-OFFENSE

Comfey’s triage ability is great for sweeping opponents, but it also can be vital for filling a team’s need for priority attacks. At 50 base power and boosted by life orb and STAB, Comfey’s draining kiss is one of the strongest priority moves in the tier. Along with having higher priority than other priority moves (including extreme speed), fairy is a fantastic offensive type, and many opposing sweepers have a lower special defense than defense stat.

Comfey can even use an opposing sweeper as a setup opportunity, let’s say you sacrifice something to a throat spray Yanmega, you can bring Comfey in, survive the boosted air slash, calm mind, then tera fairy and OHKO the Yanmega, stopping their sweep, healing to full, and being at +1 Spatk/Spdef.

FAKE COUNTERS

There are several Pokémon in RU who seem like they may be able to counter Comfey on paper but are either much less reliable or completely ineffective in practice. Below I will share replay demonstrations + analysis for each of these. For each scenario, the theoretical counter will be switching into a Comfey as it boosts with calm mind.

Entei: When Comfey calm minds as Entei comes in, it can calm mind again as Entei attacks, if this attack burns, it will not affect the interaction. The only way Entei can beat Comfey from this position is to live the two +2 draining kisses from full, which has a 28.9% chance of happening. Here is the calc for that interaction:

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Triage Tera Fairy Comfey Draining Kiss (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Entei: 174-205 (46.9 - 55.2%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO

Empoleon: Despite being a steel type, Empoleon almost never uses steel type attacks. Empoleon commonly runs haze/roar to prevent set up but with taunt, Comfey can block this. With calm mind boosting special defense and draining kiss healing it up, Comfey wins the 1v1 and ends with enough boosts to sweep the rest of the team.

Gengar: Gengar is 2HKOed by +1 tera fairy draining kiss 100% of the time, Comfey also always lives a sludge wave at +1, meaning the only Gengar that will defeat Comfey is the rare specs sludge wave, and even then, it needs to be at 60% HP or more. You can also fish for a cursed body proc but if that’s your answer to a threat, you’re in pretty dire straits.

knock + haze Muk-Alola: Muk-Alola without poison jab will never beat a Comfey for the same reason Empoleon doesn’t. Even a Muk-Alola with poison jab needs to be very healthy to take on a Comfey.

Toxtricity: There are two ways for Comfey to beat Toxtricity, and both have downsides. The first is the stored power method and the second is the double dkiss method. The stored power method opens you up to getting encored, while the double dkiss method expends tera and relies on a 78.5% roll to get the 2HKO.

Blissey: Blissey can only attack with seismic toss which makes the interaction consistent, only relying on dkiss rolls healing you enough to continue to spam taunt. In the replay I got bad rolls, not min rolls, but low for the most part, and the Comfey still won, without having to make any predictions. If you are getting bad rolls you may have to make a thunder wave vs. seismic toss callout.

ACTUAL ANSWERS TO COMFEY

Despite what the rest of this writeup would suggest, I am aware that there are Pokémon that can consistently take down Comfey. Replays and analysis will be shown below.

Jirachi: Equipped with steel/psychic typing, iron head, and great natural bulk, your standard utility Jirachi is a great answer for Comfey, often completely shutting it down for the whole game.

Registeel: Registeel is by far the best Comfey answer in the metagame. Registeel has massive bulk and runs steel STAB to hit Comfey super effectively. Comfey has practically no way to deal significant damage to Registeel and would have to run a bad set and expend tera to beat it 1v1.

AV/Specs Analytic Magnezone: Your standard leftovers/rocky helmet trapper mag will lose to Comfey since it boosts its special defense too much however with choice specs or the Assault Vest Magnezone easily wins the 1v1.

Heavy Slam Goodra-H: Goodra is probably the only non-fairy resist that can consistently switch into Comfey and force it out/KO it. Since Goodra’s heavy slam always OHKOs Comfey after life orb chip, it can leverage its massive special bulk to tank one hit and KO back.

