NFE NFE Metagame Discussion

Simbo · Jul 11, 2020

The 4 teams i used in No Johns, Pinch one ain't legal anymore but u could probs replace it with sth else

https://pokepast.es/c5c7424968960ce1
https://pokepast.es/b76f3dc7406451ef
https://pokepast.es/5ac6bbdfdaaf96b1
https://pokepast.es/9c6cbd83c996fc1c

Bonus team I built at some point for No Johns but never used.

https://pokepast.es/752b251a6d11291d

Koffing is very very good

Jett · Jul 21, 2020

Council Minutes :ss/corsola-galar:

Similar to other tiers, in order to provide transparency and keep the community up-to-date with what the council has been discussing, we have decided that we will provide summaries from our council chat discussions. There won’t be a set schedule for how often these sort of posts will happen and the timing will be largely influenced by the state of the metagame but they will be a regular thing.

This post will outline what’s been going on in Council chat from July 10 (date of the Trapinch Ban) till now.

Metagame Discussion

Firstly let’s focus on the two Pokemon which have been put on the radar by the council.

:Kadabra:

has remained as a divisive Pokemon. Around a week after the Trapinch ban, 85percent stated he felt that he wanted to ban Kadabra, which sparked a discussion between council members. He argued that similarly to Haunter, Kadabra was too limiting in teambuilder towards more defensive archetypes such a balance and that there was a significant lack of revenge killing options outside of priority moves. The council was split evenly on whether they thought Kadabra was banworthy in the current metagame. However, the majority of the council did agree that there was a more problematic threat in the metagame.

:Pikachu:

being that more problematic threat. After the Kadabra discussion, a channel named “Pikachu'' was opened up by SBPC. This discussion was prompted by the rising usage in PikaBoot teams where we all agreed that Pikachu was the bigger threat of the two. Pikachu was the 3rd most used Pokemon during Week 1, with an incredible 70% win rate compared to Kadabra’s 37.5% win rate. We then went on to discuss that preparing for Pikachu was far more difficult than preparing for Kadabra because of the combination of Knock Off, Volt Switch, and Extreme Speed being able to pressure both offensive and defensive teams amazingly, whereas Kadabra did have some tough matchups and was only particularly dominant against balance teams.

No action has been planned for either of these Pokemon as of now. The council will continue to monitor both of these Pokemon, in particular Pikachu, in the coming weeks of NFEPL.

The only other Pokemon I think worth mentioning here is Vullaby.

:Vullaby:

There was a very brief discussion on this Pokemon between Ho3n, 85 and myself, after the end of Week 1. The three of us agreed that Vullaby got overwhelmed pretty easily and that its usage stats were over-inflated because it was being slapped onto a lot teams, shown by its usage stat being the tied for first with Galarian Corsola in Week 1 of NFEPL, but with only a 40% win rate. 85 also mentioned that apart from Hattrem, Vullaby was the next best hazard control we had in the metagame and that it’s optimal to have some teammates to also cover for some of the things it can check.

Resources and Other Votes

The council has finished voting on the VR reorganisation and are currently discussing Pokemon where there was a large disparity between votes. Torracat, Natu, Brionne, and Mienfoo were just a few of the Pokemon that have been discussed, and we will continue to go through the list of Pokemon before announcing all the shifts. We’re hoping to get this done before the start of Week 3 in NFEPL.

We’re also looking into updating the sample teams really soon. We’re currently accepting teams from the community and it would help us greatly if you sent us your submissions.

Points of Discussion

Thoughts on Pikachu and Kadabra; are they too overwhelming for NFE to handle, are there any other Pokemon which you believe are too strong?
Pivots have been integral to many NFE teams so far; do you think that defensive teams have a place in the metagame or will offensive teams remain dominant?
Hazards play a very important role in NFE, as hazard removal options are limited, and there are many more viable entry hazard setters in comparison. Even the rise of niche and HO setters post-DLC is very pressuring for current removal / prevention. What is there to do about it?

PH · Jul 23, 2020

The Rat should be qbed imo, kad isn't nearly as bad as the Rat, since it has counterplay it can't outright beat and does require more manouvring to put in a dominant position.

QB Rat Reason 1: The tier has no viable Volt immunity that can consistently check the Rat

The Rat can spam Volt with impunity in the tier rn, it's really favoured in the post-Pinch meta. Both Piloswine and Hippopotas can't switch into Surf or Brick Break in Pilo's case, they both dislike Knock (even spdef hippo dies to knock + surf after like 10% chip). Krokorok gets bopped by Surf, Vibrava gets bopped period, mudbray surf bop.
The only viable Volt immunity that doesn't have a poor mu vs the Rat is Palpitoad, since Gknot is very rare and it only takes around 50 from the KnockSpeed combo if max max. However, one viable Volt Blocker that, if it gets popular, will just be adapted too by running more Gknot, is not sufficient.

QB Rat Reason 2: Rat 'resists' bleed momentum, don't actually deal with the Rat, and are easy to exploit for any reasonably well built team.

With the only viable Volt immune being Palpitoad, we now move onto resists. You have Thwackey, Roselia, Tangela, Ferroseed, (list kinda drops off a cliff here), Haka, Gloom etc. There's three big issues with this list. Firstly, Pokemon like spdef Roselia fold to KnockSpeed anyway, Ferro has to fear Brick Break, Thwackey lacks reliable recovery, Gloom is forced to heal if it attempts to check the Rat (bleeds momentum).
Secondly, none of the aforementioned Pokemon actually deal with Pikachu, sure, they force it out if the Rat can't kill, but barring Thwackey, they all bleed momentum if directly switching into Volt, or in Gloom's case, likely need to heal up next turn if siwtching into Knock into Volt.
Thirdly, barring Haka, every single Pokemon listed above is a Grass-type, free real estate for the Rat's partner in crime: Raboot. PikaBoot cores have been pretty common this PL so far, nice VoltTurn core, Raboot capitalises on most Volt resists that switch into the Rat. It can be fairly easy just getting trapped in a cycle of momentum, so teams are forced to try and stack multiple Rat options, knowing full well they can still lose depending on how the Rat team is built to support it. Currently, the Rat is the 3rd most used mon in PL, sporting a 46% usage rate and a juicy 69% winrate, showing that it is having very good success in PL despite everyone knowing how big of a threat it is. However, a more telling stat is this, in games where the Rat faced a team without an opposing Rat (7 SS games so far, about half the currently played SS games), that juicy winrate shoots up to 86%, pretty high.

QB Rat Reason 3: The Rat is incredibly easy to support

The hazards game is currently Hattrem and Vullaby. Vullaby is the easiest mon in the meta to pressure rn, since it wants to do so much. Hattrem is good but hazard removal options are still lacking. My first two arguments did not take hazards into account. When you add SR, potentially Spikes, Tspikes etc, it becomes even more difficult to defensively deal with it.

QB Rat Reason 4: Its movepool makes standard ways of dealing with offensive threats very difficult

Volt lets it chip slower non-immune checks, while avoiding damage, Espeed makes faster offensive counterplay (barring sashkad drakloak lol) risky to use as revenging options, you have to make sure they're out of Espeed range which is not easy in endgame scenarios. Knock softens up defensive counterplay that switch into it the first time. The 4th move is variable depending on what the team needs, but that just adds to the strain the Rat has on building. Fake Out gets useful chip on all non-ghosts, breaks KadSash for Espeed etc, Surf nails Grounds, GKnot is rare but can nail Palpitoad if it picks up in usage, Brick Break covers spdef Klang, spdef Ferro, and hits Pilo hard, you can even run Tbolt 4th to absolutely destroy tangmare cores. The 4th moveslot is so dangerous from a building perspective, and Rat counterplay is already so limited that you just have to pray it's not the correct set in practice or get bopped.

Overall, QB Rat. Mid tour QBs do suck ass, but DLC has only been out for a bit over a month, QBs in SS are justifiable imo. Plus, thanks to BW and DPP, this will likely be the least sus QB of the PL if it happens. I think it would be wise to wait until the end of wk3/maybe even wk4 just to see if the meta can adapt in some way instead of jumping the gun too early, but I don't really see anything undiscovered that could make the Rat not broken in the current metagame.
If you think the Rat isn't QB worthy, pull up.

Simbo is trash at ss btw lol

Greybaum · Jul 23, 2020

Jett said:
Thoughts on Pikachu and Kadabra; are they too overwhelming for NFE to handle, are there any other Pokemon which you believe are too strong?

Pivots have been integral to many NFE teams so far; do you think that defensive teams have a place in the metagame or will offensive teams remain dominant?

Hazards play a very important role in NFE, as hazard removal options are limited, and there are many more viable entry hazard setters in comparison. Even the rise of niche and HO setters post-DLC is very pressuring for current removal / prevention. What is there to do about it?

my thoughts pretty much echo SS NFE legend PH (great post buddy!) here. going down the list of reliable switchins, 99% of them get knocked and volt switched on;
gloom and tangela are forced to recover (tangela can regen, but needs to be paired with something like piloswine to tank volt switch if it wants to do this).
cors gets knocked and switched on, so does ferro, and neither have especially reliable recovery.
haka is taking a ton of damage and also gets pivoted on and has no recovery. there's probably more examples but these are off the top of my head.
lastly, you've got ground-types and thwackey - i'm pairing them together because they do the same thing; tank knock and prevent volt switch. the former through their typings, the latter through grassy glide pressure
the issue is with extreme speed:

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Piloswine: 108-128 (26.7 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Piloswine: 135-159 (33.4 - 39.3%)

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Palpitoad: 93-110 (26.2 - 31%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Palpitoad: 115-136 (32.4 - 38.4%)

252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Thwackey: 121-143 (43 - 50.8%)
252+ Atk Light Ball Pikachu Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Thwackey: 100-118 (35.5 - 41.9%)

to put it plainly, after taking knock off none of these pokemon can reliably take two extreme speeds - they're relying on low rolls, or switching into volt switch / another knock off (which also means they're a second switch but that's about it). in another meta this could be enough, but with various splashable slow pivots like clefairy, vullaby, and the various flip turn users we got in DLC, it's really not that hard to bring pikachu in safely (you can also just send it in when something dies for free btw since it's killing pretty much the whole meta if you get a mon to 50% first)
the only exception to this pattern is hippopotas, which can pretty comfortably take knock off and extremespeed. it's still forced to heal up with slack off but it does deny volt switch which makes it the best answer discussed thus far.

is this broken? honestly i'd say yes, but it's a close one. against piloswine, thwackey etc. you need to get the predicts right to get full impact, and pokemon like tangela are forcing it out consistently but aside from entry hazards there's no way of actually getting damage on pikachu because of the nature of volt switch. the essence of the game starts to boil down to "does ___ breaker that takes advantage of the free switch easily break my team?". pikachu is easily splashable with a ton of breakers. raboot is the most popular, but lampent, forb machoke, dartrix, roselia, gastly, torracat, and pretty much every other wallbreaker in the tier that can pressure a knocked tangela or gloom is interchangeable here, and a bad MU against one of these means the pika team just kinda wins sometimes.

to summarise, pikachu is impossible to take momentum back from and you're constantly playing from behind to try and get around it. pikachu has a decent to good matchup against even its best answers, e.g. ferroseed, tangela and piloswine.

but i've intentionally only talked about fakespeed here, because pikachu also has the option to just bypass its own checks with way more ease. brick break 2HKOs a knocked ferro, surf and grass knot 2HKO a knocked (or speedy) piloswine, with the former also 2HKOing eviolite hippo and the latter 2HKOing a physdef eviolite palpitoad. thunderbolt can 2HKO a knocked physdef tangela depending on the amount of investment. pikachu has no consistent defensive counterplay, and as i mentioned earlier it doesn't even need to have the right coverage to still be extremely solid in pretty much every matchup, so if your opp doesn't have the right coverage to 2HKO your mon chances are their gameplan is still going to be "how can i weaken all 6 mons into range of pikachu?".

defensive counterplay aside, extremespeed covers pretty much everything offensive that isn't sash kadabra, drakloak, the aforementioned thwackey, linoone-g, torracat (most of the time, nobody is running +nature max speed pika) and probably gastly depending on spreads (you need to run timid gastly to do this consistently and the drop in damage against mons like ferro and klang is honestly not worth it). these all do a decent job but can't switch in and aren't particularly the hardest pokemon to switch into.

re: banning, i can understand people wanting to leave pika in the meta for a bit longer while checks are found, but everything i can personally see or have been informed of (foongus, krok, mixed def tang) all have the same problems as many of the mons i've mentioned up above. you can play around pika, but it's heads and shoulders above everything else in the tier and i don't personally like how building in this tier is warping around pikachu and how you need to never run any mons that let it get free pressure on you, and probably run ferroseed anyway for backup.

