OU BW OU Viability Ranking, mk. 4

[Gamer1234556]

Since the SPL is coming to a close, I will bring some thoughts to the table.

Nominations

--> A: Scizor's SPL usage eclipses every used Pokémon in A-, and for good reason. It's easily of the best Psyspam counters in the tier since Alakazam can seldom afford HP Fire (unless it is paired with 3 Attacks Reuniclus). HOs are really in need of a consistent pursuit trapper and Scizor delivers that role in spades. It also has an argument on Rain since it improves the Psyspam MU significantly (albeit to the expense of the Thundy-T MU). Hell, it even sees use in Hippo Sand and Dual Pursuit teams with Tyranitar.

and --> Top of A: Dragonite's usage in SPL is equal to Keldeo's, which itself is the 7th most used Pokémon in the SPL. Dragonite's typing and ability add much-needed longevity to HO and its ability to check Breloom and Volcarona in a pinch should not be overlooked. Slowbro and Hippowdown, two of Dragonite's hardest counters, are also incredibly fringe in the current metagame, which Dragonite likes as it can prey on faster, frailer Zam Psyspikes teams. Skarmory is Sand's premier spiker, IMO eclipsing Ferrothorn in that category because it is much better equipped to deal with HO. Its incredible typing means that it's able to pull its weight in any matchup barring rain, and since it's so often paired with a water-immune, it's not like that is even as big of a deal as before.

--> B-: Aerodactyl has seen 4 uses so far in the SPL, meaning that its viability far exceeds other Pokémon that reside in C (and IMO, any Pokémon currently residing in B/B-). Aerodactyl is the fastest Pokémon in the tier, meaning that it's very consistent at getting rocks up and preventing other leads from getting rocks up themselves. Its obviously not quite a metagame defining force but the fact that its usage is on par with Celebi and Salamence and eclipses Kyurem-B, Tornadus, Seismitoad and Kyurem make it worthy of a rise.

 

[Eeveeto]

Biased opinion, but given my SPL battle of 2 days ago, I don't see a reason to not have Whiscash in C Rank, given that Feraligatr, Kadabra, Virizion, Magneton and Chandelure are there, all of which ( in my personal opinion) are worse Mons and fit in much less teams than Whiscash.

 

[KingOfTheZoogers]

So I'm new to this generation and was looking up pokemon in OU and I have an important question.

Why is stuff like Blissey and Forretress that have been recognized as viable and in Blisseys case actually been used in SPL games grouped with mons like Infernape, Vaporeon and Haxorus which the last one is considered outclassed by mid tier dragons and the former 2 are considered terrible?

I think we should probably have a D tier blacklist just to seperate fringe picks in C tier from stuff that should never belong on teams.

 

[Fakee]

So I'm new to this generation and was looking up pokemon in OU and I have an important question.

Why is stuff like Blissey and Forretress that have been recognized as viable and in Blisseys case actually been used in SPL games grouped with mons like Infernape, Vaporeon and Haxorus which the last one is considered outclassed by mid tier dragons and the former 2 are considered terrible?

I think we should probably have a D tier blacklist just to seperate fringe picks in C tier from stuff that should never belong on teams.

there will always be someone who uses that kind of mons (blissey forretress and stuff) so do not get carried away by impressions, while it is true that blissey, forretress and aerodactyl stand out from the rest, they are used sporadically in SPL and do not go beyond that, while the others are not used is mainly due to the fact that it is too difficult to create a team with them and make it work. if a C rank was made there would only be between 5-6, so I see no need to separate those who are not used and those who are used only once a year.

 

[peng]

so in short, when we last did the VRs we combined the C+, C and C- ranks into a single “this stuff is really bad but usable on specific teams” group. A lot of the VR discussion was revolving around Froslass being better than Victini, Forretress being better than Vaporeon or whatever and its just a generally fruitless discussion point because none of these Pokemon are seeing top level usage anyway - maybe Forretress Blissey Hail sees 2 usages in a side-tour and people fight for them to be a tier higher, but then they aren’t seen again for 18 months whilst Victini / Vaporeon usage slightly “spikes”. Realistically these Pokemon are all pretty similar viability, and there’s no use in constantly moving these up and down based on what is the flavour-of-the-month RU mon that makes, at best, a small handful of sidetour appearances before returning to insignificance. Compare that to Ninetales / Cresselia in the tier above which make consistent appearances cross-tournament and year-round, a clear distinction from the C rank.

C tier purely acts as a place to document things that you can actually find niches for and have evidence of viability - whether its 1 appearance or 3 doesn’t drastically alter their place in the metagame.

That said, there are some pokemon that will almost definitely rise in the next VR update - Aerodactyl is a crucial member of revitalised hyper offenses and will surely see a bump, maybe Azelf going with it

 

[GaryTheGengar]

VR update time!

Something to keep in mind before delving into the rankings - we had a very small set of entries this time around; only 7 users polled submitted their personal VRs. As a result, some apparent trends may be slightly overexaggerated due to the small sample size. I'll try to address the larger outliers in my commentary following the ranks themselves. Thanks to everyone who made this update possible via your submissions.

Without further ado, the summer 2022 BW viability rankings!

S:
1. = Latios
2. = Tyranitar
3. = Ferrothorn

A+:
4. +1 Alakazam
5. -1 Landorus-T
6. = Politoed
7. +2 Thundurus-T
8. -1 Gliscor
9. -1 Excadrill
10. +1 Tentacruel
11. -1 Keldeo

A:
12. +6 Skarmory
13. = Reuniclus
14. +3 Dragonite
15. -3 Garchomp
16. -1 Breloom
17. -1 Volcarona
18. +3 Mamoswine
19. +6 Starmie

A-:
20. +2 Jirachi
21. -7 Rotom-W
22. +4 Scizor
23. +9 Cloyster
24. -5 Heatran
25. -5 Magnezone
26. +1 Gastrodon
27. -3 Jellicent
28. -5 Terrakion


B+:
29. = Kyurem-B
30. +7 Gyarados
31. -3 Tornadus
32. -2 Latias
33. -2 Celebi
34. +9 Salamence
35. -2 Seismitoad


B:
36. +15 Abomasnow
37. -2 Mew
38. -4 Kyurem
39. -1 Hippowdon
40. -1 Xatu
41. *new* Aerodactyl


B-:
42. -1 Slowking
43. *new* Weavile
44. -8 Slowbro
45. -3 Milotic
46. -2 Amoonguss
47. -7 Hydreigon
48. -2 Chansey
49. *new* Forretress
50. -5 Ninetales
51. *new* Blissey
52. -5 Cresselia

C: (everything else)

Hide

Rises and falls:
-1 Excadrill
+1 Alakazam
+6 Skarmory
Excadrill continues to drop, from 5th place two rankings ago to 9th. However, this time around it's fall is almost entirely due to the limited sample size in combination with one significant outlier; Excadrill was headed for a 7th place finish, a rise from the last VR, but one ranker placed Excadrill in an astonishing 20th place! On the other hand, Alakazam continues to rise, now occupying the top spot in A+. Players have grown to prefer spikes + psychics as the most common type of sand teams, as opposed to the more traditional sand teams operating on defensive synergy and relying on a spinner to facilitate their more passive playstyle. Skarmory finds itself leaping from the bottom to the top of the A rankings primarily due to its home on the aforementioned psyspikes. Skarm not only is a reliable spiker with more longevity than ferrothorn, but a key defensive piece in the matchup against opposing psyspikes, being possibly the best check to Alakazam in the tier outside of the rare defensive Jirachi. Its main downside, the weakness to rain, is relatively insignificant on this archtype due to its fantastic inherent matchup against rain. The influx of offense can largely be attributed to the dominance of psyspikes, as it is one of the few archetypes in the tier that holds a positive matchup at team preview.

