Grass gang eating good today
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Greetings from ADV Garden!
S
A
B
C
D
Starting off with my personal VR for the Grass type and a note of praise for
More importantly, some homage – my initial successful build (
) that I’m referencing was heavily based upon an old LRXC video from 3 years ago where he attempted to conquer the ADV ladder with a Mono-Grass team. Directly copying some of the sets and concepts from this player with a well-developed sense of the metagame and an acute awareness of the options the mons with ADV possess thanks to his extensive experience in 1v1 within the tier and all other formats in between. I can’t take credit for all of these but fortunately not much of his original team had to be tailored to meet the specific needs of this format, and many of the strategies were significantly stronger in a format that usually lacks sand. I often make that excuse, but this team has a dominant matchup over Rock, most Water builds, and other common types within the meta, both of which can crumble if their preferred weather is disrupted and capitalized upon by strong weather-based grass attackers of your own. I feel like once I was finally able to build a successful Grass build that didn’t instantly lose to some of its problem matchups, the floodgates of flora fauna and fun have been opened wide open, and I’ve been able to enjoy and win with Grass, repeatedly. Let’s also get into some key refinements to my personal VR shared previously. I had the order of Grass mons within my initial overall VR for every single mon in the tier randomly placed just based on my impression of their viability and power level in OU. After playtesting I can’t praise Cradily and Celebi enough, and Sceptile has some amazing move set variety with Endeavor and could usually setup interesting win conditions. Celebi must shoot straight to S-rank after reports have circulated back to Fent Corp HQ claiming Celebi’s have been seen roaming the forest lakes to hunt Gyarados and hit them with a +1 Shock Wave to beat the last hope down Water might think it has. Fighting seems very lackluster to me in this meta and getting the chance to use Breloom as a wincon and general star of the show in my teams supported by broken Celebi and a Cradily that doesn’t instantly fold to Aero is a great deal of fun. Even Erika envies the ease at which this type can dispatch the common Rock and Water type teams infesting the meta. Grass has access to a Spiker, SD Pass, a normal resist, a levitating mon in Jumpluff, and can viably run both forms of Weather, enabling it to win its good matchups harder. Celebi offers the widest swath of movepool utility and the highest stats of any Grass mon and cannot be ranked lower than top of S for the type.
I’m also displeased to report that a Fent Corp Analyst an error ranking this type in D – it’s far superior to Fighting and Ghost and should be placed middle of C minimum. This analyst’s employment has been terminated and we’re working on eliminating the problem of internal subterfuge to ensure the Fent Corp Botany department issues infallible advice for ADV Garden. Here’s my updated take on the Type VR for reference. I honestly think Grass should lead C but its by far the most contentious ranking, as it’s hard to determine the exact matchup spread of the HO/offensively focused types that crowd this area. I don’t foresee much mobility in people’s opinions for the top and bottom types, with a huge exception to Poison – which should rise to C in the rankings given its access to Spikes+spin block, wide versatility (Poison main cope), and because of its extremely favorable MU into Grass which is an undeniably powerful type.
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A wild
Undoubtedly the defining mon of the type next to his cohort Luigi. Celebi is good for same reason all S-tier mons are good in Monotype – their utility can’t be matched by any other options on the type and typically will never be dropped on a serious team thanks to their wide moveset options which can tailored to target a specific enemy team type. Grass teams need to be serious, guys. You think we’re running Grass because it’s cute and aesthetic and that any of this is a joke? Pfft….
My favorite Celebi set combines all coverage moves essential to Grass not auto-losing to certain types onto one, combining Shock Wave/HP Fire/Psychic on a standard CM Celebi spread and attempting to go to work. Sweeping through Zapdos, Skarmory, and then Gyarados consecutively at +1 into a chipped flying team is incredibly satisfying and I think that this set solves a lot of problems for the type and it would be insane to run in the context of a psychic build. On grass, a type more strained for strong special attacking options, Celebi needs to cover a lot of bases and show up consistently in almost every single game to provide utility from one of its unique coverage options which can’t be matched by official special attacking grasses.
Perish Song and Baton Pass and all other truly interesting uses of Celebi as a defensive piece to a team are better left to psychic teams, generally. Physical Celebi sets could see fringe use to stump some of Grass' common counter or problems MUs, e.g. Ancientpower PhyCele to handle Moltres.