:ss/kadabra:

i also think this pokemon needs to go, but not as badly as pikachu.
to quickly sum up (it's 2:30AM at the time of writing this), kadabra is far easier to answer than pikachu, with ferroseed and klang being solid answers now that trapinch is gone and other pokemon like vullaby and spdef cors being kinda bad but reasonable answers. the problem is that with the exception of ferro and klang, all of them are pretty much just as abusable as pika's checks, with psyshock, cm, knock, encore, counter, and even more fringe options being available (or just winning if rocks are up, @ vullaby). this forces every decent balance team to run either ferro, klang, or some absolute unmon like spdef stunky and is really just not a healthy addition to the tier. the alternative is running extremely offensive mons that can RK it like pikachu & thwackey which is why it's less of an issue at the moment; counterplay to kadabra is available and consistent, far more so than pika, it's just extremely limited and doubtlessly going to be a bigger issue later on, particularly if pikachu goes.

:ss/hattrem:

"Hazards play a very important role in NFE, as hazard removal options are limited, and there are many more viable entry hazard setters in comparison. Even the rise of niche and HO setters post-DLC is very pressuring for current removal / prevention. What is there to do about it?"

i promise to make another post on this soon because i think it's important to talk about and ties heavily into the pikachu problem, but it's just late rn. goodnight all and thanks for reading this far !

elleapple · Jul 24, 2020

uhuhuhu7 said:
snip

As uhu already said literally everything I would've wanted to say about Pikachu. I'm writing this post to highlight the options council has to vote on/suspect Pika, and reasons why they should or shouldn't choose one of these options.

OPTION 1: Quickban vote on Pikachu in the next two weeks

I say in the next two weeks because anything later will be too close to the playoffs of NFEPL IV for players and builders to properly adapt in time. Which is also possibly one of the main issues with choosing to vote on Pikachu during PL. It's possible that people wont adapt in time and it'll lead to a less competitive PL. It could be argued that good players and builders should be able to adapt to a ban just like any other meta shift, and this is something that I'd generally agree with. I think this option is an acceptable one, especially with how centralizing Pikachu seems to be becoming already in just 2 weeks of PL. This option is a Quickban vote so obviously community input wont be as involved, though most of the community is in agreement that Pikachu needs to looked at in some capacity

OPTION 2: Quickban vote on Pikachu after NFEPL IV

Before writing this post, this was the option I said I'd prefer. I think this has changed however. Not voting on Pikachu till after PL means that there are no massive mid-tour meta shifts, but it also means potentially playing in an unhealthy meta for the rest of the tournament. Pikachu is already quite centralizing by the end of week 2 so its very possible that the metagame will be bad enough to cause more burnout than any potential shifts post Pikachu ban. I think this option should still be discussed by the userbase and council as it does have its merits, but option 1 is much better in my opinion. This option is a Quickban vote so it also doesnt include the suspect process

OPTION 3: Suspect Test Pikachu after NFEPL IV

Everything above but includes community input and the chance of uninformed voters as all suspect processes do.

Footnote: Light Ball vs. Pikachu

I personally don't really care which gets voted on, so I don't think too long should be spent discussing which. What matters is getting the unhealthy element out of the meta, which in this case is the combination of light ball + pikachu, so banning either would accomplish this.

I hope this posts makes sense and doesn't just read as the ramblings of someone who didnt get much sleep. Have a good day everyone :D

Calucha · Jul 24, 2020

Was originally gonna make a post responding to Jett and PH's posts about pikachu, but after being irked by the sheer disrespect and ire shown at the suspects process/community input by Sans I figured I'd respond to that instead.

OPTION 1: Quickban vote on Pikachu in the next two weeks
This is the worst option because of how extreme of an action this is. Firstly, while most of the community has been talking about Pikachu there is still a number of people (me included) who are not sold on Pikachu being the main problem. I'v seen many good points being made, such as that the presence of Kadabra is what pushes Pika over the edge, and in this scenario shouldn't Dabara be the mon we look at? That being said, whether Pika is broken or not isn't what where discussing, its what were gonna do about it.
Secondly, lets calm down a bit, Pika has had access to Espeed+Fakeout for a while now, predating DLC, and the HA gen 8 starters. It wasn't until the ban of Haunter that Pikachu finally got it's time to shine since it could finally take advantage of that moveset. Pikachu is amazing, I don't think anyone can deny that, but its not a instant wincon, its not the type of mon that just auto wins games. So we should stop talking about it like it's the second coming of Type null, even if this mon requires actions it by no means requires this immediate of an action.
Lastly, Pikachu has been shown as a great mon like a week or two ago. It was shown to pair really well with raboot like a week ago. What other thing will the rest of PL show us about Pika? As unlikely as people say it is, there is a chance the top players figure stuff out, or more likely the anti pikachu subset of the community gets proof that is beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pikachu needs to go.
OPTION 2: Quickban vote on Pikachu after NFEPL IV
The number of QBs as of lately is getting very worrisome. Like whats the point of even having suspect tests anymore when Council will literally just ban everything by themselves? This many QB should not being happening this late into SS and the DLC.
OPTION 3: Suspect Test Pikachu after NFEPL IV
The best option in my opinion. Allows the metagame to adapt with pikachu as a known threat. Allows us to see if Pikachu can be managed, after all who better than the top PL players to show us if this thing can be tamed. Gives the community a voice and chance to get more involved with their tier. Allows everyone to come to their own conclusion about pikachu through games and examples, and not just people analyzing a mon on paper.
Footnote: Light Ball vs. Pikachu
If it comes down to it, Light ball is preferable to me, since even if it wont be as good as before FakeSpeed is still a niche and im for keeping as many mons as possible.

Sorry for the grammar didn't really feel like getting it checked lol

Greybaum · Jul 24, 2020

figured i'd post again in support of sans because a few of calucha's points are odd to me.

Calucha said:
Was originally gonna make a post responding to Jett and PH's posts about pikachu, but after being irked by the sheer disrespect and ire shown at the suspects process/community input by Sans I figured I'd respond to that instead.
please do both lol

RE: Quickban:
This is the worst option because of how extreme of an action this is. Firstly, while most of the community has been talking about Pikachu there is still a number of people (me included) who are not sold on Pikachu being the main problem.
you seem to be ignoring that this is a suggestion for a quickban vote. i.e., it's not a definite ban. if you don't think pikachu is broken, fine, but more importantly can you express that opinion in a way that would convince the voting party, wheher that be council or suspect voters? i'd be interested to hear more on what your reasoning actually is, but that's a side point. i don't think it's fair to call quickbanning a terrible decision especially when sans has begrudgingly suggested to wait another week (i.e. two weeks more of SS NFE games since most are being played at the weekend).
if, like i and sans do, you believe that pikachu is unhealthy, then this is really the longest we can afford to wait without compromising nfepl playoffs. two weeks of games, which at the time of writing this is 21 games, in addition to individual testing and forum discussion is sufficient time to understand pikachu's presence on the meta and to get an understanding of what counterplay is and isn't available.

I'v seen many good points being made, such as that the presence of Kadabra is what pushes Pika over the edge, and in this scenario shouldn't Dabara be the mon we look at?
i have literally not seen a single person try and argue that kadabra's presence makes pikachu more viable, let alone pushes it over the edge. i would like to see your reasoning, but as it isn't here, i'll instead point out that a quickban vote would force anti-ban users to vocalise these opinions in a more public forum and advance the meta.

That being said, whether Pika is broken or not isn't what where discussing, its what were gonna do about it.
if you think the NFE playerbase can produce sufficient counterplay to pikachu, there's not much reason to deny a quickban vote as far as i'm concerned. if pikachu is unhealthy, PL isn't damaged, if pikachu is healthy, nothing changes.

Secondly, lets calm down a bit, Pika has had access to Espeed+Fakeout for a while now, predating DLC, and the HA gen 8 starters. It wasn't until the ban of Haunter that Pikachu finally got it's time to shine since it could finally take advantage of that moveset.
not entirely true; a lot of things changed. haunter's presence was big, yes, but bigger than that was trapinch going; a pokemon that could guarantee a revenge kill on pikachu with no counterplay. in addition, the influx of pivots, including what is generally considered pikachu's best partner in libero raboot, all pushed pikachu higher. i'm also of the subjective opinion that pikachu was vastly underrated before all this; most people may not know or remember this but i was gassing pikachu up for a pretty lengthy amount of time shortly after i started playing nfe, and more recently thimo was doing the same. pikachu was honestly always good, it just had some inconsistent matchups, none of which are really present anymore.
in short though, NFE has seen a LOT of factors that altogether make pikachu much more oppressive than it was in previous metas, much like how flame orb machoke is much less of an issue now despite 2HKOing the entire tier precisely because we're in a speedy pika raboot gorsola centric meta.

Pikachu is amazing, I don't think anyone can deny that, but its not a instant wincon, its not the type of mon that just auto wins games. So we should stop talking about it like it's the second coming of Type null, even if this mon requires actions it by no means requires this immediate of an action.
nobody is claiming pikachu 6-0s teams, only that it needs minimal chip and/or the right set to 6-0 teams. pikachu-centric teams are notably better than other archetypes at present and pikachu's 86% (may be a different stat now, shoutout @PH) win rate in NFEPL games vs non-pikachu centric teams reflects this.

Lastly, Pikachu has been shown as a great mon like a week or two ago. It was shown to pair really well with raboot like a week ago. What other thing will the rest of PL show us about Pika? As unlikely as people say it is, there is a chance the top players figure stuff out, or more likely the anti pikachu subset of the community gets proof that is beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pikachu needs to go.
rav3ndan may have made the most generally solid pikachu team last week but it's not like pikachu teams didn't exist before that. nfe players have had just under two weeks to figure this out, four in total if we go by sans' suggestion to vote prior to W4. this should be enough time for people to provide solid pikachu counterplay without accidentally leaking their teams' strategies.

OPTION 2: Quickban vote on Pikachu after NFEPL IV
The number of QBs as of lately is getting very worrisome. Like whats the point of even having suspect tests anymore when Council will literally just ban everything by themselves? This many QB should not being happening this late into SS and the DLC.
"this late into SS" disingenuously implies that the tier has been in a state of stability when this is simply not true. SWSH and its DLC brings us into an unprecidented situation. usage-based tiers are still doing quickbans, with RU and PU even releasing practically their entire banlist, and while NFE is not nearly as affected it's definitely not fair to claim the meta wasn't very much shaken by the introduction of kadabra, grassy terrain thwackey, libero raboot, tangela etc.
we've gone from haunter & choke meta, to kadabra & pinch meta, to now pika & raboot meta. suspect testing machoke (and haunter if we did it early enough) was the right call to make, but we haven't had a break from this madness since then; this tier was destabilised by DLC and if quickbans are what it takes to get to that point, so be it.

