OU ADV OU Viability Ranking

[watermess]

I sent in my VR via DM a while ago but I was meaning to share it publicly in a post as well anyway, now I have some time lets go!!!
I'll skip out all the boring ones cause like - everyone knows tar is S rank lol, theres also no point in me telling you all again, why niche mon x is good, yes we get it it has sleep or leech seed or suit or wisp blah blah, you know what they do, if i dont have extra reasoning added to their ranking assume it says the same as what other people wrote about it.

S teir
1 Tyranitar

A+
2 Zapdos
Baton pass zap and rest zap are both sexy.
3 Metagross
CB boom :)
4 Salamence
5 Jirachi
Enables funkier structures due to its very specific niche of rock resist that you arent expecting to help much with ttar.
I love funky structures :)

A=
6 Celebi
7 Gengar
Fat Gar 6-0s Forre, Modest also has great potential on the right teams. I think hypno, and standard offensive are being left behind tho, just unreliable imo, maybe the uptick of mixmence and the slowing trend of guts fighter balances will make gengar great again?
8 Swampert
9 Skarmory
10 Blissey
11 Suicune
Rest roar is really good with spikes, teams without sand will be half dead before they kill you, rest talk 6-0s standard tss on its own with favourable rng you could probably beat beerlover with rest talk suicune as a single poke team.

A-
12 Starmie
hahaha rapid spin and twave go brrrr
13 Snorlax
14 Moltres
I say this all the time but, moltres with a fire stab and any other 3 moves is always a great set :3
modest flamethrower go brrrr
If ur team wants a bird but has Metagross issues, you want to tech ur offense matchup harder, or if you simply want to compound defensive redundancy to protect you against booms then moltres is ur friend!
15 Forretress
Switch up the slots on forre from your normal favourites on standard forre and you wont be disappointed, this mon has actually got some great little techs that it can swap about to improve matchups and the compression is well worth it, people say it can be constrictive in the builder since it requires certain supports and sure I agree to quite an extent but there are some underexplored options for intriguing new forre structures popping up and I think they are extremely viable.
16 Dugtrio
Revenge killer, Blisseys playground bully, travels faster than latios but underground, hes a remarkable little fella, whats not to love.
17 Claydol
Yes, I am a rapid spin zoomer :3

B+
18 Aerodactlyl
Advs best revenge killer, i feel like im rating it criminally low its not because i think its bad its just because I think there is other stuff that is just extremely good.
19 Gyarados
There have been some incredible Gyarados teams featured this year, UD forre rest gyara was a stroke of genius, Astas ghost gyara and Hclats Taunt gyara + armaldo team are all huge favourites of mine when it comes to really clean solid builds from this year.
20 Porygon2
I like duck, duck like me, more duck pls :3
Middle finger to zap dug, especially the ones without modest zap but only if you build with it right, cant make a team of sitting ducks.
21 Milotic
22 Flygon
23 Breloom
I concede, the guts fighters thing was a fad, breloom is more splashable and consistent.
24 Charizard
If this had moltres' bulk id easily rank it somewhere in the A teirs.
B=
25 Hariyama
26 Heracross
27 Venusaur
difficult to build with, mence being popular doesnt do it any favours, leech seed and sleep powder are both broken moves tho.
28 Cloyster
starmie's omnipresence really is a slap in the dick to cloyster, ive been running toxic on some of mine to help deal with twave spin mie at least, its only somewhat effective but at least it allows u to get a spike.
29 Smeargle
Building Smeargle offense is a huge learning curve, the first ones I built were always awful, after I built my first good one tho they just kept getting better every time I tried. super underexplored archetype, criminally underrated spiker.
30 Magneton
Triangles said something recently to me that I have decided I agree with "magneton is cheese" not a direct quote, mr angles has a much better way with words than I do lol, but I share the sentiment. This said I think if you can build a team that heavily discourages CB meta from Eqing in terms of structure (generally stacking flyers including at least one thats a reasonable mash resist will do it), it can be a really reasonable CB gross trapper, which I think is one of its redeeming factors for sure.

B-
31 Kingdra
zap dug good hence the high rain rank

32 Jolteon
Look how they massacred my boy....
I feel like we are running out of options on how to refresh jolt team, Ive tried a few times to spice up my jolteon teams with various techs, overall I found what was previously my go to team style for tough opponents underwhelming in recent times.
33 Steelix
great anti offense measure, also helps keep ur spdef mons safe from dugs as it can pivot zap and roar out its subs.
34 Weezing
35 Houndoom
Roar is an underrated last slot that creams BPcelebi and rachi.
36 Medicham
C+
37 Regice
38 Raikou
39 Golduck
:duckzeh:
40 Scizor
41 Vaporeon
42 Registeel
43 Jynx
44 Donphan
45 Machamp
46 Blaziken
47 Umbreon
48 Dragonite
Great compression of offensive threat, and bulky heal bell abilities. Heal bell mixnite is an underrated set and a moltres counter that can slap the shit outta common mixed offense checks such as blissey and milo thanks to focus punch and thunder coverage.
49 Jumpluff
50 Mantine
51 Quagsire
C=/-
52 Alakazam
53 Regirock
54 Dusclops
55 Ludicolo
56 Marowak
Baton pass just got nerfed again.
57 Lanturn
58 Rhydon
59 Ninjask
60 Slacking

 

[Kerts]

 

[UD]

The UD Viability Rankings - Coronavirus Edition, Mark III

S Tier
The best, period.​

No surprises here. Awesome glue typing since its weaknesses to common attacking types aren't too difficult to patch up, and it has so many good resistances. Sandstorm makes ~90% of teams better with the only exceptions being basically devoted CurseLax / Rest Cune teams and 1 HP Strategy Teams.

Crunch / Earthquake / Pursuit / Rock Slide with 252 HP is a soft check to basically half of the metagame, and has "decent" damage output against everything it can't hit for SE damage. Plus it can still beat the two primary WoW users after it's Burned, which is an added bonus.

The problem with Pursuit, rather, the problem with feeling forced to use Pursuit on every team, is that you are leaving so much potential damage on the table. MixTar (HP Grass / Fire Blast / Ice Beam / Brick Break) just has much better damage output vs. the entire metagame than any version of Pursuit Tar can have. But not running Pursuit means you are basically vulnerable to Gengar no matter what the rest of your team looks like. And of course all versions of Physical Tar are strictly better than Pursuit, but this is just with respect to special versions of Tar.

A+ Tier
Just a step below Tyranitar. So good that every team has prepared more for Gengar than arguably any other Mon.​

Being slept on so hard right now. It feels bizarre to have to justify a reason to use Gengar, but that's what the playerbase seems to prefer in the modern metagame. Still the absolute scariest Mon to switch into with Spikes down, no questions asked. Set and EV spread can both be unbelievably versatile and unpredictable.

The Pursuit Tar weakness is real, but you can easily avoid the trap with SpDef investment, and a low HP Gengar is still threatening. I don't really buy the argument that it's not a threat if it isn't at 100%, because that really only matters if it has to switch into an attack, or against a +1 DD Mence. There are only three Mons faster than it that are relevant (unless you count Dugtrio's Aerial Ace or Rock Slide), so yeah, I don't think it really matters that your Gengar took the Pursuit and is now on the brink of death.

I think the only way to truly be covered against Gengar is with Pursuit + a faster Mon. Any other team structure vs. any common version of Gengar will absolutely be vulnerable.

A Tier
Absolute top threats in the metagame and each one is probably found on at least 1/3 of modern ADV teams. They are spammable, versatile, and excellent both offensively and defensively.​

I'm still liking Suicune at #3. It's an awesome role compression Mon when using its bread and butter CM / Rest / Surf / Roar set. Soft checks all physical Mons while also switching into Blissey, which is an underrated benefit to any Mon that can lay claim to it. Also gets to PP stall stuff like Celebi Leech Seed.

Offensive is insanely threatening to (Jolt or Celebi) / Skarm / Gar / Tar builds, since the T1 switch in is a Mon that is threatened by an OHKO (or crit / freeze) if Cune clicks CM on the first turn. Unfortunately it basically is the deadest of dead weights against Blissey teams. So for that reason, you could almost call it a matchup pick.

CM / Rain Dance / Sub / Surf is awesome. A fucking unstoppable force against opposing BeerLover if they go to Blissey Turn 1 and click a status move on Turn 2. Game could end on the spot, since going to Skarm risks losing 6-0 off the bat to Sub + Roar (i.e. the Skarm user switching to Skarm has a lot of inherent risk), and leaving Blissey in could just lose 6-0 if the Cune user gets the Rain Dance turns right.

Like Suicune, it's a great role compression Mon. It's a special wall that switches into Snorlax (something that Blissey and AstaRachi don't really do), and it's a physical wall that can switch into Zapdos and to an extent, Starmie. I think it's also overblown how much of a hax magnet it is. For the types of teams I like to use it on, my Celebi getting crit or frozen is only really devastating against opposing Offensive Starmie or, to a lesser extent, Offensive Cune. Which I can rationalize losing to a Starmie Ice Beam freeze since that's just part of the game. Plus Starmie usually needs to hit Hydro Pump against something else to sweep anyway.

It's also scary with its unpredictable offensive sets, though frankly I don't think Fire + Grass + BP sets are that great. Those are not my cup of tea. Lots of team archetypes are smashed in the end game by old school Offensive Celebi. Dropping that Psychic coverage can really hurt, since it's your strongest attack against the majority of the tier.

I basically don't use Salamence at all outside of bulky Wish sets, but I'm really liking the way other people are using it. MixMence has always been great, but I guess it just seems better than ever lately? Defensive typing is also excellent, particularly in the era of Fighter spam. As mentioned, I love the bulky set with Wish. It's so sturdy and a surprisingly flexible check to a lot of Mons. It switches in relatively comfortably to even 252+ Att Meteor Mashes from Metagross, you know you outspeed, and Flamethrower will 3HKO at worst and has the added Burn chance.

I won a game the other day with late game DD Mence and it made me think that there's hope yet for the downtrodden dragon dancer. CB Mence is decent. I think Aero is just a lot better in that role, but the boost in strength is absolutely noticeable when you catch a Metagross or Jirachi switch with the predicted Earthquake.

