Oh my god BDSP is the gift that keeps giving these metas are so fucking fun
Mence is busted straight up, but everyone knows that. Ive been using adamant banded mence on sticky webs as a suicidal breaker (kinda like banded staraptor in OU) and it just melts everything.
252+ Atk Choice Band Salamence Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 223-264 (56.5 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Salamence Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Donphan: 282-333 (73.4 - 86.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Salamence Outrage vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Claydol: 231-273 (71.5 - 84.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And honestly Outrage + Earthquake is all you need on band mence, giving you two slots to play with. I usually run Dragon Claw + Fire Blast, but you can run anything. Its probably very good as an offensive defogger, you could run Roar on hazard spam teams, you could run Edge but I dont think that hits anything that Outrage doesnt. Its just a brilliant pokemon, very easy to snowball with, especially vs offensive teams if you have webs up. This definitely needs to get banned but its really fun to play with as long as its here.
Yanmega is fucking scary in this tier. I think Speed Boost is probably overrated, as Mega really likes the power boost of Specs. Tinted Lens Specs has some insane calcs like
252 SpA Choice Specs Tinted Lens Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Magneton: 270-318 (112 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tinted Lens Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Arcanine: 244-288 (76 - 89.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Bronzong: 178-211 (52.6 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Tinted Lens Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Mantine: 150-178 (40.2 - 47.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Its just scary. If this thing gets in on a slowbro or a mag setting up a sub (most common set Ive seen so far, and Bug Buzz ignores sub), it just threatens so much. You really really need to be vigilant with hazard control though, luckily we have a semi-good collection of spinners, both offensive and defensive. I would say dont use a defogger on Yanmega teams as it really loves hazards helping it break, especially with the lack of boots in this meta.
Speaking of hazards:
Stealth Rock:
So these are probably your best bets for SR. Hippowdon is amazing, probably my favorite setter in the tier, it can really shine in a meta without Gliscor forcing it to run Ice Fang. Might be a little hard to fit on more offensive teams, but thats why you have options. Bronzong is great if you want a dragon check and a rocker in the same slot, just watch out for Mag. Bronzong can also use its other slots for whatever, you can have it set up weather, screens, trick room, whatever. Its the best rocker for those kinds of teams cause it has all of those options. Donphan is the best user of Spin + Rocks (Forry no longer gets rocks) and its great for role compression. I just hesitate to name it the best rocker because it has so many responsibilities in this tier (dragon check, rocker, spinner, knock off spammer) that it gets spread a little too thin if you focus on it as your only rocker. I would say its a fantastic back up rocker thought, and one of my favorite pokemon in the tier. Swampert is the same swampert everyone knows and loves, Im surprised I havent seen more of it. It doesnt do great against the drag spam in the tier rn, but its still good at its job, idk why people be sleeping on it. Shuckle is there because webs are heckin stromk in BDSP and it does a fantastic job of keeping hazards up as long as you play to its strengths. Do NOT use Final Gambit Shuckle, it should not be just thrown away, because one of its strengths is being able to consistently come in and throw up hazards time and time again due to its amazing defenses. Infestation + Knock is good, you can trap something while taking the hit then switch out to your breaker / defensive answer without fearing a double switch. Steelix is a more extreme version of Bronzong that trades endless utility for more offensive presence and insane physical defense. The electric immunity seems to be amazing as well, but in practise i have seen like 1 electric type in this tier so far as it was spin blocking Rotom so its not as relevant as you might think. Mew is Bronzong that goes all in on utility but the trade-off is being noticeably worse against dragons, which is imo a trade off that is not worth it in the tier as it stands currently.
