Metagame Generation 8 Ubers UU

[Addison]

It has been absolutely spectacular to see the Gen 8 UUbers Discord popping with activity and games! So much so that we have enough of a sample size of matches to do some usage stats for November!
(Percentages rounded to the nearest whole percentage)

Usage Stats

Top 30:
1. Urshifu-Single-Strike - 37%
2. Chansey - 36%
3. Necrozma-Dawn-Wings - 32%
4. Solgaleo - 31%
5. Clefable - 30%
6. Giratina-Origin - 29%
7. Zamaenta - 25%
8. Naganadel - 24%
9. Magearna - 21%
10. Genesect - 21%
11. Moltres - 19%
12. Tapu Fini - 15%
13. Dialga - 15%
14. Heatran - 14%
15. Slowbro - 13%
16. Garchomp - 13%
17. Dugtrio - 13%
18. Reshiram - 13%
19. Melmetal - 12%
20. Tyranitar - 12%
21. Kyurem-White - 11%
22. Skarmory - 11%
23. Buzzwole - 10%
24. Lugia - 9%
25. Mandibuzz - 9%
26. Giratina - 6%
27. Palkia - 6%
28. Spectrier - 5%
29. Excadrill - 5%
30. Aegislash - 5%

Takeaways:
Pink Blobs - Major upticks in usage for both of these pokemon, with slightly over 50% of every team having at least one of these mons. Chansey seems to hold its own as the main check to ghosts plus Naganadel, Clefable feels responsive to the increase in Urshifu usage.

Urshifu Prevails - After what felt like an even dispute last year, Urshifu has triumphed well over Zamazenta in popular choice for a physical breaking option, usurping it in the usage stats all the way to top rank. This is likely due to the increase in Solgaleo usage, defensive variants of which can hard stop many Zamazenta forms but cannot stop Urshifu.

Naganadel Falls from Spotlight - While still arguably one of the most potent and scary potential cleaners in the metagame, the uptick in Chansey, Solgaleo, and fat Necrozma-DW usage, in addition with the few Heatrans has certainly brought its usage down to a reasonable level in spite of its suspect test earlier this year.

Rising Stars - Plenty of rising stars in the tier. Magearna has been experimented with particularly in its ability to punish Solgaleo with tricks like Shift Gear + Encore or just Shadow Ball as coverage, and its utilization of Draining Kiss to 1v1 Chansey. Moltres has seen major rise as a niche pivot into the main Fighting and Steel-type threats in the tier.

Missing the Cut - Kyurem and Kyurem-Black are the only pokemon missing the top 30 cut, with Kyurem-Black placing 35th with 4% usage and Kyurem unranked with 0% usage. Also shockingly low is Spectrier who barely cracked top 30, likely as it is completely walled out by the all-too-common Chansey and pressured offensively by the equally common Urshifu through either Choice Scarf or Sucker Punch.

Very keen to see how UUbersPL will build off of these developments, and perhaps some fresh faces will get to influence the meta once more.

 

[Addison]

December Usage Stats! This month we got the highest diversity of players and most number of games the tier has seen all year, thanks to tournaments in the UM Room as well as UUbersPL of course!

December Usage Stats

1. Naganadel - 40.2%
2. Necrozma-Dawn-Wings - 35.1%
3. Urshifu - 32.7%
4. Clefable - 30.1%
5. Giratina-Origin - 29.2%
6. Chansey - 27.5%
7. Zamazenta - 26.9%
8. Garchomp - 26.3%
9. Genesect - 24.6%
10. Magearna - 24%
10. Reshiram - 24%
12. Solgaleo - 21.9%
13. Regieleki - 17.4%
14. Dugtrio - 16.4%
15. Heatran - 14.6%
16. Slowbro - 14.2%
17. Lugia - 12.4%
17. Palkia - 12.4%
19. Dialga - 11.5%
20. Melmetal - 10.8%
21. Tapu Fini - 10.6%
22. Tyranitar - 10.3%
23. Tapu Koko - 10%
24. Kyurem-Black - 9.6%
25. Kyurem-White - 8.3%
26. Hippowdon - 7.6%
27. Aerodactyl - 7.1%
28. Porygon2 - 6.6%
29. Skarmory - 6.3%
30. Excadrill - 6.3%

 

[Finchely]

GGs!! Huge post-tour post incoming!!