UNRELIABLE ANSWERS

Bisharp: While Bisharp can OHKO Comfey cleanly, any form of chip damage jeopardizes its ability to answer Comfey. Tera fairy draining kiss is a 3.1% roll to OHKO Bisharp from full so you cannot switch it in recklessly or you may end up losing your answer, and with rocks or spikes that 3.1% climbs much higher. This also only applies to the 80HP standard Bisharp, one that creeps more speed will die more often and one that invests in more HP can survive easier.

Faster, offensive psyshock cresselia: A Cresselia that is both faster than Comfey and offensively invested with psyshock can win against Comfey (though it ends low on HP, so it is more like a trade). Comfey typically runs very little speed investment and Cresselia requires a significant amount of speed EVs to outspeed even uninvested Comfey, but if the Cress is faster and healthy, it will win the 1v1.

Poison Jab Muk-Alola: Poison Jab Muk-Alola is another Pokémon that can only act as a Comfey answer when it is healthy. It is more difficult to keep Muk healthy than other bulky Pokémon since it relies on rest to heal itself which can create even more unreliability, but if Muk is healthy it can remove Comfey’s life orb and beat it down with poison jabs.

tera poison gunk shot Krookodile: Krookodile often runs tera poison to get a stronger gunk shot and flip its defensive profile. If Krookodile is healthy it can easily take a draining kiss and OHKO Comfey with gunk shot. The unreliability comes from gunk shot’s 20% miss chance and the fact you need to expend tera.

SUN

Calm mind is not the only boosting move Comfey has access to. It also can learn growth which will give it +2 to special attack and attack under sun. While you lose out on the special defense boost, your draining kiss is more powerful sooner and your stored power becomes extremely strong. While you do lose the advantage versus things like full hp Gengar, Entei, and sludge wave Toxtricity, Sun allows you to have more immediate power and beat things you otherwise couldn’t.

Jirachi: Outside of sun, Jirachi easily countered Comfey, however in sun, Comfey can survive an iron head and attempt a second growth, if Comfey avoids the 60% flinch chance and gets to +4, it can tera and win the 1v1 and likely sweep the rest of the game.

Poison Jab Muk-Alola: While there is a guessing game for the Comfey player of if the Muk has haze or poison jab as the last move, if the Comfey player scouts the Muk’s set, they will always be able to farm boosts on the Muk and defeat it under sun.

Bisharp: Bisharp was already a shaky answer to Comfey, now with growth, the max speed Bisharps have a 43.8% chance to be OHKOed and the bulkier ones will meet the same fate with a bit of hazard chip.

Faster Offensive Cresselia: Cresselia was able to match boosts with a calm mind Comfey and bypass its special defense boost with psyshock, however the growth variant in sun simply overpowers Cresselia.

Heavy Slam Goodra-H: If the Comfey player goes for a second growth instead of attacking, they 43.7% chance to survive heavy slam. This will allow Comfey to fire off a draining kiss that deals 79.9-94.2% with tera meaning Goodra-H must be in pristine condition to come in on Comfey.

Another thing to note is that Comfey synergizes well with other sun attackers since players will often tera things to dragon to not lose to Venusaur/Scovillain. Expending tera when Comfey is in the back is very risky and that’s without considering the fact it is sometimes the steel type that is turning dragon or the fact steel types are usually considered less valuable against a sun team and often the first Pokémon to get sacrificed.

COLLECTIVE COUNTERING

Many times, a team’s best option into a powerful sweeper is to use whatever they have on the field to prevent set up, then bring in their own offensive threat to pressure it out, resulting in losing whatever is on the field to not be swept. This does not work against Comfey.

Comfey’s set up targets cannot make progress into it, resulting in the Comfey player’s opponent’s best play almost always being to switch to whatever can threaten it most immediately. This is because even if something like Noivern or Gastrodon can chip Comfey down, when the opponent eventually lets that Pokémon die or switches out, Comfey will regain all its health with draining kiss. This also means that revenge killing Comfey is an extremely unreliable method of dealing with it. Comfey will always attack first which means it will also heal before you attack it, and since it just killed your last Pokémon, it will have two draining kisses worth of HP to tank your next hit with (which often means it’s at full health). This gives Comfey individualized 1v1s against each member of your team where the fight is rigged in its favor by calm mind boosts and priority.