+2 Thundurus-T
+6 Starmie
-1 Keldeo
Another continuation of last ranking's trends. Thundurus-T has firmly established itself as the premier rain breaker, largely due to the huge threat it poses to sand, as well as it's positive matchup vs opposing rain. Starmie, once limited to hazard removal duties on offensive teams, has seen a massive comeback on rain. It's newly unearthed water gem set offers a large offensive threat while also being effective hazard removal, removing one complaint some users such as myself have with rain - the passivity of Tentacruel as a spinner. Keldeo on the other hand has continued to lose popularity on similar structures. It manages to salvage some viability on rain due to it's fantastic matchup vs trending offensive teams with a scarf set. However, Keldeo stays in A+ primarily due to it's synergistic properties with sand. The offensive matchup can feel substandard with some established sand structures (think gastro/skarm psyspikes vs cloyster), and keldeo patches up these holes tremendously well both defensively and offensively. The relatively novel set of protect + 3 attacks can be an absolute nightmare for offensive teams to deal with while offering a key resistance to ice, which can be hard to come by.

+3 Dragonite
-3 Garchomp
+2 Jirachi
+4 Scizor
*new* Aerodactyl
Offense continues to trend positively, largely due to it's great matchup vs ever popular sand teams. Offense started to pick up popularity around a year ago as players began to recognize how kind the metagame was to it overall, with an influx of "smurf" offense and other pre-established variants such as custap Skarmory + Jellicent. Recently, players have begun to deviate more from these styles, exploring pokemon such as lead Aerodactyl and imprison Landorus as opposed to the traditional Garchomp lead.

Dragonite has essentially established itself as the face of these offensive teams, as it is nearly omnipresent regardless of the composition. Multiscale grants it unmatched defensive utility for an offensive pokemon, while the variety of items and a largely customizable moveset allow it to pick and choose it's checks. Jirachi offers some defensive utility as well, while being an underrated offensive threat with it's vast movepool. Jirachi has also seen a slight spike in usage on rain with it's subcm set.

+9 Cloyster
+3 Mamoswine
Ice types continue to rise. Ice could very well be the most potent offensive typing in the metagame, hitting well over half of the top 20 pokemon neutrally if not better. Ice is especially potent coming from the physical side of the spectrum, as the tier's primary defensive walls hold a 4x weakness. Both of the frozen pokemon offer an outstanding matchup vs many sand teams. Mamoswine is one of the easier pokemon to slot on a team in my opinion, finding a home on every archetype from sand and rain to weatherless offense. I'm an especially big fan of Mamoswine on rain due to it patching up a weakness to Thundurus-t and drastically improving the sand matchup. Cloyster on the other hand appears more linear, primarily finding it's home on all out offensive teams. However, we've seen innovations within these teams, with rapid spin gaining prominence and offering these teams a newfound flexibility, previously being limited to running Starmie as their sole hazard removal.


-7 Rotom-W
-5 Heatran
-5 Magnezone
-3 Jellicent
-2 Celebi
-8 Slowbro
A large number of "traditional" sand pokemon suffered a large drop this update, largely due to the fact that they're both difficult to fit on psyspikes style teams as well as poor in the direct matchup against the style, thanks to their passivity and general susceptibility to hazards. This may seem counterintuitive in regards to Magnezone, however without a spinner it can easily allow one or two layers of spikes prior to removing the opposing spiker, easily enough for the spikes user to execute their gameplan without a hitch.

As the meta continues to evolve, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these pokemon regain some of their prominence, as they can offer an improved matchup vs trending offensive styles at the cost of a weakened matchup vs opposing sand, particularly the psyspikes variety.

 

[oldcvcv]

Why Salamence was 43th in the last ranking and 34th now ? what changed ?

 

[gabraltar]

what made abomasnow rise so massively?

 

[Ununhexium]

I might be able to help a little bit

Why Salamence was 43th in the last ranking and 34th now ? what changed ?

I'm not sure Salamence has gotten a lot better, as much as some people have "rediscovered" it. It can be used on some Smurf-adjacent offenses, DragMag, and I think I've seen it as a filler on rain once or twice, as its scarf set is actually pretty decent on the right team.

what made abomasnow rise so massively?

dice mostly, but Abomasnow has a really good movepool and has a typing that gives it a natural advantage against a lot of Pokemon common in the metagame right now when given a free turn. Keep in mind, however, it's still at the bottom of B- tier, so I suppose it rose a lot but its still not a top tier Pokemon.

 

[658Greninja]

What caused Weavile to rise?

 

[Finchinator]

What caused Weavile to rise?

General utility on weatherless offense, specifically with people trying out the Beat Up + Dark Gem SD variant. Classic Pursuit sets also have a niche, too.

 

[GaryTheGengar]

It's that time of the year again...

Fall 2022 BW OU Viability rankings:

S:
1. +1 Tyranitar
2. -1 Latios

A+:
3. +5 Gliscor
4. -1 Ferrothorn
5.. = Landorus-T
6. -2 Alakazam
7. +2 Excadrill
8. +3 Keldeo
9. -3 Politoed

A:
10. +2 Skarmory
11. +2 Reuniclus
12. -5 Thundurus-T
13. -3 Tentacruel

A-:
14. +4 Mamoswine
15. +6 Rotom-W
16. -1 Garchomp
17. -1 Breloom
18. -4 Dragonite
19. -2 Volcarona
20. +4 Heatran

B+:
21. +4 Magnezone
22. +6 Terrakion
23. -4 Starmie
24. +2 Gastrodon
25. -5 Jirachi

B:
26. -4 Scizor
27. +6 Celebi
28. -1 Jellicent
29. -6 Cloyster
30. +2 Latias

B-:
31. +4 Seismitoad
32. -3 Kyurem-B
33. -3 Gyarados
34. -3 Tornadus

C+:
35. +4 Hippowdon
36. +1 Mew
37. +3 Xatu
38. +8 Amoonguss
39. -5 Salamence

C:
40. +4 Slowbro
41. -5 Abomasnow
42. -1 Slowking
43 -5 Kyurem
44. +6 Ninetales
45. +4 Forretress
46. -5 Aerodactyl
47. = Hydreigon

C-:
48. = Chansey
49. +2 Blissey
50. +2 Cresselia
51. -6 Milotic
52. *new* Bronzong

D:

Hide

Rises and falls:
1. +1 Tyranitar
3. +5 Gliscor
10. +2 Skarmory

Bulky sand teams have emerged as the premier playstyle, and as a result, Tyranitar has taken up the mantle from Latios as the premier pokemon in BW OU. Tyranitar not only facilitates sand teams through chip damage, changing the weather vs opposing rain teams and activating Excadrill's sand force, but is also a great pokemon to have in the matchup against sand due to being the foremost psychic check. Gliscor rises to the top of A+ much in part to these teams popularity, with its fantastic longevity making it a favored choice in comparison to Landorus-t. The SD set has also seem somewhat of a resurgence, with a solid matchup vs most styles of sand combined with rain falling out of favor. Skarmory continues its rise for similar reasons as last update: a great matchup vs sand, longevity, as well as the decline of rain.