Still unsure about replacing Gengar for MixMence on Spikes teams. I see pros and cons for both Mons, but the most important one is obviously the Rapid Spin immunity. No clue how people keep getting away with this, but ah well.

Good defensive typing, but a little overrated when it comes to Metagross. It's not that great that your Rock resist is also weak to Earthquake. It's also still vulnerable to the Fire coverage spam that plagues the metagame, though on the flip side, Metagross lives basically all non-STAB Fire attacks from full HP and can just Explode the user in return, or in the case of MixTar, just Mash it. It's also a great Snorlax switch, which is essential for a lot of teams that employ Metagross these days.

It still sort of suffers from 4MSS, since Meteor Mash + Explosion on physical sets means you'll never have perfect coverage, and that 4th move has a lot of competition between great options. Rock Slide, HP Grass, Toxic, and Protect are all great, just to name a few.

Still the most metagame warping Mon, and teams these days have become pretty well equipped to handle the Spinners that used to give Skarmory + Gengar teams a lot of trouble. One-dimensional, but oppressively good at what it does. I could not disagree more that Drill Peck Skarmory is a "Spinblocker," since if you allow it to trade Gengar's WoW for Drill Peck (~~DaT cHiP dAmAgE tHo XD~~), then you might have just lost on the spot to the Forretress in the back. Not to mention Recover Starmie literally sits on it forever?

Best defensive Mon in ADV since it can't be trapped and only has one weakness. And non-STAB HP Grass always fails to OHKO, meaning you can afford to weigh the option of taking the Grass in exchange for a Torrent boosted Hydro Pump, and then Protect back up to 40% in a couple of turns, leaving you plenty healthy to take the Aero / DD Mence / Metagross / DD Tar in the back.

It's still Spikes bait but it's good to remember that this is not the be-all end-all of any Mon in ADV. Most things are technically Spikes bait, so it really is not fair to use this as a major point against Pert.

The thing I like most about Jirachi will always be its ability to beat Blissey 1v1 as a special attacker. That attribute is just immensely valuable in ADV OU.

Otherwise, it has a ton of versatility with Wish + Protect, or Wish + three attacks, or CM with a variety of options for the last three moves lots. It can snowball quickly too if your answer is Blissey and they have Substitute + CM. However, I would recommend to everyone to stop using Thunder. This is a terrible move on Jirachi, who already has the boosted paralysis chance when using Thunderbolt. I don't even think Jirachi can really afford the misses since it usually rationalizes using Thunder for the added damage against Tyranitar and Metagross, two Mons that fucking truck you with a free turn. Awful awful awful moveset and it should never be used in my opinion.

A- Tier
Spammable threats that fit on a lot of teams, but not as good both offensively and defensively like the tier above it.​

It has become more useful lately with the rise of flimsy defensive backbones and CM Pass Celebi teams. An excellent late game tool, but also pretty darn good in the early going, since you can use it to stave off MixMence the first time, who usually appears early on in the battle.

Not really much else to say here. Just great at what it does and an excellent insurance against a lot of offensive Mons.

Still the best Special Attacker in the tier, but the same way it soft checks half the tier, half of the tier also soft checks it. I've always been favorable to the mixed sets with Drill Peck, but I don't think I'd drop HP Grass for HP Fighting. Lead 328 speed with Baton Pass is still a strong tool to get your gameplan going, but being on the back foot against Tar on Turn 1 isn't that great. Still, it's the best way to legitimately threaten Skarmory in the early game, not to mention is great insurance for offensive teams against opposing Offensive Starmie, as long as you keep yourself at full HP.

If I had to justify my relatively low ranking for it, it would be that I just don't think it's quite as good Offensively and Defensively as everything above it. It's great, no doubt, but OP? Definitely not. It's relatively easy to dance around its attacks until you get your real response in front of it.

Best wall in the tier, period. Not the best defensive Mon because it doesn't have quite enough offense to regain momentum, the way Swampert does. But it's a flat stop to any pure special attacking Mon in ADV. Legitimately renders a lot of threats unviable for this reason alone.

Blissey is also famously a DD Mence, Flygon, and to an extent, DD Gyara, counter. It even has the bulk to stomach a Breloom Sky Uppercut if your situation is dire enough.

Pro tip: if you use Blissey to switch into Zapdos on Turn 1, consider using Body Slam or Blizzard for the incoming Dugtrio.

Will never stop being a top 3 cleaner in the tier, if not top 1 outright. I even wonder if it's worth gambling with Modest, since Gengar usage is relatively low these days and the upside of OHKO'ing Tyranitar more consistently seems pretty enticing. And it's still the biggest threat to a lot of otherwise well-built and totally legitimate teams.

Bulky versions are okay. They're probably a little bit more relevant in today's metagame since it benefits a lot from the bulk that allows it to switch into some Fighters much more comfortably. It has really awful 4MSS, however.

Difficult for me to personally rank since I don't like to use Dugtrio very often. It has the upside of top-3 ish Mon in the tier just because of what a well-played Dugtrio can do in certain matchups. I think it's a little comical to consider it Uber though, sorry Triangles. I have never felt that Dugtrio was needed to keep Jirachi, Heracross, Celebi, Metagross, and Tyranitar in check, and without it, the metagame would spiral out of control, like some people speculate would happen. To me that seems crazy. All of the Mons that are trapped by Dugtrio also have a ton of other viable counters within the OU metagame.

B+ Tier
Top threats, starting to become either less versatile, or considerably worse on either side of the field (offensively or defensively) compared to the Mons above them.​

It's one-dimensional and is really strapped for moveslots, but Rapid Spin + Spikes on the same Mon is an excellent niche. Access to Explosion means you could conceivably prevent setup from CM Cune and DD Mence, but being so slow means you don't often get to take advantage of the turn ending mechanic.

Forretress also has the benefit of occasionally getting matchups where the opponent has very minimal counterplay. Think of an older style Skarm + Gengar outfit, where the Gengar didn't live your Tyranitar's Pursuit, and the Skarmory doesn't have Drill Peck. Unless they have an Aerodactyl and play godlike with it, they will probably lack any way to make any progress whatsoever.

But probably the best way to describe Forry is the way McMeghan did, when he called it a "Pro Mon." It is admittedly tough to use in some games (think mixed offense with Fire / Grass spammers), but it can have an immensely high ceiling.

Really oppressive Mon for mixed offense teams to deal with. High ceiling and catches matchups where the opponent can't kill it. It suffers from a real lack of offense, being severe setup bait, and seemingly always clicking one of Recover or Refresh.

Probably still the best Spinner? Has a good defensive typing, some sets are pretty good Tyranitar counters, and can even check Metagross in a pinch. I think it's worth it to go back to Ice Beam since a lot of Skarmory teams use MixMence as a breaker to take advantage of your Spin turns. Otherwise, use Explosion instead.

B tier
Have some flaws that make them not consistently great, but still good upside Mons.
​

Best Rock resist in the tier; it can eat even the most insanely strong physical attacks for lunch. CB Metagross Boom maxes at 75% for perspective. And CB Tar Focus Punch maxes at 90%.

Roar + Spikes gives it just enough offense to not be a sitting duck. Immunity to Toxic + T-Wave is great too. It's just so good whenever I use it. Obviously loses a lot of points for having almost no versatility whatsoever, being super slow, and not that good offensively. But it does have common matchups where it's probably the single best tool you can have in the game (think of any 2019 era Zapdos + Metagross offense).

It's still a really good Mon on paper with the great speed tier and strong STAB Earthquake. Pretty good defensive typing grants it switch ins on two of the most common attacks in the tier in Zapdos's Thunderbolt and Tyranitar's Rock Slide. But as has been mentioned before, it is held back by the ubiquity of Ice moves in the tier, basically all of which OHKO it, and not being able to punish its switch ins hard enough (Gengar, Skarmory, Salamence, Waters if you don't click EQ).

One of the better Mons against CM Spam, if not the best Mon. Outside of that, it's pretty hit or miss. Curse + EQ is probably due for a comeback, but otherwise Snorlax is neither consistent nor high upside. It's just a good glue Mon that can eat any one hit and Explode in return. It's also probably the best Blissey switch in, which is pretty valuable.

Nothing really changes for Jolteon. Possibly the single highest upside Mon in ADV OU since nothing counters it if you get every turn right. Claydol is probably the closest thing to an answer to a perfectly played Jolteon. But Jolt famously suffers from the popularity of Thunder Wave Zapdos.

Skarmory usage seems really high right now and a lot of teams continue to rely on its Spikes for an added source of offense. The metagame seems primed for a rise in Magneton usage; I think it's worth investing in more Magneton teams. Maybe not necessarily Mag + Spinner, but just having that immediate response to Skarmory seems so good right now.

Basically, I think Magneton is still bad, but the benefits of removing Skarmory + limiting Spikes to two at most is outstanding in the modern metagame.

B- Tier
Either extremely one-dimensional, extremely one-sided (bad offensively or bad defensively), or else something holding it back. Still good upside and are viable in OU, but not very splashable.​

I become more convinced by the day that the people who shit on Regice have never once used it. It's consistently good for me, game in and game out. The STAB Ice Beam just shreds all non-Blissey teams. It guarantees a paralyzed Metagross or Jirachi. Crit Ice Beam can OHKO Tyranitar switching in. With max HP, it needs just a splash of Defense investment to live Aero Rock Slide from full 100% of the time. Granted that's an unlikely scenario to happen, but what I'm trying to say is that Regice is a lot bulkier than most people think.

Regice is great. Only thing I really don't like about it is that it feels weird to build with in the sense that it never comes to mind as a Mon to add when you're building a new team.

Excellent offensively. It's the best WoW + Explosion Mon in the tier, which is a narrow role to fulfill but a really good one nonetheless. Last two slots are flexible and you can use them to lure certain threats. HP Grass would be guaranteed to nab Refresh Swampert, Thunder will get Milotic and Starmie, HP Fight will get Pursuit Tar. Another Mon I'm convinced isn't used by the people who call it bad.

VERY high upside Mon. It's shockingly more consistent than I would have expected, based on replays that the Jynx aficionados in the ADV Community like to share. Legitimate threat to 6-0 certain teams from the lead position.