I was going to include a teambuilding guide but honestly I don't even think my teambuilding process is that good anymore. I opted not to delete it all however, for those that are curious.

my teambuilding

SS UUbers defensive checklist:

• 2 Ursh checks (or just 1 if using Zwole)
• Sturdy steel resist
• Sturdy ground resist
• Special wall (will elaborate more on this)
• Dark type
• Taunt Tran check
• DDresh check

These are the most mandatory things to have imo. There are other things that are nice to have such as a trapper Fini check and a Melm check, but those pokemon aren't immediately damning if you don't have a robust check and don't always get brought anyways.

• 1 Ursh check isn't enough unless you're using Zwole as Ursh is very capable of beating down or getting around its checks. Especially CBursh with Poison Jab. You're in for a hard time if your ursh check dies to a poison jab or just takes too much damage from future sight or gets beaten down by a physical dragon.

• Sturdy Steel resists are necessary for genesect and Melmetal otherwise your team will simply collapse to these Pokemon spamming powerful stabs. Notably a sturdy steel resist can be good into genesect but suck into melmetal. I'm of the opinion that a melm weakness is acceptable enough if you build around having a powerful fire type such as defensive Resh which can then threaten out Melmetal if Resh successfully comes in on DIB.

• Grounds in this tier are not all too common but you will get torn up if you do not prepare for them. Excadrill and Garchomp in particular can tear nasty holes through teams that cannot handle them at +2.

• Teleport Chansey alone does not suffice vs ghosts as many ghosts can simply use substitute to avoid getting easily revenged. Furthermore, constantly taking +1 stone edge in order to pivot to a faster threat leaves Chansey dangerously liable to getting chipped down or even crit due to Stone Edge's improved crit chance. Thus it is imperative that most balance teams have a dark type that can directly switch into Pokemon such as Tinao.

• Taunt Tran is not very good imo but it indeed exists and must be accounted for lest it trade far too easily with your chansey, leaving you extremely vulnurable to getting beaten down by special attackers. My personal favorite is SpD Reshiram.

• DDresh is the single most broken thing in this tier, I will elaborate more later. For now though, the better DDresh checks include Tox Haze Pex and Physdef Hippo. The worse checks include Clefable and Tapu Fini.

Checking special attackers in this tier warrants a longer explanation rather than a short bullet point. Chansey walls most of everything except for the exceptions. Ppl like to use the exceptions bc Chansey is otherwise so phenomenal. The exceptions I'm aware of as of now are:

• SubCM Tinao
• CM/MetBeam NDW
• Taunt Fini
• Taunt Heatran
• CMkiss Mag (?) I have not checked the calcs I do not know if Mag is able to accumulate boosts enough to outheal stoss with dkiss

• CMsplit Mag
• Vincune
• Subsplit Blace
• Sub Kyurem
• Mono STAB Volc
• Mixed Resh
• Mixed Palk

The top half is real enough, the bottom half is moreso full of things I theorycrafted but never brought. Although Subsplit Blace did get brought vs me in a few tests. Nonetheless, they all warrant consideration. Mostly just that the bottom half can be accounted for using things that you'd already want to run. Notably a lot of the bottom half gets checked by Fini, Dialga, or Reshiram.

Here is a list of alternative special walls to Chansey. Most of which I consider generally inferior but they have their situational uses. I'll be commenting on the ones I think deserve commenting the most.