COMMON ANTI-SWEEP TOOLS

A common way to prevent calm mind sweepers in any tier is encore and tricking a choice scarf. The issue with this against Comfey is the priority on draining kiss. If your encore/trick user is in range of draining kiss it will just come in and die, and even if it isn’t, the scarf trick is a one-time thing and can be baited and the Comfey user is often happy to lock into draining kiss since that is all it wants to click anyway. Point being that both methods are particularly ineffective against Comfey compared to other set up sweepers like Necrozma, Cresselia, or Suicune.

CONCLUSION

Unless you have a healthy Registeel in the back, you are at risk to being swept by Comfey. The fact this Pokémon is rated C, the fact tournament players refuse to use it, the fact people think it should drop from RU, the fact people call it Comfraud, is all so ridiculous. It is one of, if not the most potent sweeper in the format and I think people should show it more respect both in the builder and in the court of public opinion.

evantheskeptic · Sep 11, 2026

HisuiHeat said:
Comfey C --> B+/

INTRODUCTION

Comfey is currently ranked C in the SV RU Viability Rankings. I find this to be far too low considering the power of Comfey when factoring in terastallization. Comfey can muscle through would-be counters with the power of a 60BP life orb, STAB, tera fairy draining kiss boosted further by calm mind.

SETUP OPPORTUNITIES

The power of Comfey does not just come from its potential to do damage when set up, but also the ease at which it can set up and the number of metagame staples it can farm a free boost on.

Noivern is the highest usage Pokémon in the format, and it cannot do anything to Comfey unless it is running taunt, and even then, all it does it prevent set up at the cost of opening itself up to a super effective draining kiss. Chesnaught and Cyclizar can only knock off the life orb and then they too are forced to switch while often forfeiting a second calm mind boost which nullifies the power reduction of removing the life orb. Weaker defensive Pokémon like Gastrodon, Quagsire, Umbreon, Slowbro, and Empoleon give up boosts to Comfey as well (some of which must be taunted beforehand).

ANTI-OFFENSE

Comfey’s triage ability is great for sweeping opponents, but it also can be vital for filling a team’s need for priority attacks. At 50 base power and boosted by life orb and STAB, Comfey’s draining kiss is one of the strongest priority moves in the tier. Along with having higher priority than other priority moves (including extreme speed), fairy is a fantastic offensive type, and many opposing sweepers have a lower special defense than defense stat.

Comfey can even use an opposing sweeper as a setup opportunity, let’s say you sacrifice something to a throat spray Yanmega, you can bring Comfey in, survive the boosted air slash, calm mind, then tera fairy and OHKO the Yanmega, stopping their sweep, healing to full, and being at +1 Spatk/Spdef.

FAKE COUNTERS

There are several Pokémon in RU who seem like they may be able to counter Comfey on paper but are either much less reliable or completely ineffective in practice. Below I will share replay demonstrations + analysis for each of these. For each scenario, the theoretical counter will be switching into a Comfey as it boosts with calm mind.

Entei: When Comfey calm minds as Entei comes in, it can calm mind again as Entei attacks, if this attack burns, it will not affect the interaction. The only way Entei can beat Comfey from this position is to live the two +2 draining kisses from full, which has a 28.9% chance of happening. Here is the calc for that interaction:

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Triage Tera Fairy Comfey Draining Kiss (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Entei: 174-205 (46.9 - 55.2%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO

Empoleon: Despite being a steel type, Empoleon almost never uses steel type attacks. Empoleon commonly runs haze/roar to prevent set up but with taunt, Comfey can block this. With calm mind boosting special defense and draining kiss healing it up, Comfey wins the 1v1 and ends with enough boosts to sweep the rest of the team.

Gengar: Gengar is 2HKOed by +1 tera fairy draining kiss 100% of the time, Comfey also always lives a sludge wave at +1, meaning the only Gengar that will defeat Comfey is the rare specs sludge wave, and even then, it needs to be at 60% HP or more. You can also fish for a cursed body proc but if that’s your answer to a threat, you’re in pretty dire straits.

knock + haze Muk-Alola: Muk-Alola without poison jab will never beat a Comfey for the same reason Empoleon doesn’t. Even a Muk-Alola with poison jab needs to be very healthy to take on a Comfey.

