★ np: SS UU Stage 8 - Highway to Hell

[Chicknemacnchez]

The Kinda Weird Drops


​

I'm starting to think Zapdos-G might be a little too much. We've seen Brave Bird's power through Staraptor for the previous 4 gens and we know how that went. This time, higher attack stat, more bulk, more coverage, and STAB Close Combat. Almost everything gets 2hko'd by it's STABS or correct prediction.

252 Atk Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Victini: 192-226 (56.3 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You can see even 100/100/100 stands no chance. Even if you bring in a wall like Skarmory, you can U-turn into Magnezone, limiting counterplay. Also, it fits on just about every team, ho, balance, and more. It doesn't help if it is on ho because you don't know if its scarf, or agility, potentially losing you the game. It's last move can go to Throat Chop smacking Aegislash which can 2hko 0 hp. Not to mention it has one of the best stallbreaking moves, Thunderous Kick.

252 Atk Zapdos-Galar Throat Chop vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 128-152 (49 - 58.2%) -- 96.9% chance to 2HKO

Sets:
Zapdos-Galar @ Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 108 HP / 252 Atk / 148 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Agility
- Bulk Up / Throat Chop
- Drill Peck / Brave Bird
- Close Combat / Thunderous Kick

Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Throat Chop

Zapdos-Galar @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Close Combat / Thunderous Kick
- Throat Chop
- U-turn

Now for the chicken. I was originally hyped for this for being able to kill that god damn Leech seeding rocket. Turns out it isn't as broken as I thought. It has severe 4 Move Slot Syndrome. Basically you have Swords Dance / Protect, Flare Blitz, Close Combat, and Thunder Punch which hits waters like Primarina and Gyarados, Knock Off which is for Latias and Victini, or Stone Edge which hits Salamence. All of there are huge targets that you HATE missing the coverage on. Also, bulky Pokemon that it can set up on aren't the most common. The only things it can safely set up on is basically nothing. Tang can Knock it off or sleep it, Bisharp can Knock you off. Celesteela can stall you out, etc. Even mons like Cobalion does so much damage with Close Combat. May I remind you that is 279 attack.

252 Atk Cobalion Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Blaziken: 204-240 (67.7 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I think the better sets are Reversal but I haven't tried it out. Last thing is that imo the best pokemon in the tier, Azumarill, destroys it as well as Crawdaunt. Maybe this will be a problem in the future. Nothing is scarier than a +2 Blaziken as you miss your Leech Seed. We will see.

 

[kumiko]

Hello again all,

This time we'll be voting on the recent drops to the tier from this week, as well as an old face again. The UU Council is now voting on Blaziken, Galarian Zapdos, and Aegislash. Voting won't last as long as the last vote, but it'll still be for over 24 hours to ensure everyone has time to provide proper an educated opinions, Council and community alike. Voting will hopefully be final and up by Sunday, December 6th at 7 pm GMT-5.

 

[ramolost]

doing my job :


this mon was more a hit or miss so far. its a pain in the ass to face and its only defensive counterplay being salamence sucks but it has to set up and SD to threaten most teams and its awful bulk make that harder. although you have to guess right if its SDing or not because it can still threaten a lot of mons while being unboosted. it will basically force 50/50 and you have to try to trade it so it doesnt boost on you and sweeps your whole team. theres also obviously azu / crawdaunt which can threaten it with aqua jet to RK it but the protect set will just scout that and abuse the aqua jet. although, it has to pick its coverage well to break through some teams. tpunch to break trough primarina / azu, knock off to kill victini and have a 100% range against king or stone edge to kill salamence. the problem is that it has coverage for everything who resist its dual stabs. the other non ban argument is that it will end up by killing itself. kinda true but given how spammable is CC and that blaze kick actually exists and is usable make this argument kinda unviable.

will probably vote ban for the followed reason but might change my mind ill probably wait for some community posts on it to see what everyone thinks.


with the best in to shadow ball being gone with the shift, aka hydreigon, and a defensive wall who could in to aegislash to some extent and threaten it with eq, aka hippo gone with him, aegi got a lot better that it was already with the shifts. when i voted last week on aegislash, i thought it might be broken but i wanted to suspect test it because i thought that it was the best thing to do and wasnt obviously broken. it was great because it had many occasion to in thanks to his good dual typing and because its an aegislash thing but sitill had ins, now, it can spam shadow ball way more freely but without psychic terrain / hippo being things anymore the SD set, who was w.e. before the shift got a lot better. all those elements make aegi broken imo.

