Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub

[Plague von Karma]

tl;dr Thought Slowbro and Lapras dropped, they are being quickbanned to UUBL. Victreebel, however, will remain UU.

Hi, Councilwoman PvK here to give a summary of my votes. Much of these points can be applied to the council, but know that I'm also my own person, so I'm going to include my own unadulterated takes.

Slowbro is an edge-case for me. I think it's got the potential to be ok (as in, not busted beyond belief) in UU, especially given that Victreebel happened to drop with it. This is backed up by its coverage; while it could drop Thunder Wave for Surf and Psychic, maybe Ice Beam, it will always end up being beaten by something, including itself. However, the level of bulk Slowbro has is significant, and Amnesia will allow it to...eventually...sweep without much that can really stop it. It could theoretically go a similar path to Hypno, where it gets numerous free turns from its bulk, only here, it has coverage and Amnesia, instead of the inconsistent Hypnosis. Avoiding a critical mass of Psychic-types is also generally desirable, as the more you have in a metagame, the slower it gets. If either of the bans could be rescinded eventually, this would be the first one I vote to test.

Lapras is a Pokemon I've thought through a lot, as people on Discord will know. I initially really wanted to give it a fair trial, but it's more powerful than even Slowbro, and having both is just...meta-destroying. BlizzBolt is exceedingly powerful coverage in a tier without Chansey on every team, and as of right now, our Water-types are dwarfed by this thing. Vaporeon is already a very strong Pokemon, and Lapras makes it look like a joke. If it didn't have Thunderbolt, it would probably have been ok. I've tested "Lapras UU" and it boils down to both players' Lapras fighting it out, trading, and then Tentacruel dominates the remaining team which is stacked against Lapras because holy shit it's Lapras. It has the potential to be competitive, but as it gets optimised, I feel as though the metagame would become significantly worse. While these interactions are something people may be familiar with (Snorlax Wars in OU, for instance), Lapras also has Sing, which forces many 50/50s that the tier isn't prepared to deal with when it has so much bulk and firepower. You'd have to switch the sack in, take the Sing, then switch back, but this can also go wrong in other ways. For example, the sack takes a Blizzard and dies, then you have to go back to Lapras and take a Thunderbolt. And, keep in mind, Sing isn't even mandatory, but you sure as shit have to scout for it. Victreebel dropping with it gives me pause, but it's not like it can switch in without extreme care. This Pokemon is extremely volatile and the tier simply isn't prepared for it.

Victreebel was UU once, and while there are concerns about Sleep Powder + Stun Spore 50/50s that Venusaur currently doesn't do, it's been UU before on Pokemon Perfect without issue. It's expected to be a decently powerful upgrade to "VenuCuno" teams, adding an extra Wrap user and some much-desired paralysis spreading. It will likely dominate slower-paced teams, but Tentacruel already does that. I feel as though Victreebel has the potential to be a very welcome presence in teambuilding and I'm eager to see what it does in the UU Open and UU Snake Draft coming up soon. I expect Venusaur to drop back to NU on the next VR slate, which should make many of the Pre-Alpha NU nostalgics (how) very happy.

UUBL is back after 11 years, and boy is it necessary.

--

aren't quickbans supposed to be reserved for when a suspect test would take too long and the metagame needs to reach a playable competitive state before that happens.

It would take too long. There are two tournaments next week, and the last time we made an effort to do tests during tournaments - APT - the playerbase profoundly disliked it. I did initially think we could try this again, but it's optically a terrible idea when this upheaves the metagame rather than just changes the moves your Normal-types run. While RBYPL is coming in 4 months, I don't think this is a good excuse to use two big tournaments as a testing ground, and I know some managers didn't like the prospects of this at all in the case of UUSD. Even if we think these Pokemon are healthy and make the metagame better, that won't be realised in UUSD or the UU Open. Just because we could roll the dice in front of two entire communities doesn't mean we should. We can't just have one run it and not the other either, as many competitors in UUSD will also be playing in the UU Open: two fronts, two of what are likely completely different tiers. We need consistency here.

I feel as though there's a better way to go about a suspect test for either UUBL, but these thoughts are just ruminating right now. What I'm feeling is a swiss tournament after these are over, which would have significantly lower stakes. I think a UU with Slowbro and Lapras would be thoroughly unplayable so early on and not suitable for high-stakes tournaments, so a swiss tournament would force it to develop in a less compromising manner. I think it's actually better to go this route, as Victreebel is a nice small change to lead up to something bigger. Of course, this isn't a confirmed thing, but I do think this would be nice to do before RBYPL drops.

All in all, yes, your notion is correct, but not in the way you think it is. In fact, Lapras perfectly qualifies.

since the lapras drop has been basically known to be coming for a year, and there was not really evidence from the extremely limited testing that was done (to my knowledge, obv couldve been some additional testing that idk about) that the lapras metagame was at all unplayable or uncompetitive, doesn't it not really fit the standards for a quickban.

There is something being left out here: the protocol was in place partially to determine quickbans before the drops occurred, as a safety net. The testing did happen, it just wasn't much because the idea was terrible. My thoughts above will sum up my thoughts on that from reviewing old replays and having lengthy conversations to develop my thoughts.

The year's notice concept fell flat on its face because the playerbase was not out to be guinea pigs. That's why it was cut thereafter, it was a failed policy. The protocol was a terrible compromise made for a minority of very loud, very stupid, very grabby players who were paranoid about something happening to their precious Articuno, and it ended up affecting drops too. They didn't actually want to test things, they wanted a soft-quickban. That has shown itself.

also multiple council members have changed previously stated positions that they were not going to support a lapras quickban, would any of them be interested in elaborating what has changed for them

My thoughts above should satisfy your query here. Last night I had a bout of mania, and as some people will know, I am not exactly a well person.

 

[juoean]

i didnt realize that after the two upcoming tournaments there would be (discussion or idk best word) about testing them.
i thought quickban meant they were banned and that was that, not being banned just for these two tournaments.

if there can be testing later on then thats fine / not a big deal at least

(ty for elaborating)

 

[Hipmonlee]

Just putting up some comments from a conversation I had the other day, because I think it makes it clear why I (personally) think that a lapras test is a complete waste of time.

[15:30] Hipmonlee:
imagine the scenario where one of us is wrapped
[15:31] Hipmonlee:
we both want to switch
[15:31] Hipmonlee:
how do either of us go to anything other than lapras
[15:31] Hipmonlee:

tent can only wrap, hypno is ok, dug ohkoed, kad takes way too much from slam, nite ohkoed, arti cant touch it, persian 2hkoed, kang 2hkoed, gyara 2hkoed, vap cant touch it, dodrio ohkoed, haunter is an option, venu 2hkoed, tang 2hkoed, ebuzz is an option, poliwrath, raichu

[...]

[15:32] Hipmonlee:
its just like, I am gonna double to lapras every time you switch
[15:32] Hipmonlee:
if I can
[15:32] Hipmonlee:
and so much of the tier just has to take the negative trade

Then on the idea of Lapras trading:

[15:48] Hipmonlee:

and do watch out because lapras crits a lot more than lax, and tbolt paras as well could really mess up some lapras v lapras fights
[15:50] Hipmonlee:

an outspeed crit KO after 1 tbolt means you have a 66% lapras still standing, that can survive 2 slashes

[15:52] Hipmonlee:
things like, lapras is out facing my nite, well I will switch in my own lapras to absorb the blizzard, nope, crit tbolt. It's game ending.​

​

I get that its procedurally nice to always test, but if no one can really make a plausible case that a pokemon will be viable, then what is the point? I invite anyone who thinks that Lapras may be balanced to try to defend the position, but I cannot see it.

Slowbro, well, it would certainly shake things up. Isnt Slowbro not due to drop for another year though?​

 

[juoean]

sure, ive expressed my positions abt lapras on discord several times but it is worth doing so here now that the lapras drop is official. (im not discussing slowbro bc i dont have any thoughts abt it atm, no other reason)

~ concerns about lapras’s power level and lack of switchins

the reality of uu right now is that every team lacks switchins to multiple mons. kangaskhan does not have general switchins except for itself, and even then a body slam crit on the switchin is hyper beam range (depending on the roll). for most teams, dodrio and persian dont have switchins, except for again maybe kangaskhan with some caveats & things that can go wrong. twave + wrap dragonite, as u noted during the apt suspect hip, basically doesnt have switchins (technically nidoking.) hypno does not have switchins, other than itself which risks hypnosis, and kadabra for those teams that run it but as ppl know i do not use kadabra much and i manage hypno just fine, bc it is slow and you dont need to be able to switch into it except for punishing rest.
quite a bit of uu play involves choosing when to switch in vs when to sac, what to sac, getting yourself in favorable positions like kangaskhan vs dugtrio or dodrio vs dugtrio where the opponent lacks good options due to these mons not having switchins. etc.

if you look at lapras vs kangaskhan, in the context of the rest of uu, honestly i dont think the power level is that different. obviously, lapras is much better due to its unmatched bulk on both sides but in terms of power level i really dont think its much above a lot of the offensive powerhouses around which the tier currently revolves

while lapras doesnt have general switchins, it does have switchins to its specific moves. haunter is immune to body slam (and kang can take bslam pretty freely also), electrics come into tbolt freely, and opposing lapras can come in on blizzard to neutralize momentum. not saying these are in general good switchins, except maybe magneton, but if u want to make a certain prediction you can, and makes lapras less of a button clicker than a mon like dodrio is.