Breloominarti. Allegedly also a DJ or something. Luigi packs a punch. You can’t underestimate his ferocious 130 Atk and basic CB sets that can decimate even Skarm with Focus Punch. This mon is generally better suited to carrying the type in other ways as lead where it is the best dual-status spreader thanks to Spore+Stun Spore. Neutering foes enables Loom to start punching. A classic satisfying sequence occurs when your opponent switches into the sleep sac on Breloom and then immediately switches out, which you catch with Spore. They switch again into an offensively leaning threat to handle Breloom that can catch with a para and establish an early advantage without doing any damage. Hidden Power types could vary in interesting ways in mono since HP Bug/Rock/Ghost and other physical types have much greater upside in comparison to their generally unfavorable opportunity costs in the endless 4MSS enforced by the healthcare industries dogmatic approach to not even letting the most powerful grass types have access to a perfectly accurate fighting stab, Sky Uppercut, which has an undeniably favorable base power increase over Brick Break but might just let you down when you need it most. Without a doubt the best physical attacker on grass. Arbiter of momentum for its arboreal allies. Substitute and Endure+Salac sets give it multidimensional attacking options – punishing common walls and remaining a major offensive threat / wincon into certain types if it is preserved outside of the lead sequence, which it almost always should be. Being greedy with Mach Punch when you don’t even have Technician yet is not optimal 67.3% of the time according to light crystallography experiments conducted by the Fent Corp CFO
The (rain)forest of the bunch. By far one of my favorite mons thanks to its ability to bailar like it just can’t stop in Colosseum. Ludi is a great option to have access to a rain setter, aid in SpDef on your frail type (particularly taking ice-type hits), and support the longevity of the entire team through Leech Seed/Ice Beam. This moveset is crucial on a Grass team which can’t optimally afford to carry HP-Ice on Celebi, which isn’t real speed control to begin with and shouldn’t be your answer to anything flying 6 inches above the floor, or even worse:
View attachment 800814Once must imagine Ludi-Chad happy.
May I present to you the answer to Aero – by far the most frustrating mon that your opponent will have to fight. Cradily needs to function as the ADV Ferrothorn here and hold down the fort or you’re instantly playing an unviable type that loses on the spot to any HP Flying sweeper or CB Aero/Crobat et al. Suction Cups is a fantastic ability supporting the concept behind the max defense + Barrier/Rock Slide/Toxic/Recover set which I find to be the most viable. Extremely simple on the surface, but exciting since this set allows you to play the type. Mirror Coat can be used as another great option and synergizes quite nicely with the zero SpDef investment and lets you get sneaky KO’s on overconfident water types spamming Ice Beam into you. EQ is typically the preferred coverage on this set but rock STAB in some form is essential in Mono to apply pressure back to the birds relentlessly raining down on you.
Having passable physical attack and access to Explosion is all you really need to enable a perfect fast paced offense in ADV. Clearing weather with Sunny Day and Solar Beam is crucial to match the firepower of Water offenses. Leech Seed, Hypnosis, and Psychic are all options as well but I think Sunnybeam+Explosion/HP Fire is its best set. Psychic resistance proves valuable in shielding Breloom and the almost obligatory Grass+Poison-type Amongus larper needed to glue together grass structures from SE damage. Psychic and a tiny bit of Atk investment in the order of 20 EVs seems excellent in this meta.
Absolute speed demon and puts in respectable work consistently on grass as its main form of speed control. Grass lacks a strong banded attacker to act as this pseudo early-gen scarfed revenge kill mon and Skeptical Tiles is here to pick up the leaves I mean slack for this type. HP Ice threatens fast flyers like Mr. Mence wells and ensures you don’t lose to anything faster than Celebi should Eggie or Ludicolo fail to get their respective weathers up in time. Endeavor+Salac or other pinch berries work great in conjunction with Overgrow and can let you sneak wins with a well-timed critical Overgrow-boosted Leaf Blade. Thunder Punch and physical coverage are especially desirable, and this guy unfortunately suffers from a case of 4MSS. I’ve personally not explored physical sets in depth on grass but in standard ADV they generally prove to be lackluster as well. An electric move of some sort is critical to a well-built grass team and Sceptile is a great candidate, since all available options for this coverage are low base power anyways. Remarkably cheeky and as with all other potential-mon pinch berry sweepers this guy is loving an environment without ever-present Ttar roaming loose and kicking up sand into the beautiful eyes of Sceptile.