Im voting ban

i dont fucking know how to have the gapdos sprite
this is broken. the best defensive counterplay to it is slowking (lol???) or hope it kills itself with brave bird recoil + rocky helmet on tang / amonguss or get every single 50/50 right. aegi in to it to some extend but it has the coverage to deny that. scarf is easier to wall because it actually has some ins such as skarmory and cant claim freely mons but good luck for scouting for the item without taking huge risk. anyway this mon is dumb and have to go imo.

voting ban as well


this one isnt on the slate but it has been brought up in the council channel and i want to talk about it in public. i would have voted no ban if it was on the slate but i believe we should suspect this when the tier will be stable!!! the fact that aegislash is probably being banned also free a slot for megahorn to invalidate tang or sub / protect to make it harder to rk.

thanks for reading stream PNL

 

[kurto]

i vote ban for aegislash and thats all

 

[BigFatMantis]

As always (except sometimes), I will give my thoughts (and plugs), for everyone to enjoy (or hate)!



Even though I am usually anti-ban on most things, I previously mentioned that I thought this mon may be the most problematic on the previous slate. It has now gotten even better ofc without Hippo and now SD sets are way more common, so you cannot just assume the Shadow Ball anymore. Sub toxic is annoying but not necessarily broken, but the fact that you have to prepare for special Aegi, mixed Aegi, SD Aegi, Band Aegi, or subtoxic Aegi, and won't know which one it is until potentially midway through the battle, make it certain levels on unhealthy. So if you don't know it's sub toxic Aegi, and you switch out to something to try to deal with it right away and it uses sub, now it's just gotten all kinds of level of terrible to try to take down. ALL THIS BEING SAID, I am not sure if an outright ban is necessary and maybe a suspect is better, but a ban would be perfectly understandable and I don't think many people will call that into question or get upset about it except Ghost-lovers.




This thing needs more time in the tier imo. I don't think it is broken atm. It could potentially be broken later once someone finds the magical game-breaking set, but for now it's just very good. I think it would be a lot more fair to suspect this mon and get more opinions on it. An outright QB is very harsh, especially when there are lots of anti-ban arguments (e.g. it's frail, gets 2HKO by almost any mon in the tier, gets OHKOd by lots of mons in the tier, gets revenge KO'd by Azu/Crawdaunt, gets revenge KO'd by fast scarfers, can only reasonably fit one coverage move with SD or give up STAB, etc. etc.). Some people might say the fast scarfer idea is no good because it could always use protect to get an extra Speed Boost. Well, giving up a move slot for Protect is extremely crippling on Blaziken because it needs all the moveslots it can get.

Again, I'm not saying it's not going to be broken, but something with so many anti-ban arguments and anti-ban sentiments should, in my opinion, not be just quickbanned and should lean more towards getting suspected. In addition to all the current arguments against banning it, there may be other counterplays not yet explored.


(no animated sprite rip)

This chicken is on steroids, and that's illegal because federal regulations prohibit the use of added hormones and steroids in all poultry. This thing is way more dangerous than Blaziken because it doesn't need any setup - it just attacks right away at full power and takes things down, either with scarf or band. And if you actually manage to set it up with Adamant Agility + Life Orb then it's LOL. It's dual STAB combo hits basically the entire tier except Aegislash (who will PROBABLY get banned also). That's not an exaggeration - the only two pokemon in the tier that do not resist its dual STAB are Aegislash and Thundurus-T. (Though right now it tends to run Blaze Kick or Throat Chop also for Aegi). And unlike something like Terrakion, you can't try to use defensive grass types like Tangela/Amoonguss because they will just be OHKO'd by Brave Birb (Tangrowth will need slight chip if its total max def). And then there's the Bulk Up option too, in case you were a psychopath, which, without Aegislash, will nearly OHKO every single pokemon in the tier with Dual STAB alone. See below:

+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Thundurus-Therian: 270-320 (90.3 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 28 Def Celesteela: 386-456 (97.2 - 114.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 407-481 (100.7 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 148+ Def Kommo-o: 541-640 (152.8 - 180.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-Wash: 281-331 (92.4 - 108.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Salamence: 325-383 (82.4 - 97.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Zapdos-Galar Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 231-274 (69.1 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO Skarmory the ONLY ONE that can survive it after chip (and barely so)

So yeah I do think that Zapdos-G is too much for the tier ATM, and even though there are some slight no-ban arguments (bad speed tier etc.), I think it has a 100% chance to get banned after a suspect test so sense in wasting time. This is unfortunate too, because WE WERE SET TO HAVE AN UNBELIEVABLY EXCITING AND SCIENTIFICALLY STIMULATING RESEARCH WEEK WITH ZAPDOS-GALAR THIS WEEK. And boy is research week fun!

Those are my thoughts anyways. For what it's worth (if it's worth anything).

 

[Adaam]

Blaziken and G-Zapdos are too much. Ramo touched up on the 50-50s it forces where if you try sacking something and it SDs, you suddenly have a healthy +2 Blaziken staring you down that outspeeds your whole team unless you're using an Azumarill. Defensively you have literally Salamence and that's it. Azu/Prim are solid, but aren't that bulky without max defense investment and drop to Thunder Punch. Mence is great but is permanently crippled by a Knock Off. Victini and Slowking drop to Knock Off. Generic bulky waters all drop to +2 CC. Speed Boost is simply too good an ability on a pokemon as strong as Blaziken for it to be healthy.

G-Zapdos is a better Staraptor that cannot be intimidated and isn't weak to rocks. I'm not gonna spend time on this because it blows through almost everything with CB/LO, or acts as a fantastic Scarfer.

As for Aegislash, I am voting do not ban again. I think the loss of Hippowdon is severely overrated for it as Aegi outspeeds and 2HKOd it anyway with Shadow Ball. Losing Drei was helpful, but we still have a solid amount of Shadow Ball resists. Chansey, Diggersby, Incineroar, Krookodile, Bisharp, and Kommo-o are all strong Pokemon that shake off Ghost-type moves. While it can Toxic or CC them, they still dissuade Shadow Ball spam enough for me to not think Aegi is quickban worthy. SubTox is highly overrated and stopped by any moderately bulky Steel-type (re: Celesteela, the most common Steel-type in the tier). Faster bulky things like Tentacruel, Volcanion, Nidoqueen, Salamence, and Rotom can all take hits reliably and abuse the blade form enough. Aegislash is still the best Pokemon in the tier but I would much rather let the people decide than overstep our bounds and quickban it,

 

[Band]

Seeing the new Pokemon that dropped and the ones that rose, I thought it would be nice to talk about who benefitted from this shift. Pretty much everyone on Discord agrees that Zapdos is absolutely bonkers for the tier. Blaziken is also concerning, but can be checked and has 4MSS at least. I'll talk about the chickens and who benefitted with the shift.

Galarian Zapdos

With Hippowdon's rise, the tier lost the arguably only Pokémon able to reliably check Zapdos. With its combinantion of insanely good STABs both in typing and power, extremely useful ability in Defiant preventing Intimidate attempts, immunity to Spikes and Webs and neutrality to Stealth Rock, nearly perfect coverage in Fighting/Flying/Dark, access to boosting moves in Bulk Up and Agility and a cool ass design, this Pokémon turned UU on its head.

I've messed with the Scarf set and the Agility one, and both find a way to fix its speed. The scarf one is more consistent imo, so you don't have to setup and it acts more as a revenge killer than a sweeper/wallbreaker. Agility can kill more stuff but scarf is more consistent. Now, is there counterplay to Gapdos? Ehh no. Fighting/Flying coverage is ridiculously good + Dark coverage for stuff like aegi and king. There really isn't anything that can actually take on this monster and not get 2HKOed or OHKOed on the process, and unlike fire chicken, it doesn't need to run LO, it can run scarf or band and STILL hit stupid hard.

Blaziken

Blaziken was put in the same box as zapdos from the day they dropped, but I don't think its QB-worthy like Zapdos. It's crazy powerful after a SD, yes, but finding opportunities to setup are hard when you're frail as all hell. It's slow at the start, and only outspeeds scarfers after 2 turns of Speed Boosts and most times will kill itself trying to KO Pokémon that it can't hit with CC/coverage. Flare Blitz + LO + hazards + the occasional Rocky Helmet will kill it in 2 turns. Running Protect leaves it helpless against A LOT of stuff (azu prim, tenta, mence, king, etc etc), so that's def not an option, and not running SD doesn't give it enough breaking power despite the coverage.