~ concern about lapras’s bulk / defensive attributes

yes for sure this mon knocks some things out of the tier, particularly articuno. u can debate about whether vap still has a niche bc it can potentially rest loop or something but for the purposes of this convo ill assume that vap/gong/oma all drop out of the meta and gyarados becomes pretty niche at best. changes in viability can obv be expected with a major drop, these mons are already kind of struggling honestly, these changes dont bother me at all.

now lapras’s bulk in general. due to much better physical bulk and more resistances, lapras is undeniably a better rest user than hypno. however punishing hypno’s rest really isnt difficult at all, in fact dropping rest is arguably the new standard set and performed very well in the uu invitational to the point where the finals were played with hypnosis hypno banned due to how much hitting hypnosis first in hypno mirrors was affecting the outcome of games (which obv is competitively undesirable). in other words being a better rest user than hypno doesnt mean a mon is too bulky, in fact i think a better rest user in general would be good for the metagame as there is a fair amount of normal types clicking buttons right now.

here are some calcs when it comes to lapras’s bulk, this is intended to cover all the relevant mons outside of those listed above, roughly in viability order, lmk if i missed something.

hypno: psychic is almost always a 4hko, but resting against (healthy) hypno will ofc not work well over time due to special drops. (blizz is a roll to 3hko back)
tentacruel: clicks wrap, but a sleeping lapras can burn sleep vs tent effectively.
kadabra: psychic 4hkos, basically same as hypno except higher crit rate. (body slam 3hkos back)
persian: slash just barely fails to 3hko, but lapras cannot rest loop it long term due to slash slash crit tbolt 3hko. (lapras 2hkos back)
dugtrio: is a roll to 4hko (lapras ohkos back). this would presumably be a significant hit to dugtrio’s viability, lapras doesnt exactly rest loop consistently with the crit rate but it is basically a sufficient dugtrio check unless a team is extremely weak to dug otherwise. (ofc like gong lap takes the same damage from eq and rs)
kangaskhan: kos lapras with rs rs hbeam about half the time, not factoring either crits or accuracy. resting vs (healthy) kang is not realistic. (lapras 2hkos back)
dragonite: clicks wrap, obv punished with a ohko if wrap misses. same issue as tent, lapras can burn sleep turns against it.
dodrio: kos with bslam bslam hbeam about half the time ignoring crits, resting vs drio is not realistic. (lapras ofc ohkos back) being ohkod by lapras blizz and 2hkod by tbolt presumably is a hit to this mons viability, which i doubt anyone is concerned about bc dodrio is a kind of notorious button clicker in the current meta.
haunter and electrics: all of them 3hko lapras, except magneton which 2hkos. all of them are 3hkod back by blizzard, except electrode which is 2hkod almost half the time. haunter ofc switches freely into a body slam aimed eg at kadabra, while electrics switch very well into lapras tbolt tho that is enough to put all of them except for magneton in blizzard 2hko range.
venusaur/victreebel: 2hko with razor leaf, 2hkod back with blizzard.
aerodactyl: i wont even bother lol, this mon is almost certainly unviable with lapras present, its way too weak plus dugtrio is already worse.
pinsir: slash similarly fails to 3hko, but that can become a 3hko with bind, or slash followed by +2 hbeam kos about half the time. lapras cannot rest loop vs (healthy) pinsir.
moltres: 3hkos with fire blast (2hkoed back, by blizz only blizz into tbolt isnt enough)
ninetales: rarely 3hkos with fire blast, but could make it a 3hko with fspin or c-ray or use flame for extra pp, idk if this mon is rly worth mentioning even with most of the fire resists gone. ninetales is 3hkod back
gyarados: 3hkos with tbolt about half the time, is 2hkod back.
poliwrath: 3hkos with submission, lapras always 2hkos back factoring recoil.
golem: obv slower and ohkod by blizzard, just misses the 2hko on lapras with rock slide. ofc rock slide into boom kos.
clefable: speed ties, just misses the 3hko with tbolt, lapras’s blizzard also 3hkos.
(tangela: obviously unviable lol)
kabutops: similarly just misses 3hko with slash, lapras always 2hkos back with tbolt. swords dance, trying to crit bslam, and/or maybe submission are the options re lapras trying to rest loop against it.
edit: i realize i left out raticate, which 3hkos lapras with sfang bslam hbeam and therefore maybe has an actual niche compared to other physical attackers in a lapras metagame.
flareon has a decent 3hko chance on lapras w fblast alongside physical power, but physically frailer than ninetales even and slower than hypno lols but idk just mentioning it in case it is worth anything

so most things either 3hko lapras, or have other issues that make lapras just rest looping against them unreliable at best. while ‘on average’ most things are 2hkod back. so lapras will generally need some form of skilled play to use rest effectively, perhaps taking advantage of paralysis (spread by its own bslam or by teammates), or burning a sleep turn on wrap. this sounds to me is an at least potentially competitively healthy dynamic for rest, it becomes something u absolutely have to consider and if you allow lapras burn a sleep turn for free you will pay a significant ‘cost’ for that.
outside of rest, if for the most part other mons outspeed and 3hko it while being 2hkod back, that ‘on the whole’ makes it a trade mon. by the time lapras 2hkos it will be left in ko range of something else.
the fact that a lot of the calcs are rolls to 3hko, or eg needing a bind turn to 3hko, is something that i think itd need to be seen in practice to what extent that is a problem in terms of whether lapras is balanced in the tier.

~ what benefits i think lapras might bring to the metagame

lapras can provide an extremely valuable trade mon, with quite different attributes than hypno, but which nonetheless provides teams with a key defensive piece while also not being extremely passive like vaporeon is. lapras’s physical bulk frees hypno from being overburdened and in general helps to neutralize the physical offense that dominates the metagame right now. the synergy between them is also interesting, as if hypno paralyzes a physical attacker like kangaskhan, then lapras becomes a much bigger issue for kang; which therefore forces kang to be more careful about taking a twave from hypno. i think that is good for the metagame, compared to in the current meta where it often doesnt matter all that much at kang/drio taking hypno’s twave since they can power through it anyway.

lapras being able to fill so many defensive roles at once is in stark contrast to mons like dewgong and omastar, which maybe can fish a given matchup but dont even do so that well since they are passive while also bring liabilities for the rest of the team to cover other matchups. eg rn u can pretty much bring dodrio or articuno every game if u want to, there is no significant way to punish doing so bc their main ‘checks’ are so mediocre. when the defensive mons are not very good, this tends to incentivize everyone to bring as much offense as possible, and that is what we saw in the invitational, and from the top four finishers in particular.
(i havent watched most of uufpl yet tbc)

the offensive threat posed by lapras, in contrast, acts as an incentive against using a pokemon like dodrio is that threatened both by blizzard and tbolt, or dugtrio that is lacking quite a bit in damage output against lapras. and unlike with omastar u cant just switch into it np, obviously nothing switches into both blizzard and tbolt (other than technically kadabra but then kadabra recover will be punished by lapras’s bslam). introducing lapras into the metagame nerfs button clickers like dodrio, which im pretty sure most of the playerbase wants as well lol (ofc im speaking as someone who has very high dodrio usage, and particularly lead dodrio). being able to compress so much defensively into one slot leaves more remaining slot(s) available for things that might otherwise be difficult to fit, such as being able to run kadabra + haunter without creating a huge dugtrio weakness.
lapras also btw provides protection against tentacruels just clicking blizzard, maybe making surf often the better button to click in tent vs tent instead. lapras’s defensive typing also likely makes tent no longer mandatory, checking everything that tent checks (particularly cuno ofc) except for moltres, for those who have suggested that itd be a problem to have a third mandatory mon.

tbc it is certainly possible there could be some issues in a lapras metagame, maybe hypno + lapras is a defensive core turns out to be too difficult to break through. (intuitively i doubt it bc the meta is so absurdly offensive rn but can only tell by testing, more than like the 3-4 test games played months ago.) there could be some annoying matchup fishy stuff like people bringing golem to wall magneton, i wouldnt expect it to be worse than current mu fishers like haunter or electrode but its def imaginable. and im sure other things that i cant think of.

overall i dont think theres anything suggests lapras is broken, or that its effect on the metagame would be uncompetitive. if there is any indication in advance it is the opposite, that it can really bring back defensive play into the center of the metagame, and decrease the button clicking from threats like dodrio and articuno

 

[Hipmonlee]

Ok, I dont think rest is gonna be the primary option for lapras. You might run it to sneak your health back after playing the lapras war and being left with 3% health or something, but the problem isnt going to be lapras stalling.

The problem is going to be lapras attacking. Lapras hits so hard, and is so bulky, it just has way too much time for what it can do.

So for instance, when you say "haunter ofc switches freely into a body slam aimed eg at kadabra" in practice this is not true, because Lapras does more damage to Kad with blizzard than with Slam. Youre always gonna be at risk of catching a Blizzard.

Lapras has a lot of time against eg. Tent to click body slams (or even Blizzards) to catch smart alec electrics. And then, once you've managed to switch in an electric, you have to worry about a ground coming in, all the while knowing that Lapras can choose to stay in and trade blizzards for tbolts and not actually lose ground if it wants to. Switching Electrics into TBolts also puts them into Blizzard 2hko range.

I think Kangaskhan is a pretty nice example of the utter ridiculousness of Lapras. Because Kang can get a 3hko.. half the time.. if it carries rock slide.. but only with hyperbeam to finish. Whereas Lapras just has a clean 2hko with Blizzard. So trading in this scenario, if you predict correctly means Lapras survives with like 33%, and very few pokemon can do 33% to a Lapras. And switching into a rockslide is very easy if someone chooses not to play that out. And because Kang is only scraping by with enough damage, its hard for it to click anything else. Also, it's a little funny that a crit Kang slide on Lap does basically exactly the same damage as a natural Lapras Blizzard in return.

And then add to all of that the fact that Lapras can Sing. A move that you can just click against anything. And if it does hit a sing, now what are you switching to?

The issue at the moment is switching is too hard, which definitely is an issue. The issue with Lapras is that switching is even harder but it is also going to be absolutely necessary.

 

[juoean]

i dont see why switching against lapras is necessary, at least most of the time.
that was part of the point of going through all the mons as i did, that u can see that outside of the mons that are clicking wrap, the only ones that have a clear reason to switch out against lapras are dodrio and dugtrio (and they are worse in a lapras metagame for this reason). everything else outspeeds and (either 3hkos roll to 3hko or nearly 3hkos), while being 2hkod back, that is essentially a trade. in your kang vs lap example, a lapras that has taken a rock slide and hyper beam from kang (or a bslam and hyper beam really, rock slide is mainly necessary for breaking a rest loop, otherwise para is arguably more valuable) will be in range of nearly anything else. and sure that hyper beam is a ‘prediction’ but its not exactly easy to punish hyper beam in uu anyway.

i specifically said when i was talking about potential switchins to each attack that i was *not* suggesting that in general it was a good play to do so. it may often be high risk low reward. i was solely noting that it was an option, for players who like to make aggressive reads like that. in thst example, lapras ‘in general’ wants to click bslam vs kadabra for the para chance, to avoid special drops issue, and to save blizzard pp if kad starts clicking recover, but certainly it can click blizzard and ofc should every so often to not be too predictable.

it is very easy to run a team of six mons none of which have to switch against lapras. for example, persian kadabra haunter pinsir hypno lapras. with tent should u choose to run it, certainly a wrap miss against lapras gets punished, but like, its punished less than a miss against hypno. thats part of uu @ wrap misses getting punished.
basically anything viable other than dodrio or dugtrio, or maybe golem to whatever extent it exists ig, really should not be switching put against lapras vast majority of the time.

as for rest, rest lapras was ran in “all” of the test games that i saw. (blizz bolt bslam rest.) i dont know if i see the point of sing honestly, when u already 2hko most of the tier. i guess it could be like a midground if u arent sure if they will switch or not.
if u think rest isnt needed / worth it, the main fourth moves id think about in this moment would probably be hyper beam for extra damage on kadabra, eg kos after a bslam, or maybe ice beam for accuracy and to make sure u dont run out of pp.
in any case, i dont see how sing is a huge problem when the entire tier outspeeds it and generally has no reason to switch out against it. ur getting a 55% chance to sleep instead of just 2hkoing with damaging moves.

if anything, the best use of sing would probably be to enable lapras to be used as a hyper beam ‘punish’ taking advantage of the 100% accurate sleep on recharge and the fact that lapras is never ohkod by crit hyper beams due to its incredible bulk. which would add skill / competitiveness to the tier, not take way from it (hyper beam punishes being very rare in current uu, since dodrio crit hyper beam can ko any neutral target lol.)