OPTION 3: Suspect Test Pikachu after NFEPL IV
The best option in my opinion. Allows the metagame to adapt with pikachu as a known threat. Allows us to see if Pikachu can be managed, after all who better than the top PL players to show us if this thing can be tamed. Gives the community a voice and chance to get more involved with their tier. Allows everyone to come to their own conclusion about pikachu through games and examples, and not just people analyzing a mon on paper.
we have had time to do this, and would continue to have time to do this, with a quickban vote. nobody is analysing pikachu on paper - in fact, the only mon i've analysed on paper and decided was awful was foongus. i've used every other form of counterplay in some way that i listed to find them insufficient and i'd be keen to see if you could provide more examples.

Footnote: Light Ball vs. Pikachu
If it comes down to it, Light ball is preferable to me, since even if it wont be as good as before FakeSpeed is still a niche and im for keeping as many mons as possible.
i also prefer light ball, because i'm unable to find history of a pokemon, broken largely due to an exclusive item, that got banned instead. soul dew in gen 4, eevium-z in gen7lc, deepseatooth in oldgen lc, light ball in oldgen nfe etc.
with that said, i don't care either way - pikachu won't be viable, nor will light ball, without the other. they're essentially the same ban. fakespeed is not a worthwhile niche, nor is trapinch having the strongest first impression in the tier.

Cheryl. · Jul 25, 2020

Never touching NFE again but decided this was worth a meme

Jett · Jul 29, 2020

Hey frens. The council will be voting on Pikachu with the results coming out before Week 4 of NFEPL, so consider this your last chance to get your opinion heard!

For the past 2 weeks of NFEPL, Pikachu has been at the forefront of the metagame due to being an insane pivot, wallbreaker, revenge killer, and cleaner. The metagame has shifted to become very centralised on pivoting with Pikachu often being paired with other pivots, most notably Raboot, Klang, and Thwackey. The majority of Volt Switch immunities and resists cannot afford to switch into Pikachu’s Knock Off or Surf, or are forced to recover as Pikachu pivots out which loses momentum. Not only has Pikachu made balance and stall much worse as these archetypes cannot keep up with its momentum, but the mouse also has access to amazing priority in Fake Out and Extreme Speed, making it extremely potent against offensive teams as well.

Stats from NFEPL: Pikachu is currently the second most used Pokemon with 52% usage and has an impressive 62.5% win rate after two weeks. Pikachu’s win rate against non-Pikachu teams shoots up to an incredible 80% over 10 games.

I understand there may be some frustration with there being another quickban vote. The council is also tired with the number of votes we’ve had but gen 8 has honestly made it really difficult to find the time to fit suspect tests especially with two big tournaments for NFE back to back. If we were to wait until NFEPL finished, and have a suspect then, the results would come out in October which is only a month before when the second DLC is supposed to be released, wasting valuable time for metagame development. We’re hoping this is the last time we will have to do one of these, at least until DLC 2 is released.

SBPC · Aug 2, 2020

The council decided to hold a Quickban Vote for Pikachu. The vote count needed for a ban was 4/6.

:Pikachu:

Pikachu has always been a relatively decent pokemon in the NFE metagame, often found falling short of major viability due to its glass cannon nature, but post-haunter ban, Pikachu began seeing a surge in usage, and what was once a decent wallbreaker became an instant lethal touch to any team. Pikachu's kit allowing use of FakeSpeed meant it could let loose a powerful priority combo instantly boosted by light ball, with little counterplay to push back against its incredible coverage pool, and volt switch to hold its momentum against defensive attempts. The lack of good ghosts only made FakeSpeed stronger, as little immunity to it existed, and other offensive counterplay was overwhelmed by the immediate +2 to both sides.

Below you can find the individual reasons for each council member

Pikachu has been banned from NFE with an unanimous 6/6 vote from council.
Tagging The Immortal to implement

85percent · Aug 9, 2020

Approved by Jett | Concept stolen with permission from Aaronboyer here | Banner by the amazing CrazyStevy

Won by tlenit1!

You'd really like to have some fun on the ladder, but using the same cores over and over to stay competitive is boring you, and you just faced the twentieth Piloswine / Hattrem / Machoke team in a row? Well, look no further, NFE Laddering Achievements are here!
Over the course of the next four weeks (until Sunday, September 6th, 11:59pm GMT+2), you'll have the chance to complete ladder achievements in order to gain points for a Leaderboard. The player with the most points at the end of the four weeks will receive a unique Discord role, and will be part of a player interview (which will later be posted in this thread). Additionally the winner will receive 25.00 USD via PayPal!

Rules:

You must have a “NFELA” tag in front of your user name in order for points to count. Ex. NFELA 85percent. You can create and use multiple accounts.
All battles must take place on the [Gen 8] NFE ladder on Pokemon Showdown.
To receive points for an achievement, you must send a replay to me via Discord (84percent#5652). Plus additional info (screenshot, team importable, etc.) if required.
You may get multiple achievements from the same replay.
State the achievement(s) you are trying to complete, when sending the replay.
Your opponent must have at least 5 Pokemon on their team.
You must win your game for the points to count.
Forfeits will only be counted if the opponent has 2 or fewer Pokemon remaining. If the achievement is marked No Forfeits, forfeits will only be counted if the opponent has a maximum of 1 Pokemon remaining.
Time outs will only be counted if the opponent has 3 or fewer Pokemon remaining. If the achievement is marked No Forfeits, time outs will only be counted if the opponent has a maximum of 1 Pokemon remaining.
Do not attempt to meet friends on the ladder, just so they can help you out. That's not the idea behind this project. Also do not give free wins to others attempting these challenges.
Do not forfeit games vs other NFELA accounts. Forfeiting will lead to a warning the first time it happens, and a 1 point penalty if it happens again (as long as the opponent provides a replay). This is supposed to keep you from purposely stopping your opponent from completing an achievement.
Replays only count if they were created after the achievement was posted. This is relevant for weeks 2-4.

I will collect all replays at the end of this post. That's also where you'll find the Leaderboard. Additionally I will edit this post to show which players have completed which achievements – that should make it easier for you to find achievements you haven't completed yet. If you have questions, or suggestions for achievements, feel free to contact me.

At the beginning of each week a new wave of available achievements will be released to keep you excited! (The old achievements will still be available)

Leadeboard has been updated.

Mono Tier - 1 Point Each

Technically Monotype: Win a battle using a team without any dual-type Pokémon.
Achievers: tlenit1
Mono-Normal: Win using a Mono-Normal team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Mono-Flying: Win using a Mono-Flying team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Water: Win using a Mono-Water team.
Achievers: tlenit1
Mono-Steel: Win using a Mono-Steel team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Electric: Win using a Mono-Electric team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Fairy: Win using a Mono-Fairy team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Mono-Dragon: Win using a Mono-Dragon team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Mono-Dark: Win using a Mono-Dark team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Ghost: Win using a Mono-Ghost team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Grass: Win using a Mono-Grass team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Fire: Win using a Mono-Fire team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Bug: Win using a Mono-Bug team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Psychic: Win using a Mono-Psychic team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Rock: Win using a Mono-Rock team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Mono-Ground: Win using a Mono-Ground team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Poison: Win using a Mono-Poison team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Mono-Fighting: Win using a Mono-Fighting team.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Mono-Ice: Win using a Mono-Ice team.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10

Generational Tier - 1 Point Each

Kanto Quests: Win using Gen 1 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Johto Journeys: Win using Gen 2 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Hoenn Hikes: Win using Gen 3 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Sinnoh Trips: Win using Gen 4 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1
Unova Odysseys: Win using Gen 5 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1
Kalos Expeditions: Win using Gen 6 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1
Alolan Adventures: Win using Gen 7 Pokemon only.
Achievers: tlenit1
Galarian Globetrotters: Win using Gen 8 Pokemon only.
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1

Bronze Tier – 1 Point each

5 is Greater Than 6: Win a battle using a team of only 5 Pokemon.
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, OranBerryBlissey10, Jettxx, xhys, tlenit1, Tack, Elgino, ShingnStreets, Temporal Totodile
You’ve Left Me No Choice: Win a battle using a team of only choice-locked Pokemon. (Paste Required)
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, SpacialRendevous, Jettxx, xhys, OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1, Tack, Elgino, BloodAce, ShingnStreets, Temporal Totodile
Rookie No More: Reach 1200 ELO or better on the NFE Ladder. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: Arctic, xhys, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Dipping Your Toe In: Play on an alt with a minimum of 20 games won. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: Arctic, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10, ShingnStreets
Time to grow up: Win using a team without Eviolite. (Paste Required)
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, SpacialRendevous, Jettxx, xhys, OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1, Tack, Elgino, BloodAce, ShingnStreets, Temporal Totodile
Mother Nature: Win a battle using a team with Pokemon that all have the same nature. (6 Pokemon must be used for this Achievement.)(Paste Required)
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, xhys, tlenit1, Jettxx, Tack, ShingnStreets, BloodAce
Six-to-Zero: Defeat an opponent 6-0. Your opponent must have a full team. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: Arctic, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10, BloodAce, ShingnStreets, Marjane
The Fource is Strong With This One: Win with a full team of Pokemon, each possessing at least one 4x weakness.
Achievers: Animesans, xhys, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10, Arctic, BloodAce, ShingnStreets
Innovative Pokemon: Win a battle using at least 3 Pokemon that are unranked.
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, OranBerryBlissey10, xhys, tlenit1, Elgino, BloodAce, ShingnStreets
It's a start: Win a battle using only starter Pokemon or their evolutions.
Achievers: Arctic, Animesans, King Leo V, OranBerryBlissey10, Jettxx, xhys, tlenit1, Elgino, BloodAce, ShingnStreets
Showdown Technician: Win with a team consisting of no attacks above 60 BP. (Paste Required)
Achievers: tlenit1
STABmons > NFE: Win using only STAB moves. (Libero is allowed)
Achievers: tlenit1
Ingrained: Win a battle without switching Pokemon.
Achievers: Arctic, tlenit1

Silver Tier - 2 Points Each

One Man Band: Win a battle using a team of only 1 Pokemon.
Achievers: King Leo V, tlenit1, Arctic, Tack, Elgino, OranBerryBlissey10
No (N)FEatherweight anymore: Win a total of 80 games on one alt. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
In Practice: Win with a team of Pokemon having only 3 moves. (Paste Required)
Achievers: Animesans, King Leo V, xhys, tlenit1
Give them (s)HELL(os): Win a game with (your) Shellos KOing at least 2 Pokemon. These KOs must be from direct damage, not status or hazard damage.
Achievers: tlenit1
Gotta Go Fast!: Have a Pokemon on your team reach 1100 Speed or more. Speed Boost is Banned. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: Arctic, xhys, King Leo V, tlenit1, BloodAce, ShingnStreets
Meteorologist: Activate all 4 weathers in the same game and win.
Achievers: ShingnStreets, xhys, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10, Arctic
Triumph Over the Hax: Win a game after being inflicted with 5 Critical Hits (Moves that are guaranteed to crit such as Frost Breath and Storm Throw do not count.)
Achievers: tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10
Nail Biter: Win a battle with only 1 Pokémon left at 1 HP remaining. Screenshot proof is required unless using Focus Sash or Endure.
Achievers: King Leo V, tlenit1
Crash and Burn: Miss Jump Kick and / or High Jump Kick twice in the same battle and win. (Crashing due to Protect, Detect, etc. counts. Crashing due to Ghost typing does not count)
Achievers: tlenit1, ShingnStreets, OranBerryBlissey10
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Reach 1400 or higher ELO on the NFE Ladder. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: tlenit1
Kamikaze: Use at least 3 sacrificial moves in one game and win. (Ex. Explosion, Healing Wish) Moves that inflict recoil such as Double-Edge do not count.
Achievers: tlenit1
Kindergarten: Win a game with only first stage Pokemon.
Achievers: Marjane, tlenit1
The Biggest Loser: Win a battle with all of your Pokemon having a BST lower than 350.
Achievers: Marjane, tlenit1
Spin To Win: KO at least one Pokemon with Rapid Spin and win the game.
Achievers: Marjane, tlenit1
Smash Ultimate: Win a battle where all of your Pokemon know the move Shell Smash (Paste required)
Achievers: OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Greedy Opponent: KO one of your opponent's Pokemon after letting that Pokemon reach +6 in any stat
Achievers: tlenit1
Itemless: Win using a team without held items at the beginning of the battle. (Paste Required)
Achievers: tlenit1
Molasses: Win a battle with all Pokemon holding a Lagging Tail. Trick, Switcheroo, Bestow, and Fling cannot be used. (Paste Required)
Achievers: tlenit1
Bad Choice: Trick/Switcheroo a Choice item for another Choice item. (Mention the specific turn when posting)
Achievers: tlenit1