This doesn't mean Blaziken isn't significant in the tier and shouldn't be discussed, but I think QBing now isn't really the best ideia. I think a suspect test will give us not only more time to figure out how to deal with Blaziken but also to decide if it is that broken.

Terrakion

Again, with Hippowdon being gone, Terrakion lost another one of its checks. Everyone else has already discussed this mon and the council decided not to ban it, but what nobody was expecting was Hippo to rise. Now Terrakion is even more free to wreck the tier, and I can definetely see it going with the chickens.

Zeraora

Wow Hippo checked a lot of stuff eh. Zera now frees up a moveslot and can opt for Play Rough to hit Kommo-o and Salamence. Zera is def the best offensive pivot in the tier rn, it's stupid fast, it's strong, has good STAB and coverage options, and you can physical or mixed sets (never tried fully special, idk if its a thing). Overall a very solid mon as of now, and was solid even with Hippo still here.

Tapu Bulu

Bulu is now the tier's premier terrain setter. As if it wasn't already good enough, now Lele can't get rid of its terrain anymore. Grassy Terrain helps a lot of stuff, like aegi, terrak, volcanion, jirachi, conk (flame orb recoil is negated), and just gives mons like amoong and tang some nice passive recovery, since they're running helmet rn. CB Wood Hammer in terrain hits disgustingly hard, but sets like AV and SD also have their places in the tier. Overall very very good mon.

Really really quick thoughts, sorry if it's messy/repeats points. Anyways ty for liking my Chicken Meme if this post hits 3 likes I'll do a version for when the chicken gets banned.

 

[Moutemoute]

My last post summarize pretty much my thoughts on Aegislash, Blaziken and Zapdos-Galar.

I trully think Aegislash is both the greatest and worst Pokemon we have in the tier right now because how incredible and versatile it is. I think the shifts gave to Aegislash much more potent by losing Hydreigon & Hippowdon, two good checks to it but also Tapu Lele which annoyed physical set before because of Psychic Terrain which prevented Aegislash to abuse of Shadow Sneak. With all those Pokemon gone, Aegislash can perfectly be played either offensive or defensive, physical, mixed or special.. It's really dumb in my opinion and really annoying to face. Not to mention that it forces people to run real answers to Ghost-types and if you don't, you can get in trouble really bad and really fast (example of my game of UU Snake this week where I didn't have a Ghost resist and where Sub Offensive Aegislash really fucked up my team). You get the point, I voted "ban".

Even tho I think those two are pretty filthy, I decided to vote "Keep UU" on both of them.
May sounds wack for some people but I trully think Blaziken trades itself most of the time and really struggles to pick its filler which is always annoying. On the other hand, I can't deny that Zapdos-Galar is absolutely great but I don't think it's OP, at least for now. I tried some new stuff like itemless Dual Dance Zapdos-Galar and it's pretty sweet without being absolutely broken. So yeah, I think both of they should stay UU at least for now..

 

[467 11 11p]

Even tho I think those two are pretty filthy, I decided to vote "Keep UU" on both of them.

Moute before voting

 

[Indigo Plateau]

I already shared my thoughts on Aegislash pretty extensively in my previous post on this thread. I voted ban then and I’m voting ban again. UU as it stands really doesn’t have good Ghost switch-ins that don’t get dented by CC. Having to pick between two moves is not challenging in the slightest. Looking at Adaam’s list:
Chansey, Diggersby, Incineroar, Krookodile, Bisharp, and Kommo-o are all strong Pokemon that shake off Ghost-type moves.
The only one that doesn’t get 2hkoed by CC is Kommo, and then after you predict correctly one (!) time, you really don’t have to predict much again. Not to mention fitting more than one of these per team is challenging and pretty much unfeasible. I think Aegislash adds too much of a ‘choke’ while building and it’s unhealthy.