 

[Hipmonlee]

So lap switches out of the Kang, because it just traded 24% damage for 55% damage, then it has a choice to trade 45 for 45 and a KO, or switch and try and trade 24 for 55 again. Just trading damage away from Lapras is worth it because of how crazy it is.

But also going back to your point, if lapras chooses to fight Kang 1v1 and doesnt try to predict the beam, depending on rolls its left with about 33% health. But that is not actually in KO range of nearly anything else at all. There's very little aside from grass/electric/stab hyperbeam that KO from there.

Also, fyi, you have to outspeed the recharge for the 100% accuracy thing to work. So it's not really ideal for Lapras in a tier without Snorlax. The reason you want Sing is for other Lapras.

You have a lot more faith in Bind than me if you think Pinsir doesnt have to switch out of Lapras. Pinsir, Persian are both 2hkoed and generally do not 3hko. Paralysed Kadabra usually only psychics Lapras once or twice before dying, unless Lap has hyperbeam, which makes things much worse.

 

[Fawfulmk-II]

Hello RBY UU enthusiasts! Big announcement here.

The 2022 RBY OU Viability Rankings have officially been posted! This affects RBY UU directly, as the cutoff for what is OU vs. what is UU is determined by these rankings. Specifically, everything that falls into the B-ranks and higher is considered OU, whereas everything beneath B-ranks is considered UU. And this time around, we have some big changes.

Slowbro, Lapras, and Victreebel have all fallen below the OU/UU cutoff line, and are considered UU as of the Viability Rankings Update. However, the RBY UU Council (kjdaas, May, Sevi 7, Shellnuts, Torchic, Unowndragon, and Volk) decided to hold quickban votes on these three Pokemon because of the potential huge meta shakeups. Here all the results:

Slowbro:
Ban: kjdaas, May, Sevi 7, Torchic, Unowndragon, Volk
No ban:
Abstain: Shellnuts

A simple majority is needed to ban, so since 6 out of 7 council members have voted to ban Slowbro, Slowbro will be quickbanned from RBY UU.

Lapras:
Ban: kjdaas, May, Sevi 7, Torchic, Unowndragon, Volk
No ban:
Abstain: Shellnuts

A simple majority is needed to ban, so since 6 out of 7 council members have voted to ban Lapras, Lapras will be quickbanned from RBY UU.

Victreebel:
Ban:
No ban: kjdaas, May, Sevi 7, Shellnuts Torchic, Unowndragon, Volk
Abstain:

A simple majority is needed to ban, so since 7 out of 7 council members have voted to not ban Victreebel, Victreebel will remain in RBY UU.

---

tl;dr Thought Slowbro and Lapras dropped, they are being quickbanned to UUBL. Victreebel, however, will remain UU.

View attachment 432271

EDIT: updated with Shellnuts' votes and a cute little graphic courtesy of May

All one really had to say was "STAB Amnesia Psychic" and I think that's all the justification needed for Bro to be Quickbanned from UU.

 

[juoean]

i dont think that eg trading a mon for 55% on lapras is something that is wildly different from like, how you play against hypno lol. tho it is a bit more predictable against lapras bc theres no twave and no special drops involved (im p sure those add up to quite a bit more rng variance than one freeze chance (its only one bc blizz 2hkos)

certainly doing the above in the other order is preferable for the player trying to remove lapras, eg trading pinsir/persian for ~60% on lapras (2 slashes, i wasnt rly considering bind outside of just getting a weakened lapras into range, tho perhaps bind is actually better than slash idk) which puts it in kangaskhan hbeam range.

but say in the order where kang vs lapras happens first, which certainly might happen sometimes obv u can get outplayed with positioning etc, 1 the idea that lapras could switch out of the kang hbeam to preserve its health for later, presumes having something to switch into kangs hbeam, which is hard to come by in uu as discussed / theres a significant ‘cost’ to that. 2 lapras just being out of range of ko after two hits is def something im concerned about, particularly if it is running rest but even if it isnt yes ofc that matters. i brought this up in 1v1 matchups at just missing on 3hkos but the same obviously goes for if two hits from the first mon doesnt put it in range of the second etc.
a wrap user can potentially make up that last 5% or whatever of damage, but certainly it isnt automatic. however i feel like this is clearly at the point where the mon needs to be tested if the concern about lapras being balanced becomes about a 5% of damage. also even if u cant get that 5% then probably you are losing 1.5 mons for the lapras? if thats the negative outcome for getting outplayed idk that that is unreasonable.
(and btw there are some mons that do 33% minimum or better beyond just stab hbeam, and electrics/grasses/haunt ~ theres also submission poliwrath, and moltres fire blast.)

ok oops nevermind at sing for hyperbeams then.
sure that makes sense u could sing in the lapras mirror, tbolt has a small-ish chance to 3hko so sing is prob mathematically advantageous. sounds like another hypnosis hypno problem. theres a reason why so many uu players have been pushing for the need to ban hypnosis hypno / ban sleep, sleeping hypno in the mirror has a ridiculous impact and in a lapras mirror the impact would probably be even worse (but realistically when u lose hypnosis hypno mirrors, you generally lose.) this would also apply to like nu clef imo.

this point about sing lapras mirrors is an issue with sleep, and particularly when the best mon in a tier has a sleep move, its not specific to lapras and is literally what much of the playerbase has been strongly asking for a suspect test of during the past month+ when game after game in the invitational final bracket games was decided by hypnosis hypno shenanigans. keeping lapras out of uu does nothing to resolve that issue.

 

[Plague von Karma]

i dont think that eg trading a mon for 55% on lapras is something that is wildly different from like, how you play against hypno lol. tho it is a bit more predictable against lapras bc theres no twave and no special drops involved (im p sure those add up to quite a bit more rng variance than one freeze chance (its only one bc blizz 2hkos)

certainly doing the above in the other order is preferable for the player trying to remove lapras, eg trading pinsir/persian for ~60% on lapras (2 slashes, i wasnt rly considering bind outside of just getting a weakened lapras into range, tho perhaps bind is actually better than slash idk) which puts it in kangaskhan hbeam range.

This makes me want it banned more than I'd want it in the tier. You say it's not too different than Hypno, and that's just...part of the problem. Do we want to stack that situation? I don't think we do, especially when many of the Pokemon you'd want to trade with Lapras are also Pokemon you want for Hypno. Right here, you're showing Lapras getting dangerously close to going two-for-one in the best of scenarios, a Pokemon should not be doing this consistently just by sitting there. Even OU Exeggutor requires some luck to get its two-for-one deal, even the strongest revenge killers are, well, revenge killers. None of the Pokemon you mentioned even switch into this, how are you getting here? By sacking something else? Is it going three-for-one?

 

[Hipmonlee]

presumes having something to switch into kangs hbeam, which is hard to come by in uu as discussed / theres a significant ‘cost’ to that.

Oh, that's one of the things about hyperbeam, because of the recharge turn, you can just pick where it lands. That hyperbeam is coming, and, so long as your target can KO the 45% Kang, then it doesnt matter which. So like, you can choose to take that damage on tenta and KO with Surf if you prefer, and this basically has no additional cost.

 

[juoean]

sure @ choose to take it on a different mon (but obv hbeam is more damage on tent bc tent doesnt have 130/85 phys bulk lol, and ur risking the crit).

no you arent close to having to give up two mons for lapras in the best scenario, u are giving up 1.5 mons for lapras in the *worst* scenario.
in the best scenario, ignoring magneton, you go 1 for 1 you trade it down with something and then finish it off as i described.

hypno by itself cannot hold off the offense that dominates uu right now. lapras would provide a second trade mon alongside hypno, most likely a bit better than hypno at trading overall but hard to say at this point.
i dont think a dominant trade mon is unhealthy, arguably a trade mon is the best kind of dominant mon to have. (ofc hypnosis is a separate issue lols). if there was no hypno, uu would be even more absurdly offensive than it already is. nothing is beating hypno 1v1 [other than hypnosis hypno], so u have to make decisions about how to distribute the damage that opposing hypno will do to put urself in the best position ‘afterward’. sort of like what hip just said about choosing where to take hbeam damage (if u think u can predict it correctly ofc) but in reverse. i mean we all play uu so im not rly sure what the uncertainty is here we all know how this aspect goes.

if ‘defense’ (obv this is a bit generalized / simplified) was holding up well in current uu, then yes id question what is the value of bringing in an even bulkier trade mon that forms a natural defensive core with hypno. but defense is not holding up very well rn, we all see how well offense is doing (aero and trode lol), hypno can only do so much its one mon.

i dont understand the ‘how are u getting there’ question, as i said above almost nothing viable has any real need to switch out against lapras, evthg 3hkos or nearly 3hkos while being 2hkod back, the exceptions being dug and dodrio. lapras is slower than the entire metagame, whatever it comes in against, u can trade with it.
as with other trade mons (hypno, or with nu clef) u often j have to trade with whatever u have out, or potentially with itself, thats how strong trade mons tend to be, thats why they are so good bc they can largely choose what they trade with.

theres two different questions here, one is another trade mon (good/bad/neutral or whatever wording) for the metagame, two is how do lapras and hypno compare as trade mons. lapras’s effectiveness as a trade mon is def more consistent, hypno does not have all those 2hkos; but hypno has twave and psychic drops, so it can do even better than lapras decently often. and ofc hypno lacks the special weaknesses, and hypno outspeeds lapras, and overall is favored 1v1. tbc id def expect lapras > hypno but idt the gap is very big.
if the concern were not that lapras is a lot better than hypno, but instead that having both trade mons is ‘too much’ in some way, then banning lap and keeping hypno would be arbitrary. (i dont think this is a concern but sounded like what u are saying.)

 

[phoopes]

Wanted to make a VR post as a snapshot for my post-UUSD experience/pre-something may be getting changed with Sleep suspect.

VR 8/25/22

Explanations

S: Tentacruel and Hypno, yadda yadda yadda

A+: I do think Kadabra is a clear-cut third... I use it on pretty much every team making for a "Big 3" of sorts with Tentacruel and Hypno. Of course you don't have to use Kadabra like you have to use the other two, but I think the vast majority of successful teams will be using Kadabra.

A: 4 and 5 were tough, as I feel like depending on the day Persian or Kangaskhan could take the number four spot. However, I do think I value Persian's Speed most of the time over Kangaskhan's physical bulk raw, non-crit power. Like I said though, it's super close. Articuno for me is the best Special Attacker in the tier and it's not even really that close. If you get an Agility up safely it's very hard to stop without an opposing Water-type. Dragonite, ironically, I think has gotten better since APT was banned lol (I think I had it ranked 8 last time and now I have it 7). We're not caught in the APT trappings anymore so it's nice to see it used in a more utility role while still being able to dish out damage.