6. -2 Alakazam
11. +2 Reuniclus

Psychic spam, or psyspikes, had begun to establish itself as the pre-eminent archetype and as a result, garnered a certain amount of attention when building teams or preparing for a match. Offensive teams had seen a massive uptick in popularity, primarily due to their great matchup against these traditional psyspike teams. However, the recent gem ban has mostly neutered the style, and it has begun to recede in popularity. At the same time, rain has began to see a decline in usage, owing much to its poor matchup vs the popular sand styles, and the decline of its strongest matchup, offense. Alakazam thrived in these two matchups, thanks to its speed and guaranteed focus sash. Naturally it has begun to see a slight decrease in popularity, with a few contributors ranking Reuniclus as the better magic guard psychic. The cell offers a better matchup vs sand, particularly the bulky variant. Customizable coverage options grant Reuniclus the ability to pick and choose its checks for the most part, and successful Psyspam teams often find themselves focused around setting up a late game Reuniclus sweep. Don't count the mustachioed magician out though - underexplored life orb sets can turn its matchups on their head, and the sash set is still a formidable threat.


16. -1 Garchomp
17. -1 Breloom
18. -4 Dragonite
19. -2 Volcarona
23. -4 Starmie
26. -4 Scizor
29. -6 Cloyster

As I mentioned above, the popularity of hyper offensive teams has evaporated as quickly as its swift onset. The importance of gems to these teams cannot be overstated. Volcarona lost the ability to ohko Tyranitar, turning it from a massive threat to one who can easily be stopped by the tier's forerunner. Cloyster finds itself in a similar position, having lost the ability to drop Reuniclus with a single move. At a glance, life orb can seemingly pick up most of the missing slack, but sand, recoil, hazards and the prevalence of protect let sand teams stall these pokemon out before they can do too much damage. Starmie finds itself as another victim of the gem ban - water gem granted it tremendous burst power that partnered well with its speed and ability to spin. Without a boosting item Starmie often feels weak, and it suffers from similar complications with life orb. With the archetype losing popularity, Starmie has also lost its niche as the go to spinner on hyper offensive teams.


9. -3 Politoed
12. -5 Thundurus-T
13. -3 Tentacruel

With the fall of HO, players are hard pressed to find a reason to use Politoed. The archetype inherently struggles with Sand, and finds itself without many positive matchups, while also effectively feeling like playing a mon down due to Politoed's general lack of utility. The traditional structure of Toed/Thund/Lati/Ferro/Cruel offers little recourse against sand outside of grass knot Thundurus, and has seen a drastic decrease in usage. All hope isn't lost however, as novel rain varients utilizing pokemon such as Mamoswine and Gyarados can offer an improved sand matchup. Trends like Excadrill rain show signs of a resurgence for the playstyle moving forward, but as of now it has taken a clear backseat and finds itself at possibly its lowest point in the tier's history.


8. +3 Keldeo
27. +6 Celebi
38. +8 Amoonguss

While the formerly popular Keldeo rain is rarely seen anymore, the musketeer finds itself in the midst of a renaissance of sorts, finding its home on sand builds. Novel innovations such as the sub+tect set alongside old favorites like subcm can trivialize rain matchups for sand teams choosing to go a different route than magic guard abuse. While somewhat weak against the psychics, Keldeo can be very effective against opposing sand teams due to the numerous water and fighting weak pokemon the teams are home to. Structures utilizing powerful cores like Tar/Glisc/Exca can find half their team beaten by Keldeo. As a result, the teams have begun to turn to pokemon that resist keldeo's fantastic dual stab, such as Celebi and Amoonguss. These pokemon also offer ways for sand teams to keep up with rain without overly relying on psychic types.


14. +4 Mamoswine
15. +6 Rotom-W
20. +4 Heatran
21. +4 Magnezone

While sand has entrenched itself as the top of the metagame, it hasn't stagnated. Pokemon such as Mamoswine, Heatran and Magnezone have seen increased usage in an effort to combat the monopoly of psyspikes. The former two are incredibly difficult to switch into, while the latter impacts the hazards that are so heavily relied on, in addition to removing key defensive pieces. Rotom-W isn't as directly threatening as any of these pokemon, but is a great facilitator. It provides good defensive utility such as keeping sand force excadrill in check while volt switch allows it to pivot to easily bring in breakers. Rotom also grants an invaluable ice resist and mamoswine check - something very hard to come by on this style of teams.

7. +2 Excadrill
35. +4 Hippowdon
40. +4 Slowbro
45. +4 Forretress

Sand's diversification has also brought forth a resurgence of bulky teams, stall and balance alike. These teams approach the game differently than the popular methods of overloading opposing checks, focusing more on defensive integrity and nullification of opposing threats. These teams are facilitated twofold by Excadrill: not only is it a fantastic way to remove hazards, but also one of the most threatening pokemon for slower teams to face. Additionally, it is one of the rare effective checks to Reuniclus, a massive threat towards passively inclined teams. In general, these bulkier teams can offer some counterplay to threats that would normally be overwhelming. However, with the high power level of BW OU, it is difficult to account for every single threat in the builder, so these teams can often find themselves with certain holes that can be taken advantage of. It is also difficult to maintain momentum, granting experienced opponents opportunities to take advantage of predictable patterns in play.

 

[Monai]

Gliscor 3 is a national shame

 

[Gamer1234556]

Can someone elaborate on how Bronzong managed to rise from the ashes of unranked?

 

[Finchinator]

Can someone elaborate on how Bronzong managed to rise from the ashes of unranked?

Unique typing that offers rocks and status while hard walling Alakazam and only being threatened by Trick from Lati — it’s niche and Spikes are free into it for both Skarm/Ferro, but it can work.

 

[asterat]

im going to make hydreigon great again. below forretress and aerodactyl will not stand.

 

[peng]

prediction for next VR:

-4

 

[Gamer1234556]

prediction for next VR:

-4

I can't wait till Hydreigon finds itself in the no man's land of D tier.

 

[Rewer]

A lot has changed after a long SPL, so I made this tier maker for bored BW OU gamers that want to rank stuff.

https://tiermaker.com/create/pokmon-showdown-gen-5-ou-bw-ou-tier-list-2023-15154434

I included every pokémon that was used in SPL XIV, SPL XIII, Classic Top 8 and Circuit Playoffs, plus the ones that are already here. (with the exception of Raptor's Pikachu). They're ordered by SPL XIV usage (0 uses start at Seismitoed!).

If you do this, make sure you're logged out of the Tier Maker website so you don't accidentally doxx yourself.

Have fun!

 

[FNH]

I would like to request YT collab of dice and finch arguing over tier rankings.

 

[peng]

Gliscor 3 is a national shame

A good number of us felt this back in November but even moreso now, after a pretty shocking SPL showing from Gliscor, I think its pretty clearly not a #3 Pokemon and would actually be lucky to even break into the top 10 right now

The SR Glisc vs SR Landorus-T debate seems to have shifted dramatically in favour of Landorus-T in the last year, owing to continuing popularity of the HO style. Landorus-T's Intimidate gives it far more mileage into Garchomp, Dragonite, Breloom, as well as reducing the need for as robust Mamoswine/Cloyster counterplay (sacrificial intimidate), which is a huge deal in providing workable HO MUs for sand. Other trends such as an increasing use of Swords Dance Excadrill also make the more passive Gliscor feel like a liability. It feels like most of the major sand archetypes have shifted across to favouring Landorus-T over Gliscor as a rocker since the HO influx, with the only real exceptions being the Gliscor/Gastrodon/Reuniclus team and the Gliscor/Mamoswine/Keldeo bulky offense. On everything else, I'm seeing teams much rather run Landorus-T for the HO match-up and, if the status weakness really becomes an issue, we've seen new ways for Lando-T teams to adapt to this rather than returning to Gliscor - see Clefable, Celebi picking up in usage again, ChestoRest Rotom-w, Sub Keldeo on sands and so on

Beyond SR pivot, Landorus-T also wins out against Gliscor when it comes to usage of the other sets and the set diversity. In addition to being strong vs HO, Landorus-T also has utility as an Imprison SR lead on HO itself, as seen on dice's hail. It can also feasibly run Smack Down and Gravity sets, again both seen a handful of times in the most recent SPL. Whilst Scarf has died off somewhat, its still another weapon in Landorus-T's arsenal that Gliscor doesn't particularly have the toolkit for. In contrast, Gliscor has... Taunt support sets and Swords Dance sets that are practically nonexistant in modern BW?

tl;dr Gliscor has had a massive downturn - you're only seeing it now on some kinda niche fat builds that I don't think are representative of BW on the whole anymore. Meanwhile Landorus-T feels like it fits on basically everything with Intimidate + its set variety and the usage stats point to this also.

my full VR

Only ranking down to what I think currently is like "core metagame" stuff we actually see on a regular basis - things like Tornadus and Conk and Slowking are probably the next most relevant mons in what would be B rank but tiering everything below this is a nightmare.