Switching into Swampert once, clicking Spikes, and then Exploding later is all an Aero / Tar team needs to extract loads of value from it. Outside of that role, it is also excellent against Milo Dol Mag teams, since it can't be trapped and is quite threatening to the Claydol offensively. ADV's equivalent to future gens' version of a "Hyper Offense" Mon.

Heracross is still the best Fighter because of its STAB Megahorn, which is just an absolute wrecking machine, cleaving through everything but Gengar and WishMence.

Second best Fighter because Knock Off can be a real stall destroyer, and the offensive sets seem kind of decent too. Hariyama teams have a tendency to be ultra weak to SuperBi / SuperRachi, I've noticed. It's also an awkward defensive typing, though I would guess that Hariyama takes on average the least amount of damage from all Tyranitar sets.

Gyarados is a pretty flawed Mon, but it also fits exactly what certain teams need all in one slot. Swampert / Suicune / Milotic / Blissey switch in (Rest versions, I mean), Ground immune Fighting resist with Intimidate, I mean it is a really good defensive package. But it's pretty weak and has crappy coverage without one of Flying or Rock.

Asta's HP Ghost set is quite good, kudos for that invention. Gyarados is sort of similar to Cloyster, in that for some teams, all it does is serve as a one time Swampert switch in. And sometimes that can be good enough.

C+ Tier
Starting to get almost exclusively outclassed by a Mon above it, but have some valid reason for using over their OU counterpart. This is where I draw the line between OU and BL, for what it's worth. C+ tier would be the class of BL.​

Pretty good offensively, don't see what all the fuss is about defensively though. Almost every EQ user also carries Rock Slide. It also has a bad Speed tier since its far better Modest set can ironically be outsped by fucking Heracross of all things. But the damage output from Timid starts to get seriously pathetic against a boosting Celebi or Jirachi, just as an example. The Fire STAB is obviously the reason you would use Moltres over Zapdos, and there are some occasions where Moltres is better. But Zapdos is otherwise far superior in every way.

It has its moments. Certainly, access to Spore will keep it viable to an extent. It's pretty scary when it gets a free turn against Blissey or Tyranitar. Still funny how if you lead a Lum MixTar, you will probably burn your Lum Berry in exchange for the OHKO with Ice Beam. Mono Fighting just straight up isn't that good in my opinion. I guess there are some teams, like pure offenses with a 0/0/0 bulk Salamence and a 0/0/0 bulk Zapdos, that yeah are threatened by the Focus Punch spam. But no way is Breloom ever coming into the field of play more than once, twice at most. It's a liability defensively too. I guess Mach Punch + Pursuit Tar follow up is neat for not just going down to Dugtrio without a fight.

PhysDef Venusaur might actually be a really good Breloom counter, hmm... Anyway, Venusaur is still pretty good. Has some 4MSS, but Leech Seed + Sleep Powder are really all it needs to be a good disrupter, with the upside of more than that. If you manage to find a non-Thunder Wave Zapdos matchup, then you've got a really premiere switch in to Zap all game long. With Roar, it can probably phaze BP Zap + BP Celebi teams pretty well. Hates status with a passion though.

Frail as hell, but is so strong that it can make its nut with one good prediction. Seriously, in the days of lead ProTox Skarmory BeerLover, opposing lead Medicham meant you very well could lose a key defensive member on T1 of the game. I still love the four attacks Leftovers set, or even Sub + three attacks to slightly ease prediction. Though I don't want to ditch coverage if I can help it.

Pretty good for an offensive Water type. It's similar-ish to Offensive Starmie but with the option of Roar in the last slot. Alternatively, it can BP fat Subs, or just serve as a Wish passer and be your team's bulky water.

A prototypical DD Mence and DD Gyarados answer, and counter-traps opposing Dugtrio for your Heracross / Magneton / Celebi team to operate at maximum efficiency. Otherwise though, it's pretty bad. Meh SpA with non-STAB BoltBeam coverage isn't exactly the most threatening Mon. And it's setup bait for a handful of sweepers as well.

Respectably threatening as an end-game sweeper, and can serve as a Gengar / Zapdos / Jolteon / Starmie check in the early and mid game with Rest and a Porygon2 backing it up. But as someone wisely said, Raikou suffers from DD Mence syndrome, which is that it doesn't OHKO anything at +1, and everything OHKOs it in return.

Best purely Physical Tar answer in the game. Not much else to comment. Does have a pretty strong Earthquake, so it stings when it's hitting stuff like Swampert on repeated switch-ins. And if you load its SpDef enough, I guess you have a good Jolteon and Zapdos (to an extent) answer. But I dunno. If it could somehow fit all of Protect, Toxic, Rapid Spin, and HP Ghost / Rock in the same moveset, then it really would be much better.

Pretty good offensively and just good enough defensively, thanks to its Earthquake immunity, to make it usable. Actually really benefits from Substitute, because it makes it that much harder for anything to revenge kill it. But it doesn't really win against that much stuff in a pure 1v1, so it does have a hard time generating free turns for itself.

C Tier
Still usable in OU, but almost always outclassed by something else or severely flawed in some way. The only reason to use them is because they fit the smallest niche that is still relevant.
​

The other ADV Hyper Offense Mon that's viable in OU. Just fast enough to not be totally ass.

Needs a free turn, which is doable, but it doesn't OHKO quite enough of the tier to compensate for it. Still, the unique typing and essential lack of weaknesses does make it pretty good defensively.

Best pure Gengar answer in the game probably. Absolutely fucking awful for really any other purpose though.

Worse against Gengar than Umbreon is, but can also switch in to Moltres and Celebi, usually. Completely shit defensively, though.

Nice mixed attacker. I still like the lead Substitute + Salac Berry set with a weather changer in the back. Really neat offensive package.

If it had Roar or Whirlwind then I think it could be legit really great. As such, it relies on a weak ass Surf, Ice Beam, and highly telegraphed Toxic as its sources of offense. But it is legitimately the absolute best wall to a lot of common OU Mons and sets.

C- Tier (Ass Tier)
Mons that I'm willing to use, but pretty darn inconsistent and / or just ineffective.​

Probably one of the higher upside Mons of the ones in this tier. Fast Encore is a really cool technique, and it can be truly excellent in some games. But it has zero offense otherwise, and it's not exactly a defensive stalwart.

I think Lanturn is okay. It's slow though, and not really all that strong. Very unique defensive profile, however. An offensive Water that isn't walled by Milotic + Celebi is certainly intriguing.

Great Moltres and Gengar answer. Can Wish pass against most mixed attackers and most non-Water special attackers too. But easily Dugtrio'd, and otherwise pretty lousy overall.


I'm getting tired of writing, so I'm going to lump the next few groups of Mons together and make a few comments on them. The sub groups ARE ordered in viability. So for instance, Armaldo is the highest of the next group, and Machamp is the lowest.

Basically all of these Mons are good enough to have teams built around them, but they are so replete with flaws that it's hard to really justify using them. I have a soft spot for Rhydon, who in addition to having an excellent concept design, checks just enough boxes both offensively and defensively to always make it really interesting. Dragonite has a sweet movepool and sneaky good bulk. Regirock lures Water types as well as just about anything. And Scizor can be quite a devastating late game sweeper, using the same coverage as Heracross, in exchange for a Sandstorm immunity and way worse everything else.

These Mons are all pretty lousy, to be honest. Ninjask at least keeps a niche for being a great Dugtrio punish. Alakazam has a good Speed tier, and Articuno is a good Pert + Celebi abuser for Superman-based teams. Sceptile I guess has some merits to it. Ehhh these are all pretty bad.

Ludicolo is that restaurant you went to once and got food poisoning from and vowed never to return.

 

[M Dragon]

 

[ed06288]

I think Regirock is pretty good. On occasion he even carries the whole team.

 

[Obsidian297]

I think Regirock is pretty good. On occasion he even carries the whole team.

Could you elaborate on that?

No doubt RegiRock has great stats, but isn't it universally considered to be outclassed by TTar

 

[watermess]

Could you elaborate on that?

No doubt RegiRock has great stats, but isn't it universally considered to be outclassed by TTar

regirock has a few things that can set it aside from ttar, first is that its a second rock type not effected by species clause like a second ttar would be, so this means you can use it with ttar to break through rock resists on eachothers behalfs.
Second is that it has explosion so its gonna be particularly effective at removing fat waters compared to other rocks.
Third reason is gonna be the beefy defense which basically is gonna give you a great back up check to any physical attacker, moreso than any ttar sets could, this mon is naturally gonna live +1 eq from all the 135 base atk mons in the teir which is really nice, especially with slidequake and boom as coverage u can hit anything for meaningful damage.

overall i would say its a reasonably viable 3/4th boom on offense teams and having a reliable lax check and salamence check is so appreciated on those teams as well so that sick

 

[BKC]

I put this together pre-SPL as a tool for us to use. Maybe someone else will find it useful, especially since it doubles as another underrated sets post and includes some nice synergies to boot.

s

sand.
mix/4a/pursuit great, consistent.
offense, defense, fits on every team. even rain.
ddtar frustrating but can potentially take over games like little else.

underrated sets: subpunch (fblast grass / thunder crunch), 4a phys with grass > bug, mixed @ black belt, protect/roar/counter on pursuit sets, cb. also dd with spikes.
notes: pursuit tar has beautiful overlapping synergy with blissey since it catches gar. can allow for non-ib bliss sets.

a+

best pure offense, immense defense. fits any team like ttar.

underrated sets: jolly protect 3a (dug bulk), cb on a team that doesn't require it to boom asap (probs brick break for potential mag), various mixed (especially pursuit) shit.
notes: really likes spikes so you actually chunk swampert respectably.
double pursuit with ttar is nasty for enabling shit lategame.


crucial as ever, pillar on offense/defense alike. that said, it is nice to explore synergistic combos that allow you to forego it since those make for some really good teams, but at the end of the day, it is pert and it will facilitate the most stuff (letting you pile on more offensively-focused shit like zard and loom bc you can always fall back on this 1 pokemon against a ton of shit).

underrated sets: offensive with quiet instead of rash, living zap/mence/tar hpgrass is really big and extra bulk for phys hits is nice. both roar and eq + ice beam combo should be used more on bulky sets, separately or together!
notes: standard pert + bold mie have some great overlapping synergy (mie taking metagross).