As for Blaziken and GZapdos, I voted ban on both. From my time playing, GZap can run a lot of sets really well. I used mainly LO and Scarf with both sets putting in work every game. CB has its merits as well although I didn’t really use it. It kills the entire tier so this was a pretty straightforward ban for me.

I was a bit unsure on Blaziken, but I felt very weak to it when not using one of Azu, Mence, Prim, or Slowking. If it ever got an SD and I didn’t have one of these it was basically game over. I think Blaziken is more unhealthy and the benefits it brings don’t balance that enough for me to want it to stay.

 

[kurto]

Moutemoute said: i vote ban for aegislash
him before voting: yeah its big brain time

 

[BlenderPower]

I'm gonna share my thoughts on some pokemon. . .

This is not something I thought I would say but Blaziken is not as broken as I thought it would be. It suffers severely from 4 move slot syndrome, and is very self destructive. With Lele gone it opens up room for priority users like azu and crawdaunt to rkill blaziken, plus other priority users once blaziken has weakened itself. I feel like waiting another week would be better for determining if blaziken is truly that broken.

( galarian)

Similar to blaziken this thing oftentimes just dies by just using its stab, and is very similar to staraptor. The difference is that this bird is not weak to rocks, has stab cc, and has coverage to bypass its checks. The rise of hippo is the cherry in top, since it was one of the few pokemon able to withstand some of its attacks. I do not see this thing being healthy for the metagame and hope this thing gets banned, despite how fun it is to use.

I am not convinced this is broken currently and I feel like a suspect test in the future would be better suited for this mon. Adaam pretty much explained everything I wanted to say about aegi, extremely good but not quickban worthy. This thing can't really spam its stab moves that freely without giving a free switch in to something very threatening. Its sub toxic sets are shut down/ taken advantage of by some common pokemon in the metagame.

Hot take but I do not see this as problematic at all. . . With priority being on the rise, aegislash gaining more usage and more fighting competition. There is also many checks to terrakion, like kommo-o, scarf jirachi, latios, and stuff like amoongus and tangrowth to sponge and scout a hit. Personally for me I have never really had a problem with it while fighting or teambuilding. It's checks are very common, and even with the rise of hippo I believe terak is very manageable for the tier.

 

[Sickist]

Set

Slowking @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Colbur Berry / Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SpD (or whatever spread honestly)
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Psyshock / Future Sight / Thunder Wave
- Future Sight / Slack Off / Toxic
- Teleport

Honestly, I'm surprised no one else has brought up Slowking, considering how absolutely amazing it is at supporting offensive teams right now. With the sheer amount of offensive threats, such as Azumarill, Terrakion, Conkeldurr, and so on, Slowking provides amazing support through Teleport and Future Sight. It can form a sturdy backbone for most offensive teams with Tangrowth, Amoonguss, Celesteela, Rhyperior, and more, while also not being extremely passive due to Future Sight, Scald, and Teleport. While Teleport is nice to bring in slower stuff like Scizor after eating a hit, which is what Slowking is great at, Future Sight is what I think makes Slowking a good pick for offensive builds. It's no secret, like I mentioned earlier, that we have a lot of offensive threats in UU. Future Sight supports of lot of these so well, and really limits what can actually come in on half of these mons, such as Terrakion. Something like physdef Tangrowth would be a decent answer normally, but taking a hit and then Future Sight, Tangrowth suddenly is forced to switch out, giving Terrakion or whatever free turns. Slowking in itself is pretty good, like I mentioned before, due to insane special bulk it can abuse, alongside other options, such as Nasty Plot, Toxic, Fire Blast, Thunder Wave, Yawn, Disable, Ice Beam, and more. Overall, I think this is a good pokemon for everyone to try out! Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

 

[lydian]

When are the ban results gonna be put up????

according to tdk's post:

Sunday, December 6th at 7 pm GMT-5

 

[kumiko]

Gonna keep it brief tonight because of UU Snake, so let's get right into it.

Blaziken very narrowly remains UU. Aegislash and Galarian Zapdos are now banned from UU. Tagging Marty and The Immortal so they could make the changes at their earliest convivence. Thank you!