For the most part this is led by SPL usage stats to try and overcome some of my biases, with then just a bit of manual +/- tweaking (e.g. Jirachi was #5 in usage but clearly not the 5th best mon...)

Specific stuff:

• Lando-T up, Gliscor down obviously
• Excadrill is incredibly good right now, a good amount of moveset diversity too with all of SD, Sub, and Scarf picking up usage in addition to the classic Protect set
• I'm generally up on Rain again - sand has become less about throwing 6 sand immunes + 4 scald immunes + 2 psychics on a team because those just get rolled by Volc/Cloy/Scizor and so you're less likely to run your rains into those nightmare matchups nowadays, lots of modern sands don't even run scald immunities right now which is great for poli and tenta. Rain also gets good scarfers for HO in addition to encore poli just being super strong vs volc cloy on its own. Good playstyle and modern innovations like Rest Politoed, the revival of NP and U-turn Thund, and general usage of Mamoswine makes Rain feel really strong rn
• Dragonite is the best HO mon by an absolute mile, its the only mon that keeps it remotely competitive vs Rain (and even then...) its the glue and centrepiece of just about every HO and borderline undroppable
• Thundurus-T is the best Rain abuser but is still an overall worse mon than Keldeo (due to its defensive utility on sand/wless)
• Starmie is as good as Tentacruel, you could easily argue its a better overall pokemon. You can use offensive star on any of HO, Sand offense, or Rain offense nowadays which is actually a huge chunk of the metagame. The most reliable offensive spinner for any team with a set-up rocks-weak mon, incredible Dragonite enabler, balloon set gives it 50x more spin opportunities than any of the old bad stuff we used to use
• Jirachi is probably underrated - lots of moveset diversity with lead SR, scarf Hwish, screens, shuca 4atk, subCM, specially defensive. With Dnite and Starmie, massive consistency booster for HO. Scizor's 1 set is better than any of Jirachi's individual sets but collectively Jirachi is better overall
• Heatran is kinda...bad? Like what does it do. Magma Storm is actually a terrible move, has terrible coverage issues, it kinda works as an offensive mon to chip Tyranitar for like Scarf Latios endgame without stacking extra psychics but good god this mon is so inconsistent. Leftovers + burn spreading sets also bad cos they don't even switch into Ferrothorn. Heatran has no idea what it wants to be. Uptick of non-choiced Recover Latios over the last couple years seems to have really hurt it (edit i'm actually gonna move heatran to below celebi cos this thing sucks)
• Slowbro good
• Clefable ok

 

[IUPLC]

I am but a humble ladder rat, but I think Heatran has a lot of traits that make it a desirable pick for Sand in the current meta considering how much Volc HOs are running rampant.

The elephant in the room is that it's the best counter to 99% of Volcaronas (if they don't have HP Ground they're not killing Heatran ever, simple as that). Offensive sets check Scizor as well since they outspeed and aren't dying to bullet punch ever. Most Jirachis found on HO are also answered quite well by Heatran (have you ever seen an HP Ground Rachi in BW?). With Balloon, it even matches favorably into lead Garchomp from turn 1, and balloon has benefits elsewhere like avoiding spikes until it's popped (which can take a while depending on match-up).

Heatran's also an ice resist, which is a critical trait to have, but it's in that category of ice resists like Magnezone where while they're fine against Cloyster, Mamoswine gives them a lot of trouble. I've found that Heatran + Keldeo are pretty solid partners for Sand: both can check cloy in a pinch while Keldeo helps against Mamo in addition to literally everything else that's good about it (speed, preying on ttar/drill/lando vs opposing sands). Even better, Keldeo can prevent you from getting sniped by some psycho running Ground volc.

Heatran's a mon with lots of dos and don'ts because it has a lot of janky flaws that are unique to it because let's face it: there's not really a mon quite like Heatran.

I think both Offensive Balloon and Specially Defensive sets are appealing for different reasons, but incarnations of them we've grown accustomed to have some flaws that are worth making adjustments for.



Offensive Tran has traditionally been Magma/Earth Power/HP Ice/+1. Personally, I think a 100% accurate fire stab is non-negotiable in that last slot. Missing Scizor/Ferrothorn/Skarmory and giving them a free turn in return is just embarrassing. Lava Plume is cute as a move one can spam and potentially ruin a bulky water/Latios that comes in. The problem with this moveset is that it's quite literally worthless into most Rains. You cannot touch Politoed, and that's always going to be the most obvious switch-in when you bring in Tran to scare Ferrothorn.

A solution to this problem that I'd first seen mentioned by Finch is to instead run Magma/Plume/Grass/Dragon Pulse. Losing Earth Power makes you unable to hit other tran (which is awkward), but fire/grass/dragon coverage has only upsides most other situations. Realistically, Heatran doesn't need HP Ice for anything but Gliscor. With Dragon Pulse, it 2HKOs Garchomp (which often runs Sash/Yache when leading anyway), 2HKOs Dragonite even after Multiscale (misses the OHKO after rocks but still prevents full health Dnite from attempting to set up on it and force a KO, and Yache Dnite is not uncommon), and it hits Latios harder than HP Ice would and hits Kyurem-Black just as hard as Magma/Fire Blast. Lando vs Heatran is not really a situation that comes up because Lando doesn't want to swap in and Heatran only stays in on lando with balloon intact or when it's up against last pokemon scarf lando locked into a dumb move. In both cases, the loss of HP Ice changes literally nothing. A Lava Plume burn or whatever is already an instant "lol." Gliscor is a bit different, but as most would attest, Gliscor's been on a downturn recently anyway.

Using Dragon Pulse to make up for the loss of HP Ice allows you to run HP Grass, which has several upsides. The biggest one is in the rain match-up: If you click Magma storm onto an incoming politoed and it connects, they've lost the weather war unless they have quite a bit of special defense investment (generally Magma Grass Grass is a KO on the phys.def politoeds we've likely grown quite accustomed to nowadays). For a Sand team, this is likely a win on the spot. It's been a comical number of times that I've auto-won vs randos on ladder with Magma Grass tran, and while more competent players may not fall for it the same way, hard Politoed on Heatran is a safe play if you're assuming it's running HP Ice.

HP Grass is useful against opposing sands as well, as it lets Tran murder Gastrodon and kill a sufficiently weakened Rotom/Slow twin/Jellicent or whatever bulky water you want to consider. Considering Rotom runs Phys.def for Mamo/Cloy nowadays, this is no joke. In the same vein, most investment on these bulky waters is likely going to be on the physical side because of the influence of these ice types, so Grass Tran is that much more dangerous to them.