little more exploitable with influx of bpzap + fighter, but still unmatched in what it does.
offense with lax + bliss emerged seemingly overnight, interesting. worth exploring for sure (especially with cblax)
underrated sets: sing (sleep is an immense weapon against milodol shit, generally won't spam against offensive stuff but can still be nice if the alternative is stossing a lefties metagross without spikes up or something), twave + stuff that really abuses it (not just as a filler move) like a fighter, snatch. 3 attacks (toss/beam/fire blast or thunderbolt) is also worthwhile).
notes: wishbliss + yama is beautiful.


wisp keeps teambuilding honest.
more than just spikes abuser - amazing special offense facilitator.
ban hypnosis (but only use on offensive sets on spikes teams, and on hella free turns or if there truly is no other choice).

underrated sets: dbond stuff as a support capability for cm/special offense on non-pursuit tar targets, cause pursuit tar barely checks shit, so if you can nab that w say dug and then dbond something else relevant it's a 2-for-1 your sweeper will really abuse. exception would be something like rain dance, but even then, if you can nab the tar, dug it, then dbond w gar, that's 1 less poke your rain dancer (or cm threat) has to ko to win.
notes: pair with good anti-swampert, weirdly. grass is hard to fit and pert winds up being a makeshift check. not a good one ofc, which is why you gotta make sure it can't get mileage against you on those turns you are forced to switch out. gar + bulky variant of cele/starmie is nice.
willowisp sets NEED thunderbolt, being unable to beat molt/zard 1v1 is unacceptable (other shit can be wisped).


modest/roar/mixed vicious.
if you use ground pivot to guard blissey from immediate dug bp...you get punished by sub.
sdef rest underrated for sitting on bulk!
offense defense utility etc.
bp brings in (threat) reliably.

underrated sets: protect is definitely gamebreaking. agility on cm pass is brutal as ever. mixed stuff. tbolt + thunder.
offensive with max hp + some defense so you 1) can stay in on ttar if need be 2) can survive +1 mence. gamebreaking potentially.
bold has some decent applications.
notes: some way to make up for lack of passive healing (wish/leech seed) goes a Long way in helping it shrug off mixmence or whatever, staying out of range of gengar/starmie ice and such.
becomes absolutely absurd with spikes - digging into bliss/cele/jira/lax/tar, ensuring pert is in grass range...


adapt set and be rewarded.
psuedo-checks everything, spikes make good things even better.

underrated sets: non-yolo fast. surprisingly, classic protox (w anti-forre support).
notes: be cognizant of all 3 spinners, get it in early (lategame skarm w/o a clear winpath in sight sucks), surround w proactive offensive options to really make use of the spikes

a

leech requires fast backup/finisher teammate as well as ways to accentuate the damage, but amazing nonetheless.
cm great, 3a/bp/leech alike.
resist to fight/water/electric all so good against common offense.
dry bp stacking alongside zap is amazing.

underrated sets: super (on cm spam and otherwise), leech + bp with an attacking move or 2, leech recover fire + psy/giga.
notes: becomes an absolute devil without spikes. excellent alongside yama too.


remove wall. check threat sometimes. adamant good because not killing tar/meta can be very dumb. beat up good.

underrated sets: 0 speed dug. living modest bliss with a layer of spikes changes the entire game. be conscientious of faster targets teamwise obviously (offensive cmers mainly) but it's as gamechanging as it gets so the upside is worth it. 275 speed is still good.
notes: spikes help finish grounded stuff off.


amazing blend of offense/defense (fight res, intimidate).
mixed is ridic to switch into for so much.
cb requires mag but is similarly brutal.

underrated sets: rock slide mixed, attack-invested mixed, roar mixed, wish mixed.
notes: spikes push a LOT into ko/2hko range (pert, meta, tar, bliss). pairs beautifully with meta/wishbliss (latter esp good to reinforce against fighting influx) as always.


offense/defense once again.
absurd movepool.
superachi is relentless in the right spots.

underrated sets: wishcm is threatening af. classic wishtect can be ridiculous in slowing down offense - it can be annoyed by its vulnerability to both trappers (magneton just twaving it is awful), but it can also just take over a game. more "offensive" (but still largely defensive) wish sets (hpfight, thunder) are great, too. mixed variants (endless possibilities).
notes: sometimes hard to fit in teambuilding bc unlike the same-typed meta, it doesn't check ttar. however if this is made up for it makes for some really great combinations (e.g. amazing alongside yama). good rain facilitator.

a-

potentially immensely threatening but hates sand SO much - offensive sets almost can't switch into anything at all bc they become so much worse when switching into something as innocuous as swampert ice beam. however, if it gets going, it's ludicrously dangerous. like ddtar in that sense. just hard to facilitate teamwise. can be worth it but tough to make consistent.

underrated sets: vincune with sand clearing.
notes: needs physical backup. i.e., on offensive cune, not paired with a bunch of physically frail spatkers and then expecting cune to actually stave off mence and co since you need it to be a threat. on defensive cune, can take hits nicely but needs support against rock slides and spikes (and ddmence bc ib boldcune sucks). to that end, dual water can be good (preferably on offense bc on defense you'll just wind up with some ultra-passive kinda-fishy nonsense). claydol is a good partner on both kinds of teams. wish support can be nice too. nice for rain teams in general.


offensive = special aero.
bold good too.
both sets generally infuriating for offense.

underrated sets: 4th move > spin on offensive. modest.
notes: bold needs team support for to not suck against opposing defense, but is excellent on the right teams, has some great defensive overlap and facilitates some dangerous offensive pokes w twave.


death to frail offense/everything.

underrated sets: adamant on 1/100 teams (that are rock-solid against mie, endpert, ddtar). power makes a huge difference.
notes: likes spikes obv, but made so much more dangerous if it isn't the only source of true offense besides spikes.

b+

enables some nice offensive teams. not really sold about hyper-fat dols, but as long as it has explosion it'll be fine. still think adamant fast is great.

underrated sets: if paired with pursuit, rock slide can be nice (zap mainly).
notes: pairs crazy well with offensive metagross stuff, lets you be more cavalier with booms while still maintaining the rock res elsewhere.


blah blah mixed attackers blah blah longevity blah blah needs anti-spikes

underrated sets: offensive on spikes teams!
notes: much better with a supporting cast filled with good all-around pokes (i.e. more metagross/mence/zapdos/spikes and such, less "hope my milo sweeps" magdol type shit). also means it taking an explosion from meta isn't as devastating.


blah blah metagross switch blah blah wisp ridiculous to switch into blah blah needs spikes
sunny day stuff has a small niche and the teams it fits on are pretty good, but it should be clearing for suicune, not awful curselax.

underrated sets: toxic can force blissey out and more havoc can be wreaked. it also owns other molt trying to absorb wisp. protect can be really brutal too. as always, overheat is amazing. finally, hp fight might be occasionally worthwhile a la mixzap (100 attack...)
notes: molt + lots of good anti-lax physical backbone (meta, wispgar) means you can potentially run a strong spikes team without sand. careful around suicune and you'll be good to go.
molt + dug is harder to fit, but underrated. gives you a nasty tool to potentially ruin cheesy magdols.
molt + aero is also really nasty, as molt weakens things really well and aero cleans em up. aero also gives helpful backup against irritating supercele + rachi duos (since overheat molt can only check one).
molt + mence is great on both sides.

b

electric neutrality + boom + spin are some nice attributes. think the last move can only be eq (meta, tar, mag) and needs pursuit tar support, but that's fine. don't think counter/hpbug can make the cut.

underrated sets: none / I guess you could feasibly run some offensive stuff with dol/starmie that would free up spin from forry, but I don't think giving up on the best option to spin against skarm is worth it, especially since its other moves aren't that great.
notes: wants multiple fast, strong partners - you can still have a backbone (bliss) but generally should be loading up on 2 of things like mence/aero/molt, especially since your ttar is relegated to pursuit. forry should basically be cloyster with more longevity; an overtly defensive team with it is gonna falter against offense thanks to forry's super abusable quad fire weak and lack of phazing.


blah blah skarm removal
required for cbmence, makes metagross sooo much better.
popular sets are either timid with enough hp for jolly ground skarm or so bulky (240 hp/80 def) they live forry eq.
all sets should have hp fire, forry's too important a target. you'll never land a grass on pert anyway.

underrated sets: hard to call any of them "underrated" but fast sub twave generally finds a lot of utility against offense as well, especially in conjunction with leech bp cele. I still like magnet. charcoal probably has some use to really stick it to forry.
notes: mag physical offense is the worst thing ever, but mag balance/spikes is great.
excellent alongside pursuit tar and/or dug (although the latter is harder to fit on teams).
224 hp 92 def lives forry eq and saves 4 evs (compared to 240/80).


sleep strong, fighting strong.
requires pursuit, but that's fine, esp since it pairs with mach to remove dug.
also nigh-requires JOLLY! feels like sacrilege but the speed tier's so important. UD tar is the absolute biggest target - being adamant against an unknown tar forces you into throwing out flimsy mach punches so you don't get outsped and beamed to death. it's not better 100% of the time depending on your team - the power of adamant is amazing of course, you might try to deal with tar via metagross and bring loom in later against guaranteed slower non-lum pokes - but it certainly should be the primary option most of the time. it has so many other great targets, too, allowing you to get reliably spore off in a ton of situations: cloyster, magneton, endpert, bulky jirachi/celebi/zapdos, vaporeon, medicham, adamant gyara, kingdra, ludicolo, weezing, lots of offensive suicunes (and if they outspeed you, which you can see from sand, they have 0 bulk), tie at worst with jolly meta/skarm (and be a lot more confident in straight outrunning them most of the time).

underrated sets: stun spore!!! hpbug can also be good (cele, but also dol and bulky mie).
notes: offense teams with loom are nice in theory, but suffer from the same problems that make them inconsistent (generally incapable on both offense and defense). loom on spikes teams is where it's at. spikes don't really help loom itself that much, since its checks are flying, but being surrounded by the better backbone is incredible for its consistency, and those teams LOVE the reliable sleep. its big hits are also great in further advancing the game for them to lock it down more easily at the end.


knock amazing.
big hits, big hp (bliss toss).
backup checks lots of stuff.