Aegislash's vote was quite close, but still the vast majority of the Council believe it's simply too much. Ghost resists are hard to come by, and ones that can actually switch into Aegislash are nonexistent. Thanks to its incredible typing and bulk, Aegislash its an utter behemoth offensively. It has many different tools and sets at its disposal to further limit what can reliably handle it. Galarian Zapdos, on the other hand, has run all over the year. It has all the tools it needs; two excellent STABs, adequate coverage, great stats, a great ability, and all the moves it needs to both break and sweep.

Blaziken, very narrowly, has been decided not to be banned. Both it and Terrakion will be absolute menaces, especially with the parting of Aegislash. These two, and potentially more, will remain on our radar over the coming weeks.

That's all for now folks

 

[Moutemoute]

Rose are red, violets are blue and once again a big bird leaves UU..​

 

[ramolost]

a big bird leaves UU..​

lets make it two aha...

 

[Fusion Flare]

UU council eating good tonight

 

[Band]

I'm sorry this is terrible lol

 

[467 11 11p]

Blaziken very narrowly remains UU

What is Sabella smoking send me some

 

[D2quan]

When is that Celesteela and azu gonna be looked at. Still can respect the decisions made so far.

What is Sabella smoking send me some

Don't blame sabella blame the one for n
ot voting lol. Still no need to rush a mon thats super hit or miss.

 

[ramolost]

When is that Celesteela and azu gonna be looked at. Still can respect the decisions made so far.

i dont think either of them is a problem.
fat steela is def not a problem and isnt hard to pressure. dont be lazy in the teambuilder and steela will be fine. ive seen so much people complaining about fat steela when its totally fine. it has good typing and leech seed + protect can be annoying yes but its not that hard to pressure it or to KO it. the defensive set is far from unhealthy imo.
although, power herb steela can be a problem. its fantastic bulk make it easy for it to set up and meteor beam will nuke most of its checks and get steela at +2 speed / +2 spA. although it still has checks such as nihi, chansey, tenta, scarfed mons etc. its also not that hard to prevent it since any knock off will just say no to it. might be a problem tho and the council did mentionned it even if its not the thing that we are looking at atm.

azu isnt a problem at all rn imo. while band can be a bit overwhelming, theres plenty of good checks such as volcanion, tang, mong, tenta. its also not very hard to pressure band offensively given his speed tier. BD is not very hard to handle as well, relying on aqua jet to sweep, and is still checked by volc, tenta but any other mons who can eat a jet and kill it afterwards such as bulu gyara specs prim rwash kyu mmq lati etc. the nerf of figy berry also hurts since it will be harder for it to set up. i think azu is totally fine atm given how splashable are its checks in every sort of teams.

 

[Chicknemacnchez]

I really like these bans and I think you have the right mons under the radar except one.


With the ban of Aegislash I think Azumarill should be banned. Belly drum's "checks" are some of the weirdest. I've scrolled through UU and you have Thunderbolt Latias, Poison Jab Kommo-o, Tapu Bulu, Sludge Bomb Tentacruel, Sludge Wave Volcanion, Specs Energy Ball Primarina, and sash uses that can ohko it. Scarf Latias I believe it is the most popular set for checking gyara etc. But that set is so easily abusable. There are plenty of scary electric immunity/resists that can be easily switch in. What're you gonna do against Tapu Bulu? Mystical Fire prediction? Yeah then Azu has just been let in again. It's even worse if it's Choice Band. It can now potentially free up Knock Off's move slot to Ice Punch, which 2hkos Tangrowth and Amoonguss on the switch with rocks with you not needing rocks for Amoonguss. At least lo Latias can actaully do things against switch ins.

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 184-218 (45.5 - 53.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Ice Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 270-318 (62.6 - 73.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery

Next check, Poison Jab Kommo-o. Not most to be said here. Another BD check abused by CB. Not to mention Defensive is most popular because it checks Victini.

Tapu Bulu dies to CB. Sorry man, nothing survives CB Azu.

Sludge Bomb Tenta is rare mainly because it already has mild 4mss. Scald, Knock Off, Acid Spray, Rapid Spin, Toxic Spikes, Haze, Protect, Toxic, the list goes on. Also guess what guys, knock cb destroys it.

Sludge Wave Volcanion is ok I guess. Knock CB ruins all sets though.

Specs Prim is ok. It would like Psychic for poisons though, also cb play rough.

And sash users that ohko it. Lets see here, Azelf. Thats it. Gotta boom. Plus its usually a suicide lead.