Gold Tier - 3 Points Each

I Love Entry Hazards: Win a battle, ending the game with Stealth Rock, Sticky Web, both layers of Toxic Spikes, and all three layers of Spikes on your opponents side of the field.
Achievers: King Leo V, tlenit1, Arctic, ShingnStreets, OranBerryBlissey10
Who's your favourite Driver?: Have 85% GXE or better. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers:
Dedication to NFE: Win 200 games on one alt.
Achievers: tlenit1
Healthy as a Horse: Win a battle using a full team of Pokemon, all of which have a base HP stat of at least 90.
Achievers: Arctic, xhys, King Leo V, tlenit1, Elgino, BloodAce, OranBerryBlissey10
Welcome to Another Top 10 Video: Reach #2-10 rank on the NFE Ladder. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers: tlenit1
Hoist By His Own Petard: Get 3 KOs with Foul Play.
Achievers: tlenit1, Arctic, BloodAce
Sharing Is Caring: Win a battle using Pain Split to recover to full HP when beforehand your HP was in the red zone. (Must be Level 100.)
Achievers: Arctic, King Leo V, tlenit1
They Snooze, You Win: Win a battle after three or more of your opponent's Pokemon are put asleep. (Can be at different times due to Sleep Mod. Your opponent putting their own Pokemon to sleep via Rest counts.)
Achievers: tlenit1
Lukewarm Water: Use Scald 5 times in a row and inflict no burns. (Does not count if the target(s) you are using Scald on are immune to burn (e.g. Fire types, having a Substitute up, being statused already, etc.)
Achievers: tlenit1
From the Abyss: Go from losing 6-1 to winning 1-0. (Lunar Dance, Memento, Self-Destruct, Explosion, Final Gambit, and Healing Wish are not allowed, and your initial team must consist of at least 5 Pokemon.)
Achievers: tlenit1

Platinum Tier - 5 Points Each

Six-Day War: Win a game in only 6 turns. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: tlenit1
Helsinki: Reach 1550 ELO or better on the NFE Ladder. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers:
l33t: Obtain an ELO of exactly 1337 on an alt. (Screenshot required)
Achievers: tlenit1
NFE Enemy #1: Reach #1 rank on the NFE Ladder. (Screenshot Required)
Achievers:
5 for Flinching: Win a battle after flinching your opponent 5 times in a row OR being flinched 5 times in a row. (Please List Turns #s when posting for this Achievement)(The opposing Pokemon switching or dying because of the attack does not break the chain. Your Pokemon dying does not break the chain. Your Pokemon switching does break the chain.)
Achievers: tlenit1, Arctic, ShingnStreets, OranBerryBlissey10
0-0: Win a battle after all 12 Pokemon have fainted.
Achievers: tlenit1, ShingnStreets, BloodAce
Waggle That Finger: Win by only using the move Metronome. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: King Leo V, OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
Struggling to Make Wins Meet: Win a battle after both you and your opponent use Struggle. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: King Leo V, OranBerryBlissey10, tlenit1
We Raise Our White Flag: Win a battle using only status moves. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: tlenit1
No Breaks Needed: Win a battle lasting at least 500 turns. (Forfeits count at any time after 500 turns. Timeouts count regularly 3 mons or less)
Achievers: tlenit1

Extreme Tier - 10 Points

Doing the Impossible: Win 40 games in a row with no losses. (Screenshot required showing 40-0. You are allowed to reset your wins and losses)
Achievers:
Perfect Game: Win a battle 6-0 with all of your Pokemon at full health and without status conditions. (No Forfeits)
Achievers: Arctic, King Leo V, tlenit1, OranBerryBlissey10

Ultimate Tier - 25 Points (points for this category will be awarded at the end of the four weeks)

Like no one ever was: Highest GXE (Minimum 85%)
Lonely at the top: Highest ELO (Minimum 1600)

Arctic	44
tlenit1	155
xhys	15
King Leo V	43
Animesans	9
OranBerryBlissey10	73
BloodAce	20
Jettxx	5
Tack	6
Elgino	10
SpacialRendevous	2
ShingnStreets	28
Marjane	7
Temporal Totodile	3

SBPC · Aug 14, 2020

Over the course of NFEPL 4, there's been an astounding amount of development for the SS NFE metagame, including the early week mid tour ban of Pikachu. While the meta seems to have stabilized now, there's a problem of a group of pokemon being so incredibly overcentralizing that the entire metagame has now been warped by their presence, and completely redefined the tier.

The simple truth of the matter is, despite the "reverse power creep" brought by dexit, the overall power level of nfe has gotten very significantly out of hand, and because of this, the upper half of the meta creates a rift that centralizes the entire metagame around these pokemon, as they perfectly check and cooperate with eachother, with only niches or roles they don't already fulfill aside from these selections to our tier. These pokemon are Raboot, Thwackey, Kadabra, Machoke, and Corsola-Galar. These 5 pokemon are seen in nearly every single team, and cause almost mirror match like situations because of their natural power level being so far above the rest of the tier. And while midtour banwaves suck, this needs to be heavily looked at in order for ss to remain a healthy metagame, and i propose that after nfepl, that we look into quickbanning all 5 of these pokemon to attempt in undoing the ridiculous creep these pokemon present.

Going into detail for a claim like this is absolutely necessary, which is why the following hide tags will be compressing a quick explanation of how these 5 specific examples warp the metagame.

It's no surprise that you can find Machoke being immersively overpowered in the NFE metagame, as it's been incredibly powerful throughout every generation, and banned in every gen barring SM and SS. It was even suspected earlier, but narrowly dodged a ban due to the timing of its suspect being so close to DLC 1. No shock to say that this mon is still absolutely ridiculous, with its fighting stab in tandem with knock off making the idea of switching in anything but easy, with its last two slots reserved for coverage against choice niche defensive answers, or utility in encore and toxic. This makes machoke not only incredibly versatile, but a wallbreaking powerhouse that can flatten the majority of the metagame with just 2 buttons.

Corsola from the beginning was known to be an incredibly bulky presence that could sit on the majority of the metagame while alloting passive damage, but absolutely nothing compared to it when the partial trapping whirlpool came into abuse, allowing it to reliably beat every single physical attacker with sap + shade, while forcing them to stay in and lose their important threat. This, unsurprisingly, warped the metagame around the usage of u-turn and volt switch, as attempting to beat it 1v1 was a deathwish with its incredible bulk and access to semi-reliable healing in strength sap.

As an addition, this pokemon is so amazing at handling threats with its toolkit, that most other pokemon opt on even some moves that could be considered important to fire away toxic status at it, as its the only way of reliably keeping it held down over long games.

I grouped these two together as they share the same tale, a mediocre offensive pivot/breaker turned absolute monster by the release of DLC, and the expansion of their tools that was brought to them.

:Raboot:

Rebooted to the top of the tier lists, Raboot gained access to Libero, a reskinned Protean. This ability took its already strong offensive toolkit and just pushed it into absurdity. Having access to the mighty fighting type of machoke, its own potent fire typing, being able to push STAB U-turns for immense damage, and a filler move for options like the ever-so-scary sucker punch, or the rare Double Edge, Raboot quickly became something incredibly hard to deal with. The bans of haunter and pikachu made its speed tier even more reliable, while heavy duty boots alleviated its weakness of being prone to hazard chip. It's incredibly difficult to switch into this powerhouse, while it can easily keep pressure against you with its coverage and raw strength.

:Thwackey:

Mutated by vegetable overgrowth, Thwackey learned to carry the ability to spit sunflower seeds into the ground at such a speed, they would break into a nature filled aura, making the ground function like ice to it. This ability would be known as grassy surge, and its new technique, the Grassy Glide, would allow Thwackey to quickly become a threat to anything just for switching in. A priority stab akin to technician boosted bullet punch, with access to swords dance, an even more powerful STAB in wood hammer for those pesky coral creatures, and the coveted knock off, with the optional utility of U-turn to help boost it. It writes itself, this pokemon gained incredibly nonsensical buffs from the DLC, and it became near almighty as a result.

Having the highest speed tier and the most powerful special attacks in the metagame is already amazing for a pokemon, but pair it with an immunity to hazards chip, a nasty sash counter set, and 2 free moveslots of utility for whatever it pleases while it can run near perfect coverage in psychic and dazzling gleam, and you have yourself one of the most metagame defining pokemon to grace NFE. Encore allows this to invalidate all but Klang and Ferroseed as defensive play to it, while the effect of the other 4 titans being actively equipped to chip out and remove these options for defensive sanction, it makes Kadabra an incredibly difficult mon to out-offense, and it naturally warps the metagame to fear its powerful attacks and lethal utility.

With that aside, these 5 pokemon are incredibly metagame warping, and getting rid of just one or two of them isn't going to make the cut. If you lose one of the five, the other four only get better as a result, and if you ban four and leave one, well, obviously that pokemon would become the absolute face of the meta. Tour teams in ss have slowly begun stagnating to the mirror match of Raboot + Thwackey + Corsola + Vullaby (important for hazard control, not as powerful as the tier mutants) while you pick 2 mons to fill, one of which usually is Machoke or Kadabra. It's incredibly unhealthy for the tier, and it's effect is beginning to show, which is why i proposed this idea of a ban slate to lower the overall power level that allows the metagame to be so overruled by a single group of pokemon. Peace.

S1nn0hC0nfirm3d · Aug 15, 2020

Just some general thoughts on the mons brought up.

Compared to the dominate playstyles in the current, I think this mon has fallen out of style. Its poor Speed is a suck for momentum if the opponent does have a good defensive check for it like Galarian Corsola, Tangela, or Koffing still around, and having to use Toxic for the former two is also a huge compromise to its coverage. So much so, that the revealed lack of either Earthquake or Heavy Slam makes partners to these walls like Mareanie, Clefairy, and Togetic more viable checks to it. Machoke is still splashable as ever, but it's been put in check with by its limited coverage and faster wallbreakers like Choice Specs Hattrem and Choice Band Piloswine; these faster wallbreakers also tend to be better for pivot-focused teams as well. Lastly, while the new innovation / popularity of offensive No Guard Machoke has led some to believe that parafusion is uncompetitive and outright pushes Machoke over the edge, I argue it takes invaluable coverage out of Machoke for situational odds to beat some of its checks. The game is meant to be one of risk versus reward, and these sets are too unreliable to be considered the best of what Machoke is capable of, and even to that end it still isn't overwhelming.

I've been vocal about this mon on Discord a lot, and I don't believe it's a problem for the tier in the least. On the contrary, it's ability to check nearly every physical attacker while healthy is proving to be one of the biggest balancing factors in the meta. Under normal circumstances, I would argue that my previous sentence is justification for banning anything that well-off defensively, but there is a catch: nearly every physical attacker that is checked by it "normally" has set adaptations or support that still is effective at breaking past it. Those adaptations would be the following options: running Toxic (Machoke, Piloswine, Klang, ect.), Taunt / Substitute (Galarian Linoone, Fraxure, Thwackey, ect.), and / or pivoting out into Hattrem to block its recovery (Raboot, Thwackey, Mienfoo, ect). These attributes are applicable to every physical attacker ranked S to B on our VR, meaning that Galarian Corsola lures are plentiful and viable. The last point of pivoting out to Hattrem should be explained further, as the aforementioned offensive pivots can easily chip Galarian Corsola (two of them with Knock Off) and safely pivot out to Hattrem, ensuring no matter what happens that their chip damage on it is secured. The fact that they can repeat this process until Galarian Corsola is unable to check them is unbelievably powerful. All in all, these adaptations have made it centralizing, but not broken. It's healthy as, in the Machoke example before it, limiting these attackers' coverage and team support makes them more manageable.