Toxtricity: There are two ways for Comfey to beat Toxtricity, and both have downsides. The first is the stored power method and the second is the double dkiss method. The stored power method opens you up to getting encored, while the double dkiss method expends tera and relies on a 78.5% roll to get the 2HKO.

Blissey: Blissey can only attack with seismic toss which makes the interaction consistent, only relying on dkiss rolls healing you enough to continue to spam taunt. In the replay I got bad rolls, not min rolls, but low for the most part, and the Comfey still won, without having to make any predictions. If you are getting bad rolls you may have to make a thunder wave vs. seismic toss callout.

ACTUAL ANSWERS TO COMFEY

Despite what the rest of this writeup would suggest, I am aware that there are Pokémon that can consistently take down Comfey. Replays and analysis will be shown below.

Jirachi: Equipped with steel/psychic typing, iron head, and great natural bulk, your standard utility Jirachi is a great answer for Comfey, often completely shutting it down for the whole game.

Registeel: Registeel is by far the best Comfey answer in the metagame. Registeel has massive bulk and runs steel STAB to hit Comfey super effectively. Comfey has practically no way to deal significant damage to Registeel and would have to run a bad set and expend tera to beat it 1v1.

AV/Specs Analytic Magnezone: Your standard leftovers/rocky helmet trapper mag will lose to Comfey since it boosts its special defense too much however with choice specs or the Assault Vest Magnezone easily wins the 1v1.

Heavy Slam Goodra-H: Goodra is probably the only non-fairy resist that can consistently switch into Comfey and force it out/KO it. Since Goodra’s heavy slam always OHKOs Comfey after life orb chip, it can leverage its massive special bulk to tank one hit and KO back.

UNRELIABLE ANSWERS

Bisharp: While Bisharp can OHKO Comfey cleanly, any form of chip damage jeopardizes its ability to answer Comfey. Tera fairy draining kiss is a 3.1% roll to OHKO Bisharp from full so you cannot switch it in recklessly or you may end up losing your answer, and with rocks or spikes that 3.1% climbs much higher. This also only applies to the 80HP standard Bisharp, one that creeps more speed will die more often and one that invests in more HP can survive easier.

Faster, offensive psyshock cresselia: A Cresselia that is both faster than Comfey and offensively invested with psyshock can win against Comfey (though it ends low on HP, so it is more like a trade). Comfey typically runs very little speed investment and Cresselia requires a significant amount of speed EVs to outspeed even uninvested Comfey, but if the Cress is faster and healthy, it will win the 1v1.

Poison Jab Muk-Alola: Poison Jab Muk-Alola is another Pokémon that can only act as a Comfey answer when it is healthy. It is more difficult to keep Muk healthy than other bulky Pokémon since it relies on rest to heal itself which can create even more unreliability, but if Muk is healthy it can remove Comfey’s life orb and beat it down with poison jabs.

tera poison gunk shot Krookodile: Krookodile often runs tera poison to get a stronger gunk shot and flip its defensive profile. If Krookodile is healthy it can easily take a draining kiss and OHKO Comfey with gunk shot. The unreliability comes from gunk shot’s 20% miss chance and the fact you need to expend tera.

SUN

Calm mind is not the only boosting move Comfey has access to. It also can learn growth which will give it +2 to special attack and attack under sun. While you lose out on the special defense boost, your draining kiss is more powerful sooner and your stored power becomes extremely strong. While you do lose the advantage versus things like full hp Gengar, Entei, and sludge wave Toxtricity, Sun allows you to have more immediate power and beat things you otherwise couldn’t.

Jirachi: Outside of sun, Jirachi easily countered Comfey, however in sun, Comfey can survive an iron head and attempt a second growth, if Comfey avoids the 60% flinch chance and gets to +4, it can tera and win the 1v1 and likely sweep the rest of the game.

Poison Jab Muk-Alola: While there is a guessing game for the Comfey player of if the Muk has haze or poison jab as the last move, if the Comfey player scouts the Muk’s set, they will always be able to farm boosts on the Muk and defeat it under sun.