Theres moer but im not gonna continue saying stuff dies to CB

 

[sims796]

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to say it, but as a guy who rarely, if ever, plays it is pretty exciting watching how drastic the tier shifts shake the entire metagame month after month. Would have never guessed Blaziken being UU of all things, Hippowdon leaving, RU mons rising straight to OU and all jokes aside even Vileplume found legitimate usage for a tine Can't wait to see wtf kind of Christmas miracle pops up this tier shift.

 

[BigFatMantis]

So, now that that's done, I assume that Blaziken and Terrakion are the highest things on the radar atm. Is there a timetable on when we can expect a suspect test for either, or if another slate will come? Other mons that I want to bring up besides those two (those two have been discussed more than enough imo):



Azuzu Top is Top Notch. Most people say the Band set is the best set, but I think Belly Drum under Screens is more dangerous, since you can OHKO usual checks like Amoonguss and Volcanion with a boosted Knock Off. It's still slow though, and as long as you have something that's faster and resists water, you will be able either revenge KO it after a boost, or force it out to lose the boost. The Band set is just a predict game, and usually something like Amoonguss will check it regardless of what move its using (unless it's going for a YOLO Ice Punch, which is rare). So, great mon. Not broken though imo.

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I've been talking about the dangers of Celesteela since Blacephalon was still in the tier. The defensive Leech Seed will flat out win games if you don't team build appropriately. If you don't have 1-3 dedicated checks to it, then it's impossible for you to take it down because it will stall everything out. The most frustrating thing about it is the Leech Seed + Flamethrower combo, because you the things you can't Leech Seed you can do big damage to with Flamethrower (grass types) or Heavy Slam (Hatterne). Tentacruel, though, is a blanket check to the defensive set with Liquid Ooze. You can also switch in a teleport pivot (Slowking works best) to gain momentum. Blaziken remaining in the tier also does help pressure the defensive set significantly too. The Meteor Beam sweeper set is very dangerous and imo one of the top sweepers in the tier atm. But since Meteor Beam is a two turn move, and it has to set up with Automotize to outspeed most things, it is basically left with two reliable moves to try to sweep everything else with after burning the initial Herb Meteor Beam (usually Air Slash and Flamethrower). So as long as you don't feed it kills, you SHOULD have something that isn't killed by Air Slash or Flamethrower (hint: Diancie, Rotom-W). And it's easy to switch in something like Slowking to absorb a boosted hit, then pivot out and restore HP. So, I think Celesteela is problematic but not necessarily banworthy. If Blaziken goes down via Suspect though, then I think we should revisit it.

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So this was on the last slate, but since Terrakion and Aegislash were also on that slate, I thought maybe we should discuss this guy again as well to give it its fair dues. Gyarados is certainly not "bad" by any means - it will sweep an entire team if you let it get carried away. Power Whip/Waterfall/Bounce offers great coverage, and you can opt for Ice Fang over Bounce as well. EQ is an option but not really recommended in the current meta compared to the other options. The problem with Gyarados is that Bounce is sort of ass - it's easy to predict a bounce and switch out to something that can eat it and KO it back (e.g. Magnezone). Also, Gyarados is not fast, so most scarfers (Latias, Rotoms), outspeed it even when it's at +1. Again, Gyarados is a very good sweeper, but I don't think we have a shortage of ways to deal with it ATM. If it were to get suspected, I think it would probably be voted to not be banned, so better to focus on other things first.

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Victini got a LOT of buzz earlier for being super strong, but I think that talk has died down considerably. V Create is V Strong, but it's actually NOT impossible play around. With Gapdos gone, Fat Mence can be used more, which is a hard stop to any V Create tini. And frankly, the most powerful thing about Victini is banded V Create. So while yes it CAN run something like Glaciate for Mence, a non-banded Victini using Glaciate won't even KO it ( 0 SpA Victini Glaciate vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Salamence: 224-268 (56.8 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ), and if you find out it's not banded then suddenly the fight got a lot easier. Additionally, things like Incineroar check it pretty well (even though it doesn't have recovery), and with rocks up it really wears down quickly and is within range of Priority KO (which can be done by literally any priority user with Jet, Sneak, Sucker, Accel). So, strong yes, broken nah.

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That is all, happy December 7th everyone.