• Heatran
• SpD Tar
• Lugia
• Fini
• Reshiram
• Dialga
• NDW
• Solgaleo

Heatran walls Naganadel and that's about it. Frankly I'm not a huge fan, but it does deserve respect and accounting for since Taunt Magma Storm is powerful enough that it will take out unprepared teams.

Reshiram is more of a secondary stopgap rather than a main special wall. It notably checks taunt Heatran, is probably the single best genesect check, does random things like check annoying magearna solgaleos, as well as random things like Blacephalon. With spd investment it can also tank random draco meteors in a pinch and fire back its own, which is quite useful.

Dialga in combination with Wish Chansey is one of the most reliable cores in the tier in my opinion. Mixed dialga with Heavy Slam / Draco / Roar / +1 is a fantastic support option with incredible utility vs substitute users, annoying faeries, and bulky defensive cores without sturdy mixed walls. While Heavy Slam alone cannot beat Chansey, it is an excellent option when paired with knock off users as a knocked chansey does indeed fall to Heavy Slam, forcing your opponent to play more cautiously which can be taken advantage of.

-

Once you've taken care of that defensive checklist, just make sure you have options to revenge Zamazenta and Dragons and you should be alright. The team kind of builds itself.

Other thoughts:

Reshiram should be banned and I think this is a shame because SpD Reshiram is genuinely such a nice Pokemon for the tier. Unfortunately, DDresh is broken. The common reaction when facing a Reshiram is to go to your Chansey. After all, you wouldn't want your steel type to get blown up by a Blue Flare or your Slowbro blown up by a Draco. And then Reshiram clicks Dragon Dance. This is an occurance that happens far too often, and puts the chansey-user under extreme duress, as now they're staring down a +1 Reshiram, and realize that their team lacks solid checks to it. Slowbro? Setup Fodder. Mandibuzz? Foul Play isn't a kill and gets 2hko'd by Outrage, and now your team is that much more vulnurable to Tinao. Clefable? Setup fodder if you aren't encore. Twave is a stopgap but it doesn't fundamentally stop Reshiram from clicking DD again and again. At best for the Clefable-user it is a trade highly in favor of the Reshiram, as now your primary check to Urshifu is dead or significantly weakened. Tapu Fini? It's a trade since you need to slow taunt to prevent Resh from clicking Roost again and again. Hippo? You take obscene damage if you're SpD (which imo you'd really like to run more in order to check SpA Resh, Dialga, and Nadel). You still take kind of obscene damage if you're physdef. EQ isn't even a full kill from full so you have to click whirlwind if you don't want to end up as a trade in their favor. Toxapex is probably the best Pokemon I've come to as a sturdy DDresh check, but it isn't terribly splashable and stacks ground weaknesses easily due to the fact that your bulky water slot which usually acts as a check to grounds is now weak to grounds. DDresh is genuinely so incredibly frustrating to answer in the builder and acts as an incredibly limiting presence within the tier in my opinion. If anything is to go, it is this Pokemon.

Urshifu is very whatever. I don't really like it all that much because of how explosive it is sometimes, but it's not very difficult or all that straining to answer it. Not like Reshiram at least. I wouldn't be sad to see Urshifu go but at the same time I don't think it particularly warrants a ban.