Pivot-focused teams are dominating the meta, and it's hard to say what there is to do to nerf them or what mon in particular is the standout broken element. Beyond obvious offensive synergies, there is an under-appreciated defensive synergy that I'd like to make light of. With the advent of Heavy-Duty Boots Raboot, it is nearly impossible to secure necessary chip damage on these attackers. The latter two pivot out on their checks without consequences or have priority to deal with potential faster attackers; Kadabra's Magic Guard immunities and overall strength forces switches and makes it go untouched as well. It is so easy for momentum to be gained and retained so that late-game and opposing Thwackey cannot sweep because a healthy 100% Thwackey comes in and revenge kills while not succumbing to Grassy Glide. It is my belief that it's actually the untouchable nature of these attackers that push them to the brink of uncompetitiveness, making pivoting teams to safe and rewarding to pilot.

SBPC · Aug 15, 2020

Council Minutes

Similar to other tiers, in order to provide transparency and keep the community up-to-date with what the council has been discussing, we have decided that we will provide summaries from our council chat discussions. There won’t be a set schedule for how often these sort of posts will happen and the timing will be largely influenced by the state of the metagame but they will be a regular thing.

This post will outline what’s been going on in Council chat from July 21 (date of the last council minutes) till now.

Metagame Discussion:

:Raboot:

While discussion of raboot and corsola had happened before hand, a post by SBPC had brought to mind the idea of quickbanning all 5 from the tier.

This was followed up by Ho3n's own post responding to SB's idea, with counterarguments for both Corsola and Machoke. With regards to the other 3 Pokemon, he wasn't sure of which of the three was the most problematic for the metagame but agreed that they created an element of unhealthiness in the metagame.

Quagg mentioned the worry of if the ban wave were to happen, threats such as piloswine and klang would be unbearably powerful

Resources and Other Votes

Council has been focusing primarily on the updating of sample teams. However, other resources such as a strong cores compendium have been in the works

Additionally, the loss of 85percent prompted council to vote and agree on a new council member, and with a resoundingly fast vote, we welcome uhuhuhu7 to NFE Council!

Points of Discussion

• Do you agree that the meta is overcentralized around the top portion of the meta? What do you think is a good solution if so?
• If a supposed banwave were to happen, do you think anything would become incredibly more powerful as a result?

ArcticBreeze · Aug 15, 2020

I agree with quick banning Raboot and Kadabra, under the condition that they are freed back as soon as DLC 2 drops (imo the same treatment should be applied for Pawniard). I would also consider a Machoke ban.

:Raboot:

Any NFE player knows the power of Raboot. Good attack amazing speed and one of the best abilities of all time. What really pushes this thing over the edge in my opinion is U-Turn. The biggest core before the Pikachu ban was, 'Pikaboot', due to its amazing offensive synergy spamming powerful pivoting moves. Now that Pikachu is banned its, 'Thwackboot', Raboot + Thwackey. Raboot just has an insane offensive presence that must be respected, but it seems as if respecting it is not enough, due to stab U-Turn. It can also run lure sets even if generally less effective to surprise a Mareanie or a Corsola.

:Thwackey:

I find the overcentralizing Thwackey usage rooted in this metagame. Raboot causes many teams to function primarily off of momentum via clicking U-Turn and the best partner to Raboot is Thwackey. Thwackey has several counters such as Every viable Flying-type, Tangela (it checks Acrobatics decently and since they run Grassy seed its obvious if you are), Charjabug, Hakamo-o, Torracat, Sap Sipper Marill and several viable pokemon check it. Thwackey is also spammed due to Grass Glide being great for Kadabra.

Raboot is a bigger problem than Thwackey and without it Thwackey would not thrive as well (ofc it will still be amazing, but most likely not ban worthy).
[16:21] Ho3nConfirm3d: Argh ye matey! Did ye scallywag really bring the Rabootey core to another NFEPL game? I'll make ye walk the plank for that one! We need to ban at least one of them asap...

I find Kadabra ban worthy simply due to its massive power level and access to moves suck as Taunt/Encore to disrupt the opponents counters. Speaking of its counters, they are not too amazing. Vullaby is easy to beat by doubling thanks to its Stealth Rock weakness, SPD Clefairy fears Psyshock (in which it can easily afford to run), Duosion is not a real counter due to Shadow Ball, honestly all that is left is Klang and Stunky.... Klang also gets severly pressured by Raboot or after a ban, Torracat, in which I honestly think could be good with Kadabra.

:Machoke:

Guts is insanely strong able to beat down any defensive mon after Knock Off, Rocks and a few smart switches. No Guard sets are also solid due to having no drawback and a chance to hax past the opponent in unhealthy ways. Beyond this Machoke has nice lure sets including moves like Toxic/Bulk Up and/or Encore. I am just going to leave this at that.

:Corsola-Galar:

Corsola thrives against more offensive teams and is almost needed due to Machoke/Raboot and trying to beat the rest of the metagames offensive threats. I am beyond convinced banning Corsola is a bad decision.
___
Zweilous to C+, can 2hko anything with the right move clicked, screw missing tho

Marill to C-, it has multiple small niches, anything from a Thwackey counter due to Sap Sipper to a Belly Drummer on Cheese or just a strong Choiced mon.

Miyami~~~ · Aug 15, 2020

While I'm personally in agreement that something should be done, I don't believe banning all 5 at once is the right solution to take here. While we may end up banning all five anyways, I feel as though it's important to assess the metagame after each ban to only remove what we absolutely have to. I also disagree with SBPC's statement that banning only several of them wouldn't affect the others, and I've actually argued in the past that the problem isn't each of the problem children individually, but rather the requirement to handle all of them effectively is too much due to their variance in typings and ability to pivot. Corsola is just about the only reasonable option to effectively answer all of Raboot, Thwackey, Machoke, and Piloswine (who is not in this discussion, but still fairly relevant) in one slot, and is therefore practically required on every team. If we were to ban one at a time, eventually we could hit a point where other defensive options become available because it's not mandatory to check 3-5 physically offensive threats with one slot.

With that in mind, here's my thoughts on the order here:

:raboot:

is definitely the most problematic Pokemon. I've called it the best pokemon in the tier before, and I honestly think there's no reason not to use it on a team right now just because of how much power and momentum it provides for little to no risk. Boots more or less invalidates any sort of real passive damage against it, so switching into a check with hazards up accomplishes nothing in the long term besides getting your wall damaged to its STAB U-Turn into whatever forces out your wall, usually Kadabra. Actively punishing Raboot for doing what it wants to over the course of the game is extremely hard, and in my mind it's the one that enables everyone else and forces the meta to be the way it is the most. I'd like to see this banned.

:kadabra:

is also a problem, and has been since its inception due to the extremely limited amount of answers to it (Vullaby from full, Klang, Ferrosseed, or extremely niche stuff like Brionne that's probably not worthwhile) and its ability to mess them up with Encore, Counter, or Knock Off. This hasn't changed since DLC, and it's been a known quantity and debatably bannable since then. Kadabra is an integral part of the Thwackboot vortex, simply because every reasonable thwackboot switchin happens to die to Kad, so they're all forced to play a 50-50 every time they want to come in on the things they need to check. While it's undoubtedly top tier and probably the mon I'm second-most inclined to banning, it also has secure checks and I'm not sure it'd be as seemingly broken without Raboot's sheer pivotability giving it a bunch of free switchin options.

:machoke:

barely dodged a ban due to the awkward timing of the suspect test, and since then it's become a part of the metagame that anihilates slower teams than it, but slightly suffers due to the lack of those slower teams due to the ubiquity of Thwackey, Raboot, and Kadabra. It can get past Corsola with the right moves or Flame Orb, but this isn't new. Recently, Machoke has started running moves like Toxic and Encore specifically to force Corsola to play carefully around it so it can spread knock and confusion through DynamicPunch to soften up teams for ThwackBoot while also having the chance to hax its way through any non-Corsola pokemon. Essentially, it's currently taking on more of a support role than being the all-star wallbreaker that it used to be, so I'm surprisingly more mixed here. I do think if the meta slows down it'll become broken again, so I'm fine with it being banned pre-emptively or in the future, but I don't really have a fantastic argument for why it should be banned right now, you know?

:corsola-galar:

is interesting. On one hand, I find myself mostly agreeing with Arctic above that it's the main thing keeping the metagame together right now, given that it's literally the only reasonable way to check Raboot + Thwackey + Machoke + Pilo, but I feel like the argument could be made that Corsola bottlenecks the tier around itself and physical attackers that can either pivot out of it or status it, or using Hattrem to trade itself for Corsola. I don't think banning it right now is the right play, but I don't think it's innocent either.

:thwackey:

isn't really broken to me, it just benefits more from being Raboot's best partner post-Pikachu ban and the fact that most of its own checks struggle to also check Raboot, making them not really an option right now outside of Corsola and rarely Tangela. I don't think it'll be anywhere near as bad without Raboot and maybe Kadabra in the tier.

I think action definitely needs to be taken, and I think most people agree with this, since to me a metagame where most teams are 4-6 mon mirror matches despite the theoretical amount of viable options in the metagame on paper isn't particularly healthy, as it signals that there's certain pokemon that are just so good that they make the metagame revolve around them to an extreme extent. The question is just agreeing on which or how many to ban.

tldr, ban Raboot for sure, then maybe ban Kadabra/Machoke, then possibly Corsola, but not Thwackey

Jett · Aug 16, 2020

I feel like I've been a bit more quiet (compared to my usual self) in the past few weeks about my thoughts on the metagame, so I feel like it's time for me to collate my thoughts and share them in a post. I think there are a couple problems with the metagame right now but not even close to the extent that SBPC has portrayed it, and I don't think banning all 5 is the way forward, even if we are going to end up freeing some banned Pokemon once the next DLC drops. That aside, I'm gonna talk through these alphabetically because I think starting with Raboot all the time is boring. Also enjoy some cute gifs of these Pokemon because why not.

:ss/corsola-galar:

(I couldn't find a gif for this oops)
I think I hold a slightly different opinion on this Pokemon compared to some of the community. The council is probably tired hearing about how I've coined this thing a "necessary evil" for NFE for the past several months. I don’t really find the impact Corsola has on teambuilder is healthy, mandating several Toxic/Encore/Taunt or Susbtitute users in order to shut it down reliably, or forcing you to run several pokemon from the very limited pool of viable special attackers. That being said, I do agree with the majority of people that Corsola shouldn’t be banned for the time being, although it may become a problem in the future. It definitely helps to keep the incredible amount of physical attackers we have in the metagame in check, as well as having to rely on Strength Sap as it’s form of recovery. An interesting point that uhuhuhu7 brought up in council chat recently is whether the Calm Mind set would become too powerful if we were to remove some of the biggest threats in the metagame. I myself, sort of agree with this sentiment.

I’m very on the fence about Kadabra. I don’t think it’s particularly difficult to fit checks for Kadabra onto a team. I believe that some of the pivots in the metagame allow Kadabra to be brought in way too easily, which makes it feel way more potent than it actually is. I do think that being able to run two exceptional sets and carry useful utility on either in Encore/Knock Off along with being the fastest Pokemon in the metagame and having Magic Guard make it a pretty difficult to deal with despite its poor defences. That being said, I’m still hesitant on this one and don’t think Kadabra is the root of the problem in the metagame.