A-: Call it "the juoean effect" but I'm sold on Dodrio now. It's a nice blend of Persian and Kangaskhan in a sense, though the reason why it's lower is that it can get stonewalled with the right counterpick. Dugtrio at 9 is probably a spicy take but honestly? I just don't think it's as good an option for a physical attacker as the normal-types. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have and can put in work but other than Earthquake, I feel like it doesn't hit too terribly hard. Call it a feeling but I think Dugtrio is probably as low as it will go at this point in the meta.

B+: I don't really care for Gyardaos all that much but it still has a spot in the metagame for sure. I feel like it's a weird mix of Kangaskhan (bulky physical attacker) and Articuno (bulky special attacker) without the added utility/good typing that Dragonite has, but it's still a decent option. Vaporeon is here because it's the most consistent answer to Articuno/some other stuff. If your team is paralyzed, Vap can be very tough to break through and can hit back decently hard.

B: The sleeper tier, basically. Despite the win rates in UUSD, I still have Vic over Venusaur for utility over bulk (humorously, I was the only person to bring Venusaur to UUSD and lose AND the only person to lose to an opposing Victreebel lol so maybe that has something to do with my opinion). Either way, I value these two Grasses over Haunter, who walls Persian pretty well but has to rely on Hypnosis for Sleep, which can easily come back to bite you. Also even though I run Explosion I rarely get a chance to use it so I think that isn't as much of a positive as people think.

B-: It was hard for me to differentiate this tier between B- and C+, but ultimately I go with B- and think these Pokemon are deserving of UU. Though I'm low on Dugtrio, Tangela is still the best answer to it. Though it is very passive and has the issue of all its good moves being 75% accurate lol. I'm a believer in Buzz as a counterpick/best Electric in the tier though really, it's not that great. Dewgong is usually a less good Vaporeon, but it does have its uses as being a better answer to Articuno, though Vaporeon can usually get the job done/cover more threats.

C+: Omastar got worse with the APT ban (less reason to use it as an anti-Wrap mon), so I think it's just a worse Dewgong now. It's fine but yeah. Electrode is definitely on the rise, but I don't think it's as good as Electabuzz because it gets walled by stuff much more easily (this despite its better win rate in a small sample size). I'm low on Dugtrio, so I'm low on Aerodactyl as well. It outspeeds Dugtrio but then like... what does it really do? I think we've kind of overrated Aerodactyl for awhile now. It does have some sweeping potential but it's difficult to set it up.

C: In the right circumstances, Golem is a great counterpick Pokemon. It's just hard to find the right circumstances. Then we have our NUBL friends in Poliwrath and Raichu. Poliwrath is like a jack-of-all trades, master of none. Sure, it has Hypnosis, and Amnesia, and can hit from both sides, but it doesn't do it all that well in UU. Raichu is the third-best Electric IMO, which is why it finds itself down here. Hard to find a reason to use it.

C-: We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of viability here. Clef is kind of decent, but when's the last time someone used Clef successfully in tournament? Charizard can be okay, but why wouldn't you use something else that has base 100+ speed. Pinsir can put in work, but it needs a lot of support/can get walled super easily.

D: One Super Fang isn't enough to really warrant using Raticate. Poor Moltres, I want it to be good but the meta is just not conducive to its success. Golduck is kind of just worse Poliwrath.

Maybe this will start another "VR season" for people to post haha. I hope it does!

 

[emma]

Post UUSD III VR

1. Tentacruel
2. Hypno

3. Kadabra

4. Persian
5. Kangaskhan
6. Articuno

7. Dugtrio
8. Dodrio

9. Gyarados
10. Dragonite

11 Venusaur
12. Haunter
13. Vaporeon
14. Electabuzz

1-2 - 100% usage
3 - 95% usage
4-10 - These are the Pokemon you should be using on a majority of your teams.
11-14 - These are the Pokemon you should be sprinkling in a few times over the course of a season depending on the opponent or to simply mix things up.
Everything else - These are Pokemon where you need a very strong reason to bring them based on your opponent's tendencies (i.e. to fish for a specific matchup). They should not be brought often, if at all, over the course of a season.

 

[AM]

S:
S-:
A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:

Everything else below is a fish (anything B and below truly but being realistic) or unviable/only should be used for counterteaming expecting a counterteam. Putting Persian in its own S- because it is 3rd best mon, Kadabra is good but gets overrated for something that needs to constantly be at full health to not be a liability to any team with a Persian (which is most good teams). It's better than everything else not A+ and up though.

Emma's is the objective one though, as in bring the top heavy and don't load dogshit and you'll be straight as much as RBY allows you to be. Thank you for reading - Sincerely, 2/6 in UUSD.

 

[Volk]

So, a few important announcements about RBY UU and its ever-changing landscape. Please read the whole post before replying.


Lapras has been unbanned from RBY UU. While different members of the Council had different opinions on how healthy Lapras would be in RBY UU, we largely agreed that allowing it into the tier, at least temporarily, is the best decision for allowing this tier to develop and honoring our tiering goals. The RBY UU Rotational Ladder will return once again in December 2022 and Lapras will be legal. Likewise, the accompanying Spotlight Tournament will also feature a legal Lapras. This is about as good of an environment as we could ask for, so be sure to check it out if you are interested.

Anyway, let me try to answer some questions you may have:

Who made this decision?
This decision was made by the RBY UU Council, consisting of myself, Shellnuts, Torchic, Unowndragon, and kjdaas. We've had different members at different times, but this has been the Council for a while and it will likely stay this way for a while. Thank you to previous members for your contributions.

What about Victreebel and Slowbro?
Well, in case you forgot, Victreebel has actually been legal in RBY UU, and you might find some more use for it with Lapras around. Slowbro, despite some controversies around the VR, was ultimately claimed by RBY OU. It was not within our power to vote on it being in RBY UU. While we perhaps could have fought to get Slowbro into UU, I don't think we would have won and I don't think anyone wanted it in UU anyway.

How exactly will this unban work?
The short answer right now is... I don't know. The Council hasn't really decided how we will suspect Lapras (who will vote, when, etc.). In fact, we might not even hold a suspect test. As with any live tier, not all drops are entitled to a suspect test (see Victreebel). If Lapras seems unhealthy, we might just ban it. If it doesn't, we might just keep it. If the community is split, we will vote. This is something new to all us, so we'll probably just need to figure it out as we go along. Basically though, if you like Lapras or hate Lapras, let us know so the Council can make a good decision.

When is the next RBY UU Viability Ranking coming out?
This remains to be a big point of contention. Considering that the Sleep and APT Suspect Tests were both pretty recent, the meta hasn't really settled yet and most players who would likely be eligible to vote haven't even played a single game of the modern meta yet. And Lapras being freed throws yet another huge wrench into the whole process. As such, it seems like we will be delaying the VR again. However, the existing VR is noticeably poor, so I understand the urgency to replace it. Personally, I'm considering making an interim VR just to fix this. I'm using the word "interim" because I'd like to leave the decision of whether or not it "counts" up to NU. Because such a VR would probably be pretty bad, I wouldn't want it to affect tiering. However, if NU likes what it sees, I don't see a reason to stop it. Hopefully we can aim for some kind of new VR within the next six months.

Summary if you didn't feel like reading:
The RBY UU Council has unbanned Lapras from RBY UU and you can use it on the ladder and in tournament starting December 1st. How its future will be handled is yet to be decided. Please stop asking me about the VR — I know it sucks — I'm trying my best.

Cheers!

 

[Sevi 7]

Coming out of the woodwork here to give my VR for the current Lapras infused meta. Been playing a lot of UU this month, and even with a week and a half of being too busy to play, I still feel like I got a lot of play time in and my ideas for the meta and the state of game have evolved through that time.

I think in the end of it all, I really only got two solid teams that I would feel comfortable taking to any tournament game.

Sample Teams

https://pokepast.es/69b57b0ac30610e3
https://pokepast.es/429537dab6f4a9a0

I feel disappointed since I did play test so many different sets and mons, but it is what it is. As you can see both teams are similar mon wise, but they do play very differently, with one being more balanced/bulky offense, and the other being offense. I actually do have a third team that I really like but that team is from May and I don't know if she wants to keep the team secret or not. If you haven't played the meta yet, these two teams should give you the tools to take on all comers and give you a chance at winning any game. Also I do like the Nite + Buzz team better persononally so maybe start with that one.

Anyways, on to the VR. Things are kind of ordered, but it's not that hard of an ordering.

S

Lapras
So it should be no surprise to Lapras here. It was obvious to everyone that this thing was going to dominate in this meta. I'm glad to say that it doesn't have Sing, but this thing is still a meta and game warping beast. Lapras thanos snapped the meta, and now half of the mons are gone. I know in the HBeam spray and pray strat people were going for, mons like Omastar and Tangela weren't used as much. But I honestly was having success with them personally, in the non-tournament games i was playing, and I'm sad to see them go. I can go on about this but that isn't for VR discussion.
I'm making Lapras the number one mon after a lot of thought, because I feel like it's the hardest of the 3 to drop (although you certainly can win without it, I and others definitely have), and i feel like what happens to Lapras and what health percentage or status Lapras has affects the game state and how you need to play more than any other mon in the tier. I feel like losing Hypno and Tent to hax isn't as detrimental as losing Lapras to hax in all honesty. And although I don't think losing Lapras is an instant loss or anything, I definitly feel like you're playing a more uphill battle than if you lost anything else in the tier.
Also as a side note about Lapras. It's 4th moveslot didn't seem that importat at first, but I do feel like it's actually a big choice. Rest helps beat Tent and makes Lap a good check to non-SD variants. Confuse Ray is dumb luck, but I've seen that dumb luck work too many times. Lapras being bulky really comes in handy as there's more opportunities for it to benefit from confusion than Haunter. Hyper Beam can work in mirrors or come in clutch when you need just a little extra power vs something like Tent, Kadabra or Buzz.


Hypno
Making Hypno second is something I standby, even though so many people just throw away their Hypno now. Counter has become the norm, and I don't disagree with it as a good option, I think you need to really think of Rest as a solid choice still, because Rest Hypno is still one of the best phys checks and the best psychic check. After Hypnosis was banned, I came up with a new Hypno set of

Counter Rest Hypno

Hypno
Ability: No Ability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
IVs: 2 Atk
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss
- Counter
- Rest

and I'm happy to say that the set has not gone to waste. Psychic-less Hypno was something that only I was running for a while there, but I do think it's good. Psychic-less Hypno is really good at checking and beating other psychics to the point where you Hypno can check both Hypno and Kad in a game and you can focus your other moveslots else where. The only problem is that mons like Dugtrio and Dodrio, who don't really rely on normal moves to attack are pretty hard to deal with. So you still probably want another dedicated physical check if you're going balanced, or another fast mon if you're going offense.
Anyways, Hypno is a great check and the spamming of counter has made Kang click EQ more and has made Persian more likely to stay in and Thunderbolt Hypno, so regardless of your set, it's still a great defensive pivot whose presence makes your opponent have to make hard choices. All in all it's still a solid mon and near mandatory for teams, and I really feel like it's number 2.