Dugtrio is like, not broken. In fact I think it's pretty bad. Dugtrio teams sacrifice a valuable team slot banking on the hope that dugtrapping will enable their offense enough. However, I just don't think that the offensive payoff is worth how defensively lacking you become. In addition to using that slot for dugtrio, you're further spending slots on offense in order to make the dugtrio worth it which further contributes to the frailty of the team. And even then, Dugtrio isn't particularly consistent about what it does. It loses to most Chansey, loses to NDW, and Lugia. It can't even reliably trapkill bulky supereffective targets such as max HP Reshiram or Solgaleo because they don't die from full even with adamant CB, and KO back with high-power STABs. It's basically only for heatran, and then other random things like Toxapex or SpD Tar. The one interesting and useful application of Dugtrio imo is endure custap which is able to trap and pick off pesky offensive threats such as Nadel and Ursh. However, this does not outweigh the utter loss of aura one experienecs by using dugtrio. I don't think Dug is broken but I wholeheartedly think that it just makes the tier a tad bit more annoying to play because you have to remember to put shed shell on your Toxapex or play careful not to KO your opponents Pokemon lest you lose your main progress-maker and it's just like. This is not fun. Dugtrio does not support fundamental metagame pillars and kind of just serves to debase the tier in my eyes. Is this extremely bad justification for banning something? Yes absolutely. Do I actually care all that much if dugtrio remains unbanned? Not entirely because again it's niche and limited in applicability. Would I enjoy the tier more if dugtrio didn't exist? Absolutely 100% and I think that banning dugtrio is the right course of action.

Naganadel is slop! Unless you're using scarf, in which case you're based. Nasty Plot Nadel is very whatever in my eyes. It requires LO to do appreciable damage to special walls (notably Chansey which ~80% (this is a number i came up with on the spot but it sounds right) of teams should be running), but it really doesn't appreciate chipping into its already lack luster bulk, leaving it liable to getting picked off by shadow sneak and whatnot. Nadel can function as a conduit through which you can repeatedly lure Chansey for your physical breakers, but at this point you're not pressuring chansey so much as pressuring the opponent's physical walls. The utility of Nasty Plot as a tool with which to break through specially defensive Pokemon is thus lost. You're better off just using Scarf which can more easily fit Uturn for the purposes of pivoting off Chansey as well as enjoying one of the best speed tiers in the metagame. Nasty Plot Nadel is at its best versus frailer offense and Hyper Offense teams that aren't built to last and thus are threatened by a fast, powerful, attacker much more. But I don't really rate such teams all that high in the first place. I did lose to HO in the very final week but to be honest I think I misplayed it in a decent few areas, and also would have been in a far better position had my draco meteor not missed turn 4 or whatever it was. HO has difficulty breaking through bulky teams with chansey + pivots that really slow down the ability of HO teams to grab momentum for themselves. Thus, I don't really see the point in fishing for offense with NP Nadel since there's just more reliable methods of beating HO through just running reliable fat cores. Scarf is good into HO anyways because of how unmatched you are in the speed department, easily outspeeding most sweepers even after they've accrued a boost.

And when it comes to scarf Nadel, I also think that Fire Blast is very droppable. I think that Draco / Dpulse / Sludge / Uturn is an extremely serviceable set and very much optimal if you build to include a strong fire type such as Reshiram. The reasoning for running dual dragon stab is because while Draco is incredibly powerful for its ability to drop targets from very high percentages, dragon pulse is extremely good for endgame situations where you'd rather keep Nadel in and click the same button again and again and again to accrue SpAtk Beast Boosts and accomplish a sweep. Being forced to switch out because of SpA drops can be a huge loss of momentum, and it really just doesn't feel worth it especially in situations where you're staring down chipped targets for whom Draco's 130 base power is overkill.

Mamoswine I still think this guy is viable but like just a C+ kinda guy. Ice shard is pretty huge vs this dragon-infested tier and then Ice/Ground coverage is pretty decent into this tier. Generally there's better things to use imo but I think that if you try to build to Mamoswine's strengths you can come out successful.

Here is also my entire builder with the exception of a. few teams that are in my builder but weren't built by me. There are also I think a few cases where teams are labeled as me having brought them in tour, when they are not the exact paste that I brought. This is because I went back and changed it later in case I ever wanted to use the team again somewhere for whatever reason. It is also in order of most recent to oldest, as it would appear in one's PS! teambuilder.