I think a key point to make about offensive Heatran is that it really appreciates spikes. It lures in ttar really well against opposing sands because tran can't really touch it realistically unless it plume burns on the switch. With spikes down, this is a huge gain because ttar taking SR + 1 layer is now permanently 25% of its health that it no longer has when it wants to deal with Latios or Reuniclus or Alakazam. That sounds obvious, but considering these are other very obvious abusers of Spikes that can appreciate Heatran's ability to completely flip the Volc Sciz/Rachi MU, Heatran + Psychics builds should be worth considering.

Furthermore, Heatran gives a leg up in the spike war vs opposing spikes stacking teams. It immediately forces out the opposing spiker and forces a response they may be loathed to give (like the aforementioned ttar example but potentially also forcing their hand with Latios to get trapped/give another free spike).

A non-Psyspam team featuring Heatran I found really neat was from this last SPL brought by Leru: Ttar/Scarf Lando/Heatran/Keldeo/Latios/Ferrothorn. This was what they brought in their game against Monai and unfortunately lost, but that's not an indication that the team's unviable or anything of the kind. The team incorporates the Heatran Keldeo duo I mentioned earlier while fitting spikes as well. Keldeo also benefits from spikes and can honestly afford to go spinless if need be: the main reason one's slotting it on is for Mamo and HO, neither of which really run spike. Mamo Rains can, but that's an MU where Keldeo can heal off hazards somewhat with lefties thanks to opposing rain.

For offensive tran, it's probably not a stretch to say that Spikes are more important than spin: you run balloon anyway, which temporarily solves the spikes issue, and not every percentage point of tran's health matters against spikes teams for offensive sets. As long as it's alive, it's probably an annoyance if it ever gets in safely (which it will if they have skarm/ferro). This is also because Heatran + Drill + Ferro/Skarm is probably a big ask. In 2 slots, you need 2 ground immunes + 1 water resist or 1 ground immune + 2 water resists with both ideally also being fight resists cuz Terrak would have a field day vs these first 4. You also have to not get murdered by Keldeo because 2/3 of the team already does. Off the dome, maybe something like Ttar/heatran/exca/skarm/slowbro/latios could work, but that's literally 1 team and just meshing together mons to not auto lose to common shit more or less. This could be a place where SubTect Tran gets used, though, fwiw. I've also made a Heatran Forre team to compress Spike and Spin but that's janky af by default because it has a fucking Forretress.

I'd tentatively say Off Tran could be workable without Spikes, but it would require ways to wreck rain teams regardless of hazards considering how dead-weight heatran is against those already. A team like the super-aggro Ttar/lando/latios/rotom/terrakion/heatran crew could be an example of this (Terrak + Latios + Pursuit is absolutely brutal for Rains especially those leaning heavily on Scarf Lati for pokemon in the 108+ speed ranges), but I don't really use that team much so I honestly have no clue.



Sp.Def Tran is a lot weirder because it doesn't have as many of the cute applications vs HO (it's slower than Scizor, it gets murdered by Garchomp because it needs lefties). For what it's worth, the bulk from the HP investment lets it tank +2 Cloy more easily.

Traditionally (as far as I can tell), Sp.Def Tran is the team slot people try to allocate their rocks onto. I don't think this is the way to go if one can help it personally: Sp.Def tran doesn't get many free turns because it doesn't really want to switch into Ferrothorn (as a lone example) and risk soaking a Knock Off (it's kinda whatever if this happens vs Rain, but vs Sand that can be a game-losing turn). It also invites several of the spinners and can have trouble directly threatening them (Starmie/Tenta in particular). A great solution to this would be to run Will-O, but Plume/Tect/Will-o/SR loses Roar, which is actually pretty helpful considering how much more passive this Tran can be. Phazing out a +1 Dragonite locked into Outrage or preventing random mons from subbing in your face (assuming you're willing to let Heatran die to them if they're subbing anticipating you've been scared out) can be crucial. Furthermore, considering the overall vulnerability to pokemon like Terrak and Drill Sp.def Tran automatically induces, fitting a Lando alongside Tran isn't that out-of-this-world (especially considering how Lando aids vs Scizor now that Heatran is no longer a true check to it), so there shouldn't really be a need to run SR on Tran anyway.

Sp.Def tran maintains most of the defensive utility offered just by having Heatran on the team (i.e. blanks Volc), but what can make it more appealing than Off Tran on certain comps is that it doesn't mandate spikes. It doesn't really matter that it's a dead slot vs rain cuz you can always just sack it to a Specs Keld Hydro or something (a fairly common type of scenario for sand vs rain). You're probably exerting offensive pressure with your other pokemon anyway (like a really cool Pokemon called Latios that murders most Rains). Furthermore, Sp.Def tran mandates Drill support more or less because a big appeal of it is being fairly sturdy against Zam, which can let you use ScarfTar instead of Chople Tar. This means you need to keep spikes off, and it means you kinda have to accept Skarm/Ferro are going to be really hard to slot alongside it.

252 SpA Alakazam Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 39.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

With protect factored in, Zam doesn't actually 2HKO Heatran with Focus Blast if it's healthy. That's a big IF, but if you see a zam on preview and you have Sp.Def Tran ScarfTar, you know you need to preserve Heatran health at all costs. Furthermore, you want other half-measures like a fairly bulky Drill (take a Zam focus and then some to afford some chip ideally). This is ignoring the fact that if you ever run into a Fire Zam (which typically drops Focus), your opponent just cries. If your start is ScarfTar/Sp.Def Tran/Drill, you've already checked a few boxes (scarfer, and your main counterplay vs Psychics with a blanket specially bulky mon + a bulky spinner for those gosh darn spikes in addition to Pursuit for Latios). Chances are it's going to end up being something like anti-mamo water resist (keldeo/rotom/slowbro) + anti-keld/thund in one slot (celebi/lati) + lando/gliscor for the last 3, but that's still pretty flexible in fairness, and there's definitely some room for some deviation if you're willing to skimp on some things in exchange for offensive upsides (a potentially a valuable trade depending on who's piloting the team).



This was a massive wall of text, but the takeaways I want people that bothered to read this to have is that Heatran is a mon with pretty huge upsides that are quite rare, so finding cute work-arounds to make it an easier fit and more effective at doing what it wants to do for the sake of having smooth (if not extremely favorable) Volc HO MUs is something I've found feasible and worth doing when building/using Sand. I hope those wanting to incorporate it into their ideas can get new insight on how to slot it properly if they've taken the time to read this shit.

 

[zf]

I am but a humble ladder rat, but I think Heatran has a lot of traits that make it a desirable pick for Sand in the current meta considering how much Volc HOs are running rampant.

The elephant in the room is that it's the best counter to 99% of Volcaronas (if they don't have HP Ground they're not killing Heatran ever, simple as that). Offensive sets check Scizor as well since they outspeed and aren't dying to bullet punch ever. Most Jirachis found on HO are also answered quite well by Heatran (have you ever seen an HP Ground Rachi in BW?). With Balloon, it even matches favorably into lead Garchomp from turn 1, and balloon has benefits elsewhere like avoiding spikes until it's popped (which can take a while depending on match-up).

Heatran's also an ice resist, which is a critical trait to have, but it's in that category of ice resists like Magnezone where while they're fine against Cloyster, Mamoswine gives them a lot of trouble. I've found that Heatran + Keldeo are pretty solid partners for Sand: both can check cloy in a pinch while Keldeo helps against Mamo in addition to literally everything else that's good about it (speed, preying on ttar/drill/lando vs opposing sands). Even better, Keldeo can prevent you from getting sniped by some psycho running Ground volc.