Spikes:
Dont run Omastar guys pls. Anyways, Forry is a good spiker, but its kinda in the same vein as Donphan as a Rocker. It just needs to do too much, and the metagame is so offensive that it doesnt really get the turns it needs to make it worthwhile. I like Cloyster as a spin-spiker much more because of this; it has the offensive presence necessary to generate those free turns for it to do its thing. It does come at the oppurtunity cost of not running the Shell Smash set, but imo Cloysters Smash set is wayyy better in OU than it is in UU where the presence of mence has made people overprepare for physical sweepers (whereas in OU the presence of Latios has made people overprepare for special breakers, which lets physical sweepers like Cloyster do well). Froslass is a good lead, but the lead metagame is kinda meh. Its good if you wanna spike and spinblock in one teamslot, but its wayyy too frail to spinblock effectively, and the only good spinner it matches up well against is like Claydol. Its also worth mentioning that Froslass is the only spiker on this list to not also have access to Toxic Spikes. I love Roserade as a spiker in theory (I have not used it yet) because Im the kind of girl who thinks anything with a sleep move is really neat, and being able to absorb t-spikes, check Donphan and Claydol, use Toxic and absorb status seems really good in theory. Hell, you could run Sleep Powder / Spikes / Leaf Storm / Stun Spore to REALLY mess up offensive teams with status, which seems like a fun idea in theory. Qwilfish is the suicide spiker that Froslass wishes it was, and Intimidate can probably give it a buffer vs certain threats, although nothing in particular jumps out at me rn.
Toxic Spikes:
(+Spikers-froslass)
First off, I think its fucking hilarious that between Nidoqueen and Drapion, I would consider Nidoqueen to be the offensive TSpiker and Drapion to be the defensive one. Secondly, Nidoqueen is probably the only logical choice for TSpiking in this tier. The Spikers all have other stuff they would rather be doing, with the notable exception of Qwilfish, but I feel like Qwilfish is so suicidal as a hazard mon that you will always have to choose between spikes and tspikes, so I would rather not rely on it for a tspike team. Nidoqueen also has the benefit of providing rocks, and Rocks + TSpike is way more justifiable than Spikes + TSpike imo. I dont think TSpike is particularly strong in UU, because I havent seen too many balance teams, but it could be nice for like helping Salamence break slowbro or something. I think if youre running TSpikes, the only option is Nidoqueen, outside of veeery niche cases like being very afraid of Mismagius so you run Drapion or using stall (lol) so you run Weezing.
Sticky Web:
Shuckle supremacy
(dont run Smeargle, its bad, dont run Masquerain, its even worse. Just stick to shuckle, and love it, and it will love you back and let your exploud destroy the tier with its mighty mighty boombursts. Say amen and thank Shuckle every night before going to sleep, lest you wake up covered in cobwebs, unable to move as it slowly digests you to make Berry Juice with.)
Rapid Spin:
When talking about spinners, I think Donphan is prob ably the best. Forry is good too because of all the dragon spam going on in the tier, but its very easily taken advantage of and doesnt really have any offensive presence outside of volt switching to your breakers. Cloyster is interesting cause of its insane defense even uninvested, allowing it to run like Spin / Spikes / Icicle Spear / Ice Shard or something along those lines, but the SR weakness makes that job harder than it needs to be I think. Blastoise is a good spinner, but Id rather use the Smash sets if im going Toise cause it can break through stuff like Bronzong and other steels that Cloyster gets hard walled by. Claydol I have not used but its probably a worse Donphan imo. It could be nice as a levitating spinner that isnt completely broken apart by special attackers, but i think the meta rn is wayyy too offensive for Claydol rn. Same goes for Tentacruel, altho that might have a niche as the fastest spinner in the tier. I think those are the only spinners worth mentioning prolly.