underrated sets: continued mixing and matching of options of the offensive sets. knock shouldn't be dropped most of the time though unless on a super offensive team.
notes: absolutely adores wish support, mence/jira/bliss alike. bulk evs go a long way, speed for bliss only worth it on super offensive teams as well. (by this rationale, those fast sets and sets without knock are probably one and the same.)

b-

a la molt, minus power, plus speed, fight moves and blaze.

underrated sets: toxic in the 4th slot (bliss, mence, molt).
notes: wants spikes so badly, not being able to seal the deal on pert is painful. conveniently, just like with loom, offense teams with it are less reliable as a whole, so put zard on a more balanced spikes team with a real backbone for the best of both worlds. (lets you make the most out of toxic too!!!) +spa goes a long way as well.


struggles against bulkier stuff, but still the face of a solid playstyle - just requires more cognizance of matchups.
hp grass should be the standard, that goes a long way in making it more threatening.

underrated sets: roar is forgotten and can make it threatening even against bulky bliss/mie stuff.
notes: good alongside dbond gar to ruin claydol (which something like non-bug ddtar, who also loves spikes, appreciates as well). a sleep user (loom/venu) might go a long way in helping jolt overcome some hurdles as well.


weird/not great defensive profile, but dishes out major smackaroonis.
dug weakness can be turned into a positive.
early game sub sd focus is so nasty, pairs well with vap and zap.
major problem: offensive teams with it are often woefully inept defensively (spatkers + spikes usually), thus requiring a lot of tough (and often blind) turns to go right. more balanced teams w hera can help with this issue a lot.

underrated sets: sleep talk lefties. protox lefties. cb. 3 attack sd lefties because having brick break is surprisingly helpful (lax, bliss, magneton).
notes: adamant always (and keep max atk even on bulkier sets except for maybe protox). bulk goes a real long way on it.


blah blah offensive teams blah blah not mag weak blah blah explosion
snorlax-tier longevity (aka bad) so needs to pick its spots well for maximum value (double into pert, don't switch into a hydro pump).
uptick of bulky starmie hurts it, but nothing that can't be played around w team support.

underrated sets: think max speed should be the new standard a la loom, too many big targets.
notes: even these offensive sets should usually fit spin. huge upside, and other moves are not really that much better. if you do ditch spin (i.e. with claydol as a partner, which is awesome), hp grass is a great choice, catching cheeky focus pert. always use surf as the stab, mono-ice beam is bad against tar/forry.


underrated as hell, that defensive profile remains fantastic.
its offenses need support (mag, suit tar) of course and it doesn't fit on too many teams as a result, but it can potentially put in a ton of work.

underrated sets: offensive protect 3a. defensive can fit dragonbreath for some nice para support. hell, maybe even sub 3a can fit it over sub.
notes: if there's extra speed on the team for the cmers, adamant is sooooo much stronger on offensive sets. adamant can even be used on the defensive sets.


defensive sets suck, but offensive sets are massively threatening and are great supporters to boot.
variety in those offensive sets too, with roar, bulk vs. spa/speed, timid vs. modest.
doesn't have to be a lead - great midgame poke too, especially on cm passing stuff (like a suicune that can keep the pass going).

underrated sets: petaya if used on a cm passing team. hydro/ib/roar/bp + spikes seems great too.
notes: preferable if teams with lead vap don't risk running out of steam if everything doesn't go right in the first few turns; sometimes that'll be inevitable, but not always.


strong. best on balance that can switch around a lot.

underrated sets: recover on lefties. cb.
notes: zap isn't seen much on such balance teams (bliss meta mie), but could be a welcome addition to help medi get on the field more


far too many roadblocks to ever sweep reliably, but good utility (twave, resists, intim) can make up for lack of offensive threat.
dd double edge is quite threatening if played well. however, that's more for teams that don't rely on gyara's defensive qualities as much.
for teams that do rely on gyara more (switching into fighters), since dd is nigh-useless, perhaps non-dd pure utility sets can be explored.

underrated sets: taunt + twave or even toxic?
notes: kinda awkward to fit sometimes, but definitely warrants exploration.

c+

only good on these kinds of teams:
- mie bliss balance
- magdol offense

lax seriously sucks without enormous swathes of support, which it needs to not be the biggest liability in the tier against the most standard pokemon combinations/styles of team.
also, offensive sets only. restlax is an abomination.

underrated sets: cblax as a psuedo-cbgross to take out skarm/meta so you preserve your more useful metagross. however you'll often wind up booming ttar, so you gotta keep that in mind team-wise. (rain?!)
notes: eq is mandatory. losing to magneton/jirachi/special ttar 1-on-1 and being hardwalled by meta is incredibly stupid.


hard to fit and incredible setup bait for anything that can't be toxiced but is unmatched in its ability to cripple gengar and enable certain teams by allowing a different ttar set. meanpass is silly sometimes but gimmicky unreliable etc.

underrated sets: maybe fitting bp on wish sets.
notes: beware of spikes, calm minders and metagross.


fast saur best saur (outrunning offcune and everything below). causes immense havoc with sleep, leech and general bulk, setting up for an endgame clean beautifully, specifically aero. venu also blanks the toxic waters that might chase aero out initially. beautiful synergy.

underrated sets: roar / sbomb are great 4ths on skarmmag.
notes: really tough to not want mag support with this guy, given how flimsy hp fire can feel and how great the other options are.
decent lead, but best used when spikes are already up. this means you're already exerting pressure and thus it's a lot more worth taking a twave from zap. also means you can pick your spots against a water and aren't forced into those awkward "hit sleep against unknown tar/meta" scenarios.


a la medicham, lower speed/no leftovers suck but has actual defensive utility in a pinch (ttar/anything physical/zapdos). def worth fitting on (para-heavy) balance (meta bliss mie).

underrated sets: focus punch as the 4th move.
notes: same as medicham.


being so free for meta/spikes/sometimes tar sucks, but those can be handled with support, and can be worth it because p2 is absolutely infuriating for all kinds of offense while enabling lots of great pokes who are dug weak.

underrated sets: hp fire, hp fighting, dual status, thunder, 80 spdef to always take 2 starmie hydros in sand.
notes: a spinner really, really brings the best out in p2 (both mie/dol can fit).


lead sets are good and can fit on a variety of offenses. not entirely convinced about the cm variants but they have a place on cmspam, either early game to deny skarm spikes or lategame to act as a starmie of sorts (although cmkou's lack of coverage/inability to grab ohkos makes me prefer the former).

underrated sets: lead kou isn't beholden to lefties, magnet's power boost can be huge. petaya berry might be really cool as well.
notes: dug required. pairing with zapdos is really cool.


snorlax-esque downsides: low speed, sand (+ spikes), few actual resists, can't use all the moves it wants, lets in some nasty customers. however it does have nice upsides. tough to fit - only on special offense, and even then only certain kinds of it (unless you want to consider rain a seperate subset), but definitely has its place.

underrated sets: thunder > tbolt, the latter bounces off meta/tar anyway, so hit em hard or don't hit at all, and of course the para is terrific. actually scares skarm too, allowing your spatkers to actually finish it later.
hpfire really nice too. finally, might be worth going really fast on it, giving it the jump on bulky tar/meta/skarm/pert.
notes: denying early spikes is really, really helpful, so taunt dbond gar lead is a good partner. alternatively, zap, specifically sub to punish forre.


similarities to gar, but has a few notable differences: 1, can switch out of pursuit tar a lot more easily. 2, baits milotic. 3, isn't scared to death of medicham shadow ball. great movepool to mess with the opponent, though wisp and boom should never be ditched. solid poke.

underrated sets: taunt pain split for longevity vs fighters/being more annoying vs defense without needing to bomb (though it still can). attack-invested sludgebomb hpfighting for a different kind of offensive pressure.
notes: helps mixed/spikeless offense a lot, providing a third boom and a good lure to a lot of would-be irritating pokemon.


gg.
best rain dancer by far.
lum/mysticwater are nice, but I think lefties is really good, as it's a huge threat even in sand and it lets you make the most out of its terrific bulk.
evs to survive +2 mence hp flying so you can rain dance against a +1 mence.
0 speed is tempting but hitting 244 is useful so tar can't ruin your day.

underrated sets: besides hp grass, 4th slot can also be surf for accuracy or substitute for boom/status blocking.
notes: great as a standalone sweeper on sp offense, but can also go for a more synergistic weather-clearing approach (e.g. paired with rd subcune).

c

nice niche on physmag stuff, but also surprisingly infuriating as a wall on certain defensive teams - pack wishmence and be good against spikes and special attackers, and it's pretty nuts.
adamant should run 144 attack to always ohko bulkless dug.

underrated sets: offensive sets could run body slam > rock slide to threaten paralysis on its switchins.
notes: even physmag can use (offensive) wishmence alongside it, really nice to offset the inconvenience of 1 layer of spikes and more fully reinforce in the event of more (cloyster).


only on mag pursuit, but man, is it good with them.
has some underexplored defensive pairings too (wishjira/mence).

underrated sets: a little spdef goes a long way against ttar. last slot is open to a bunch of stuff: besides toxic, there's also hp rock/rock slide, roar, counter (even bounces back jirachi hp grass!).
notes: best to ensure phan's paired with good options mixed/special threats, aero and bliss of course being the best.


advantages over yama aren't just higher attack, but better speed and better bulk uninvested, allowing it to invest in that speed.

underrated sets: lefties with earthquake in the 4th slot to smack metagross while not needing a boost. alternatively, yama-esque set (focus punch in the 4th).
notes: blah blah doesn't take hits great in sand blah blah bp zap

c-

tough to switch into for a lot, nice for good lead matchups and blasting zapdos in particular. hates the surge of bulky starmie more than anything else though.

underrated sets: overheat in the 4th slot @ charcoal to ensure you destroy zapdos as well as really chunking mence switches. choice band to bait and destroy milotic?
notes: probably not worth as a non-lead.


don't think it's worth it as a standalone rain dancer - lower spatk is significant when trying to muscle through pokes for a lategame clean, it's tougher to set up with lower physical bulk and weaknesses to bug/flying, and
realistically, stab hp grass isn't enough to meaningfully differentiate it from dra - it's still walled by milo. sure, eq resist and extra hit against mie / cune is nice, but I'd rather have the better overall sweeper. however, ludi's definitely nice alongside dra.