Bisharp: Bisharp was already a shaky answer to Comfey, now with growth, the max speed Bisharps have a 43.8% chance to be OHKOed and the bulkier ones will meet the same fate with a bit of hazard chip.

Faster Offensive Cresselia: Cresselia was able to match boosts with a calm mind Comfey and bypass its special defense boost with psyshock, however the growth variant in sun simply overpowers Cresselia.

Heavy Slam Goodra-H: If the Comfey player goes for a second growth instead of attacking, they 43.7% chance to survive heavy slam. This will allow Comfey to fire off a draining kiss that deals 79.9-94.2% with tera meaning Goodra-H must be in pristine condition to come in on Comfey.

Another thing to note is that Comfey synergizes well with other sun attackers since players will often tera things to dragon to not lose to Venusaur/Scovillain. Expending tera when Comfey is in the back is very risky and that’s without considering the fact it is sometimes the steel type that is turning dragon or the fact steel types are usually considered less valuable against a sun team and often the first Pokémon to get sacrificed.

COLLECTIVE COUNTERING

Many times, a team’s best option into a powerful sweeper is to use whatever they have on the field to prevent set up, then bring in their own offensive threat to pressure it out, resulting in losing whatever is on the field to not be swept. This does not work against Comfey.

Comfey’s set up targets cannot make progress into it, resulting in the Comfey player’s opponent’s best play almost always being to switch to whatever can threaten it most immediately. This is because even if something like Noivern or Gastrodon can chip Comfey down, when the opponent eventually lets that Pokémon die or switches out, Comfey will regain all its health with draining kiss. This also means that revenge killing Comfey is an extremely unreliable method of dealing with it. Comfey will always attack first which means it will also heal before you attack it, and since it just killed your last Pokémon, it will have two draining kisses worth of HP to tank your next hit with (which often means it’s at full health). This gives Comfey individualized 1v1s against each member of your team where the fight is rigged in its favor by calm mind boosts and priority.

COMMON ANTI-SWEEP TOOLS

A common way to prevent calm mind sweepers in any tier is encore and tricking a choice scarf. The issue with this against Comfey is the priority on draining kiss. If your encore/trick user is in range of draining kiss it will just come in and die, and even if it isn’t, the scarf trick is a one-time thing and can be baited and the Comfey user is often happy to lock into draining kiss since that is all it wants to click anyway. Point being that both methods are particularly ineffective against Comfey compared to other set up sweepers like Necrozma, Cresselia, or Suicune.

CONCLUSION

Unless you have a healthy Registeel in the back, you are at risk to being swept by Comfey. The fact this Pokémon is rated C, the fact tournament players refuse to use it, the fact people think it should drop from RU, the fact people call it Comfraud, is all so ridiculous. It is one of, if not the most potent sweeper in the format and I think people should show it more respect both in the builder and in the court of public opinion.

And some of the Comfey haters are the same people who claim basculegion-female is better than hisuian decidueye btw. disturbing contrast to me.(https://psim.us/r/smogtours-gen9ru-968574)
comfey could even beat herscu in a 1v1 in scl, it seems it doesn't matter if it's paralyzed or not based on the counter I got for croak so if herscu was paralyzed it's not a discount of comfey's ability to 1v1 it if croak going 3 for 1 while paralyzed and webbed is considered a valid replay to keep it unranked then I guess herscu being paralyzed with multiple agility boosts isn't dismissable as an anti feat. and if Gengar locks into shadow ball/focus blast;def not checking comfey. krook'd likely be choice locked into another move before it even tried tera poison gunk shot(croak is a more reliable answer as it doesn't need to burn tera to have stab on gunk shot, even if it is frail.) Bisharp is reliable in the replay shown only because it was healthy. until txunt responds explaining why the comfraud allegations popped up to begin with

ur-->c+

https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2677714732
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2677724522
https://psim.us/r/gen9ru-2677867402