Tentacruel
Now we have the third best mon in the tier. Lapras has truly taken Tent down a peg or two. Tent is more easy to drop than ever and really it's not nearly as threatening offensively. Rest and HBeam Tent have problems beating Lap, and so I feel like SD Tent is better than ever. But not being able to Rest off paralysis is a huge blow for Tent and makes it more susceptible to hax. All in all, I think Tent is still solid and is still doing the great things it does, but it has a hard time with Lap, who can Rest off the Wrap damage, paralyze with BSlam and hit super effectively with TBolt, while Tent doesn't have a good move to hit Lap back with. Also I feel like Buzz is the best its been in years, and that certainly doesn't make things easier for the man-o-war.

A+

Kadabra
Still the 4th best mon, and if there's a big 4, Kad is it's last member. Nothing has really changed for Kad honestly. On one hand Hypno runs less Rest so Kad is better at beating it. But on the other hand, there's a big bulky water with a high special stat and BSlam, and Tent isn't nearly as good or important anymore. So, i think the mix bag kinda keeps it at the same place it was before. A good flexible mon (depsite only having one good moveset) that can round off the main core and act as a support mon to the other S mons, while not being good enough to be an S Rank itself.
Also on a side note, Counter Kadabra definitely came in clutch for me and really helped me out, so consider running Counter > SToss sometimes.


Persian
Some of you are going to think of course Persian belongs here as the best physical attacker, but honestly this is a big decision for me. Up until Lap's unban, I stubbornly believed that Dug was better than Persian, and that neither were A+ Ranked Pokemon. Some of you will disagree, but that doesn't matter now. Persian steals games the way that Dug used to, while also having a solid game play overall. Fast and hard hitting, Persian has cemented itself as the best physical attacker in a tier where Lapras is so important.

A

Kangaskhan
Despite Lapras being a good check to Kang, this mon is still great. A crit or paralysis from Kangaskhan is devastating, and honeslty just getting in Kang at opportune times and clicking BSlam or HBeam and praying is just as good of a strat as it used to be. I don't like Persian + Kang as much as i used to, but throw in something that checks Lap well (like Buzz or Vic), and you have yourself a solid team. Lap makes it harder to punish reckless HBeam spamming, so go hog wild with Kang and win some games while having fun.


Electabuzz
Now I've been Buzz's biggest fan for years now, so this may seem like bias on my end, but I really do feel like Buzz is the best non-psychic special attacking fast mon. STAB TBolt has so much utility, and Dug isn't so scary, so I think this may be the best meta I've seen for Buzz in the last 5 years. Body Slam, Psychic and Mega Kick all have good utility for Buzz, and SToss isn't really needed anymore. So Buzz can focus on it's damage and paralysis spreading while being to take on two of the strongest mons that are going to be in most games. If you feel like Buzz is A- or there should be other mons before it, I understand, but Buzz is definitly not a B Rank mon in this meta, and you should be using it if you haven't already.

A-


Dugtrio
How the mighty have fallen. Dugtrio went from "UU's Tauros" to this. Dug feels like it's relying on it's crit rate no more than ever. Smart players are saving their Lapras until the endgame, where Dug should be at it's scariest, and making Dug into a joke. Also losing Tent isn't as devasating anymore, and thus STAB EQ isn't the power move it used to be. That being said, Dugtrio definitely isn't the powerhouse it used to be, but you still have to worry about it, and sometimes it's good to run Nite just to check Dug, because a team without enough answers to it, will lose to it. Which is why it's still an A mon.
Also if you want to have some fun Sub + Sand Attack can come in clutch. I won a game using that combo vs a late game Lapras and I think it has potential for the right team. (However, I never found that team in the half a dozen games I used that SA Dug, it only won me a game once and I only used SA one more time after that)


Dragonite
Another mighty mon falling. Nite is still great at being a Dug check, checking physcial attackers, spreading paralysis, and wrapping slow mons. But it doesn't do it as well as before, and it has to content with 3 mons beiing able to check it pretty well. All 3 S mons can damper Nite, and make it's life harder, while Nite relies on Wrap to beat 2 of them. Nite is still good, don't get me wrong, but Lap's introduction has made Nite less threatening more specialized.
As for techs, Rest Nite is good, definitely consider using it on balanced teams. Blizzard is still good at hitting Dug and other Nites, so I think it still has a lot of merrit But Agility is not something I liked and i couldn't make good use of it. If someone else has better results with it please share.

B+


Dodrio
Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, Dodrio is once again at the top of B. Having solid physical attack and a decent speed and movepool, Dodrio will always have some utility it seems. I think Dodrio is struggling a lot nowadays compared to before though, and I'm actually hesitant to put it so high. It's better in the early game, usually as a lead, when the opponent's doesn't know what they should be conserving or what offense mon they need, but at the same time it's easier to throw away Hypno and Tent, and so the trade isn't as good as it was before. Getting good damage vs Lap can be good, but I feel like Kang does the job better, and smart players aren't throwing Lap in vs Dodrio in the early game anyways. I think this makes Dodrio's niche best on teams that want to soften up as many physcial checks as possible, usually with something like Kang, in my experience.
Also I don't like back Dodrio much anymore. I tried to make it work on a variety of offense teams and was disappointed by it more times than I was impressed, but maybe there's something I'm overlooking. So let me know if you have a good team with back Dodrio.

B


Haunter
Haunter is interesting. Persian being so good, gives Haunter a good niche, but Persian isn't quite used enough to warrant a Persian counter necessary. Haunter has good utility with Thunderbolt, but it being non-STAB leads to it being more of clean-up mon/revenge killer. CRay has more utility than before, and using CRay on both Haunter and Lap can actually be surprisingly good/annoying, but I've also had it fall completely flat on it's face just as much. I think Haunter is still meta and still good, but it's not really all that solid and it needs to be used to help a strategy out rather than have a strategy be based around it.

B-


Victreebel
Once again a shoutout to May for leading me to this mon's true potential in this meta. If you're using Wrap with Victreebel right now, stop. SD HBeam Vic is the way to go. Switch in at opportune times (like vs a Tbolt) and go hamfist clean up the opponent with Razor Leaf/HBeam or spread paralysis with Stun Spore. When the time is right, click SD instead and watch what the attack stat can really do. Victreebel is a really cool Pokemon still and I think it is 100% better than Venusaur, and as of right now, is good enough to be consider part of the proper UU meta.

C+


Raichu
Controversial opinion here maybe, but I think you should be using Raichu > Buzz more. Surf is great utility for offense teams and you don't even have to actually run it for your opponent to be scared of it. Body Slam, HBeam and Sub all have some cool utility, but Agility still works too. 100 Base Speed is enough and if you haven't considered running Raichu, this is your wake up call, because I think there are a lot of teams on the ladder that would have been better with Raichu on them. That being said, I don't think the meta is big enough for Chu and Buzz, and so I'm putting Chu in C+

C-


Moltres
I think Molt is better than Art now. Molt does a bit better offensively, but it's not really adding anything to your team defensively, and if Fire Blast doesn't cooperate and doesn't burn/crit, then Molt isn't going to be worth the moveslot. If you're a fan of Molt I think this is the best it's been in UU, so get your fill, but I still don't think it's good enough to be meta, and I do think that there's a lot of times you're going to wish you had something else sitting there on your team.


Articuno
Articuno is something I kept going back and forth on, and at last I realized that it's not that good. I keep saying this, but smart players will hold their Lap's back, which makes Articuno a worse and worse mon, as Lap is to Art as Don is to Zap in OU. Sky Attack helps the situation somewhat, but Rest Lap can shake off the damage later, and it;s not hard to get off the inital Rest. So, if you don't get the Sky Attack crit right away, Lap is going to eat your attacks a ware you down fast. Wish I could like this things more, but I've had my heart broken by it one too many times.

I'm going to stop here for now, because for one, I'm out of time, and for two, I think this is a good representation of the meta. I think there's a lot more viable mons out there and I'll get to them in a follow-up post, hopefully soon, maybe even this week, but if you're curious about the meta so far (or at least how I see it), then here's your insight. There's still a few more days left of the December ladder, and it's actually very active. Even today I'm finding games from 6 AM to 1AM and every other time in between when I get a few minutes to get a game or two in. So, give a shot while it's still here. Even though I like the meta better without Lap, and I still hope to see it banned, I think it's something you should experience for yourself while you have the chance.

Anyways, fingers crossed for my part 2 where I go over the weird and interesting mons I tried out including Magmar, Porygon, and Hitmonchan

Spoiler Alert

Bring a trash can, becasue I definitely wasted my time with some garbage mons.

 

[Sevi 7]

Well not that anyone really cares, here's my experience with the trashier side of things.

C+

Raichu
Gonna copy and paste from my previous post, but just add that Raichu is the best non-meta Pokemon, and that it would 100% be UU if something happens to Buzz. The slight advantages that Buzz has makes it the better pick most of the time, but Raichu is extremely solid and is probably around A- without Buzz.
Controversial opinion here maybe, but I think you should be using Raichu > Buzz more. Surf is great utility for offense teams and you don't even have to actually run it for your opponent to be scared of it. Body Slam, HBeam and Sub all have some cool utility, but Agility still works too. 100 Base Speed is enough and if you haven't considered running Raichu, this is your wake up call, because I think there are a lot of teams on the ladder that would have been better with Raichu on them. That being said, I don't think the meta is big enough for Chu and Buzz, and so I'm putting Chu in C+.


Clefable
In my testing, Clef was really good. Better than before. Having Lap as back-up and having a lot of people throw away their Hypnos has allowed Clef to flourish. I know some people really really liked Clef, but I thought it was getting a bit overhyped. I think Lap was the partner that Clef needed though, and the two work really well together. One thing to note though is that I like Clef outside of the lead more. I felt underwhelmed by what my lead Clef was putting out, and at best I felt like I was playing 5v5, but depending on how luck and movests went, I would somettimes start the game off with 5v6 and be down from the early game.

C

Electrode
Everyone knows what Electrode does, because it only does one thing. But it does it pretty well. Trode is good as a late game sweeper, and I think using it on double or maybe triple electric teams is the best thing for it. It's great when you already weakened the opposing team, and Electric-checks are gone or weakened. But Electrode doesn't do a good job at gaining back momentum itself. It already needs the ball to be rolling cue drum kit), and that's why I think it's always going to be inferior to Buzz and Chu and why even if they didn't exist, Trode still wouldn't be an A mon.

C-

Mr. Mime
When ladder first started, I saw a lot of Mr.Mime for whatever reason. I guess TBolt + Psychic really made people like it. At first, I didn't play against it well, and I thought this was going to be a lot more viable than before. However, as time moved on and I found myself and my opponents knowing how to handle it better, and it became more about fishing for matchups where triple psychic is good rather than having a solid third psychic mon. That being said, I did try Mr.Mime > Kadabra, and I feel like although Kadabra is better most of the time, the slightly better physical bulk (and thus a better counter mon), and TBolt do come into play. I would seriously consider Mr.Mime in the future if you haven't already.