Copy of Copy of Peak (bad) (actually good) <- brought to PL
Copy of Peak (bad)
Copy of Gira Melm Physoff
Untitled 521
Peak <- almost brought to PL but we won tiebreak without Entro needing to play
Roaring Blaze <- brought to PL
:hippowdown: Triple Dragon BO <- brought to PL
Fini Dragonspam HO (scizor)
Fini Dragonspam HO (red card mmq)
Copy of Waiting Around (might as well put on some music)
Copy of transgneder brainrot <- brought to PL
transgneder brainrot
Waiting Around (might as well put on some music)
CBtar Sand <- brought to PL
Dragonspam Fattar SnadOff
Darkspam CBtar Sand (no steel res unviable)
Gira Melm Physoff
Mandibro (ursh) <- brought to PL
Mandibro
(lose to trans) Ahaha i'm so funny..
Untitled 484
Untitled 481 This one isn't broken it's just empty like that
CB Mamo v2 <- brought to PL
CB Mamo BO
Quad Dragon Screens
Dual Lead HO (sus)
Nagdug Fat
Screens MMQ
Regishifu
Untitled 469 In case chainchomp piques the interest of anyone
Untitled 458
CB ursh (dogshit)

Sets

Sets 2

Ultimately this is just supposed to be a resource for those who may be interested, and I'm not really interested in defending my takes against scrutiny. Please do tear apart my takes if you think I am incorrect. It's quite likely that I'm just wrong about a lot of things after all. I don't plan on touching this metagame again until next year when UUbersPL rolls around, if I'm still even draft-viable by then lol.

That's all I've got however. This is Finchely, signing off.

 

[ilikeeatingcrayons]

Theres a lot that comes with Finchley's post, but one specifc part that I want to mention is her thoughts on Urshifu-Dark.

Finches thoughts on building/ursh

Now, yes there are metagames that are healthy and allow pokemon in them that nececitate multiple checks, however the primary examples that come to mind are GSC OU and SS Ubers. Disregarding GSC cause thats its own thing entierly, SS Ubers had a decent amount of back and forth with CSR, including a late suspect test right before SV that resulted in no action. I feel like, in general, mons that feel like they require specifc checks on all teams are something that need to be looked at.

In my opinion, when you build for ursh, your forced to run either 1 of like 3 fairies (clef, fini and then all the other fairies add into 1 (gweez, koko, etc)) or Buzzwole. A LOT of clef usage is purely cause its a fairy in a tier with Urshifu. When facing Urshifu you have to fear the possible coverage slot, which you realistically have to assume they arent running because then you dont really have a switch in. I think right now, Urshifu feels like a lot to deal with in the builder and in game.

Something needs to happen for this tier to get to a better place. I personally think we need to cut off certain useless edges (Dugtrio/Arena Trap or the other random bits of rng like Kings Rock and Sand Veil) and look at 1-2 solid tiering actions to take. Things like Reshi seem like more plausable option right now depending on how you view this tier, since its a much smaller part of it when compared to Urshifu. This is just my 2 cents at the end of the day. I'm gonna continue to try and work through this with the community, and hopefully we can bring this tier to a better place.

(I specifically didn't reply to finch since I just wanted to use her post as a bouncing off point. I thought it was very good overall)

 

[Celeste]

I guess I shall share some thoughts as well, since they seem to differ quite a lot from some of those presented above haha! For context, I have been semi casually playing this tier for a bit but was also the main builder for our SS UUBPL slot, save for one team we stole from FC. Jojen ended up going 4-2, only losing to a speed tie and some pretty awful luck in terms of paralysis and crits in a drawn out pp-war, so I do feel that I'm at least semi-qualified to share some thoughts here.

I think the meta is in an incredibly balanced state, and have relly enjoyed getting to play it and experiment with it over the past while. I love how balance-centric the tier is, but still having room to safely delve into more offensive structures (though Hyper-Offense is incredibly matchup fishy, as it should be). There are definately some mons that put a strain on this balance (which I will get into later) but I truly don't see a need to remove any aspects of this tier as it stands currently.