Heatran's a mon with lots of dos and don'ts because it has a lot of janky flaws that are unique to it because let's face it: there's not really a mon quite like Heatran.

I think both Offensive Balloon and Specially Defensive sets are appealing for different reasons, but incarnations of them we've grown accustomed to have some flaws that are worth making adjustments for.



Offensive Tran has traditionally been Magma/Earth Power/HP Ice/+1. Personally, I think a 100% accurate fire stab is non-negotiable in that last slot. Missing Scizor/Ferrothorn/Skarmory and giving them a free turn in return is just embarrassing. Lava Plume is cute as a move one can spam and potentially ruin a bulky water/Latios that comes in. The problem with this moveset is that it's quite literally worthless into most Rains. You cannot touch Politoed, and that's always going to be the most obvious switch-in when you bring in Tran to scare Ferrothorn.

A solution to this problem that I'd first seen mentioned by Finch is to instead run Magma/Plume/Grass/Dragon Pulse. Losing Earth Power makes you unable to hit other tran (which is awkward), but fire/grass/dragon coverage has only upsides most other situations. Realistically, Heatran doesn't need HP Ice for anything but Gliscor. With Dragon Pulse, it 2HKOs Garchomp (which often runs Sash/Yache when leading anyway), 2HKOs Dragonite even after Multiscale (misses the OHKO after rocks but still prevents full health Dnite from attempting to set up on it and force a KO, and Yache Dnite is not uncommon), and it hits Latios harder than HP Ice would and hits Kyurem-Black just as hard as Magma/Fire Blast. Lando vs Heatran is not really a situation that comes up because Lando doesn't want to swap in and Heatran only stays in on lando with balloon intact or when it's up against last pokemon scarf lando locked into a dumb move. In both cases, the loss of HP Ice changes literally nothing. A Lava Plume burn or whatever is already an instant "lol." Gliscor is a bit different, but as most would attest, Gliscor's been on a downturn recently anyway.

Using Dragon Pulse to make up for the loss of HP Ice allows you to run HP Grass, which has several upsides. The biggest one is in the rain match-up: If you click Magma storm onto an incoming politoed and it connects, they've lost the weather war unless they have quite a bit of special defense investment (generally Magma Grass Grass is a KO on the phys.def politoeds we've likely grown quite accustomed to nowadays). For a Sand team, this is likely a win on the spot. It's been a comical number of times that I've auto-won vs randos on ladder with Magma Grass tran, and while more competent players may not fall for it the same way, hard Politoed on Heatran is a safe play if you're assuming it's running HP Ice.

HP Grass is useful against opposing sands as well, as it lets Tran murder Gastrodon and kill a sufficiently weakened Rotom/Slow twin/Jellicent or whatever bulky water you want to consider. Considering Rotom runs Phys.def for Mamo/Cloy nowadays, this is no joke. In the same vein, most investment on these bulky waters is likely going to be on the physical side because of the influence of these ice types, so Grass Tran is that much more dangerous to them.

I think a key point to make about offensive Heatran is that it really appreciates spikes. It lures in ttar really well against opposing sands because tran can't really touch it realistically unless it plume burns on the switch. With spikes down, this is a huge gain because ttar taking SR + 1 layer is now permanently 25% of its health that it no longer has when it wants to deal with Latios or Reuniclus or Alakazam. That sounds obvious, but considering these are other very obvious abusers of Spikes that can appreciate Heatran's ability to completely flip the Volc Sciz/Rachi MU, Heatran + Psychics builds should be worth considering.

Furthermore, Heatran gives a leg up in the spike war vs opposing spikes stacking teams. It immediately forces out the opposing spiker and forces a response they may be loathed to give (like the aforementioned ttar example but potentially also forcing their hand with Latios to get trapped/give another free spike).

A non-Psyspam team featuring Heatran I found really neat was from this last SPL brought by Leru: Ttar/Scarf Lando/Heatran/Keldeo/Latios/Ferrothorn. This was what they brought in their game against Monai and unfortunately lost, but that's not an indication that the team's unviable or anything of the kind. The team incorporates the Heatran Keldeo duo I mentioned earlier while fitting spikes as well. Keldeo also benefits from spikes and can honestly afford to go spinless if need be: the main reason one's slotting it on is for Mamo and HO, neither of which really run spike. Mamo Rains can, but that's an MU where Keldeo can heal off hazards somewhat with lefties thanks to opposing rain.

For offensive tran, it's probably not a stretch to say that Spikes are more important than spin: you run balloon anyway, which temporarily solves the spikes issue, and not every percentage point of tran's health matters against spikes teams for offensive sets. As long as it's alive, it's probably an annoyance if it ever gets in safely (which it will if they have skarm/ferro). This is also because Heatran + Drill + Ferro/Skarm is probably a big ask. In 2 slots, you need 2 ground immunes + 1 water resist or 1 ground immune + 2 water resists with both ideally also being fight resists cuz Terrak would have a field day vs these first 4. You also have to not get murdered by Keldeo because 2/3 of the team already does. Off the dome, maybe something like Ttar/heatran/exca/skarm/slowbro/latios could work, but that's literally 1 team and just meshing together mons to not auto lose to common shit more or less. This could be a place where SubTect Tran gets used, though, fwiw. I've also made a Heatran Forre team to compress Spike and Spin but that's janky af by default because it has a fucking Forretress.

I'd tentatively say Off Tran could be workable without Spikes, but it would require ways to wreck rain teams regardless of hazards considering how dead-weight heatran is against those already. A team like the super-aggro Ttar/lando/latios/rotom/terrakion/heatran crew could be an example of this (Terrak + Latios + Pursuit is absolutely brutal for Rains especially those leaning heavily on Scarf Lati for pokemon in the 108+ speed ranges), but I don't really use that team much so I honestly have no clue.



Sp.Def Tran is a lot weirder because it doesn't have as many of the cute applications vs HO (it's slower than Scizor, it gets murdered by Garchomp because it needs lefties). For what it's worth, the bulk from the HP investment lets it tank +2 Cloy more easily.

Traditionally (as far as I can tell), Sp.Def Tran is the team slot people try to allocate their rocks onto. I don't think this is the way to go if one can help it personally: Sp.Def tran doesn't get many free turns because it doesn't really want to switch into Ferrothorn (as a lone example) and risk soaking a Knock Off (it's kinda whatever if this happens vs Rain, but vs Sand that can be a game-losing turn). It also invites several of the spinners and can have trouble directly threatening them (Starmie/Tenta in particular). A great solution to this would be to run Will-O, but Plume/Tect/Will-o/SR loses Roar, which is actually pretty helpful considering how much more passive this Tran can be. Phazing out a +1 Dragonite locked into Outrage or preventing random mons from subbing in your face (assuming you're willing to let Heatran die to them if they're subbing anticipating you've been scared out) can be crucial. Furthermore, considering the overall vulnerability to pokemon like Terrak and Drill Sp.def Tran automatically induces, fitting a Lando alongside Tran isn't that out-of-this-world (especially considering how Lando aids vs Scizor now that Heatran is no longer a true check to it), so there shouldn't really be a need to run SR on Tran anyway.

Sp.Def tran maintains most of the defensive utility offered just by having Heatran on the team (i.e. blanks Volc), but what can make it more appealing than Off Tran on certain comps is that it doesn't mandate spikes. It doesn't really matter that it's a dead slot vs rain cuz you can always just sack it to a Specs Keld Hydro or something (a fairly common type of scenario for sand vs rain). You're probably exerting offensive pressure with your other pokemon anyway (like a really cool Pokemon called Latios that murders most Rains). Furthermore, Sp.Def tran mandates Drill support more or less because a big appeal of it is being fairly sturdy against Zam, which can let you use ScarfTar instead of Chople Tar. This means you need to keep spikes off, and it means you kinda have to accept Skarm/Ferro are going to be really hard to slot alongside it.