I don’t think Machoke’s broken at the moment. I think the only valid argument for whether this Pokemon should be banned or not hinges on whether we deem its Dynamic Punch No Guard set to be uncompetitive enough to warrant banning. The metagame is extremely pivot focused at the moment making it difficult for Machoke to spam it’s Guts sets and forcing it into a more enabler/disrupter role utilising utility moves such as Toxic and Encore. I feel like the majority of teams can deal with Machoke decently well but it does make running slower bulkier teams much harder.

This is the only Pokemon of the five, which I think is banworthy at the moment. I like to compare this Frogadier from last generation which also had very few checks, but unlike Frogadier, Raboot’s U-turn deals significantly more damage, which makes it much more spammable. The general speed tier is also lower which makes pivot spamming far more effective against this slower metagame. The factor which pushes Raboot over the top in my eyes, is that it has decent enough natural bulk and can afford to run Heavy-Duty Boots which lets it spam U-turn even more and worry less about Flare Blitz recoil as it doesn’t care about entry hazards. Raboot is consistently able to bring in its checks due to how strong its other moves are and can pivot into Thwackey and Kadabra which can either continue the pivot spam or force out the Raboot check, which creates a somewhat unhealthy dynamic in the metagame.

I don’t think Thwackey is broken at the moment and I believe that Raboot is the main reason why this Pokemon feels so threatening. I feel like Thwackey gets a bit overused in the metagame due to people overvaluing its priority move but the ability to OHKO Kadabra is obviously great to have. It still has a plethora of checks despite having some really good coverage moves at its disposal due to its very mediocre typing. It's definitely strong and I can see why a few people think it's ban worthy, but some of its best partners are way more problematic in the current metagame.

SBPC · Aug 26, 2020

We're nearing the end of PL normal season, so I'm gonna put another post out discussing the state of the SS metagame. To which my opinion is still the same. The outlook isn't good. The general opinion from what I've read so far is that we all generally agree something needs to change, and the hot target is raboot. While I'd be in full favor of a raboot ban, even mid PL to make for a potenially stronger finals round, (or begin a suspect around the beginning of finals that would conclude come the end of PL/a week after) I still remain under the opinion that it's not NFE's only problem child.

:Corsola-Galar:

I think one of the larger issues with this pokemon is how hard it can force the metagame to shift around it. I agree with Jett's thoughts on it being incredibly unhealthy in teambuilder. (forcing close to everything to run Encore/Toxic in order for it not to flat out 1v1 it) I do believe that it currently plays a necessary evil. Being fat enough to one slot check the threats of Thwackey, Machoke, Piloswine, and Klang is no role to take lightly, it's just the trapping aspect of it that makes it so incredibly horrible to build and play against. This thing should be seriously looked at going into the future, as it's presence is awful for the meta's health, and could be jeopardizing if even more adaptations are made to playstyles for more consistent trapping/forced trades.

:kadabra:

This thing is a nuance. I can't say anything i haven't already said/others have already said so I'll simply leave this mon at it's definitely broken if not on the verge of it.

:thwackey:

There was a lot more discussion on this mon being overrated than i jad originally seen coming when i made my first post. And I'll admit to taking its impact on the meta as a whole picture rather than just in isolation. However I'm still of the mindset that this thing is incredibly powerful, especially under its Swords Dance set. It being able to give flashbacks of SM Machoke by knocking its checks (or receiving knock support, allowing it to run drain punch for steels) before positioning itself to delete its opponents late game with boosted STAB is why my opinion remains that this mon teeters the edge between broken and balanced. And while raboot is its most consistent teammate, pressuring and chipping away at its more consistent answers with relative ease, its also its most consistent answer. With Raboot gone, the most of its checks simply cannot bulk out a priority grassy glide (much less under a swords dance) or are too slow to handle it offensively, making them incredibly prone to being removed by coverage. While in the current metagame its not the most broken thing in the world, it still holds a role under the oppressive big 4 core (Raboot/Thwackey/Gorsola/Vullaby) you see in a lot of tour matches, and would seemingly get a lot better with raboot's leave, albeit the indirect hit to its viability since the most consistent remover to its checks would be gone from the tier.

:machoke:

this mon is uncompetitive lol, i don't really have a lot to say about this bc pivot spam is huge and only getting better, but now, to paraphrase Miyami~~~'s post, it's become more of an enabler to the insane offensive pressure of ThwackBoot.

Something i didnt talk about a lot in my last post was the aftereffect of something like a banwave would have on the tier so I'll make it brief, Pilo and Klang would make a huge shoot in viability and would probably be banworthy with the lack of gors to auto-win vs them, so they would probably be banned too, otherwise the meta would be at somewhat of a fresh start and it'd be pretty cool to see imo.

The metagame in its current state feels mostly terrible to play not because of the lack of theoretically viable pokemon but mostly the harsh grip the upper half has on it since most other things are just outright outclassed if not heavily hindered by the existence of those upper 5. More niche mons and off meta team compositions can still work in theory they have to be played near perfectly in order to avoid losing to meta teams that have the tools to outright shut down the rest of the meta if they get one good turn. I even had a few play sessions where i would literally put other NFE mons in a hat, pull 2, then add Raboot/Thwackey/Gorsola/Vull, then win games just off their strengths alone. (Truth of the matter is, i literally built for the ferros ss slots by doing that LOL) It just makes this meta generally depressing to play and im advocate for any change whatsoever at this point.
Anyways good luck for PL teams especially those making it into finals. As always any response or discussion is appreciated.

Tack · Aug 26, 2020

SBPC said:
a good post from like 4-5 hrs ago

just gonna expand with my thoughts on this, half of the mons ranked on vr are essentially useless. they have niches, sure, but nobody actually runs them on a serious team. the top half of the meta just makes everything else useless. Nobody runs x niche mon on a viable team in this metagame bc it puts a massive hole in ur team from *insert member of the big 5 mons here* they put such a massive constraint on the tier because it's IMPOSSIBLE to reliably answer most of them without themselves, we might be able to shift between sets on said big 5 in some regard, but thats all the meta development possible in this stagnated meta, banning one isnt even enough because they keep eachother in check in such a way that multiple people argue is "healthy" but this meta is broken checks broken which is objectively an unhealthy meta over tiering policy, stop bickering over what to ban and ban like 3+ things. The meta will begin to improve simply because suddenly you can run these niche checks to stuff without having an unwinnable mu vs *insert mon that should be S rank in current meta here*

also if u rly want to argue dlc2 stuff, council can PROBABLY quick unban a bunch of stuff and see how it performs, with multiple members hinting at smth like this

Miyami~~~ · Aug 30, 2020

Anyways, now that Roses are out of PL I'll post all the teams I made throughout PL here, since there were a lot:

Edit: Moved the oldgens teams to the oldgens thread here

Week 1

:pikachu:

- PikaLamp Balance - vs Shing'n Streets
Replay

This team was built before the PikaBoot Craze really took off, but close enough to it that Pika + Fire was an idea. Lampent was very good against the pre-pl meta, as evidenced by the fact that we're both running it. Full SpD Brionne was definitely worth it and something I'd recommend even in this meta, as it's one of the few checks to Kadabra that doesn't lose to fire types (although Raboot's probably still an issue but Raboot's broken so /shrug). Ultimately, Shing got a good read with a lamp set I wasn't expecting and won the game basically there, although it was close thanks to Pika being Pika.

Obviously, the team's now outdated thanks to the Pikachu ban.

:togetic:

- Togetic Webs

The other team I was considering for the week. I never ended up using it in PL at all, but I do think NP + 3 Attacks Togetic has some potential on webs teams, since it's able to threaten Cors + Steel + Mare teams pretty well thanks to its coverage.

Week 2

:morgrem:

- NP Morgrem Spikes - Nalei vs EviGaro
Replay

This was probably my favourite SS team I built for this tour, even if PikaBoot ended up being better than the thing I built the team around. Burning Jealousy on Morgrem ultimately didn't amount to much, since it's still kind of weak, but it was cute. Togetic was surprisingly good as a defogger/evio machoke check since Heavy Slam wasn't really being run, and it's one of the better Thwackey switchins in the tier. PikaBoot is PikaBoot. Evi misplayed the endgame pretty badly, so Nalei got the win with it.

:duosion:

- CM Duosion Fat - vs Czim
Replay

I don't think this team is all that great and I was never really comfortable with it, and it showed in my play. I would've liked to fit a steel on here somewhere but I'm not entirely sure where I would've. Machoke should also probably be eviolite, but I was counting on Czim bringing something fat. He did, but it didn't work out as CM Wisp Lampent ran through it.

and yes, this means five people used teams I built this week and I was the only one who lost with them. Go figure.

Week 3

:gastly:

- GastKadThwackBoot - Nalei vs Velvet Blood
Replay

Very standard offensive team that'd still work today since it contains no banned mons and most of the good ones in the current meta except Vullaby. This is an extremely standard pivot offense team without much in the way of tech or innovation, but it worked well

Week 4

:fraxure:

- DD Double Stabs Fraxure - Nalei vs Skysolo
Replay

Pikachu had just been banned and I didn't want to put Thwackey on every single team, so I tried Seadra. Seadra is very not good. I went with DD over SD Scale Shot because I think it's better, even if you have to pack both Dual Chop and Outrage thanks to Kadabra. Thankfully, Clefairy's an unmon in this meta so it worked out not too badly. Nalei got lucky with a freeze on Raboot, but that's mons for you.

Week 5

:machoke:

- Toxic Encore Choke standard team - Nalei vs Bugzinator
Replay

This is quite literally the most standard six-mon team you could make in this tier at this point, and SS NFE became a solved meta extremely quickly post-pika ban. Toxic Encore Machoke is fun to really mess with Corsola and cripple Vullaby, which Nalei got to show off. Unfortunately, a last turn high roll + poison happened and she lost, so she didn't go undefeated when she could've. Oh well.

Week 6

:kadabra:

- Expanding Force Kadabra + Assurance Raboot - Nalei vs jrdn
Replay

Psychic Terrain Kadabra is probably too cute to really use, but in theory it stops Raboot from revenging it while having sash to hit Thwackey back so it can't take away your terrain. Otherwise it just does normal Kadabra things, which is still good. The real star ended up being assurance Raboot, which 2HKOs Corsola after rocks and can still bluff Sucker if you need to, apparently. This is something that should see more usage and does seem to be.

Ultimately, I'm disappointed I didn't do better, but I'm pretty proud of how I did as a builder, especially for Nalei. I'm a little annoyed that I got stuck on the two worst NFE tiers as a player for the whole PL, but it happens. I think overall, building for every tier but BW, on a building level SM and DP are in a good place right now, and SS and ORAS aren't (you could argue ORAS is balanced but ridiculously unfun, which is fair). Given the discussion in this thread, it's likely that SS will be improved in the future.