The Pink Blobs

I think these three are incredibly stabalizing things that hold this meta together in a very good way, and based on UUBPL usage I think those stats would agree with me. The development into Clefable especially has been super interesting, as it provides one of the most consistent ways to check the fightings, while having a semi-positive matchup into both Chansey and Giratina Origin (and arguably Slowbro depending on the set you run, you can at least knock it or force recover pp). It offers great role compression through status, being a fairy type, knock, or even CM value which I think was it's most underexplored tool in UUBPL. I think you could argue that how common it is somehow reflects an unhealthyness present in the fightings of the tier, but I think Clefable just has too many valuable tools that would lead it to being used anyways, similarily to how it has found usage in SV despite the meta being incredibly hostile to it on paper - its just that here the meta is just very good for Clefable to thrive. On paper it's winrate wasn't the best, but the formula does not account properly for mirrors, of which there were a few.

Slowbro and Chansey I have less to say about, they are fantastic at being physical and special walls respectively, whos access to pivoting and team supporting options is huge when it comes to the long term gameplans many SS teams rely on. The issue these two have is that if piloted poorly, they do leave teams vulnerable to things like Urshifu or DD Reshiram, but that is more to show how important proper piloting is in a meta like SS where unskilled play can be punished ridiculously easily due to how much small things matter in the games of attrition this meta can lend itself to. Chansey has a lot of move variation I find, where depending on the team its ability to be Hazard setter, Cleric, Toxic wall, Pivot, etc is quite useful since it has the added effect of freeing up your other defensive mons depending on how you approach the team.

The Fightings

I firmly believe these two are sidegrades of each other, where they both perform very important and somewhat similar roles on a team but go about it differently with their own unique perks. Urshifu's Dark type and Wicked Blow does give it the edge over Zamazenta when it comes to matchups vs Giratina, NDW, and Slowbro. Its quality as a Scarfer is really nice, and setup sets can still opt for Sucker Punch as a form of speed control. I don't think it can really run banded because of how disadvantageous the speed tier is vs other scarfers, Zama, and Naganadel, but that doesn't take away from Urshi's raw power anyways.

Zamazenta on the other hand capitalizes on its insane speed and vast slew of coverage moves that lets it pick and choose what it wants to be its defensive checks, being able to run Psychic Fangs to destroy Nagandel, Play Rough to hit Dragons, Crunch to hit Gira-O and Slowbro, Wild Charge for Moltres/Slowbro, the list is honestly pretty extensive. It's speed also lets it run more versatile setup sets compared to Urshifu, at the cost of Wicked Blow being as powerful as it is. Zama itself also provides a soft check to Urshifu if its piloted well.

Ultimately, I don't think either of these largely negatively impact the metagame. It makes sense in a meta where the main resists don't have good matchups into the fightings that you would have to dedicate more resources to managing them. I personally find Zamazenta to be the more threatening but harder to build around option of the two, because Urshifu's pivoting makes slapping a choice scarf on it a pretty great addition to most teams. I do think Buzzwole is just... kind of bad? Idk. But I feel that with how physically oriented this tier is through Melmetal, Physical Gira-O, these two ofc, etc that most teams should be able to defensively handle these long term. They are both strong enough that they are some of the best pokemon at forcing misteps in sequencing (along with 2 others I will get to later) but I think prescenses like that are always going to exist in a tier like this.

The Top 1 + also Solgaleo

This is probably the largest disagreement I have with the community at large, where to me Solgaleo is not only not in contention for best pokemon with Giratina, but I don't see much justification for it being much higher then A- at best, but would personally probably put it at B. I think Solg completely fails at being anything close to a Naganadel answer, its a fine response to 2/3 of the pink blobs in Clefable and Chansey I guess, but as a Defensive Pivot Slowbro just kind of clears it. As a steel it also just doesn't answer the other dragons where its just a sitting duck into Gira, Reshiram, and arguably Dialga when it does occasionally show up. It also doesn't answer either fighting type well, so I just don't see the vision. I think there are much better ways to engage with the pink blobs without running something that loses if it gets burned by slowbro.