underrated sets: beyond rain dance, 3 attack leech seems pretty disruptive.
notes: rd prob likes/needs mystic water, really needs the push.


actually legit as hell with spikes. the speed, the sleep, the subseed, encore...amazing. bit hard to find a spot, but worth the effort.

underrated sets: maybe an attacking move over encore (hp grass? fire? ice? flying?)
notes: absolutely requires gengar pairing.


not sure about fitting defensive sets into a stall team, but the potential is definitely there.
ditto offensive sets, although it's a little less murky there.

underrated sets: non-curse offensive (twave)? protect?
notes: wants a spinner probably even on a more offensive team (so claydol for the extra boom)


brutal lategame cleaner a la starmie, but I don't think it should bother with cm - it wants all the ohko coverage it can muster, aka it needs ice punch. psy/fire/ice/grass. definitely has potential. amazing speed, and can very feasibly be modest.

underrated sets: in addition to the 4a, there's definitely potential for some sort of taunt knock recover set. just cover pursuit tar.
notes: natural place to put it is special offense, but it can definitely fit on some spikes stuff nicely.


might be the saving grace for mag offense.

underrated sets: probably hp rock.
notes: don't pair with sd celebi, the slot isn't worth it.


awful defensive typing - autodies to electric and grass and effectively to water as well, not to mention fighting and eq. initial speed isn't great too. however, the power is enormous. it also has some great utility moves to support the team. like ludi, it shouldn't be the sole rain dancer, but when paired with dra it can be nasty.

underrated sets: spikes and/or thief! maybe it doesn't even need rain dance and can just be an aggressive supporter, since its hydros/ib combination is already instantly threatening.
notes: can be really hard to find opportunities for. requires aggressive doubles against, like, certain tars, and a willingness to sac it against lax, neither of which is too fun/reliable.

I ranked the Pokemon I thought were worth using. Some Pokemon were left out intentionally, some were oversights.

I don't have many new things to add. If there were any differences, they'd be minor - I don't think Salamence and Celebi swapping places or something is that big a deal. I'm not really into "Jirachi is a top five Pokemon atm rn" type thinking and I don't think anything has changed so drastically as to warrant that (who knew ZapDug offense was really good?). I do enjoy the wider appreciation for Jirachi and Salamence, though. Stuff like "SkarmBliss/Gar bad" is such clear trend-hopping nonsense. I don't know how you could watch yet another season of SPL where they continuously proved this wrong and still think that.

I will say that I still like Magneton quite a bit. I really don't understand the "it's so shit useless besides Skarm" mentality. It has a solid defensive profile (staving off Zapdos / most CB moves) and several Toxic variants can be highly irritating in its own right for several types of defense. Plus, the way it enables movesets on stuff like Tar / Meta (especially the latter) is incredible. Spinning on Skarm is nice and can be done somewhat reliably, but don't discount how good being up 6-5 against it can be, especially with how much nastier it makes your other Pokes - even something like a Leech Celebi or Aerodactyl that can still function with Skarm around becomes so much more annoying without it.

Oh yeah, don't use Jolly Marowak.

Ban sleep.

 

[McMeghan]

Update time.
Thanks to Endill watermess Hclat Siglut johnnyg2 Cowboy Dan Gacu Sadlysius mikmer Altina undisputed Triangles Ibidemsa ABR dice Star Dizno Fear Kerts UD and M Dragon for sending their rankings. I also appreciate the people taking the time to post their thoughts and ranking even if they weren't added to the mix. For the record, I always take people who eithre frequently top the ladder or go far/win tournaments; so don't feel discouraged, you will get there eventually.

Without further ado, here are the new Viability Rankings:

Hide

S RANK

Tyranitar​

A¹ RANK

Zapdos​

Metagross​

A² RANK

Gengar​

Swampert​

Jirachi​

Skarmory​

Celebi​

Blissey​

Salamence​

B¹ RANK

Suicune​

Dugtrio​

Aerodactyl​

B² RANK

Snorlax​

Starmie​

Forretress​

Claydol​

C¹ RANK

Breloom​

Milotic​

Moltres​

Heracross​

C² RANK

Flygon​

Magneton​

Hariyama​

Cloyster​

Jolteon​

Gyarados​

D¹ RANK

Charizard​

Vaporeon​

Porygon2​

Venusaur​

Medicham​

Jynx​

D² RANK

Kingdra​

Smeargle​

Raikou​

Weezing​

Regice​

Steelix​

D³ RANK

Machamp​

Donphan​

Marowak​

Blaziken​

Ludicolo​

Houndoom​

Umbreon​

E RANK

Scizor​

Dragonite​

Registeel​

Camerupt​

Lanturn​

Golduck​

Armaldo​

Ninjask​

F RANK

Regirock​

Jumpluff​

Dusclops​

Exeggutor​

Alakazam​

Sceptile​

Rhydon​

Mantine​

Solrock​

Slaking​

Gardevoir​

Articuno​

Miltank​

You can consult all the datas by clicking HERE.

Some explanations, informations, etc:

• The first post has been updated with the above ranking. Every Pokemon name redirect to its Smogon Analysis.
• Some Pokemons that got nommed were removed from the rankings for not receiving enough nominations. Vapicuno and I decided that a Pokemon needed to be ranked 5 times at least to be featured.
• If there is some difference between the spreadsheet and vapicuno's rankings (which we use for the thread), it's because his program takes better care of the outliers and the number of nominations.
• NEW! The spreadsheet now includes the difference in ranking and average for every Pokemon compared to their previous VR result. Those can be seen on right of the document.

Some trivia:

• This time around, many people had the final Top 10 as theirs: myself, watermess, Siglut, johnnyg2, Gacu, mikmer, Star and Kerts.
• Among the top 10, Cowboy Dan had the most outliers: 4.
• Among the top 20, HClat and UD had the most outliers with 7.
• Among the top 46 (this is the cutoff between D and E rank which is where things get more volatile), it is again HClat and UD with the most outliers: 14 each.
• Worth noting, Sadlysius had 0 outliers within the first 46 Pokémons. I'm not counting his Zapdos 2 because it turned out to be Zapdos final ranking.
• The biggest outliers are as follow:
  • Top10: UD's Zapdos (11<>2, 9 spot difference)
  • Top20: HClat's Milotic (19<>45, 26 spot difference), bonus mention for his Magneton (23<>47, 24 spot difference)
  • Top46: UD's Ludicolo (44<>64, 20 spot difference)
  • All: HClat's Pikachu (43<>72, 31 spot difference)
• Something I've done this time was "ranking" everyone's... ranking. I added every difference between every mon's ranking from a given person and the final ranking of the Pokemon. So for example, if you ranked Zapdos 3rd and Metagross 8th, you'd have accumulated 5 points (1 from Zapdos and 4 from Metagross). The person with the least point had a ranking closest to the final one. The results are as follow:
  • Top10: Sadlysius (6) -> Kerts (8) / Worst10: UD (32) -> HClat (30)
  • Top20: Sadlysius (20) -> Gacu (24) / Worst20: HClat (82) -> UD (80)
  • Top46: Sadlysius (83) -> Endill (124) / Worst46: HClat (276) -> UD (251)
  • Worth noting is that Sadlysius final score of 83 was better than Triangles and undisputed Top20 (100 each) who only ranked about 25-30 Pokémons.
• Something interesting is that we had very different rank average compared to the final spot of a Pokémon. For example, if you only look at the final ranking, Snorlax only lost one spot, but actually it got an a -2.85 avg compared to the last VR, which is quite big considered how high it is ranked. I advice to check this stat to see who were the biggest winners and losers of the meta shift.
• Finally, the last trivia: the amount of time a Pokémon got ranked 2nd, since Tyranitar always gets the 1st spot. We had 12 Zapdos , 4 Gengar , 3 Metagross , 2 Blissey and 1 Salamence

 

[vapicuno]

IMPORTANT: Please use the Smogon classic theme instead of Smogon Dark to view this post (link to profile settings here for convenience). This provides a white background necessary to view the graphs in this post because of the png transparency.

Hi everyone,

I have worked with McMeghan on this year's VR update as per last year. Again, this update will be based on an extension of my original methodology described here, taking inspiration from a previous post by Jorgen . Thanks to McMeghan Endill watermess Hclat Siglut johnnyg2 Cowboy Dan Gacu Sadlysius mikmer Altina undisputed Triangles Ibidemsa ABR dice Star Dizno Fear Kerts UD M Dragon for your rankings. And thank you McMeghan for providing this data to work with.

Okay, TLDR stuff first:
The average outlier-compensated ranks from everyone are

Aggregate Rankings

01 Tyranitar
02 Zapdos
03 Metagross
04 Gengar
05 Swampert
06 Jirachi
07 Skarmory
08 Celebi
09 Blissey
10 Salamence
11 Suicune
12 Dugtrio
13 Aerodactyl
14 Snorlax
15 Starmie
16 Forretress
17 Claydol
18 Breloom
19 Milotic
20 Moltres
21 Heracross
22 Flygon
23 Magneton
24 Hariyama
25 Cloyster
26 Jolteon
27 Gyarados
28 Charizard
29 Vaporeon
30 Porygon2
31 Venusaur
32 Medicham
33 Jynx
34 Kingdra
35 Smeargle
36 Raikou
37 Weezing
38 Regice
39 Steelix
40 Machamp
41 Donphan
42 Marowak
43 Blaziken
44 Ludicolo
45 Houndoom
46 Umbreon
47 Scizor
48 Dragonite
49 Registeel
50 Glalie
51 Camerupt
52 Lanturn
53 Golduck
54 Armaldo
55 Ninjask
56 Regirock
57 Jumpluff
58 Dusclops
59 Exeggutor
60 Nidoqueen
61 Omastar
62 Aggron
63 Alakazam
64 Sceptile
65 Rhydon
66 Politoed
67 Arcanine
68 Mantine
69 Solrock
70 Slaking
71 Flareon
72 Sableye
73 Gardevoir
74 Pikachu
75 Articuno
76 Miltank
77 Slowbro
78 Nidoking
79 Quagsire
80 Lapras
81 Tauros
82 Ampharos
83 Swellow
84 Wailord
85 Gligar
86 Espeon
87 Lunatone
88 Entei
89 Dodrio
90 Ursaring

and considering only pokemon that were ranked by 5 or more players, we get the reduced list that will be updated into the OP,