Poliwrath
I seriously don't know how good Poli can be in this meta, because it has too many options and I couldn't thoroughly test it enough. I feel like Amnesia Poli is actually decently viable, but there's also 3 phys attack sets, anti-phys mon sets, Rest sets, and mixed attacker sets. Poli has a plethora of options to play with and figuring out what is or isn't good is going to take some time. Wrath may end up higher or lower than this, but for now I'm keeping it low until it can prove itself.


Moltres
Copying Moltres from before.
I think Molt is better than Art now. Molt does a bit better offensively, but it's not really adding anything to your team defensively, and if Fire Blast doesn't cooperate and doesn't burn/crit, then Molt isn't going to be worth the moveslot. If you're a fan of Molt I think this is the best it's been in UU, so get your fill, but I still don't think it's good enough to be meta, and I do think that there's a lot of times you're going to wish you had something else sitting there on your team.


Raticate
This mon is either good or mid and nothing inbetween. There were games where I was so relieved that my opponent had Rat and not something better and games where I was so upset I had Rat and not a different normal mon. Super Fang used to be cool to help break bulky waters like Vap and Oma, or even Hypno, but for whatever reason, it's just not that consistently good vs Lap. Super Fang just doesn't have the same bite it did without Lap. After sleep got banned, I was worried a bit about Rat, as I was trying to make more use of it after APT was banned, and something like Hypnosis Hypno was an amazing partner for it. But it seems like I didn't worry about the right things, because Rat is even worse than that now.
All that said, Rat does work when it works. Super Fang can be great for hit and run tactics on offense teams and forcing your opponent into mind games as you set-up a sweep with Rat can work out and be a lot of fun. So, all in all, I wouldn't use Rat consistently but every once in a while, if you can find a super solid team for it, Rat could work even in a serious game.


Articuno
Copying Articuno from before.
Articuno is something I kept going back and forth on, and at last I realized that it's not that good. I keep saying this, but smart players will hold their Lap's back, which makes Articuno a worse and worse mon, as Lap is to Art as Don is to Zap in OU. Sky Attack helps the situation somewhat, but Rest Lap can shake off the damage later, and it;s not hard to get off the inital Rest. So, if you don't get the Sky Attack crit right away, Lap is going to eat your attacks a ware you down fast. Wish I could like this things more, but I've had my heart broken by it one too many times.


Golem
STAB QuakeSlide is great, and spamming Golem's moves against a paralyzed team hasn't felt this good in years. But getting there is really hard. So you're not going to consistently use it for its offensive power. Meanwhile less Rest Hypno makes Golem's early game Explosion stuff less viable. So, really you end up using Golem for it's defense. However, what can and can't take on Golem on an opponent's team takes a lot of scouting. If your opponent has BB Persian, but successfully hides it, Golem is going to fall flat on its face, for example. Golem is definitely matchup fishing right now, which is sad because it has so much offensive power. But until Golem finds a niche, that's really all its ever been good for.

D+

Golduck
After having a little success with Amnesia Poli, I decided to give Golduck a go, and it's not too bad. You need a lot of set-up and/or support, but it can come out late game and sweep. It's better than before imo, but it does take some effort to set-up and something like SD Tent has some similar strats and probably better results overall. However, if you want your Tent elsewhere, or don't want to use Tent at all, Golduck can work as a late game sweeper.

D

Venusaur
Venu is so down low less because of it lack of power, but more because of its lack of niche. The comparison to Vic will probably always be there, but I think that Venu is the inferior mon. They're both SD mons now (or at least that's the only way I could see Venu working out), but a lack of stun spore and weaker attack stat hold back Venu a lot. BSlam is cool because it damages and paralyzes and I wish Vic could somehow run 5 moves for it, but not being able to paralyze mons like Persian, is a bigger set-back than one may first imagine. On a positive note for Venu, it does a lot of damage to Lap with Razor Leaf and can tank more damage vs mons like Persian or Kang, so if you really like Venu, you can still use it. But I don't think the meta has enough room for both Razor Leafers, and I found myself liking Vic much better than Venu.


Blastoise
Cool mon with a cool moveset, and is probably the third best bulky water overall. EQ and Counter is done better by Poli imo, but Blast can work with it too, and you won't have a psychic/dodrio weakness. There's not much reason to use this guy, but it can hold it's own when it comes in.

D-

Gyarados
As much as I love Gyara, Lap has just completely outclassed it. Flying-typing was always both a gift and a curse, but now it definitely feels more curse than gift. I found some success with putting Gyara in the lead slot, but it's just such a mid mon now. Not completely unviable, but it really isn't doing anything against a competent opponent who knows how to hold onto their resources well. If you want to use Gyara, play with the moveset. Fire Blast feels like it can be more viable than before, and that may be the secret to making Gyara work outside of the lead slot, but it's something I've barely touched, and is mostly theorymon.


Charizard
It's a cool offensive mon, and has a good moveset, but defensively it's almost unviable. Switching it in usually involves Wrap or double switching, and missing with a fire attack being crit by a faster opponent is game over for Zard. SD might have some niche when used against a slower opponent, but I only managed to click it one time when I was using Zard, and Fire Spin seems to be the way to go.


Sandslash
I'll be honest, I mostly played against this thing, and barely touched it myself, and a lot of my experience was from one user who spammed it a lot. They used like 3 different Sandslash teams, and kept changing alts, so I don't know who they are, but shout out to you for playing Sandslash for at least 2 weeks straight. I admire that dedication.
Anyways, my point is that Sandslah may be a lot higher, and I just don't realize it. Slash is ok on double ground teams. It also does ok as a Sub + EQ + Slash hit and runner (which is the set I used with it), and an ok SD user (which I saw a lot of others use it for). It honestly probably has more potential than what I'm giving it credit for here, but I really just need to play with this thing more to find out.


Kingler
It's got a good physcial bulk which allows it to come in on physcial attacks or even resist Wrap. SD to set-up its massive attack stat and Water-type Razor Leaf. All of this sounds good in theory, but it's hard to make it work. Especially with such a bad Special stat and Speed. I played 4 games with this thing. 2 games with SD and 2 with Rest, and although obviously 4 games isn't enough to say anything conclusive about Kingler, I think both sets have potential and I encourage you to try them out.


Tangela
This thing is great for punishing the physcial mons (except Dodrio), but is terrible vs Special mons. Stun Spore + a solid defense and resistence to EQ all help make it good in some matchup, but in others you're playing 5 v 6. I still liked Tangela before Lap came in, but it's a matchup fisher now, unfortunately.


Aerodactyl
Rock-typing and a great speed stat help Aero do something sometimes, but that Flying-typing is just too much of a weakness. Ice, Electric, and Rock-type attacks are all in the meta, and are all stopping Aero from doing anything defensively. This leads Aero to hit and run tactics where it relies on it's high crit rate, but I feel like Electrode does the same thing but better. Aero isn't playing 5v6 though.

E

Omastar
If your opponent throws away their Lap, then this thing isn't terrible. I noticed people were more happy to trade Lap when they have Art in the back, and so when their Lap dies and my Omastar comes out, it puts them in a tough spot. However, that's the ultimate matchup fish and I only bring it up, because one time I got extremely lucky with Omastar and got an Articuno matchup for it 3 times in a row. Anyways, Rock-typing helps Omastar and it can do the same stuff it before, but really this thing isn't good, and I can't recommend it.


Kabutops
I didn't really play with this thing enough to say how good or bad it truly is, but I found myself liking Omastar more. Tops' better offense is negated by its worse Special. But it doesn't seem like a trash mon, so let me know what you think of it, if you gave it a better try than I did.

Trashmons
Don't waste your time with these things like I did. Learn from my mistakes.


Nidoking
I used to love Nidoking. It only worked on double ground offense, but it worked really well for that strat, and for like 2 months I brought Nidoking to every Bo3 I played. Now, double ground is terrible, and the mons that Nidoking wants to fight aren't that prominent anymore. It has no niche and there's no reason to use it over something else.


Nidoqueen
Haven't tried this myself, but I can't see it doing any better. The slightly higher defense may make a difference though, and it may be able to take advantage of counter and play more like what it does in OU.


Abra
I played two or three games with this before I lost my sanity. It's like playing 5.1 vs 6.


Exeggcute
Is so-so vs Kad and Hypno, and can spread some para, but Clef is better than it in almost everyway. Don't bother.


Dewgong
I played 1 game with this thing and then I deleted the team. You have Lap, and Dewgong + Lap is not good. In fact, Lap just uses it as a way to heal itself with Rest.


Seaking
I had to try it at least once. And I tried it twice with two different sets, and I never touched it again. You shouldn't either.


Machamp
I actually thought this thing had a bit of a chance. It's got ok bulk and a decent movepool. But defensively it's too bad and too slow to really be good offensively.


Hitmonlee
In UU at least, this is the worst FE Fighting mon. It's too slow to sweep,too fragile to take a hit, and too weak to really take advantage of High Jump Kick. I literally had more success with Hitmonchan. Don't even humor this thing.


Hitmonchan
Not a good mon, but Agility gives it something to do. In about the half a dozen games I played with it, I managed to do something with it 2 and a half times. I say half, because one of those times it switched into HBeam, used Counter and then died the next turn. Even off of Hitmonchan's bad attack stat, STAB Submission is ok vs Ice and Normal types. But good luck getting off those attacks. Hitmonchan can set-up Agility and then pray that it gets to actually hit the opponent with Submission. But I don't think I'm praying hard enough, because I only hit Submission one time after setting-up Agility, the three times I did. This mon kinda sounds cool in theory (and doing something hitmonchan is some bragging rights). But this thing is just terrible overall.


Porygon
Using Pory to set-up paralysis and come in on weak BSlam's sounded nice in my head, but in practice it's terrible. Pory needs a lot of para support, and then when it does come in vs what you want it to, it either dies to crits or it just sits there and does nothing. There's no Lax don't try and make it work here.


Venomoth
I just played 1 or 2 games with this thing, but it did absolutely nothing both games, and it made me realize how much it misses Sleep Powder. Maybe trashmon is too much, but it's definitely not as viable as before, and it wasn't really viable to begin with.


Magmar
Why did I waste 3 days on this thing!? I originally started using this thing as a meme triple confuse ray team with CRay Lap and Haunter. But then I really liked the idea of using Magmar. So I started play testing this thing for 3 days straight. The only good thing to come out of it was it made me realize how much better Zard and Molt are. Defensively this thing is terble. It's not as bad as Zard, since it's mono-Fire, but it's not switching into anything really. Despite deleting probably a hundred teams this month, I for some reason decided to keep this terrible one, so if you really hate yourself, you can play the worst FE Fire-type too. Use it to trade with Lap I guess. That and the occasional Counter kill are the only things its capable of doing.

Magmar

https://pokepast.es/5fc823dfeee9c7a8

There's other stuff I wanted to test but I never got around to it. These are all mons that I was wanting to playtest a lot more in the back of my head, but I never go around to it.

Rapidash
Played 2 games with it and it did ok, but i hated the team, and never made a new one for it. Probably a trashmon, but it still interests me.