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Skeptical Tiles -- ADV Garden Board Member & Fent Corp Botany VP
I surprised myself here and initially thought this was essential piece to any good grass team and that losing out on Spikes just wasn’t worth it no matter how bad Roselia’s stats are. My contrary opinion developed from building a more offensive team and finally finding success with grass has me reconsidering if Roselia is even as good in Monotype. Roselia has seen play in ADV OU thanks its SpDef Aromatherapy/Stun Spore/Spikes sets that do a shockingly efficient job of shutting down SpDef Zapdos and other top tier threats as the only grass-type on the team. When its defensive niche is directly challenged by all its teammates, its left with little else left to offer besides Spikes, which it sometimes struggles with even setting up to begin with thanks to its abysmal defenses and stats. Roselia is a beautiful flower and a perfect member of bulkier or balance grass structure, and Spikes is still the best move in the format. Spikes + Aromatherapy allows you to flexibly play as a Spikes offense team or as a Spikeless mixed offense with anti-status support (Celebi lol) and Stun Spore. Aromatherapy allows you to play more freely with your main offensive mons besides Celebi taking a Toxic or Wil-o-wisp and using their Leftovers. If I were to put on Roselia-tinted lenses, I’d even say that since you’re losing to flying anyways Roselia probably has great viability on offense teams, and since this is still a primitively early meta in comparison to the sum of ADV its undoubtable that there exists a finely tuned roster that succeeds well enough to propel this flower the mandatory sixth slot on grass teams. Roselia seems to fall victim to a common trope of ADV OU niche mons where once they are forced onto a team that possesses its typing and potentially has other options directly competing with similar roles or the exact same typing, they actually more lackluster in comparison to mons which have not seen as successful of use in top-level standard competitive OU format play. These ADV tournaments reflect the battling of some of the most prestigious and longest-tenured players on the website so if something like Roselia has filtered out through that meta which has been played for so long then it without a doubt bears consideration for use, so I am surprised to be confident in my assertation that its not even the best Spiker on Grass.
Saurena Villiams needs to focus more on hitting Sleep Powder than her tennis career. Hang it up sister – you are great on evil Poison I have depicted here as the cowardly bear, but not as much here on the benevolent Grass type I have depicted as the brave dog. Can function effectively as a member of a sun offensive core and is a great user of EQ+Growth with its mixed typing, as well as the grass type classic known and beloved worldwide of Leech Seed + Synth. Based on Venu’s ranking relative to the other grass mons in aggregate OU rankings, this thing has immense potential to support more balanced-focused structures in Mono, and also function as a potent sun mixed attacker. Seems decent, just generic and mostly outclassed by Eggie. Without a doubt a ton of potential I am not going into as much depth as necessary to cover the extent of Venu, but that’s apt since it’s a general “Mario” solid building block of any team that can fill a variety of roles including getting little Timmy through Kanto. IDK maybe I’m too cool for the staters but this is the generation with the best Grass type starter of all time so it’s hard to compete here or draw out a paragraph that is YAP from me for you, sorry Venusaur.
Shiftin' trees since 1993. Fast explosions enable grass offense nicely and are a powerful momentum tool worth considering for every moderately strong mon that gets access to the combo for use on this team slot, which is incredibly competitive with Venusaur and Eggie existing. Despite all my negative bias, it is arguably the most vital Boom user alongside Eggie and offers the only Dark-type STAB to hit opposing Psychics (Latias/Latios/Gardevoir) or Ghosts (Gengar/Dusclops) without relying on Hidden Power.
Cacturne can function as an effective Spike-setting lead for mono grass teams that offers a higher chance of getting and keeping Spikes up vs. opposing psychic teams thanks to its notable moveset option Needle Arm. I find this mon better to use on Dark generally and prefer to drop a spiker entirely rather than rely on this guy either, since he drops to the common bug coverage. To be fair to this magnificent man cactus, giving the type a better fighting shot overall against psychic can’t be underestimated – compared to a generally preferable Spiker in Roselia across the wider meta – I would say Cacturne here is equally as good. Lackluster offensive firepower and STAB in Feint Attack, much weaker than a Crunch. Roselia very rarely gets off Aromatherapy in time to support its teammates and provides its additional niche over Cacturne in spreading status to enemies while acting as cleric support anyways, so at least you have a more Solid attacking Spiker on lead as opposed to Roselia. It is unfavorable to run leads slower than 273 (Smeargle) in this meta since even grass-type mons can be afflicted with powder type moves including Spore and Sleep Powder.