Reduced Aggregate Rankings

01 Tyranitar
02 Zapdos
03 Metagross
04 Gengar
05 Swampert
06 Jirachi
07 Skarmory
08 Celebi
09 Blissey
10 Salamence
11 Suicune
12 Dugtrio
13 Aerodactyl
14 Snorlax
15 Starmie
16 Forretress
17 Claydol
18 Breloom
19 Milotic
20 Moltres
21 Heracross
22 Flygon
23 Magneton
24 Hariyama
25 Cloyster
26 Jolteon
27 Gyarados
28 Charizard
29 Vaporeon
30 Porygon2
31 Venusaur
32 Medicham
33 Jynx
34 Kingdra
35 Smeargle
36 Raikou
37 Weezing
38 Regice
39 Steelix
40 Machamp
41 Donphan
42 Marowak
43 Blaziken
44 Ludicolo
45 Houndoom
46 Umbreon
47 Scizor
48 Dragonite
49 Registeel
50 Camerupt
51 Lanturn
52 Golduck
53 Armaldo
54 Ninjask
55 Regirock
56 Jumpluff
57 Dusclops
58 Exeggutor
59 Alakazam
60 Sceptile
61 Rhydon
62 Mantine
63 Solrock
64 Slaking
65 Gardevoir
66 Articuno
67 Miltank

There is essentially no difference in these lists for the purposes of this VR, as we are analyzing just the top few tiers. The aggregate VR tiers obtained are

Final VR Tiers

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C1:
C2:
D1:
D2:
D3:
E:
F:

Let's go through the whole process.

First the data is cleaned by compensating outliers 1 standard deviation away from the edge of the percentiles expected to contain +/- 1 standard deviation of a normal distribution. This is a modification of the conventional interquartile range (IQR), which I have not chosen to use because 50% of the sample doesn't capture the full variation from what I've seen. The compensation is done by bringing these points to the edge of this extended range. This results in mostly zero, but sometimes one or two outlier corrections. We then plot the outlier-removed data as a function of the integer rank to obtain this graph.

VR Tiering Decisions

Full VR Ranking Plot

and we can zoom in to the top 50 mons where tiering decisions are expected to make more sense,

Up to Claydol the tiers are pretty well defined, but tiering seems really difficult after that; there are lots of overlaps between tiers and looking for jumps in the mean ranking is possible but not easy, We turn to hierarchical clustering to help obtain the tiers. We form a dissimilarity matrix where the distances between Pokemon X and Y are given by the following: Take the rate at which voters ranked Pokemon X over Pokemon Y, take the logit transform as is done in logistic regression of a Bernoulli-distributed variable, and take the absolute value. Performing what we call a Ward linkage, this yields a dendrogram of the following sort, where the clusters (what we are going to call tiers) formed by setting a reasonable threshold are represented by different colors, and the dissimilarity between each cluster can be thought of as the vertical height of the nearest branch that connects the two clusters.

In other words, the Heracross-Moltres tier is a lot closer to the Flygon-Jolteon tier (connecting height 13, note the log scale) than the Medicham-Vaporeon tier (connecting height 20). Ignore Tyranitar, since it is unanimously ranked ahead of any other tier and so is in effect as distant to any other tier. Note that the order is not preserved by the algorithm, and hierarchical clustering throws away information, so this is just a rough guide to defining the tiers.

Dendrogram across Tyranitar to Umbreon

We want to verify the validity of the clusters obtained from the dendrogram, so we next plot the dissimilarity matrix and draw out the tiers specified.

To read the dissimilarity matrix, note that zero (the darkest value) corresponds to equal number of people voting in favor and against the Pokemon on the Y axis > X axis, and the higher the value, the more one-sided the voting becomes. In other words, the darker, the more indistinguishable the Pokemon on the X and Y axis become, and a well-defined tier would be a fully dark square (read my methodology thread for explanations).

I am separating out Zapdos and Metagross above the other A-ranked Pokemon (green in the dendrogram) because of their relatively large distance from the rest of them, and the linear plot suggests likewise.

This yields the following subdivision which McMeghan and I have decided on

S:
A1:
A2:
B1:
B2:
C1:
C2:
D1:
D2:
D3:
E:
F:

Numerical ranks represent partial tiers, whereas letter ranks represent a more complete separation. I choose to adopt numerical subranks because there is no reason a priori to believe that Pokemon are grouped in viability by a tripartite scheme of +/-.

Metagame Shifts

This chart shows the difference between this and last year's VRs, together with the uncertainties in the means (not the standard deviation, but the standard deviations divided by sqrt(N-1)).

Rank Improvements from 2020 to 2021

A better way to understand how significant these changes are so as not to mistake changes occuring as due to pure chance is to plot the z-score,

where the Y axis means number of standard deviations away from zero. To recap, 0.5, 1 and 2 standard deviations are about 69%, 84%, and 98% significant (one-sided), meaning roughly that for a z-score of 1, we expect that this change to have occurred due to chance 100%-84% = 16% of the time. Therefore, trust the data on the left than on the right.

To me this is where the fun starts. I'll focus on the Pokemon that have experienced a shift of at least 0.5 standard deviations. Maybe this can be my VR post as well.

(+)
Has a few metagame trends that really make it favorable over Starmie as the premier revenge killer / speed control. Aerodactyl gives trending Forretress TSS the much needed protection against Mixmence and Gengar, and more generally threatens all these trending Zap+Dug CM Pass Celebi teams as well.
(-)
Blissey is the special wall that invites scary trending Fighting-types the most and is generally used with the least anti-dug support (compared to Celebi and Jirachi, which can either countertrap with dug or paralyze with Body Slam). The special wall that was supposed to be the most robust vs CMers has been getting Beat Up Dug'ed.
(-)
Snorlax didn't get particularly better or worse in my eyes compared to last year. Typical issues like having to play 50/50s vs Skarmory still remain. Fighters hit it hard but Snorlax doesn't really let them in for free, so I don't think there's a change there too. Given how close it is to Aerodactyl on the VRs, I think its just a casualty of Aerodactyl's rise.
(+)
Like Aerodactyl, has a few metagame trends that make many sets good. Offensive sets fit like a glove on Zap+(Beat Up)Dug offense teams, but even Spikes can be good enough as an enabler since so many Tyranitars are going special for the Pursuit support on trending teams (Forretress, non-Guts Fighters). Conversely, defensive sets benefit from being able to fit into these Forretress, non-Guts Fighters teams that also having solid WoW pivots.
(-)
Trending to use a variety of different methods like non-Heracross fighters + spinners or CBMeta + CurseBoomLax to pressure Skarmory. Preference for Pursuit Tyranitar also hurts Magneton because there are only so many teams that benefit from having two relatively passive teammates, and those teams are usually not robust anyway. EQ or Counter Forretress > Skarmory trend also does not help Magneton.
(-)
I've completely forgotten about this fella. More than half of its applications require Magneton, which as explained above has its problems in the current metagame. Even not considering that, its most notable use was on Osgoode's Molt/Cel/Umb/Mag/Donphan/Curselax team, but since Roro decided that you can simply run Sunny Day/Rain Dance on Tyranitar if you want a sandless Pursuiter, I feel that there's even less justification for Umbreon. It's a very interesting fit on Forretress teams though, due to its ability to robustly Pursuit Claydol/Starmie (I consider this its niche) as Gacu has shown with his Forre/Venu/Umb/DDtar/Aero/Pert team, and linear in the past with DDTar/Loom/Umb/Zard/Pert/Forre.
(+)
I'm not sure how to explain this. Smeargle has always been around. While it wasn't used in SPL apart from the fullpass showing, I can see it being good in the more bulky, less setup-based offensive metagame. Smeargle is very good when you can disable a key defensive poke and pile up momentum, but sleeping is no good if your opponent can set up and then it doesn't matter if you're up by 5 pokes. Fortunately, we don't live in a DDmence era.
(+)
Metagame trends (Forre, Fighters) indeed give Mixmence an edge, and the re-popularizing of Wish/Roar I think makes it more consistent than before, helping to deal with Milo / CM Pass matchups and letting Mixmence play more strategically. In conjunction with the Aerodactyl and Forretress trends, the two really potent combos that appeal to me are the balanced core of 3-Atk Mixmence + Forretress (spinner-abusing core that doesn't autolose to CM pass) and offensive core of Mixmence + Protect Steel + Aerodactyl (lots of offense with pivoting/revenging utility for defense) and . My closest mons buddies all think Mixmence is OP, but my issue with Mixmence is that I think traditionally its utility is highly dependent on tactical skill. It relies on prediction not just in its move choice but also in its pivoting style - Mixmence can switch in on two moves of any poke, but gets KOed by the other moves. Some pivots like going from Metagross to Mixmence on chipped Swampert are extremely risky against a good player. As a style preference, I much prefer pokes that allow me to play a calculated endgame (like DDMence). Speaking of DDMence, I don't actually think it is too bad in the current meta. Although people have gone back to using defensive Swampert, the very low Flygon usage suggests that DD HP Grass Tyranitar will frequently be able to target Swampert precisely, and SpDef DDMence can finish the job. Other reasons to use DDMence are the preference of Aerodactyl > Starmie as cleaner, setting up and break through Forretress more easily than Skarmory, and the invention of Astamatitos' HP Ghost DDGyara that when paired with DDMence gives really good coverage vs all the flying threats. I don't really know how to comment on CBMence in today's meta; it feels like its in a bit of a limbo.
(+)
Feels like I've talked about Forretress above. I think this is a trend that emerged from the 2020 exploration of Spikes without spinblock where people really started to appreciate Forretress' ability to pressure spinners with HP Bug and still be able to compress roles by spinning and exploding, and instead of using Gengar to spinblock, pile up other offensive pokes that can exploit the spin turn, or take them out with nifty techs like Counter Pursuit Tyranitar.

Analysis of Camps

As per last year, I tried to look out for divided opinions. The most significant split I found was in opinions of Suicune/Swampert in the S-to-B1 tiers.