Look, I know you'll probably think I'm nuts but hear me out. calm Mind Sylveon is quite consistent as a set. I wasn't the person playing Sylveon but I saw some replays of it and thought:it deserved a ranking. Good bulk means lots of chances to get calm Mind. even when it doesn't(like in the third replay) protect Is helpful when it got chipped low by say:tera water liquidation from basculegion-male, in rain. wish? that's to recover even more and get more health for calm minds. trick scarf doesn't help if Sylveon is at +2 and already clicked hyper voice, with pixilate that'd be broken for Sylveon. it can sponge a good portion of priority in the tier(like crawdaunt's aqua jet) so priority can't stop it. easy calm minds unless it's against a steel or poison type(so unless it's bisharp/registeel/empo/sandslash-a/hoodra/jirachi/magnezone or a muk/toxicroak/Gengar/toxtricity/ you're good. legit drawback)

ur-->c+/c++(b-)
Click the links, you'll understand. Literal TERA grass grass knot means not totally helpless against waters and rocks and doesn't need sun to deal with them(check). strong fire stab(Fire blast) and it's natural resistance to draining kiss means it can reliably revenge kill comfey(the comfey Bible is the post i'm responding to people). man Delphox be blowing stuff up enough to be ranked;even on high ladder. good special bulk to reliably take special hits. scarf krook cooks it but band krook is fried, that's a pro of delphox's speed tier that really matters as I learned from an expert belt mew nbt post by akotelette(you will see this mentioned again later in my post).

ur-->c/c+
Strong fairy stab in moonblast which is great?:check.Has energy ball to pressure waters/rocks/grounds?:check. it has trick to mess up stuff like suicune and gastrodon(also shown in a game):check. Heck, it can even cause forfeits sometimes from the pure power of, specs. it gets farmed by toxicroak though and can struggle to make progress. It's repeatedly proven utility instead of being a momentum sink(unlike a certain glazed female fish. seriously though it's like holy glaze just 'cause a choice locked Mon has a pivot move doesn't mean it's automatically useful it depends on the move the player locks into.).

ur-->c/c+
Fletchinder;need I go on or not?. jk I know I do so lemme get to the (true)glaze:Priority flying moves if at full? check.Good flying moves to exploit that?(tailwind, defog, even air Slash if you don't wanna be passive.) check.Doesn't need to burn tera to survive versus comfey for multiple turns unlike Vern? check. fire stab to more reliably threaten snow? check. can hold the eviolite which makes it bulky enough to take two dragon tails from dipplin? check. fits on a wide array of teams(especially rain offense)? absolutely.Heck, it even has knock off to farm ghosts;Vern doesn't have that. why it's not top tier is very very prone to rocks(seriously, half health every game, the more I think about it the more I wonder if it's boots or eviolite). so yeah, fletchinder is good enough to be ranked based on what it has over Vern and it's consistency at it's role as a way for rain to beat sun and isn't just a rain mon either;genuine utility across the board and thrives against sun(absolutely thriving, manhandles sun bro. speed control with priority(if at full) tailwind, fire resist, air slash to beat grasses/flinch fish on faster threats like Ninetales or maushold, the flinch isn't certain(as shown with against maus in that replay) but tales is deleted apparently, even did 80% to entei. the speed issue with chlorophyll, as I said earlier;is rectified by tailwind so venu is outsped assuming it's running a + speed nature and 224 speed evs). Truly the second, albeit more modest;coming of talonflame.(solid removal too). and apparently the set is tera ghost;good to know even though in the last fletchinder praise post it's team lost. but the fletch does have sucker punch to not need to be at full health for priority;small 4mss syndrome which can also be phrased as teams not being able to fully account for it depending on the way you look at it. but for now;put it in c+ for now even though I believe it's b worthy;you will see the gist later when you see what it can do in a tournament if you wanna use it in ssnl. just to aura farm fletchinder is cooking.
edit:the sucker punch and knock off were actually zoroark but the other utilities fletchinder provides are there too. like priority defog and air slashes(defog is removal). edit:I will say it's easily beaten by Slowbro though;good mu into ches but still;enough bad mus to not be b like I thought.

ur-->c+
Allow me to explain:the combination of knock off and sucker punch is insane. the illusion got me good initially until I looked closer at the replays(mind games bro). Sucker punch is priority to snipe faster threats that would murk it. even got wisp if fletchinder isn't packing that itself. i only have this much to say but really think about this for a moment;a potential second coming of hisuian zoroark(Not as strong but still;second coming).

