Resource National Dex OU Simple Questions, Simple Answers

Is there a reason Garchomp is better in Gen 9 Natdex than in the standard OU format?
Also they're different metagames, garchomp being able to check threats like charizard-y handily as well as heavily punishing mlop with rough skin give it notable niches when compared to ou

(also i forgot to mention s/v ou has pult in it rn lmao)
 
Why is quick claw legal in SVOU but not natdex? I feel in general "luck items" have been poorly handled in the past and some consistency across tiers would be nice given that its original ban was justified as a "policy review" item rather than a specific tiering action. On the other hand Luck items such as Focus Band (10% chance to live any hit) are still legal in natdex. Is there any reason why quick claw is banworthy in natdex but not SVOU other than "I don't like it and it adds nothing to the tier" which realistically is a terrible reason since lots of things are legal that add nothing to the tier.
 
Why is quick claw legal in SVOU but not natdex? I feel in general "luck items" have been poorly handled in the past and some consistency across tiers would be nice given that its original ban was justified as a "policy review" item rather than a specific tiering action. On the other hand Luck items such as Focus Band (10% chance to live any hit) are still legal in natdex. Is there any reason why quick claw is banworthy in natdex but not SVOU other than "I don't like it and it adds nothing to the tier" which realistically is a terrible reason since lots of things are legal that add nothing to the tier.
Since consistency across tiers is being mentioned here, i should add that monotype banned both quick claw and focus band (both in sv, which is an official tier, and in natdex) - the general answer to your question is simply because luck items are generally a very controversial topic, and as a consequence tiering policy around them isn't really well defined, even in official tiers.
 
Since consistency across tiers is being mentioned here, i should add that monotype banned both quick claw and focus band (both in sv, which is an official tier, and in natdex) - the general answer to your question is simply because luck items are generally a very controversial topic, and as a consequence tiering policy around them isn't really well defined, even in official tiers.
To follow up, is there any chance of a focus band ban here? Considering it would fall under the same category as most other already banned luck items (Ik ur not council but as the official unofficial ndou tier leader you have some influence with them for sure)
 
To follow up, is there any chance of a focus band ban here? Considering it would fall under the same category as most other already banned luck items (Ik ur not council but as the official unofficial ndou tier leader you have some influence with them for sure)
Up to them, but there hasn't been any discussions about this currently so it's very unlikely it happens in the immediate future.

Even though i'm a nd community leader, i am not an ndou tier leader (not even council), that's Kyo and Sulo's business.
 
Is there any way that policy in terms of the Identity of National Dex can change in the future? One of the aspects of National Dex that's always put me off personally is the way that Near-Universal TM's are not learnable by any future Pokemon. While this mainly talks about Hidden Power being unlearnable by Gen 8 and 9 Pokemon, there's also Toxic which is considered a near-universal TM before Gen 8.

The concept of near-universal TM's has always been around since gen 1, with specific Pokemon marked as exceptions, being unable to learn TM's in general. TM-less Pokemon continue to be a thing into Gen 8 and 9, with Blipbug and Applin being specifically designed to not aquire these otherwise universal TM's.

Generally my question is would a Policy Review thread for something like this be on the table? Since the metagame revolves around bringing Pokemon from after Gen 7 into the game, this would imply that they'd be able to learn these universal TM's as well unless they're designated as Pokemon that cannot learn TM's.

Near Universal Moves in gen 7 that have the status revoked in further generations are the following:

- Confide
- Double Team
- Frustration
- Hidden Power
- Return
- Swagger
- Toxic
 
Is there any way that policy in terms of the Identity of National Dex can change in the future? One of the aspects of National Dex that's always put me off personally is the way that Near-Universal TM's are not learnable by any future Pokemon. While this mainly talks about Hidden Power being unlearnable by Gen 8 and 9 Pokemon, there's also Toxic which is considered a near-universal TM before Gen 8.

The concept of near-universal TM's has always been around since gen 1, with specific Pokemon marked as exceptions, being unable to learn TM's in general. TM-less Pokemon continue to be a thing into Gen 8 and 9, with Blipbug and Applin being specifically designed to not aquire these otherwise universal TM's.

Generally my question is would a Policy Review thread for something like this be on the table? Since the metagame revolves around bringing Pokemon from after Gen 7 into the game, this would imply that they'd be able to learn these universal TM's as well unless they're designated as Pokemon that cannot learn TM's.