S to B1: Suicune-Swampert Split
In this analysis, I simply clustered voters based on their rankings of the first 13 Pokemon. Then, I extrapolate to find patterns in the rest of the OU Pokemon.

Dendrogram of S1/S2/A/B1, Tyranitar to Aerodactyl

from the Dendrogram, we identify a camp from Ibidem-dice and from ABR-johnnyg2. We then plot their mean rankings of each Pokemon for the two camps,

Relative Ranks of camps formed from S1/S2/A/B1 split

Note again the error bars are uncertainties in means, not the actual deviations (ie divided by sqrt(N-1)). Using the z-score to see the most significant changes, we obtain

It makes sense to me that the Suicune-loving camp would also rate Dugtrio and Celebi highly as they belong together on special offense and sandless stall archetypes, and this coincides with their disfavoring of TSS pokes like Skarmory, Blissey, Forretress, and Moltres. This preference for special offense can even be seen in favoring Raikou and Regice all the way down in BL. It's a bit of a mystery why this group favors Gengar and Flygon. I suppose Gengar these days is increasingly seen as an enabler on special offense over its traditional TSS spinblocker role. Weezing and Steelix are probably just UD's doing.

I didn't see anything that really stood out from the dissimilarity matrix, but here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Dissimilarity Matrix of S1/S2/A/B1 Camps

To read it, note that when you see a strongly red square, then the camp being analyzed frequently ranks the corresponding Pokemon on the Y axis more favorably than that on the X axis. Another way to see this is by looking across the diagonal line. A strongly red square should be accompanied by a strongly blue square reflected across the line, and we can say the camp prefers the Pokemon on the Y axis of the red square more than that of the blue square. For example, in the data below, the Ibidem camp prefers Gengar to Zapdos.

S-C2: Across all OU Pokemon
The S-C2 tiers cover pretty much all the OU Pokemon (and includes Hariyama), so let's see what we get.

Dendrogram of S-C2, Tyranitar to Gyarados

The main camps are Kerts-johnnyg2 and watermess-UD.

Relative Ranks of camps formed from S-C2 split

Note the huge difference in z scores, which means it's very likely differences in opinion are real and not just a result of natural variation.

Dissimilarity Matrix of S-C2 camps

Some of the differences in the S-B1 Swampert/Suicune analysis carry over, but of note is that on top of favoring Swampert, the Kerts camp seems to favor Zapdos, disfavor Gyarados, favor Medicham, and disfavor Raikou/Regice. To me this indicates a preference for pivot-based hit-and-run styles (TSS, mixed offense) as opposed to setup based snowballing styles (special spam, DDers).

Individual Analyses

For those who are interested to see whose S to C rankings are closest to theirs, you can refer to the chart below. The numbers inside the box go from -100% (full anticorrelation) to 100% (full correlation). They are sorted by the S to C dendrogram order (and the light squares represent the camps).

And finally, these are the relative ranks of everyone. Blue = disfavor, Red = favor. Cyan lines demarcate tier cutoffs.

Individual Ranking Graphic

Closing Remarks

The large number of graphs may seem daunting, and to people who aren't quantitatively trained, this may be really confusing. I recommend just glancing over the spoilers on the first read, only thoroughly analyzing them after you've gone through the more important graphs that have been left unhidden. I'm interested to know what you can infer from these trends, and I hope this can generate some discussion.

Finally, I have attached the Jupyter notebook for this in a zip file. You'll need python and the associated packages to open and run it, and the easiest way to do that is to install the anaconda library here.

 

[Quirky_Turkey]

Could you elaborate on that?

No doubt RegiRock has great stats, but isn't it universally considered to be outclassed by TTar

I would say regirock is more comparable to metagross over ttar, its defense stat is so high it basically functions as a rock resist it threatens mons with quakeslide and the unique trait in superpower, which allows it to smack ttar, it works well as a back up check pretty much any physical attacker. It also has boom which gives it a niche regardless of these great traits. Regirock is a cool mon on physical offense teams i would definitely try out

 

[asterat]

I strongly believe Breloom is underranked in the company of Milotic and Heracross. His floor is pretty high because of spore, he's actually a lot more consistent than you might think. The set that really pushes him over the edge is double status in my opinion, ridiculously effective at landing paralysis on Gengar and Mence, among others. It just ruins flying types. What are you gonna do, go to pert every time? Get focus punched once and all of a sudden Aero is dangerous as hell (or something else, etc.). Don't forget something is already sleeping at this point as well. Stun spore also lets you foil your opponents plans to have something eat sleep a lot of the time as well. Obviously that mon can come in to block spore while it is around, but paralyzed mons tend to die or get trapped. Stun spore is great alongside stuff like pursuit or bkc tar, metagross, or any sort of swampert. Celebi comes in like clockwork; paralyze it and switch to tar. If it needs to heal suddenly Celebi is in kind of a tough spot! Same goes for Starmie, especially when it feels pressured to spin. I think it's discrediting towards Breloom's utility to think of it as another fighter that happens to get a sleep move, it's really its own thing that you can slap onto more structures. It doesn't get matchup blocked by offense the way other fighters can; if you at least get a spore off then Breloom has kind of pulled its weight. I am currently a lover of stun spore but other sets have merit as well, there's a few hidden powers, or mach punch. Don't think leech seed is really worth it but it exists as well. I'd probably order B2 as follows personally, but I'm not too confident on the ordering.





To be clear I do think sleep should really be axed, but while its here a lot of people are sleeping (heh) on Breloom.

 

[airports]

many people have expressed a desire to ban sleep, thus far to no apparent effect. concerns don't mandate tiering action, only a response on the part of decision makers. is the merit of sleep a discussion point among those with the power to make such a decision? if not, what is the procedure by which an issue gets discussed? if so, might those discussions be published?

 

[UD]

Ask and you shall receive.

 

[airports]

smogon's funniest car insurance broker

 

[UD]

I'll give credit to a good roast where it's due. I laughed at that one.

In seriousness though, my intent was not to troll. I've been vocally anti-sleep ban in the most active source of ADV related discussion, the ADV Community discord. The topic was broached one time in the ADV Council discord, see screenshot above. By my count, one member is clearly pro-ban, one seemed ambivalent, I am very anti-ban, and the two others made no comment and I will not speculate on their behalf.

I seriously doubt this topic will ever get off the ground, but good luck in your quest.

 

[airports]

yes, that being the question, which remains outstanding - how does a topic get off the ground, whereby meriting serious discussion between those with the authority to underake tiering action? if banning sleep has not been given serious consideration, as appears to be the case, in what ways has the motion to ban sleep fallen short, and how might that be remidied? finally, no hard feelings. i love me a toyata prius as much as the next guy.

 

[mikmer]

yes, that being the question, which remains outstanding - how does a topic get off the ground, whereby meriting serious discussion between those with the authority to underake tiering action? if banning sleep has not been given serious consideration, as appears to be the case, in what ways has the motion to ban sleep fallen short, and how might that be remidied? finally, no hard feelings. i love me a toyata prius as much as the next guy.

Make a serious post on a specific thread(not this one, this is a vr thread), list the merits and cons of sleep being banned in a objective manner(without saying stuff like:"i hate it lol""it's clearly broken"etc.), and hope that people listen to the points that you've made, if you succeed in explaining your argument and many people agree with you eventually it will be brought up to people in charge.

 

[airports]

arguments for banning sleep in adv ou have been made many times by many people across smogon forums. given our limited understanding of the game as a whole, the standard for any tiering action, banning or unbanning, should never be to prove that a metagame element is competitive or not. personally, I don’t think i could substantively argue that sleep is uncompetitive any more than i, or anybody, could show that zapdos is better than metagross. instead, the facts are these, a sizeable consensus exists that sleep is uncompetitive in adv ou, something this very thread testifies to. the response of those in a position of power has been :messi: and the subject’s occasional discussion in a private discord server with no affiliation to smogon. people can make of that what they want, but, damn, lol…

 

[mikmer]

arguments for banning sleep in adv ou have been made many times by many people across smogon forums. given our limited understanding of the game as a whole, the standard for any tiering action, banning or unbanning, should never be to prove that a metagame element is competitive or not. personally, I don’t think i could substantively argue that sleep is uncompetitive any more than i, or anybody, could show that zapdos is better than metagross. instead, the facts are these, a sizeable consensus exists that sleep is uncompetitive in adv ou, something this very thread testifies to. the response of those in a position of power has been :messi: and the subject’s occasional discussion in a private discord server with no affiliation to smogon. people can make of that what they want, but, damn, lol…

Pointing out to this discussion that you started as the main proof of the legitimacy of your argument is some bs that even the worst lawyers won't do.
Have a good day sir.

 

[Siglut]

You're wrong in saying there's a sizable consensus that sleep is problematic, the majority of players (and as far as I can tell this is true across all skill levels) think that this is not the case. As for discussion happening on a discord server, that's the case because it's by far the easiest way to do things. Vapicuno and I probably swapped a hundred lines about this very topic yesterday in about the same time it took for you to write your post and me to see it and write mine. It's just easier and faster to discuss that way. As for the server being private, I'm pretty sure anyone who has any interest in joining will be welcome.
I also want sleep banned. But obviously people who want something changed are more incentivized to post about it than people who don't.

 

[airports]

italian lawyers and discord... this is lookin' like my exit

 

[vapicuno]

instead, the facts are these, a sizeable consensus exists that sleep is uncompetitive in adv ou,

Said side discord held an informal poll in February 2021 with the following results

You can make of that what you want.

Further discussion should be held in the thread below, which was started for the purposes of discussing sleep.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleep-moves-in-adv-ou.3664284/

 

[airports]

a moderator using their powers to award themselves the final word. why not post your poll in the thread you linked instead, that is, what you require of others? a consensus is a general agreement, not necessarily a majority, and, again, i think there is a sizeable portion of the adv community that agrees that sleep is broken. what do i think of your poll in which arena trap and sleep were lumped together and 23 people voted? suffice to say, not much

 

[Finchinator]

a moderator using their powers to award themselves the final word.

He posted a vote, which is doing anything but awarding himself the final word. He also linked you a proper place to discuss the topic, essentially encouraging you to continue. Stop trying to derail one of the most informative threads on the site and follow simple rules.