:RoseTriumph:

Shing · Aug 31, 2020

had one hell of a 180 turnaround at week 6 and 7; from 1st seed to not being able to come to playoffs

I had a lot of fun for my first PL and I’m satisfied to stay 6-1, losing only the undefeated player in SS NFE pool. So I decided to dump the teams here and it'll be long regardless because I made a lot of teams.

https://pokepast.es/24b5d80ea6685690
A simple Hyper Offense team I wanted to make to complement Somalia’s playstyle as I took notice of his teams from PU/other metas. Looks weird when I come back and see it, but it was at least something I made for a playstyle I’m not too familiar with.

https://pokepast.es/34b6613d411fbcdf
After talking to Kaif on how much better Duosion became I decided to make a team around it. I used lots of nice cores meshed on this team like Electric/Fire core, slow/fast pivot, priority control, and double wincons at the end. Was fun making this team.

https://pokepast.es/635aba8273041ee5
I expected Plas to have a bulky core with two fast mons based on his room tour replays and watching his LC replays. So I made a team based around counter picking common defensive cores like regen-core and Ferroseed cored with something and I took Plas’s team from room tour to test with Narwhal. What I didn’t expect was him using the same team he used at room tours..

https://pokepast.es/742ab92033854af6
After the failed HO team, I made a team for Somalia that could help him understand the meta much faster/easier from my viewpoint. Yet he played against tack, who knows me very well as a player so I had to spice up a bit. Somalia did win with an important flinch at the end. However, I liked how the team worked.

https://pokepast.es/5194e4da0f87b93d
I remember someone mentioned Acrobatics Thwackey and I took some calcs and decided to build around it. I somewhat forgot how the process worked LOL, but I remember I wanted three attacks Clefairy so I could lure in Ferroseed with the Flamethrower. Otherwise, this team is simple and bulky, with the mindset of Knock Off to weaken and then use two wincons to sweep at the end. Didn’t exactly go as I wanted against TJ, but eh still won it so lol.

https://pokepast.es/ccd6df8383b0f5d5
Just wanted to find more about Narwhal’s playstyle and how I can build to compliment him, so I went with a simple hazard stack with pivot spam since I saw he liked to switch and I wanted to test my theory on hazard control on NFE. Sadly Narwhal did a huge misplay at the start of the game that led to his downfall. Was fun making this team though.

https://pokepast.es/daa9fe2ea01861e0
Big regrets to give someone a playstyle they haven’t played much before. But gave him a weird sun team as I wanted to experiment on Sun. Not much else to say since this team is straightforward except on the last pokemon. Brionnes’s role was to switch in against Kadabra and flip turn to one of the other sweepers as an attempt to break the sash or like that. And if we were at an endgame with they have 1 mon left, perish song could give us the easy kill. Whirlpool/Protect let Brionne trap and beat out support /special attackers with perish song.

https://pokepast.es/6095d9a162c37295
Pikachu was annoying so I made a SpDef Tangela set to not be 2hko’d by Thunderbolt without eviolite, and this team was a slow-bulky team with a wincon at the end. Not much else to say here.

https://pokepast.es/66d1087b4b77c784
It’s an Anti-Oran team and what else can I say more than that? I know too much about him and I just build teams to prevent him from doing what he likes. Kinda semi stall team based on just throwing toxic and stopping him setting up while being able to wall his entire team out.

https://pokepast.es/ad57d359d9be6b61
This was a team I wanted to use for only test and theory purposes, but eventually, I used it against Bugz. I thought Thwackey/Raboot would still oppress the meta in a similar way that Pikaboot did, so I had three pivots to abuse pivoting. At that time hazards annoyed me personally so I just went anti-hazard on this team. Piloswine just takes damage and throws rocks and damage. Cores with Thwackey for priority control. Complimented Hattrem where it could 2hko non-eviolite Vullaby switch-ins to prevent them using defog. I chose Machoke as I wanted this team to be offensive as possible, and Machoke enabled a lot of blanket checks/counters for Raboot/Thwackey. Definitely one of my best teams in NFEPL.

https://pokepast.es/7a2c5715c2a45984
MJ joined after Somalia left, and I wanted to know more about his playstyle. I made a bulky team and I wanted to try Koffing after the Pikachu Ban. Ended with a bulky balance team and I had fun making this one. Didn’t expect Euphonos to go for Koffing though...

https://pokepast.es/e4f92187f7a71a4b
Narwhal suggested me to make a Kadabra team, and I took an analysis on Ham as a SS NFE player on how he builds/plays and I agreed to make a team around it. It’s very basic but it worked against his constant teams of bulky cores and he had that one wincon mon. Some difference was that I wanted to use Wartortle as a spinner but being able to toxic. And Ferroseed mashed well with Wartortle and an extra Knock Off mon. I had to go through a lot of times as you can see with the pokepaste’s title...

Originally Machoke had Close Combat, but Narwhal changed it into Dynamic Punch and that gave him the win. Also thanks for tack giving me the Wartortle spread <3

MJ made the team. S/O for him winning with it.

https://pokepast.es/9db831e6f6bb602d
While I was analyzing Frisoeva as a player, I saw him vs empo at WC2020 and saw Future Sight doing some work, and thought how it would work in SS NFE and I was like hold up this shit actually broken. So I found out Duosion was the best pokemon to use Future Sight with and had Raboot/Machoke to compliment it. To simply say it, there is almost no one that likes to switch against Raboot or Machoke with a 120 bs Psychic move behind it. Corsola/Vullaby does the usual job.
Thwackey was something I wanted to experiment on where SD Wood Hammer could OHKO Corsola-g non-eviolite Corsola at 3+ (imagine if you sword dance twice and Corsola just sap one of them; because Corsola gest OHKO'd anyway.) And it could do harder damage on blanket checks such as Vullaby than Drain Punch would. U-turn + Knock Off was something I wanted just for Tangela as a way to overwhelm it with Vullaby/Raboot pivot.

Sadly Narwhal never got to use Future Sight at all, but he still won and Stresh “showcased” Future Sight against Uhu at Week 6 which made me happy lol.

https://pokepast.es/d2fedd2b51f0de74
When I analyzed Friso as a player/builder, I noticed a small pattern of his building. Prefers bulky and having a wincon at the end a lot of times, similar to Ham. However, he had also uncommon Pokemon which made it harder to prepare against him. So I had to go through every replay and see how he played the game and it ended me with the best team I made for NFEPL.

Due to Friso’s strong lead choices and having a very tricky early game I wanted to ruin that with the combination of Piloswine, Klang, and Mareanie. While the endgame I wanted to prevent him from setting up and taunt was overall very strong against Friso. So I made SD Taunt Thwackey as a way to "shut the fuck up" the support/setups mon and I’ll say my preparation paid well. All of the SS NFE slot ended up in Brionne's favor <3[

https://pokepast.es/7a0cc3d39f8cd5d7
Since Leo didn’t play against me (sad) I got Kaif and I could take revenge from No Johns. I thought Kaif was going to use the same Vullaby/Corsola/Ferroseed core ish so I made a team more as a counterplay. I was getting a bit tired of my teambuilding so I wanted to try something new, and I got Gastly in the end. I just wanted a spam button pokemon. Specs Gastly with Thunderbolt had 98.8% chance to 2HKO Eviolite Vullaby and I was hyped. I felt that move alone could screw Kaif’s team with a lack of Piloswine/ground types. Eventually, he brought stall and I had no knock off so I had a hard time. I still won tho but damn that was probably my worst team for NFEPL.

The general gameplan was focused on pivot and break, and preventing any hazards in my field. Gastly, Raboot and Klang’s goal was to clean up, while Corsola walls and Wartortle spins, and Hattrem being a support mon.

MJ and Narwhal made their team for this week

Week 7

https://pokepast.es/92811cc1f0e7dbb4
I was a bit lazy with prepping this week ngl, but I still took my time on Stresh. He was usually very bulky as I noticed and liked type core combination so he was kinda balanced all around. I didn’t focus on how he played rip. And after seeing my team falling down with 4 losses in a row, that affected me to some degree so I went albeit wild on the building.

My Corsola sets are always normal. So I wanted to go Freeze Dry Piloswine to break defensive type cores like Tang//Mare/Vull and just use it for the surprise factor. The Hattrem set was taken from my great friend Tack where it could act as a utility mon. From taking 3 Shadow Ball from Kadabra and tank physical hits too. Psychic/ Mystical Fire for nice type coverage, Nuzzle was there to ruin Sash Kadabra and let Linoone be more effective in the team. Nuzzle also indirectly helps Corsola to have a chance to kill Mareanie and Vullaby via para hax. Linoone was just a vital part to keep rocks on their side and being able to beat Hattrem, Corsola, and Kadabra with Para was very nice for me. I made Klang an Offensive Spdef tanker so it doesn’t get 3hko’d by Shadow Ball w/o eviolite, but also being able to 2hko Piloswine and do good chip damage on everyone else. The speed was there to outspeed Dwebble because I sped creep way too much LOL. I usually used boots Raboot so I wanted to mix it up as a sweeper. Assurance > High Jump Kick all day btw.

I lost with this team, but I had the most fun making this team out of everyone because it was just so different and I didn’t feel any big restricted from building this time.

https://pokepast.es/277be1c81839f532
He suggested Kadabra again and I wanted to try Knock Off Kadabra. Getting rid of Vullaby’s Eviolite led Kadabra’s Dazzling Gleam 2HKO Vullaby with rocks switch-ins, so it gave some sort of synergy with hazards. While Raboot/Thwackey/Vullaby was for pivot abuse as usual. Narwhal lost with this to a bad start and MAMP outplaying him at the midgame, which sucked. But I still think this team is solid on its own and probably one of my more optimal teams.

https://pokepast.es/0e8b01524f2d70ac
I’ve played against Rav3 before so I knew about him as a player and what he struggled in the current meta. So I made a bulky team where Hakamo-O is the star of the team.
Hakamo’s nice typing made it resistant against ThwackBoot's common moveset so I guessed that Rav3 will bring some grass/fire core and I could find more setups opportunities against him. Clefairy is a utility mon to take special attacks while being able to cripple mons like Vullaby/Mareanie. T-wave was why I chose Clefairy as its goal is to cripple Kadabra and lure Klang switch-ins. And the rest is just utility support for Clefairy. The other three are self-explanatory. Tho Vullaby toxic lets it beat Corsola and makes defogging much easier. I chose Lampent with Scarf for speed control and it can handle Corsola, Mareanie, and Steel types. Pretty simple and I enjoyed making this when I was outside for some fresh air.

Special shoutout to...

Tack helping me with teambuilding at the end of NFEPL made it more fun to build teams. Also testing.
Leo, Quag, Jett, Uhu7, Marjane, Oran, Ho3n, and Antares for being available to test with me through NFEPL. Without you guys, I would be stressed by theorizing a lot.
Thanks to SadisticNarwhal, MJ, and Somalia giving me input and using my teams. I learned a lot of new things because of you guys.

85percent · Sep 8, 2020

Player Interview with tlenit1

Screenshot_2020-09-08 Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends Communities(1).png

Alright, good evening, tlenit1! How has your day been so far?

Screenshot_2020-09-08 Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends Communities.png

Tjenare min älskling 85percent. My day has been fine so far. Bit a bad weather for jogging, but manageable. Hope yours have been good too!

Is this a finnish greeting? I might have to consult a translator to figure out if it is something I can publically post without issues. But nice to hear your day has been alright. Mine has been uneventful, but fine as well.
As an overall structure, we'll first get a bit into getting to know you as a person, and then we'll move on to more NFE related topics.
So first off, tell us a little bit about yourself. You as a person, what you do outside of Pokemon, both in terms of hobbies and work / school.

Thats actually swedish lol. Alright, sounds like a plan! My hobbies includes lot of different sports and finding myself at the gym. Other than that I play poker a lot and that keeps me travelling to different countries. I live in Helsinki, Finland and working in the centrum area in small tech company as service manager. Dont know single thing about coding, but every good team needs a great leader, right. Probably one of my quilty pleasures as a hobby is spend time in kitchen and cooking. Corona has offered lot of time to try new things out happily

That sounds interesting! Do you play Poker somewhat professionally to be able to afford the travelling? My cooking skills are mostly limited to noodles or rice. What is your favourite food to cook? Or one of them at least.

For now its more of a hobby. While I was part-professional athletic and lived in germany and sweden I had more time to study the game. Back then I'd my best shot to become more serious name in terms of poker. Nowadays im just one of the goons on table who might or might not make couple extra bucks. Oh man! theres so much stuff that i could share, but my latest favorities have been Spinach-chili-garlic chicken korma and old good Lasagne with home made pasta

How did you get into competitive Pokemon as a whole? Did you think to yourself high level sports, poker, and cooking are not enough - there's something missing? And maybe you can give us a short overview of your 'journey' in competitive Pokemon, and how you ended up in the tiers you are playing now.