252 SpA Alakazam Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 39.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

With protect factored in, Zam doesn't actually 2HKO Heatran with Focus Blast if it's healthy. That's a big IF, but if you see a zam on preview and you have Sp.Def Tran ScarfTar, you know you need to preserve Heatran health at all costs. Furthermore, you want other half-measures like a fairly bulky Drill (take a Zam focus and then some to afford some chip ideally). This is ignoring the fact that if you ever run into a Fire Zam (which typically drops Focus), your opponent just cries. If your start is ScarfTar/Sp.Def Tran/Drill, you've already checked a few boxes (scarfer, and your main counterplay vs Psychics with a blanket specially bulky mon + a bulky spinner for those gosh darn spikes in addition to Pursuit for Latios). Chances are it's going to end up being something like anti-mamo water resist (keldeo/rotom/slowbro) + anti-keld/thund in one slot (celebi/lati) + lando/gliscor for the last 3, but that's still pretty flexible in fairness, and there's definitely some room for some deviation if you're willing to skimp on some things in exchange for offensive upsides (a potentially a valuable trade depending on who's piloting the team).



This was a massive wall of text, but the takeaways I want people that bothered to read this to have is that Heatran is a mon with pretty huge upsides that are quite rare, so finding cute work-arounds to make it an easier fit and more effective at doing what it wants to do for the sake of having smooth (if not extremely favorable) Volc HO MUs is something I've found feasible and worth doing when building/using Sand. I hope those wanting to incorporate it into their ideas can get new insight on how to slot it properly if they've taken the time to read this shit.

Cool post.

the thing with Heatran, in my opinion, is it’s a steel without the traditional steel defensive profile for bw. Additionally, it overlaps heavily with ttar if used as a defensive steel. For example, when using TTAR + Heatran (+ Exca, even), you have the issue of all your Latios checks being weak to water (specs surf), while stacking ground and fighting weaks - this quickly becomes an issue. Compare this to ferro, or skarm, which patch these weaknesses instead (water resist, ground neutral; ground immune, fighting neutral respectively) and you realize that tran can be a challenging fit at times. Then realize that tran wants spikes support from both sides of the spectrum - offensively required to generate pressure, and defensively required for longevity (compounded with tran’s sr neutrality vs other steels).

to me, the discussion then becomes about using heatran’s unique set of resists and movepool when your team can benefit from them. Fire immunity on a steel is specific to heatran, and makes it one of the few available volcarona checks. Additionally, heattran generates free turns vs opposing steels without breaking a sweat. With ferros using knock these days, i think a heatranwith a single use item and more offensively oriented set is the way to go. Sitrus berry, air balloon, chople berry, or rocky helmet are the ways to go. Sitrus in particular warrants extra exploration because it lets tran keep its defensive profile with less investment, and frees up a moveslot (lefties + tect).

i also believe speed to be a critical stat on heatran - jolly tran outspeeds excadrill, some glisc/lando, and adamant mamo; and modest can EV for bulky waters, scizor, and magnezone.

now - where does this mon fit?

well, on balances, i ve had moderate success with weatherless builds that utilize tran + ferro. I think sitrus and balloon Sunny Day sets are quite good here. They really flip the rain matchup on its head, and can open the door vs sands for mons like Zam and Lati in the back. Sun also give tran the required power to blow past reuniclus without using taunt.

sample set:
Heatran @ sitrus berry
Timid Nature
52 HP / 212 SpA / 244 Spe
- Magma Storm
- Solarbeam
- Sunny Day
- Will-o-wisp

( / )

i also think heatran fits excellently on HOs looking to throw out quick hazards. Here, you can run any item, but generally you want to pair it with scarf ttar.An example team as follows:

(salac) (chople / sitrus) (scarf) (fast air balloon)

lastly heatran can be an exciting pick on hippo balances as a ferro punish. I think pairing it with scarf scizor is a neat idea… although building a squad has been Rough

perhaps?

 

[Rewer]

my personal rankings after bwpl and most of bw cup is done (at top 8 at the time of this post)

shoutout fnh and theia for the usage stats

s rank:
tyranitar, latios, ferrothorn - the big 3 of the tier is quite clear if you look at any stats, ferro is a clear 3rd while lati and ttar compete for first. personally i think ttar is king right now. bulky offense sands have risen after spl and playing around stuff is so much easier when sandstorm is on the field, its just so much easier to ease up the matchup coinflip when you use tyranitar than when you dont. latios of course, still an absolutely broken pokemon and tyranitar is pretty much the only thing that keeps it from destroying everything.

a+:
landot - the best rocker, best pivot, fits in most structures, intimidate op, not much to be said.

excadrill - exca sands are in pretty good shape since they have tools to add to their team that can be great into whatever playstyle they want to. protect drill has sort of fallen off, but sd, subs and scarf are all incredibly scary in the right game

keld - its keld. threat. always been busted, always should be up here. voted ban on it in 2013 and wouldve done it again today. fits everywhere, incredibly versatile and if well played, difficult to deal with for almost any team really.

politoed - rain is very strong.

thundt - worthy of a+ for sure. honestly feels pointless using rain if you're not gonna abuse this guy. there's barely any answers, the biggest one is latios and thunder paras just destroy latios. (exhibit a exhibit b)

a:
starmie - starmie has clearly eclipsed tentacruel as the second best spinner imo and i even considered it for a+. for one, its best spinner for HO wich is a very strong playstyle right now. two, a lot of rains have straight up dropped cruel for this guy because it applies more pressure and better fits a fast paced team. of course, it doesnt love facing alakazam spikes teams, but the baloon and the 56 ev spdef increment to survive zam after rocks are very very often gaming changing tweaks. a lot of ferros dont run leftovers anymore, rotoms dont use many spdefs evs anymore, celebis dont usually run grass move, etc. everything was in place for this thing to rise.

dragonite - number 1 ho defining pokemon. why wouldnt you use dragonite in offense? not only its so good, it feels incredibly difficult to not lose to keldeo without using this guy in ho, and even then sometimes it runs taunt and hp ice. dnite flips momentum vs the entire tier wich is essential for ho. nevermind the versatility, bulky dragonite and cb dragonite are two underrated sets that dont see much use now a days but are still quite decent.

tentacruel - starmie being so good right now doesnt mean tentacruel is worse. for the classic rains, this mon is as solid as ever... toxic spikes and substitute are good options over toxic if you want to mess with certain teams (or for nice combos for example, subs tenta with toxic keldeo, toxic spikes tenta with sub mamoswine, etc.)

skarm - abr psyspam may have fallen off a bit, but skarm still very good for sure. it checks like everything, spikes are busted, etc. skarm+zam is very strong on its own as always, be it in lead skarm offenses, in balanced teams, or in semi stalls, it doesnt matter spikes is broken lol.

zam - zam has fallen off from its throne a bit, ho has so much priority to troll it, steels are everywhere, and sands almost always run chople tar for it. but its still effective at cleaning things up and its obviously amazing with spikes. i find zam to be so good vs rain because their steel is often a ferrothorn that gets worn down early and then the counter play becomes politoed taking a hit.

garchomp - this mon is at an odd place right now but its still very good on its own. scarf chomp cleans disjointed offenses incredibly easily, though its deadweight vs fat and sr chomp is as effective as always at applying pressure and getting em up. dont really like other sets.

