id def place budew higher than you both i think. but also i do not share your take on maku lol, though i do see the logic for sure
my top 5 is prob like
1. hatenna
2. alorat
3. nacli
4. pooper
5. litwick? budew? swablu?
but i think the line is either below alorat (where i currently sit) or below pooper. idt hatenna is standout The Best. it's the best but not like, elevated to another level of godhood yknow
my top 5 is prob like
1. hatenna
2. alorat
3. nacli
4. pooper
5. litwick? budew? swablu?
but i think the line is either below alorat (where i currently sit) or below pooper. idt hatenna is standout The Best. it's the best but not like, elevated to another level of godhood yknow
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- this Pokemon is fucking absurd. It is the best user of the best move in the tier. It has the ability to break quite literally any wall in the tier between its Bulk Up set and Flame Orb Guts--yes, even that one. Whichever one you're thinking of, Makuhita can break it. While stall has been irrelevant and even balance looks shaky at times that is still an incredibly valuable trait when you also have a great offense matchup too. Bulk Up threatens several of the tier's frail attackers and Flame Orb Guts can fit Fake Out + Bullet Punch to be comparable to 
Skitty. This mon has no counters and even the list of checks is slim pickings. I genuinely considered it for #1, and if you have it below 6-7, I question if we've been playing the same tier. I'm not pro-ban yet but I can absolutely see myself getting there after a couple other mons get cleared out.
- this Pokemon, unlike Makuhita, does have counters and checks. A couple of my other rises are directly because of how they match up into Beldum. However, in terms of how much you have to prepare for it in the builder, I do believe Beldum to be a top threat, even if it is more containable than some of the others. You're forced to run one of our bulky Fire-types, 
Wooper, or 
Marill to reliably handle it, with one or two niche options for fat and stall (obligatory 
mention). It's also a monster defensively--being our only Steel type means it truly has a unique defensive profile and it really makes the most of it. This is in addition to its gargantuan stats. Everyone knows this thing has impeccable physical bulk, but it actually has the same special bulk as 
Gossifleur? Really useful mon for a lot of team compositions that, for whatever reason, don't want to run a Rock-type, and as such absorbed my 
Roggenrola placement from my post a couple weeks ago.
- I'm not the person who should be introducing the latest on this mon, but if you've been in the Metangs DNU channel you've seen the chatter on this one. Fucking absurd, and honestly one of two mons I would vote to ban today if I called a vote. I'll save this discussion for the person who should be talking about this.
and 
- Not going to go into detail because these two have been discussed at length in the DNU Discord, but these two match up very poorly into the current metagame. Budew is a victim of its own success and I can see it shifting back up once people stop spamming cores that each carry 3-4 Budew hard checks, but it's hard to imagine a world where Jigglypuff climbs all the way back up. Being forced to rely on Wish just sucks and people are more comfortable than ever forgoing its unique bulk + utility profile and splitting its role across multiple Pokemon. At least 
Cleffa can and does fit Soft-Boiled.
- The more I think about this mon, the less I rate it. Yes, it has absurd calcs, and occasionally we'll still see a game where a +1 Speed Bramblin just rolls over a lightly bruised opponent, but those are moreso bad teambuilding and any good team right now is going to have stuff for this guy. Not necessarily because of Bramblin, either. Still good and I find it hard to ever see it drop further than A-, but this is the lowest the weed has ever been.
- Still broken on paper but people are trusting it less and less to hit those Stone Edges when it matters. Very poor performance for it in the Premier League stat-wise. Could see this mon make a comeback if people find a way to make its inevitable misses not match-ending.
- "Broken priority" is less useful than it ever has been thanks to Makuhita seeing more exploration recently. If I wanted a broken anti-offense mon, I'd load 
Zigzagoon-Galar or Skitty over this (and you'll note I lowered both multiple positions). Hates Marill and Beldum rising like they have, too. Congrats 
- Swablu's absorbed most of its role, and ofc Budew farmer 3000 is worse in a meta where Budew isn't all that. Still has a place but much harder to justify considering how badly it loses to most top tiers. Honestly kinda want to drop it further.
- Rattata will continue to drop until morale improves. Or 
Taillow gets banned. One of the two.
- I actually think this guy is neat and considered him at one point, which is more than I can say for some of low rankers, but I organize the lower tiers very much with a "do they actually see play" and Nidoran just hasn't--I can recall a single appearance since its unban and that was Week 1 of DNUPL. Still, a physical Poison-type who can set up offensively is cool. It's not a unique role as Curse 
Wooper-Paldea exists, but Nidoran has merits over that one.
Goomy at some point. Jumpheart out.
(this is the main reason gunker even got bumped to "OU" in my VR), and even that needs max special defense investment, and still isn't consistent
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- With the exception of kirlia, veni was probably the mon that impressed me the most in soloPL. It ended up making it to quite a few of my teams (some scrapped ones as well - though mostly not veni's fault) and consistently preformed well in testing and in the games themselves. Loaded Dice Pin Missile, even from veni's unimpressive attack stat, hits decently hard, and poison jab threatens to poison unsuspecting birds. With speed boost, it's a very solid revenge killer. This alone wouldn't be enough to make veni stand out, though - the move that really made veni get onto so many of my teams is spikes. Having a speed control pokemon that can also set hazards serves as incredible roll compression and often gives the extra breaking power a team needs. Unfortunately, it loses to swablu, the most common defogger, but it does notably have a 50% chance to OHKO 0 defense hatenna, with a guaranteed 2HKO on all variants, which is very valuable for a spiker. Very underrated.
- While I never used it myself, it was honestly quite threatening to play against in test games. I'm unsure how to feel about it as of now, but it is definitely worth looking into (scarf in particular).
- I actually tried to build with this pokemon and failed. It has really impressive stats defensively, but despite its coverage there is much to be desired on the power department. I thought about using a defensive set with resttalk, but the only notable utility move it has is Tspikes, which isn't great. Honestly, disappointing considering how good it looked on paper.