Near Universal Moves in gen 7 that have the status revoked in further generations are the following:

- Confide
- Double Team
- Frustration
- Hidden Power
- Return
- Swagger
- Toxic
Unless there is a significant push from natdex formats playerbases, a pr thread is very unlikely to happen, especially since universal tms are not a topic brought up often at all in the first place and thus doesn't seem to be generally a concern.


I personally believe National Dex should stick to moves Pokemon or their pre-evolutions actually got, and not arbitrarily give moves that were actually never given to the mons in question, especially since gamefreak sometimes do kind of whatever it wants regarding those moves - they don't even share the same distribution in the first place! Some moves you listed are great examples of that (all these pokemon existed in gen7):

-Magearna does not learn Toxic.
-Pyukumuku has access to some moves through TMs, most notably Rest, but never learnt any of Frustration, Hidden Power or Return.
-Burmy learns Hidden Power, but neither of Frustration or Return.
-Drampa, Guzzlord, Naganadel, Stakataka and Zeraora do not learn Swagger, despite being Pokemon that can learn TMs. Guzzlord and Stakataka also do not learn Confide.
-Tapu Bulu and Stakataka do not learn Double Team.

On an adjacent topic, Tera Blast is also a super odd case introduced in gen9. It is a tm accessible even to the Pokemon that were known to be TM-less (like applin), except Cosmoem, Cosmog, Magikarp, Ditto, and Terapagos - the turtle in particular not even being a TM-less pokemon.

More generally, National Dex should minimize arbitrary decisions as much as possible in my opinion, and even though expanding universal TMs could makes sense on paper, we ultimately cannot know for sure if these moves would have gotten the distribution we would have expected them to have.
 
Is there any way that policy in terms of the Identity of National Dex can change in the future? One of the aspects of National Dex that's always put me off personally is the way that Near-Universal TM's are not learnable by any future Pokemon. While this mainly talks about Hidden Power being unlearnable by Gen 8 and 9 Pokemon, there's also Toxic which is considered a near-universal TM before Gen 8.

The concept of near-universal TM's has always been around since gen 1, with specific Pokemon marked as exceptions, being unable to learn TM's in general. TM-less Pokemon continue to be a thing into Gen 8 and 9, with Blipbug and Applin being specifically designed to not aquire these otherwise universal TM's.

Generally my question is would a Policy Review thread for something like this be on the table? Since the metagame revolves around bringing Pokemon from after Gen 7 into the game, this would imply that they'd be able to learn these universal TM's as well unless they're designated as Pokemon that cannot learn TM's.

Near Universal Moves in gen 7 that have the status revoked in further generations are the following:

- Confide
- Double Team
- Frustration
- Hidden Power
- Return
- Swagger
- Toxic
what is the justification for these. u said it for urself its "near-universal" not universal, what reasoning / precedent would u use to justify giving these mons these moves? whos to say they arent also the exceptions you mentioned prior. it would be an incredibly arbitrary decision that wouldnt make any sense to include, especially since then you open up the rabbithole for other move discussions, like why cant this pokemon learn this egg move from this yada yada
 
Small question for the council: is the unban of Deoxys-S a possible option for the beginning of this next generation? Far from thinking that it's a perfectly healthy mon, but it should still be noted that its too efficient suicide lead profile is unique among Ubers. That's not counting the potential revenge killer sets with a Z-Crystal.

Always banned in previous generations by a suspect test alongside his defensive counterpart (last time at the start of XY), it's rarely been seen in action in a metagame where Defog is much more distributed, where Rapid Spin is buffed and where Boots are ubiquitous. Alongside the traditional convenience unbans (Genesect, Landorus-I or Pheromosa), is this an option on the table?
This pet is very strong, has a long speed, most of them can shoot nails first, and the attack is also good.

Zamazenta is very strong because it strengthens too quickly. It can add physical defense as soon as it starts. After that, if it becomes iron-clad, fewer pets will be able to defeat it.

Heatran's durability is very high, because using Venusaur, full attack speed, equipped with Life Orb, using Earth Power, 360 power, plus the bonus of Life Orb, it is 468 power, it cannot be defeated at once, only about 80% +

Charizard MEGA Y is very easy to use, because it can clear the sunny sky at the beginning, and the TG is also high after that. It can strengthen the power of the fire element on sunny days, and can reduce the weakness of the water element by half, and can use Solar Beam to counterattack the water element without charging, but It also has a weakness, that is, its speed is average

Garganacl's Salt Cure is very strong. Because it hits normal pets, it is 12.5% per round, while it is 25% for water/steel pets. This makes the water/steel pets that restrain it dare not play casually.
 