Primeape
Played 1 game with it and it seems to have more potential than Machamp. but I was completely done with Fighting-types by the time I got to it and after that one game I deleted the team and stopped playing with them for the rest of the month.


Pinsir
I can't remember touching it at all, but I thought I made a team for it. So maybe I played it, didn't like the team and deleted, and forgot. I don't know, but I can't have an opinion on it either way.


Vaporeon
I played a game or two and switched it to Oma, had better results and stuck with Oma for that team. I don't think it's that good, but who knows.


Arbok
Didn't play it but it's always interesting in theory.


Fearow
Tried to build a team with it once. didn't actually play it and deleted the team later after looking at it again and not liking it.

Anyways, thanks for giving me your time and attention. I got pretty luck with this month not being too busy for me to work, so I can play test a lot. I noticed a lot of people switching around on different alts and playing the same teams but with different usernames, game after game. I did the same thing, so if we played each other but didn't realize it, thanks for the games, I had a lot of fun. This is the most active RoA monthly ladder I have ever seen by FAR. I managed to get in about 10-20 games a day, even yesterday, when the ladders are usually dead by now. This community is crazy, so thank you so much for allowing me to play so much in so little time. There's no other tier I could have done this with.
But at the same time I wasted way too much time on mons this month. I would theorymon in my head at work, make notes of teams and then go home or during a break and playtest them. I shouldn't be prioritizing mons over work and doing things like writing down team ideas Instead of taking notes during meetings. So, I'm glad I got one great burst of content this month, but that's it for a while.

I still hope that Lap gets banned, as I still like the meta better without it. But I'm barely here now anyways, so if people really like this more for real solid reason, then have fun with it.

 

[juoean]

spotlight finals still upcoming but figured id comment here for now & with uu circuit tourn signups opening soon
(very rough/prelim vr)


1-2 hypno and lapras

clear two top mons in the tier imo and idt theres any reason to ever drop them. neither really has weaknesses, they have at minimum equal matchups vs pretty much anything. hypno is more volatile, one fp or special drop might let it take out an extra half mon while on the flip side it has mediocre physical bulk so a crit or paraslam can rly hurt it. lapras is more consistent, the freeze chance doesnt compare to twave psychic "hax" probabilities and it is also less vulnerable to crits eg surviving drio crit hbeam. lapras also depends more on clicking the right moves while hypno can just click buttons. "on average", both mons prob do a little better than 1 for 1.

3 persian 4 kang 5 dnite 6-7 kad tent

i can see a lot of different rank orders between these mons but they are all a clear step above anything lower, while none of them are clearly mandatory. kang and persian were #2-#3 mons pre lapras, and while i thought kang was maybe dropping off a bit at first i think they are still the next two best mons in the tier. with lapras basically taking cuno's spot in the top nine, i have flipped the order as cuno was persian's biggest liability (post sleep ban) while kang didnt mind cuno at all bc of rock slide, compared to now their matchups against lapras are on the whole pretty similar; but kang > persian is still valid for sure. dragonite is way better with articuno mostly gone, it can sometimes be a massive offensive threat esp against tentless with many of the mons that outspeed it relying on paraslamming it, and either way always providing a good bulky mon to gain momentum against threats like persian. (also unlike tent it does a lot of damage with each wrap, so pp stalling means huge taking big damage across your team.) u can see eg my round 1 set vs melanie or my round 4 game 2 vs volk of how dangerous dnite can be sometimes.

kadabra and tentacruel have generally similar roles to pre-lapras, being the fastest special attackers and in particular revenge killing kangaskhan from good ranges. u pretty much always want at least one of them, running both is possible but leaves you noticeably weaker to persian and dug. if you are picking one of them, dropping tent no longer leaves a massive articuno weakness so it is a much more serious consideration ~ tho u still have to consider moltres. kadabra obv has a great tent 1v1 and can switch into its surf/blizz, while tentacruel is by far the best dragonite revenge killer, and isnt anywhere near as phys frail actually being favored vs kang 1v1; maybe kad is more preferred on dnite teams and otherwise tent, but overall honestly i think its kind of more a style preference generally whichever one u choose the team can work fine just adjust how you play it.

as of rn i think most teams should prob have persian + kang, but dropping kang isnt throwing or at least not to the extent it was pre lap, and idk if persian is mandatory either. i find dnite both more dangerous and more consistent than kad/tent but only by a little the order of those three is very close to me.

B ranks

dodrio is largely still where its always been, lapras revenge kills it extremely well but drio isnt usually the hardest to revenge anyway, lapras does make agility even less worth clicking than it already was. also dodrio can always just click hbeam vs lapras, unlike vs cuno where that is much riskier since u give it a free agility if predicted. rock types are maybe less common, golem is better tho so hard to say, and drio never cared that much about aero anyway. overall its still dodrio, still mostly limited to triple normal builds, maybe it is a little less inconsistent in the sense that it isnt inviting cuno sweeps but also isnt getting sweeps itself bc of lapras, ofc that doesnt negate the rng involved in paraslams and crit hbeams.
dug is maybe slightly worse than it was, again lapras doesnt have cuno's 4x rs weakness, and obv dnite being much better isnt good for it, on the other hand electrics and kad are maybe a lil better than they were, the elec immunity is prob worth a bit more. again its basically still the same dug, its terrible phys bulk and lack of power without crits is always a liability, also its p prediction reliant, but it outspeeds persian, has ways to break thru any of its checks (eventually) and sometimes it will really go off. i think sub + toxic is a very nice option for it rn, vs both lapras and dnite, ofc u still need to force an initial switch.

my order for the rest of B ranks is super rough, i havent used these mons much if at all myself and havent seen enough uses for remotely precise rankings. golem is very dangerous rn, lapras can only damage it with blizzard so u still kind of have a 50/50 in golem vs lapras in addition to lapras taking too much on switchin, even if u dont get specific matchups like dodrio haunter or trode/buzz it can find chances to click its strong attacks with predictions like coming in on kad twave or being used as a pivot against persian to pressure bubblebeam. (i really would not drop bbeam rn.) golem is also easier to fit on teams since lapras covers the surf/blizz weaknesses and particularly covers articuno for it, whereas pre-lap youd just have to accept being weak to some things. haunter can come in on lapras bslam in addition to ofc checking persian, teams without kadabra can sometimes be quite weak to haunter, while vs kad at least u can always explode on kad (with prediction), or click confuse ray lol. and ofc the dug weakness. tentatively have golem above it since its better at forcing progress but rly depends on matchups.
moltres rly doesnt have defensive checks, but as long as u have tent or dnite it around it cant just run over ur team, and with all its weaknesses as well as not ohkoing dodrio or dug, i think just attacking it is mostly okay. need to see more games with it tho have only seen a few so far. i put chu/trode/buzz next to each other, i tend to put raichu highest bc it doesnt just invite golem, trode for endgame speed, buzz is sort of a weird midground between the two since psychic doesnt rly do anything but at minimum buzz always has a place as a anti-dodrio lead, which raichu cannot do and which trode is mostly worse for due to its lack of bslam and bad attack stat limiting its early/midgame effectiveness.

i almost put mime in its own B- rank, its def better than it used to be and triple psychic is like, fine, doesnt particularly give u anything matchup wise tho and you are prob just better off replacing mime with eg kang or dnite. (can run toxic or blizzard on kang if u need to improve your dnite matchup, ofc unless the team needs rock slide for molt). still, mime is a twave user that isnt really concerned about dug and also doesnt rly have any bad matchups, just very hard to justify over a top 7 mon.

ill maybe make some comments about the lower stuff later.

honestly i dont find the tier super different from pre-lapras. its easier in the teambuilder, u dont have to make guesses about whether theyll bring articuno and compromise your team with mediocre mons to try to cover cuno, in general theres fewer matchup issues and a team thats like 6 of the top 7 mons can be fine vs mostly anything. not the case in old uu where u were always having some unambiguously disadvantageous matchups with whatever team. the gameplay itself, i think is pretty similar, dragonite being better + lapras tends to keep the pace a bit slower, but its still a tier where u benefit by clicking bslam and hbeam a lot and the more offense you have the better off you are its not a massive difference. also because lapras does have to make predictions, and maybe also for a few other reasons, the tier is a little less button clicky imo and theres a bit more switching. and rest still is pretty niche but it is better off than it used to be, i actually clicked rest in two different games in my set vs volk and benefitted from doing so !!, its still not going to be a big part of this tier but it does have a place and its something u have to actually consider (sometimes) which i think most would say is 'beneficial for the tier.' but again overall its mostly the same as pre-lap really, some mons moved up or down due to lapras replacing cuno, but the top mons are largely the same the way they function is largely the same etc.

 

[juoean]

comments on select niche mons

raticate: this was a meme pre lapras but it does have some things to offer now, it really doesnt mind taking on full health lapras, blizz is all the coverage it needs hitting both dnite and golem, and its ability to heavily punish rest is maybe slightly more relevant now (but only slightly). overall its best thing is probably still being able to switch into kangaskhan's body slam and click super fang, but its ability to break through dragonite + lapras + golem is def worth noting. this is the only tourn game i remember seeing rat, and the game was basically over by the time it came out anyway https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-667035 but it is maybe interesting to note at turn 24 that facing a 74% hypno about to wake up, a 56% lapras and a parad kadabra is a v nice setup for rat, idk. also fwiw, raticate blizzard usually puts dnite in persian range, which kang's weaker blizzard does not do. prob the one worse thing for rat rn is more counter kang, but idt it is that big a deal since blizzard does 25% to kang on a predicted counter, also if rat switches into kang slam counter doesnt matter bc rat is now in hbeam range anyway.
overall raticate def has some nice things, but its hard to justify it on a team since persian kang rat could use dnite or dodrio over raticate instead. & super fang's accuracy and inability to crit is always something to consider when comparing raticate to the other normals, for example dodrio has a far better hypno matchup due to crit and paraslam chances. lastly, raticate has the worst kadabra mu of the normals, only having a 75% chance to ohko kadabra with hyper beam while always being ohkod by a kadabra crit psychic.

pinsir: mon is largely unchanged, phys bulk eq resist and slash clicker, but theres maybe more reasons to consider it over dodrio since it doesnt have the lapras vulnerability. pinsir's horrible aero mu is now 'replaced' with a horrible moltres matchup. kind of in the same boat as raticate, it is hard to justify it alongside persian + kang when u could be using dnite or drio in that slot instead.

magneton and clefable: having a third slow mon can be a significant liability against dragonite teams, as shown in my game 2 vs volk. outside of the dragonite matchup, clefable does well enough as usual but doesnt rly offer much in particular, it is largely another nice bulky trademon; given the dragonite weakness it brings idk if the mon is really worth using anymore. as for magneton, it could def be very scary if u get a matchup vs no dragonite and no electric resist but idk if that really exists given how splashable dnite is; overall i think u are better off with any of the fast electrics esp trode, and they will still give u a nice advantage vs teams that lack an electric resist even tho they obv dont have magneton's power, or bulk. i expected this mon to be much better but i think its struggling.
one potential place i could see magnets being worthwhile would be as an anti-dodrio lead, while having a very decent matchup against lead hypno as well (unlike electabuzz). i have not seen this tried tho so tbd.