Now for something that's already ranked:

b- -->b+/a-
Simple:picked up usage in ssnl and had success in said ssnl. and me agreeing with lbn's post from earlier and adding on to it. pert's had great tournamet success, not as great as diancie of course(wink wink) but still close. I believe it should use more experimentation with it's vast movepool and has potential to fit on other archetypes. will It be better than diancie then? probably equals by then.

ur-->c++
You seen the nbt this week? ribbons made a calm mind booster energy set with 220 HP Evs, 36 speed evs and 252 special attack Evs, three replays(one into rain, worst showing;one into balance, the best showing;and one into sun, the mid tier showing, either way it showed scream tail was reliable and good enough to be ranked. and heni San got cooking with replays for his sunny day set for scream tail. it's def good enough to be ranked if you ask ribbons me or slikkles, or heni San. anyone who saw week 16 of the nbt really.) despite me saying it was okay heni san's sunny day set was mostly theoretical;they got cooking with replays(didn't see them yet but probably will soon. I already linked the nbt thread earlier in the thread(click the nbts spoiler on post 270 and you'll see it).

a-->s-
You seen the new sets people cooked up? mine was mostly just nasty plot tuned for sun and in theory but the others?!? excellent. Yourwelcomethanku beat calm mind sweepers with mew. ribbons proved the double dance set was worthy of being listed itself on the dex. akotellete made the all out attacker set post that explained to me(indirectly) the value of outspeeding band krook without needing a speed boost, and squeeby's set was outright trapping people. yeah mew is a top four mon undeniably

Now reacting to some other noms:just 'cause krook has gunk shot doesn't mean ches doesn't check it generally;ches is good on grassy terrain(you seen belly drum grassy glide sets? some even run trailblaze instead of knock off). so I agree with the necrozma voir and entei parts and the bad into spikes somewhat but not really the krook part and I believe it should still be ranked as highly as it is currently, maybe a- at worst. with Espeon and scrafty? shed skin can matter into status so it's not totally obsolete at everything it does. Grimm does check it though. don't have any strong opinions on Espeon so maybe make it rise to b- since it fits on weather(like sun:*pretend swagness fss starts playing I believe it'd fit with the aura*)

t44Torkoal · Sep 16, 2026

Idk what to do anymore but, oh well.

:chesnaught:A > B/B- (lower if generous)

Idk man its bad into spikes and bad into sun not named venu. With entei, garde, and necro being so common in this metagame Idt this thing deserves to be THAT high anymore. It can't even check krook because it has gunk shot (skeleton emoji).

:espeon: Keep C+

Mon isn't that bad. It's an good eject button mon on weather with magic bounce, which hard counters every lead mew set. It sucks that it does bad into kleavor (stone axe is unaffected by magic bounce).

:scrafty:C > UR

can someone genuinely explain on what this dude does again? Why run this mon when you can run grimmsnarl, or even lucario. Hell even iron thorns.

so uhh, yeah I had some good noms. Have a nice day!

Bobbybobobnub · Sep 17, 2026

t44Torkoal said:
Idk what to do anymore but, oh well.

:chesnaught:A > B/B- (lower if generous)

Idk man its bad into spikes and bad into sun not named venu. With entei, garde, and necro being so common in this metagame Idt this thing deserves to be THAT high anymore. It can't even check krook because it has gunk shot (skeleton emoji).

:espeon: Keep C+

Mon isn't that bad. It's an good eject button mon on weather with magic bounce, which hard counters every lead mew set. It sucks that it does bad into kleavor (stone axe is unaffected by magic bounce).

:scrafty:C > UR

can someone genuinely explain on what this dude does again? Why run this mon when you can run grimmsnarl, or even lucario. Hell even iron thorns.

so uhh, yeah I had some good noms. Have a nice day!

chesnaught when the crawdaunt its supposed to wall clicks tera poison sludge wave

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