Why is Iron Treads unranked? I fought this mon a few times during my sus run and found it mad annoying on its own, making it more difficult to click the moves I wanted to with the likes of Lele, Raging Bolt, Tapu Koko, and Arch, spinning away hazards pretty easily, and being annoying with some Z-move sets (the main one I saw was Icium Z though Groundium Z seems decent too). 106 is also a nasty speed tier, getting the jump on a lot of key mons like Garchomp, Zard Y, Lele, Crown, Lando-T, etc. Surely it has enough tools to scrounge up a C-Rank niche at minimum.
 
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Why is Iron Treads unranked? I fought this mon a few times during my sus run and found it mad annoying on its own, making it more difficult to click the moves I wanted to with the likes of Lele, Raging Bolt, Tapu Koko, and Arch, spinning away hazards pretty easily, and being annoying with some Z-move sets (the main one I saw was Icium Z though Groundium Z seems decent too). 106 is also a nasty speed tier, getting the jump on a lot of key mons like Garchomp, Zard Y, Lele, Crown, Lando-T, etc. Surely it has enough tools to scrounge up a C-Rank niche at minimum.

It lacks longlevity, imo it's got a lot of the same issues tusk has, but it also has a worse typing and offensive stats when compared to it, 9 times out of 10 you're better off running tusk as a hazard control option, due to its higher bulk and stronger offensive presence. Treads was ranked in the past IIRC because it had a semi-usable suicide lead set, but it's since fallen out of favor due to more consistent options being preferred over tread's small niche of being able to set rocks on mdia and hatt.
 
Why is Iron Treads unranked? I fought this mon a few times during my sus run and found it mad annoying on its own, making it more difficult to click the moves I wanted to with the likes of Lele, Raging Bolt, Tapu Koko, and Arch, spinning away hazards pretty easily, and being annoying with some Z-move sets (the main one I saw was Icium Z though Groundium Z seems decent too). 106 is also a nasty speed tier, getting the jump on a lot of key mons like Garchomp, Zard Y, Lele, Crown, Lando-T, etc. Surely it has enough tools to scrounge up a C-Rank niche at minimum.

Piggybacking off of 15's comment, its poor longevity makes it a shaky check into even things like Bolt/Lele as if it doesn't run investment, it gets overwhelmed too quickly. But if it runs investment, then it lacks damage output and makes it rather easy to take advantage of. It's a poor spinner actually with how common and excellent Ferrothorn is, being unable to keep rocks/spikes off vs it and risking even more chip between leech seed and rocky helmet chip on top of iron barbs. You could maybe justify a tiny ranking just for its technically existing niche on rain teams, but even then those slots are already crowded and there are pokemon you can slot in to fill similar defensive roles that are also better.
 
What makes Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Volcarona, and Archaludon not ban-worthy in National Dex compared to OU?
Volcarona has a case where there are simply more consistent checks to it. Heatran gets toxic now, and toxapex gets haze which helps immensely with it checking Volcarona. You also have to consider the metas are completely different; here, the presence of more Pokémon like dragonite, garganacl, mega tyranitar, and slowking-galar make it more difficult for Volcarona to setup. This is also harsh for it, because unlike in svou it can’t reliably use Tera blast to beat all of its checks like it can in SV. For example, you could run Tera blast dragon because there was no cost to running a roost 2A set with that to hit gouging fire (at the time) and dragonite because you didn’t need giga drain as much and hp ground doesn’t exist, and while gking and Garg were there gking wasn’t alone a good answer and Garg could also be surprised by the occasional Tera blast water which was also a solid option, something that is the opposite in ND. Here, it’s more strapped for moveslots and the meta is generally more unkind to it than in sv.

Archaludon is simply because of the meta as well. The metagame at the moment is shifting towards offense teams, causing arch to at most trade with one pokemon in a lot of mus. This is an issue because offense also has pivots like landorus-t and focus blast av iron crown that can shut down arch and pivot in teammates to threaten it easier, and these types of landocrown offenses are at the forefront at the moment. There are also more Pokémon that pressure it in nd. For example, mega Tyranitar and Ferrothorn are both very annoying for Archaludon. The former being able to stop it from boosting with eshot and the latter almost stuffing it and annoying it with leech seed. The presence of Pokémon like tapu lele and mega medicham also makes its trading jobs harder to do at times since it can be a fake steel in the tapu lele matchup.