Spinblocking:
As for spinblockers, Ive seen Rotom, Mismagius and Spiritomb so far. Spiritomb is probably the best defensive spinblocker unless you wanna run defensive Dusknoir ig, but I havent seen much of that. Mag is really scary offensively, and you definitely dont want to give it a free switch in so its a really good blocker as it discourages spin just by being alive, kinda like Gar in OU, and I think thats why its probably my favorite blocker so far. Sure, Spiritomb will stick around for longer, but it also doesnt really do anything apart from maybe wisp and pain split while its on the field. Rapid Spinning into Spiritomb isnt really an issue, you can just switch out and try again later. Rapid Spinning into Mismagius is scary, because youve just given it a free turn to Sub or plot or just attack and thats really scary rn imo. Im looking at the tier list rn while typing this and I honestly dont know why Dusknoir isnt being used as a blocker. It seems solid on paper, but maybe Im missing something. Froslass, I touched on briefly before but I REALLY dont like it as a spinblocker, it only matches up well against Claydol, and it doesnt have the offensive presence of mismagius to justify its frailty. You could argue its good vs Donphan too, but Knock OHKOs froslass and Icy Wind only does half back, so you need Donphan HEAVILY chipped for it to be effective, and at that point you dont even need to spinblock, just KO it with something else to stop the spin. You could run Ice Beam to negate this, but at that point youre just sacrificing utility and trying too hard to make it useful. If Froslass has to Destiny Bond and kill itself to deny a spin, its not a good spinblocker imo.
Dont Use Defog:
Reading this so far, you might be wondering why I havent touched upon Defog at all so far; given that its probably the more widespread hazard control method in later gens. Well, first off, I think hazards are insanely good in UU rn, and defogging away your own hazards should only be an emergency method and not your first stop on the hazard train. Secondly, we just dont have that many good defoggers in UU rn I think. Mew and Zapdos are probably the best, but Zappy is hard walled by any ground type (such as, wink wink, Donphan), and Mew is vulnerable to every single kind of hazard in the game and thus not very good control imo. You have Flygon, who is probably the best bet for a defogger, being the most hazard resistant pokemon in the tier, but if youre looking for that niche you might as well run Claydol as a spinner and keep your hazards, as this lets you run Flygons MUCH better Choice Scarf set instead. You could maybe slot Defog onto offensive mons like Honchkrow or Salamence or hell even Scarf Flygon, but I just dont see any scenario where those same offensive mons would want to get rid of the hazards that help them break. Crobat is an option??? I guess??? But not a good one, its too easily pressured and taken advantage of, and Im not sure what youd even get a defog off on. Mantine is probably good once the meta settles but rn its wayyy too physically offensive for poor Mantine to get anything of value done. I just dont see what you would use as a Defogger that is better in its role as a defogger than any of the spinners, who all bring something unique to the table. Not wanting to get Spinblocked is understandable, but honestly just find a way around the ghosts and dont waste a teamslot on Defog. Run it on your scarf Flygons incase of an emergency, but dont rely on it as your only form of hazard control. That yanmega will suffer if your hazard control is defog.
Magic Bounce:
You have espeon and Xatu. Xatu is fucking annoying for every spiker and most rockers, but its easily pressured. Espeon has a worse matchup against every individual setter, but its more offensive and can be nice. I have not used either of these mons, and I would not rely 100% on them for hazard control, but they could be interesting. Would love to build more teams around these two in the future.
Spinda:
How am I just now finding out that Spinda gets rapid spin thats fucking hilarious ignore every word of this write up and use spinda as your sole hazard control please please let drunk bear be the #1 spinner in the tier we can all work together to make this happen
: No brainer here that this mon is a cut above the rest. Whether it's band, scarf, LO the set does not matter, the snowball potential is a bit too high for the tier imo. DD mence is incredibly hard to rkill at +1 speed, even faster scarfers like Mismagius only do like 50/55 with d gleam and die to the next move then the next mon dies and gg. Your best strat is like cloyster ice shard (priority is lacking quite a bit), something like Shuca metagross which I tried and was alright or risk speed tie with your own scarf mence or flygon.
: Again the meta literally did just come out yesterday but sun is extremely strong. Victreebel and Venusaur get up to their usual stuff and it's even harder to stop them. Zard also has zero switchins, Chansey lacking eviolite leads it to get 2hkod by Specs Fire Blast for your notes.
: Probably the best set up sweeper behind Salamence, another mon that takes no prisoners once it clicks Shell Smash, unlike Cloyster it has all-around bulk and isn't weak to rocks so it has an easier time setting up. Dark pulse means it isn't walled by slowking and water/ice/dark hits everything other than Poliwrath lel and Sharpedo.