With a respectable 110 base Speed, Jumpluff has surprisingly seen use in serious tournament settings and has amazing utility in Sleep Power/Encore/Leech Seed. Stacking a 4x ice weakness makes this a less viable option on grass as compared to flying – it’s the only flying type mon with access to a “good” sleep move. Leech Seed could force switches, and Encore could be used to counteract the boost sweepers Grass sometimes struggles with, and Pluff is fast enough to continuously set subs once Leech Seed is active and heal almost all the health back required to cast a sub every single turn. I would never seriously consider Jumpluff on grass, but I love the disruption it can cause. Spike immunity is fantastic, but the ground immunity doesn’t provide a usable niche to either grass or flying. There’s high risk in getting it on the field in the first place, and rarely justifiable upside. Against the right team, however, Jumpluff could foreseeably have no answers and completely stuff all setup and punish healing attempts by opponents with Encore for free turns, hard countering fatter teams that just want to Spike stack and sustain mid-range exchanges with repeated spamming of healing that’s viable thanks to 32PP Recover ADV.
Could work as a niche sun sweeper with access to Explosion and other interesting moveset options. As user Uncle Tonkle puts its “originally I was running a sun HO team with Victreebel on it as a mixed sweeper. Then I saw that it learned Encore and I started experimenting with it. I think this Pokemon might have a legitimate niche in this metagame. It hits pretty hard with 105/100 attack stats and decent STAB options, but the star of the show is Encore for sure. Encore really helps to turn a losing matchup into a winning one if they ever click an exploitable move. Its Speed tier is pretty average, but good enough to let it outspeed a lot of Pokemon in the metagame. As far as I can tell, people have tunneled on the idea of outrunning things in the sun in the past, but I think its utility is greatly enhanced when focusing on Victreebel's Speed outside of the sun. That way you have the option to outspeed and Encore things before you set up, tilting a lot of matchups in Victreebel's favor.” Thank you Uncle Tonkle, Aunt Tonkler has just not been putting out the witty banter and excellent meta takes like she used to.
Sunnybeam sets work well and are probably the easiest to use but despite your higher attack you lack Explosion compared to Eggie. Sludge Bomb is the main prized physical option and can stump Celebi which normally gives grass builds trouble, especially when packing HP Fire. Toxic/Morning Sun in combination with Encore and Sunny Day could function fantastically as a pure support mon, but only in MUs where grass can capitalize on the heat rock-less sun turns to gain an advantage quickly. Two forms of sun setting on grass build with Shiftry could devastate an unprepared psychic build. This set could be incredibly annoying for opposing stall, especially Refresh bulky waters which usually feel they can get away with sitting on anything, even if it packs SE STAB. Encore is stuck with 8 PP like SV but Synthesis having 8 PP is unique to ADV and means Victreebell still doesn’t have the perfect utility to outlast the walls its disrupting with this set every time. An attack or Protect could be easily slotted in over Morning Sun. Victor Graham Bell will never be a true stall warden. Sleep Powder and SD are fun options as well.
Worthless and weak. Needs Fire/Dragon typing as well as Protosynthesis and pseudo-legendary-level stats to compete in this meta I’m afraid.
Umm hello based?? Tropius keeps the fruit basket stocked to the brim at Fent Corp offices worldwide due to his peerless oversight of the Banana Industry and we cannot thank him enough for his service monetarily – all that’s left is to keep him safe from battle so he can enjoy vacation he has earned thanks his lucrative trading of his delectable neck gizzard. Notably also pursuing a path in politics following his nonexistent tenure in OU to challenge incumbent Tyranitar’s dominance.
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Honestly, how dare you Meganium. How dare you even try and show your face around these viability rankings. Won’t you just go away and realize that you’ve always been the problem?
Vent to Meganium in times of need folks. Fent Corp Therapy Division is here to assist you with any other extraneous needs and has the funds necessary to provide a small loan of a million dollars to anyone who achieves a sweep in the ADV Monotype Open inaugural tournament with SD+EQ Meganium with a Grass HO.
Vileplume. Almost forgot whoops dkdc. Life lesson – sometimes being forgettable is worse than being bad. Cool wall, SUN! Infer viability elsewhere :D
Until next time!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2517571182 - Grass beating flying in a room tour game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2517286714
I also leave you with a fun bonus replay showcasing Grass on Grass violence. Like I always say, if you’re staying with me, it’s either gas,, or… also grass.
Ariados: "P…please…don’t leave me off the tier list :( I can do things! Poison has always been an HO type, don’t you get it!"