Urshifu-R isn’t broken because of a couple reasons. One, wellspring being the best breaker in the tier means that Urshifu can’t exactly click safely against a ton of offenses using it. Although this is true in SV also, the presence of Toxapex and ferrothorn are also very annoying, making it unable to safely click moves with a scarf set or make a risky prediction with Tera in the case of Ferrothorn. Lefties Raging Bolt is also an adaption not really seen in sv since it severely wants the power boost from booster energy, making it a good check to shifu on offense. The SD set is also able to be prevented setup due to sv not really having defensive checks to it at all, especially the lack of toxapex and tangrowth and the lesser prominence of Zapdos, and the Pokemon that can more easily threaten it out like Serperior, Tapu Koko, Tapu lele, and tornadus-t.

Now, note that these Pokemon are not bad. Urshifu is still one of the best breakers and is THE best speed control option in the tier. Archaludon is mandatory on rain, and Volcarona is still an excellent wincon for a variety of teams. These are just reasons why they aren’t pushed over the edge in ND.
 
Stall usually tries to make up for passivity with Hazards, Status and other chip from weak Attacks like Seismic Toss, Scald, Earthquake and Knock Off. Against offense or bulky offense, that will defeat them eventually (the job of stall is holding out for long enough time). Against teams with defensive Pokémon like pex themselves you have pp stall (usually their recover or defog pp) and try to kill thier other mons with Hazards/predictions unfortunately.
 
I wanna ask how tf can a team answer Iron Crown. With options like booster energy on speed, iron defense/calm mind/psychic stab/tachyon cutter/fighting coverage + its naturally amazing bulk and typing and ability to tera to dodge its weaknesses, i find this mon ridiculously hard to stop on any team that isn't stall. It also comes into the field way too easily with its resistance to a plethora of types and even SR and toxic, and then it can boost on the spot for an easy 6-0 without much team support at all. because of this, i feel like any pokemon in a non-stall team without the ability to hit super hard against this menace is a complete deadweight as soon as iron crown appears on the other teams preview, and it singlehandedly makes balance style teams unplayable. is there a solution against this? is there some pokemon that i can slap onto my team to counter all possible iron crown set (or at least help me not get swept instantly) and not be a deadweight vs other matchups?
 
I wanna ask how tf can a team answer Iron Crown. With options like booster energy on speed, iron defense/calm mind/psychic stab/tachyon cutter/fighting coverage + its naturally amazing bulk and typing and ability to tera to dodge its weaknesses, i find this mon ridiculously hard to stop on any team that isn't stall. It also comes into the field way too easily with its resistance to a plethora of types and even SR and toxic, and then it can boost on the spot for an easy 6-0 without much team support at all. because of this, i feel like any pokemon in a non-stall team without the ability to hit super hard against this menace is a complete deadweight as soon as iron crown appears on the other teams preview, and it singlehandedly makes balance style teams unplayable. is there a solution against this? is there some pokemon that i can slap onto my team to counter all possible iron crown set (or at least help me not get swept instantly) and not be a deadweight vs other matchups?

Keep in mind that Crown cannot have all of those at once. If it is CM+ID, then it usually has to choose Psychic STAB (which tends to be Stored Power) and fighting coverage to get past steels. Whereas CM+3 Attacks lacks the defense boosting of ID, meaning you can apply more aggressive offensive pressure to limit it. Balance has Garganacl who puts it on a timer, forcing it often to Tera or risk being quickly dropped (made easier to protect version of Garg and pivoting between teammates to stall it out if necessary), Ferrothorn is great at this too with Leech Seed vs Stored Power variants. SpDef Garchomp is cool against it as well (and good into Crown in general), and offense can rely on tactics like Booster Valiant with Encore to contain it well. There's also phasing options if you can fit it, and TWave is a good way to cripple it, making it easier to contain as well.
 
Keep in mind that Crown cannot have all of those at once. If it is CM+ID, then it usually has to choose Psychic STAB (which tends to be Stored Power) and fighting coverage to get past steels. Whereas CM+3 Attacks lacks the defense boosting of ID, meaning you can apply more aggressive offensive pressure to limit it. Balance has Garganacl who puts it on a timer, forcing it often to Tera or risk being quickly dropped (made easier to protect version of Garg and pivoting between teammates to stall it out if necessary), Ferrothorn is great at this too with Leech Seed vs Stored Power variants. SpDef Garchomp is cool against it as well (and good into Crown in general), and offense can rely on tactics like Booster Valiant with Encore to contain it well. There's also phasing options if you can fit it, and TWave is a good way to cripple it, making it easier to contain as well.
This is really helpful, can you suggest some good phasers and a spdef chomp set? thank you so much
 
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