Giratina on the other hand finds itself as one of the better just "do everything" mons in the tier, being a great Physical and Special breaker while also having excellent status options, not to mention the fact that its one of the best phasers and has good priority. I think it deservedly earns its place as the best mon in the tier, I'm not sure I would go as far to say S since while I think every team should prep for it I don't think it's remotely mandatory on every team. Either that, or my VR looks like S containing Gira O and Chansey, with S- containing Zama, Urshifu, and arguably Clefable. More thoughts on that later, but Giratina is one of the other biggest "error forcers" I've seen due to how punishing its damage can be, or losing a defensive piece to status if you assume offensive.

"Broken" Things

Naganadel has obviously already been tested and wasn't banned, which I do agree with. I think its not the biggest culprit in forcing errors, however you do notice this a lot in matchups where Chansey and Solgaleo are forced with the weight of checking Naga with Hazards up. I think its speed is super valuable for the tier, and like how it is also a great offensive spiker and pivot. Scarf is a pretty cool set as well, and was something I passed Jojen because a powerful scarfer that 1v1s Zama and Urshifu is super valuable. Its frailty is its downfall, as if left low enough it no longer is able to threaten Giratina, and this is a somewhat common occurance. Keeps it in check!

Reshiram is a hot point of debate right now, and I get why but I disagree for a few reasons. Yes, it is strong but its ability to force errors is definately one of its defining factors especially due to how Chansey is most player's go-to answer, but as I mentioned before with Shifu/Clef I think that one of the big things with balance-heavy metagames is understanding how important resource management is. If your Chansey does not carry T-Wave or Toxic, are you sure that it is something you can use to make ensure Reshiram doesn't spiral out of control if it is DDance? What can you do to limit its entry oppourtunities if you think it is? Fire Dragon will naturally run through a lot of this tier just because of the mons in it, but we are not without options. I think DD reshi is very high risk high reward, and it will consistently reward players when their opponent does not manage resources properly, it has a bad defensive typing and offensive spreads leave you more vulnerable to pretty much the whole tier. It has broken aspects, but I would be more inclined to say that this is one of those "skill issues" that the kids like to point out (I turn 22 in 4 months, I suppose I can say that).

Other Thoughts

SS Ubers had a decent amount of back and forth with CSR, including a late suspect test right before SV that resulted in no action. I feel like, in general, mons that feel like they require specifc checks on all teams are something that need to be looked at.

I do want to respond to this, as honestly while CSR did get tested I think the approach that teams required Yveltal because CSR existed in the format isn't the most nuanced way to look at it, as it completely ignores how powerful Yveltal was in its own right, where in SS nowadays Yveltal having almost universal usage while CSR is not only much less common, but has had lower winrates in recent tours as well. It's power comes from its ability to runaway with games through forcing errors or specific damage benchmarks in often long drawn-out games, but always having the potential to end a game quickly if not responded to properly. While CSR is obviously an extreme example, I think this is to be expected of any metagame, especially one that is characterized by a polarization between balance as a very dominant playstyle with some intermittent incredibly powerful sweepers. Every metagame is going to have those skill-check high risk, high reward mons (and it is also worth mentioning that DD reshiram had a 0% PL winrate).

I think this metagame is super interesting, and there is still so much room to optimize how balance is built! Mons like Torn-T, Dragapult, Pex, even Lugia feel very under-utilized and I feel like as the tier goes on it will gradually become one of the more interesting uubers generations. I don't think any action is needed right now, and will absolutely be participating in any suspect to continue to voice that opinion in a place where it matters a bit more. I'm excited to see how the tier develops, and look forwards to the current ssnl and SS cup later in the year!