venusaur and victreebel: the 2hko on lapras is obv nice but victreebel has the same speed problem as magneton, its stab is if anything less spammable bc dragonite is much better than either ground type, it relies on prediction and stun spore accuracy for switchins while lapras can also pretty freely stay in one turn to trade blizzard for razor leaf leaving victreebel in range of pretty much anything. venusaur speed ties dragonite but venusaur's attack stat is much worse so its +2 hbeam is pretty weak, and if u want to run toxic for better odds to cripple dragonite then u have to give up one of sd bslam hbeam. the best case for the grasses to me is the golem matchup, but overall i am v unimpressed and once again its j very hard to justify them over just using of the top 7 mons.
gyarados: outspeeds and threatens dnite and has a good kadabra matchup, but mr. mime also does those two things without having massive weaknesses (to persian and haunter/elecs) and also offering twave counter utility. gyara also always relies on clicking the right buttons. im v doubtful if theres genuinely a good reason to use this mon.

ninetales: this is the one mon i havent seen that i think might warrant some exploration. compared to moltres it gives up some power on both sides and the eq immunity, in exchange for speed and no blizz bolt weakness. the lapras matchup is very nice, with fire blast doing ~30% while lapras cannot 2hko back without a crit and even blizz slam blizz usually fails to ko ninetales. the biggest thing tales offers is a kangaskhan revenge killer, while being overall harder to switch into than tentacruel and not having the frailty of kadabra. it also has a decent persian matchup, 2hkoing with fblast while having better phys bulk than tenta eg having significantly lower odds to be koed by crit bslam into slash.
as far as potential checks to tales, tent is pretty severely crippled in this metagame by either burn or para, same goes for dnite more or less, kadabra could potentially switch into tales' fire blast but risks bslam on switch and even aside from that kadabra takes 40% min and if it doesnt get burned then tales can still threaten it with bslam afterward; kadabra is def not a good matchup for ninetales but it is surely better than tent vs kad. after fblast and bslam tales' last slots are flexible, any of confuse ray toxic flamethrower fire spin hyper beam can probably be considered

 

[Tree69420]

just finished circuit finals and heres my VR

1-2 hypno and lap are pretty self explanatory, both will destroy you when unprepared but i feel like lap is weaker just because how much teams are built around answering it, while you dont really have a hypno answer beyond your own hypno or lap, there is never any reason to drop either of them
both are def borderline overbearing but i would vote DNB on them
3rd persian i really feel like its a chunk above the other A ranks, i have persian on almost every one of my teams not because its undroppable but just because it does so well against every other mon
4th-7th tent dnite kang kad i think these can def go in any order but imo this is the order
tents wrap can often win endgames where youre extremely down if the opponent let their speed control die or get parad, and its basically the only good dnite answer (gyara can answer it too but then youre using gyara), not to mention the wrap pivoting utility
dnite also does the same thing and spreads para for itself and also answers mons like dug and persian fairly well, but the speed just isnt there to deal with stuff like kang to the same level as tent does
kang is a monster but sometimes it really just doesnt get what it wants or gets mindgamed out by persian, smth its supposed to beat
kad checks tent really well but its frailty means it really cant switch in without dying to coverage hbeams from mons such as raichu, tent, or lap
B ranks
the B+/B split was really arbitrary but whatever
duggy can clean teams like nothing else, especially with sub mindgames, but its crit reliance leaves a lot to be desired and it lets a top threat, dnite, come in on it for free
buzz is really gaming but sometimes it just doesnt do enough idk
golem hits like crazy and nothing can come in on it, and lead golem can pretty reliably trade for hypno , but it can be hard to get it in safely
lead drio is the most coinflip thing ever and i love it but it def feels too rng reliant and it just gets destroyed by non hypno leads
trode is similar to buzz but its a crazy crit machine but the boom def does not hit hard enough and it does happen to let golem come in relatively free, boom is nice sometimes against kad and it does great against persian but buzz feels more consistent
molt does really well with its checks eliminated and can cripple things that come into it (burnt dnite cant spam wrap neither can burnt tent, that 100 base attack hits everything really hard with dedge and hbeam, golem hates burn too), but it does get answered with makeshift checks a lot of the time
haunter is a clean persian check which is hella nice but it doesnt really do that much with the free turns it gets so its this low
raichu feels like the worst of the electrics, underspeeding kad and tying drio are rough for it while ohkoing golem with a surf is not enough in return to put it above the others
i havent used much of most these mons but i feel comfortable with these rankings and i feel like this is the line between UU and NU(BL)
others
magnets (UR) seem nice with a clean 2hko on lap but its so slow which ruins the whole point of bringing an elec
i havent tried clef at all so i cant comment but in theory it seems decent
victreebel in theory can be an absolute menace like how it does against certain ubers/ou mus but in practice its really just not there idk
it does beat lap in a strict 1v1 so that has to count for something
cuno could theoretically be nice in endgames but youd much rather have like a dodrio or something idk
and lap ruins its chances at wrecking house midgame
i have no idea how tangela was ever UU

 

[Sabelette]

Low Tier Circuit Tour stats and replays are live, here's a couple observations:

1. Hypno lead is firmly cemented as the lead to beat, with people trying lots of other stuff to counter it that just... failed. Dodrio and Tent were disappointing and the rest had a low sample size.
2. Almost 70% Kadabra usage, staying a bit ahead of Tent and Cat - Dnite usage also picked up after round 1. Tent is finally not the threat to beat, as expected - rather Hypno and Lapras basically define teams, probably leading to the rise in Kad/Dnite and the drop in Dug.
3. Kang and Dodrio had very disappointing showings - winrate isn't very useful but I'm surprised at Kang this low, even with all the special attacks flying around. Dodrio, well, kind of expected.
4. Golem usage was low but it looked pretty effective to me. Might be the only genuine rise of this meta unless you count Trode (which some would say was UU anyway).
5. There's 15 things UU by usage this tour but 7 of those are hogging nearly all the usage, with the top 7 being 85%(!) of the revealed mons. Wild. It's likely even higher of a % if the unrevealeds were shown; we know some of those are Hypnos and Laprases. Very centralized at present + some outside threats.

 

[Tree69420]

tent lead doesn't beat hypno lead and never did

tent matches up well into the niche leads tho

 

[Tree69420]

I've really been wanting to see a conclusive VR for the Lapras meta with the suspect test concluding soon, and since Volk said council probably wasn't gonna do one, I decided to organize it myself.

Basically the VR is gonna have the same policy as standard VRs, give orderings, listed rankings won't matter (Hypno S+ and Lapras S- is functionally the same as Hypno before Lapras in S or even Hypno in S and Lapras in A with the plebians). Tiers will be derived through statistical analysis with averages and median placements.

Voting requirements:
A) Meet post-Lapras voting requirements for the suspect vote:

Hide

• chub (UUFPL III)
• Fc (UUFPL III)
• Ice Yazu (LTC Tour, ALT PL I, UUFPL III)
• juoean (Spotlight)
• kjdaas (UUFPL III)
• Melbelle (UUFPL III)
• nicole7735 (UUFPL III)
• phoopes (LTC Tour)
• pokemonisfun (ALT PL I)
• Sabelette (UUFPL III)
• Shellnuts (LTC Tour, ALT PL I)
• stunner047 (Spotlight)
• Tree69420 (LTC Tour, UUFPL III)
• Unowndragon (ALT PL I, UUFPL III)
• Volk (ALT PL I)

B) Meet pre-Lapras voting requirements for the suspect vote, plus play at least one post-Lapras tour set

Hide

Torchic (UUSD III, RoA Olympics VII) + Spotlight

C) Win at least 3 played sets across all the post-Lapras tours

Hide

• Howlsome (2 from Spotlight, 1 from LTC Tour)
• MrSoup (3 from Spotlight, 2 from LTC Tour)

Total Voters: 18

chub
Fc
Howlsome
Ice Yazu
juoean
kjdaas
Melbelle
MrSoup
nicole7735
phoopes
pokemonisfun
Sabelette
Shellnuts
stunner047
Torchic
Tree69420
Unowndragon
Volk

Gonna set the deadline as May 31st. Please vote if you can but if you aren't interested its fine I'm just trying to make the most accurate VR based off top player opinion. I'm open on discord and smogon.
Here's a tiermaker link with pretty much ever mon that you can even pretend to justify
https://tiermaker.com/create/old-rby-uu-534500

 

[pokemonisfun]

I've really been wanting to see a conclusive VR for the Lapras meta with the suspect test concluding soon, and since Volk said council probably wasn't gonna do one, I decided to organize it myself.

Basically the VR is gonna have the same policy as standard VRs, give orderings, listed rankings won't matter (Hypno S+ and Lapras S- is functionally the same as Hypno before Lapras in S or even Hypno in S and Lapras in A with the plebians). Tiers will be derived through statistical analysis with averages and median placements.

Voting requirements:
A) Meet post-Lapras voting requirements for the suspect vote:

Hide

• chub (UUFPL III)
• Fc (UUFPL III)
• Ice Yazu (LTC Tour, ALT PL I, UUFPL III)
• juoean (Spotlight)
• kjdaas (UUFPL III)
• Melbelle (UUFPL III)
• nicole7735 (UUFPL III)
• phoopes (LTC Tour)
• pokemonisfun (ALT PL I)
• Sabelette (UUFPL III)
• Shellnuts (LTC Tour, ALT PL I)
• stunner047 (Spotlight)
• Tree69420 (LTC Tour, UUFPL III)
• Unowndragon (ALT PL I, UUFPL III)
• Volk (ALT PL I)

B) Meet pre-Lapras voting requirements for the suspect vote, plus play at least one post-Lapras tour set

Hide

Torchic (UUSD III, RoA Olympics VII) + Spotlight

C) Win at least 3 played sets across all the post-Lapras tours

Hide

• Howlsome (2 from Spotlight, 1 from LTC Tour)
• MrSoup (3 from Spotlight, 2 from LTC Tour)

Total Voters: 18

chub
Fc
Howlsome
Ice Yazu
juoean
kjdaas
Melbelle
MrSoup
nicole7735
phoopes
pokemonisfun
Sabelette
Shellnuts
stunner047
Torchic
Tree69420
Unowndragon
Volk

Gonna set the deadline as May 31st. Please vote if you can but if you aren't interested its fine I'm just trying to make the most accurate VR based off top player opinion. I'm open on discord and smogon.

Pretty sure you need a badge to tag more than 3 or 5 people. Tagging the following, feel free to read Tree's instructions above

chub
Fc
Howlsome
Ice Yazu
juoean
kjdaas
Melbelle
MrSoup
nicole7735
phoopes
Sabelette
Shellnuts
stunner047
Torchic
Unowndragon (sorry for not replying to your pm i will soon...)