scizor - the now official latios removal tool for offense, being just as effective as tyranitar at doing so since you dont have to directly switch when using offensive teams, while also being a threat on its own. when you dont need to pursuit lati, you can run sd quick attack and do a lot of damage to things that normally check you such as keld and thund, very strong move. choiced scizor also fit incredibly well in hippo sands and rains that need a latios removal tool as well, though not nearly as effective at that as tyranitar in this case. its a very strong pokemon overall and worthy of a rank imo.

a-:

jirachi - for usage alone, jirachi would belong in a+. its clearly not that great, its just a support mon, although probably the best support mon. pivot jirachi is quite good in offenses and healing wish support turns threats like dragonite into s tier mons. not a big fan of wish tect since its so spikes bait and i personally dislike cm a lot, i think shuca or scarf is the way to go.

volc - does nothing or wins. bullshit mon. its clearly not broken but it is truly a no skill mon in my opinion, it would be nice if it were gone.

reun - it has fallen off a bit hence why its a- to me, teams are either well prepared for it or are too aggressive for it to do its thing, but the garganacl theorem of the last sv ou rankings applies here, once people stop paying attention to it, thats when it will be back at its strongest. spikes+reun is no longer a free win vs anyone decent, but its still good and will always be good.

gliscor - peng made a good video on why this mon has fallen off, go watch it, not much else to say, not a terrible mon by any means though, still great vs sand and the best at slow uturn.

mamoswine - applies monumental pressure on most sands and ice shard is a great revenge kill tool, the speed kinda sucks but its so strong, even without band. sub can get very hard to play around. staple threat at this point. dont use scarf it really sucks.

celebi - subpass is pretty broken and the mon itself checks a lot of stuff. subpass bi teams have been spammed after gary used it in spl and its pretty damn successful so it deserves a spot in a-. dont really like other sets personally but they can fit.

rotomw - still the same early game hero. dont count on rotom to check much because its so easy to worn out but its really good at getting threats in. you can get creative with it, i find trick scarf, hidden power something (modest) and twave to be very underrated.

terrak - sand's best way of not losing to volc basically, while applying great pressure. also a good ho lead. band and sash are the only good sets imo, baloon sd isnt very hard to deal with and scarf is too weak, but i suppose they can be good in the right game.


b+:

zone - not great at trapping exca, ferro and scizor often dont care about being trapped, still traps skarm well. zone teams arent very good rn imo but this mon is always gonna be okay in the right team. b+ is right for it. also cbeam hp ice is dope, use it more, ferro user now loses 2 guys.

hippo - ttar is king but its not the best at keeping up the sand weather, hippo is. sand helps a lot against many teams and when using hippo teams you get to play with sand in the field most of the time wich is dope. other than that its just a tanky mon in general, phazes, checks strong stuff like thundy, volc, zam, exca depending on the spread, its pretty good.

jellicent - i always see psyspam+jelli teams losing but on skarm jelli and sand stall its great. sometimes it destroys some rain teams on its own when tenta cant get the toxic on it, wich is cool.

loom - very strong breaker, but kills itself quickly and relies on seed rolls against lando wich sucks. mach punch is good. toxic orb can be very strong or useless depending on matchup. overall good mon, but would say its not worthy of a- anymore.

heatran - its heartbreaking to put it so low and i wasnt even sure if i should put it in b+ or b, but heatran severely lacks identity right now, it has a lot of shit matchups and even in the right matchup it can suck. meta just isnt kind to it. the mon allows creativity though, so go wild. sergi for example used offensive roar tran in a skarm jelly team and i thought that was pretty dope. i do believe its best set right now is magma hpgrass dragonpulse wisp/taunt @ baloon, earth power feels kinda useless.

cloyster - a few months ago i wouldve put this on a or even a+. teams have adapted to it, rotoms are now bold, ferros are now relaxed, keld is being used more again etc, and thus it has notably fallen off as fast as it rose up. still incredibly deadly in the right matchup or piloted by the right player (eeveon), but the recent games with it clearly show that it isnt nearly as good as it was in spl.

b:

cube - dragspam is kinda dead, but cube can still break nicely. this is an underxplored mon imo, ive seen lefties cube wreck people for example. scarf is pretty good too. a huge problem of cube though is that it invites all the dangerous mons to come and kill it, but this is as low as i'd rank it.

tornadus - very unique rain abuser, can be very strong in the right matchup. puts a lot of pressure on those popular celebi teams. imo its better at supporting thundt than replacing it. most items on it are decent imo, scarf is fun against offense.

slug - abr psyspam is no longer the dominant team it once was but slug is still more or less the same, hp grass keldeo got popular towards the end of spl so then it was trash but now that celebi and ho are more popular they're running hp ice so its back to being ok. checking non np/gk thund is very nice too.

aboma - hail is very unique weather that fit in both offense and defense and aboma has rightfully earned its place in the metagame. chipping steels with hail is just so good, too bad aboma is not the best pokemon.

xatu - only fits well on stall, but this mon is very strong on stall. it blocks rocks from most rocks users, wich is what you can ask for using it. doesnt block landot very well though, wich is where the next mon comes in.

forretress - best spinner against the best rocker (landot). other than that, its pretty bulky on the physical side and can take hits from guys like excadrill, mamoswine, terrakion, etc. doesnt fit in just stall, any balance team can run this mon and its probably gonna be okay. aboma+forre in particular is very annoying to play against since forre is immune to hail. underrated.

clefable - just like in the previous gen, its quite annoying to play against this mon. the only difference is that in this gen it actually dies. but its still clef, its still very strong with sand and spikes. deserves to be b at least imo.

i put guys that have a niche and can be strong in b-, and mons i dont think are very good but still viable in c. i think b- and below are quite subjective.

 

[Lily]

i think flygon should be ranked somewhere, idk where exactly. i think it's better than most of D rank so im just going to say C- for now

i've been using this set on ladder for the past year or so and i've used it in a few tour games recently too:


Flygon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash / Naive Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
- Roost

i flip flop on the right nature, +spa makes some rolls against gliscor and reuni in particular much nicer but naive is also nice bc speed tie with like max rachi / outspeeding lando and drill guaranteed can be huge

anyway the main appeal of this set is similar to the appeal of chainchomp, it's really good vs sand balance but unlike chainchomp it lives for more than a couple turns. you get opportunities to switch into and harass stuff like skarm, some lando, drill, ttar, ferro, and occasionally gliscor altho. from there your attacks are really threatening, there's some level of prediction required against stuff like jelli/gastro (eq into draco usually KOs but if they get in on fire blast its awk), and lefties reunis can be your worst nightmare depending on their bulk invest but overall you smack most of the tier really hard.

defensively you mostly just come in on passive mons but there are some other notable uses for its decent bulk/typing like being an ok heatran check, tar check, and being able to handle weaker scalds from like tenta if necessary (youd rather not get burnt but strong dracos are still strong dracos so its something). however it is very passive damage resistant - spikes immune, sand immune, sr resist, so you actually get to leverage its switch ins pretty well

its usually kind of a flop vs weatherless outside of being good at forcing an outrage lock vs dnite, you can trade it for stuff like loom though. vs rain it's harder to find opportunities but if you get it in it usually picks one

the hardest mons to break are spdef rotom, spdef gliscor and reuni. the former two aren't ironclad at all, they usually lose to it over time but they dont immediately die to draco so yea theyre annoying

here are some replays of me using it to decent effect:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-714301
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-715202

sage also brought it in bw invitational, all it did was get sacked to scarf politoed but hey it boosts the winrate
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-715191

its an ok mon! not amazing by any means and probably very limited in what it fits on but def viable enough to be ranked imo