I used to play fan made game I found randomly to see how games have turned out. Also this was to refresh memories from old good Pokemon Yellow I used to play while being lil kiddo. The game was called Pokemon Brick Bronze and after it got shutdown I followed few friends from the game to pokemon showdown. This was my first touch to PS and they ran discord team tournaments. Brick Bronze didnt have tierings and it was mainly ubers with limited pokemons. This led me to decide one tier I wanted to focus which was RU. Felt back then it had room for one fearless button clicker to shake things off. After topping RU ladder (yes, im huge ladder fan) I moved to NU and after doing the same there eventually to PU. This became very fast my main tier. Huge fan of good variety of pokemons and being creative to push all random sets forward. In gen8 I have been in more touch to ZU and NFE which I have been enjoying a lot lately. Cant wait what DLC has to offer for NFE tbh. PU will be mess, so theres that

Speaking of random sets, in your week 7 NFEPL battle vs faded love, you brought a Zorua team, as can be seen here. For me personally this was one of the most refreshing and fun SS games this PL had to offer. What is your motivation behind picking up these rather unexplored Pokemon and trying to get the most out of them?

The motivation was extremely clear: we were out of this tournament. Generally speaking im huge fan of creating different type of strategies. Like, the team/teams itself might not be most consistent always, but part of this game is to create situations where you keep your opponent on their toes. As long they keep guessing whats coming, it gives free turns for yourself to put enough ahead to wrap the game. Other team I made for last week was SM NFE team for Raj. This team is simple HO cheese and at least as fun to use as Zorua team. Other than that I think adapting for up and running metas fast enough is super important. If X mon gets banned Y mon will replace it and centralize meta. Every mon has their counter parts. Doesnt matter if its new coverage move or awaking UR mon to do its duty. This drives me often forward to keep things fresh and knowing your tier top to bottom only makes you better player in general with given knowledge

You were part of the Wackey Thwackeys during this NFEPL, where you played both SS and SM. What was your impression of the key differences between the two metagames?

Tournament games as usual gets very fast very monotonous. SS NFE's top mons are really the top mons and there is not too much room to play around with unmons. I tried my wings with things like hakamo-o, togetic and torracat. I'd say they have their own spot in the meta and can break through the usual Raboot-Thwackey-Corsola-Vullaby-Piloswine + filler teams. I personally probably liked the SM NFE more. Created two teams as the other being hazards offense into Z-Eevee, so yeah, I think my both SM teams were straight fire. Also I miss z-moves a lot. Z-moves alone makes the game more interesting and creates more surprise momentums. In the end of tournament I do like both metas and I hope I can find time to create new teams to hang around. I just wish the ladder was more alive. Waiting 15mins to get a game isnt really that cool :< Back to your original question; Z-moves+better variety of mons makes the biggest difference between SM and SS metas. DLC hopefully closes that gap what comes to number of mons being used

Very nice, with this you additionally answered another question I had, which was if you'd stick around NFE now. So let's instead get some information on how you got into NFE in the first place. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you joined NFE pretty much when NFEPL started. How did you hear about it, and what about the format made you want to join?

I found NFEPL randomly while few friends of mine was talking about them being picked as managers. I nicely asked if I catch up with the meta would they draft me, bcs my NFE games was counted within one hand. The answer was yes, yes they will draft me. While getting myself familiar with the meta I offered my advices to create draft plan and they did pretty darn good job listening and working it out. I kept care of these two new managers. Then the draft date happened. I got snaked out of the team and ended up with Thwackeys which was cool team as well. Like, I dont want point any quilties so I keep it anonymous, but 85% and Quagg had money left to get me and outbid Thwackeys. Anyways, im kidding, you guys were the reasoning I gave my time for NFE and it looked fun in the first place. I did dream about teaming with you guys, bcs you were the reasoning I played this meta anyway.The format of 5 week preseason premier league was the key thing of me joining. I knew snake was coming and meanwhile playing for slams, pupl and zupl was quite much. Turning this tournament into 8 manager tournament was a mistake in my honest opinion.

Thank you for reminding me that we missed out on getting you during the draft. Now I feel bad again. But I think you ended up on a very nice team. The cause for this interview is your recent win in our NFE Ladder Achievement project, where you accumulated almost as many points as the next three places combined. What was is about the project that motivated you to participate so enthusiastically? You already mentioned that you are a huge ladder fan in general.

It had some fancy achievement to do and also gave me a free shot to do some stupid things under NFELA alt. Learned lot from the tier and gave reasoning to use not-so-popular mons. The first 2 weeks happened to have perfect timing for me and had lot of time to kill. After 2 weeks I think I missed like 3 achievement in total so I kinda said fuck it, its the same to win this now and kinda killed the competition. You as a host of course were one of the reasonings as well, not sure if I would have stayed around if someone else outside of Mr. Quaggamole hosted this

That is nice to hear! For one of the achievements, you completed a game which lasted more than 600 turns, as can be seen here. How do you generally approach these long and grindy games, compared to a matchup that will likely end in 20 or 30 turns? And do you prefer one over the other?

Im old stall player and if you ask from PH how much he liked me back then, you will understand how much I enjoy stalling. Its such an amazing playstyle and surprisingly hard to play with. I did fuck up the early game like first 200 turns in that game, bcs I underestimated the amount of toxic users my opponent had. Also what made this challenge interesting was the idea of I cant KO my opponent. I just need to dance around it and keep things as healthy as possible. If you ask from me, long term games takes way more skill than short turn. Of course many things will affect in this, but long term games means you absolutely need to know almost all the rolls to avoid making urself going into any range. Meta knowledge plays great role as well to recognize all possible unsets to not get urself screwd. Used to stall lot in SM PU & RU to the point where people got sick of it. Still Im rooting everyone to try it out

I feel like especially newer players don't get too much enjoyment out of long games, because the ability to plan long term has to develop first. I personally begin to like these kinds of games more and more. Speaking of long term and because we're nearing the end of the interview, do you have long term plans in regards to Pokemon as a whole? Can you see yourself playing this game for quite a while longer? And if so, do you have any plans in terms of things you want to achieve, like specific tournament wins or such?

This might be probably a boring answer, bcs usually you expect people to go big or go home with different tournament wins or being tier leader. I play this for fun. This game for me is way to kill time and hang around with the community. I will stick around as long I find this game enjoyable and I can push things forward and IRL lets me to. Obviously winning is always funnier than losing, but then again I prefer team tournaments for reason. I enjoy this community most often and team tournaments puts people together. Sometimes I feel like some players takes this too seriously, I recommend to take it chill and enjoy :>

That sounds like a very healthy approach. Since you mentioned community, do you want to shout out any of the people who make it a particularly pleasant experience for you - from NFE or in general?

I think I have been talking enough about you and Mr. Norway top model Quagg. Even after you two guys being the lads for me here. I think I got more time this time give shoutouts for NFE goons. You have took me well into your community and always been nice to me so here we go; uhuhuhu7, Rav3ndan, Hys, King Leo V, Ho3nConfirm3d, Shing'n Streets, RaJ.Shoot, pazza, Monsareeasy and many others. These names came first to my mind and with whom I have been interacting during this premier league. And last but not least, fuck it - champion PH

Alright, thank you very much for your time! If you have anything else to share, this is the right moment. If not, then I wish you the best of luck in Snake, and hope to see you around NFE a lot now!

O! I can abuse this as my NFE team dumbster. Oh hell yea!
:kadabra:

SS NFE: The Torracat-Hakamo go BRRRrrrrRrrrr offense
:dartrix:

SS NFE: Birb Catchers favorite Trix+Tic balance
:corsola-galar:

SS NFE: Slowpoke in stall wooooot? (never used in NFEPL but was about to bring it)
:quilladin:

SM NFE: Double Memento for Z-SandAttack Scrappy+BD Grassball
:eevee:

SM NFE: Specs MissMar + Z-Eevee HazardStacks
Anyway, I had blast doing this and I hope you had as well. Thanks for having me and all the best for you guys!

SBPC · Sep 9, 2020

I wasn't able to think of a clever way to start this post so I'm just gonna say I'm here to bitch about bugs bunny.

King Rabbit, The Half Chameleon

:raboot:

No secret that Frogadier's cousin is gonna be a nuisance to build around due to its ability to change types on demand with the addition of its pretty alright movepool, but this thing is genuinely broken and creates an insanely unhealthy metagame. Earlier in August, I was the man behind pushing a huge banwave because the top half of the metagame held an unhealthy chokehold on the builder and it was pretty much the same in play. After playing more, and seeing that I still hate the state of this metagame, I played around a bit and tried to figure out what it was that made me hate it so much. Coming to the conclusion on Raboot, due to its very few reliable checks can not only be chipped down and teched around with coverage options like Assurance and Double-Edge, but it's access to U-turn to let in other incredibly dominant threats with their own seemingly lacking pool of answers, see Kadabra, Machoke and Piloswine. Its not that any of the 3 I just mentioned are really that much "broken" in this meta, but that Raboot can enable them all to unparalleled levels just because it picks and chooses how it wants to remove the few capable defensive pokemon via its access to strong offensive coverage. Heavy Duty Boots adds onto this, making it near impossible to reliably wear down aside from it eating its own recoil, as knock off is incredibly difficult to secure on this thing, not to mention it can just outright kill most of the knockers and not look back.

Victims Of A Monarch: Other Pokemon That Seem Banworthy, But Aren't

(Additionally, these teammates further break Raboot due to their ability to easily rip apart it's more reliable checks)

:Thwackey:

I bitched about this poor guy to hell and back for so long and I'd like to formally apologize to him for it, this thing is Raboot's ideal partner in crime, with access to a priority STAB move, it's own Knock Off, and a setup move in Swords Dance, as well as access to U-Turn. This thing obliterates any water type with a banded Wood Hammer, and Swords Dance rips through Galarsola like it's starving in a buffet. Bar Fletchinder, all of the other reliable Raboot checks have to immediately leave as soon as this thing enters, meaning it can begin wearing down teams REALLY quickly between hazards and chip off moves.

:kadabra:

A mastermind, utilizing 2 sets that either outright annihilate any non-steel type in front of it, or force every single mon in the tier to fear having to essentially kill it twice. This thing seems like it'd have switchins, but it has Magic Guard and Raboot can make incredibly quick work of everything that switches into LO Kadabra more than once.

But The King Isn't Evil, They Preached

Over the past month, many teams have begun overprepping for Raboot, making somewhat of a case that it isn't broken, and I'm going to address some of the tier's evolutions that have flourished to life, and how in the end, they really don't change anything

:Mareanie:

This is the most consistent of the new trending checks to Raboot, because it's usual sets have little to no effect breaking through it. However, if it gets turned on while trying to switch in, it can be heavily abused by the rabbit's offensive goons. Additionally, Torracat can abuse this for an incredible Dual Fire offensive that makes even Corsola-Galar shudder. Adding to this, at the minor sacrifice of High Jump Kick or your ability to damage Lampent, Raboot can opt for Double-Edge, which has a strong chance to 3hko Mareanie, and can 2HKO when banded.

:Fletchinder:

While Fast Taunt + Toxic is an incredible set that can counter the potent Thwackboot core, Fletchinder must fear its water type nemesis Wartortle, or other fast threats such as Kadabra, and also fear DEdge Raboot, as it cannot resist the hit and must fish for a Flame Body proc to avoid being 2hko'd
252 Atk Libero Raboot Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Fletchinder: 240-283 (73.1 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Libero Raboot Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Fletchinder: 160-189 (48.7 - 57.6%) -- 94.9% chance to 2HKO

:lampent:

dies to assurance and lets Wartortle own it

:Corsola-Galar:

While this is the Raboot check that can win a fight, it can't win a war due to its recovery being restricted to Strength Sap, meaning that it can be worn down by abusing Raboot's special attacking teammates. Without eviolite, it has to ward off insanely potent Flare Blitz presses and can lose the fight if chipped.

Epilogue: The Path To War

Im sure there's more I've missed but I haven't seen much else counterplay developed purely for this mon. Threats like Wartortle can't really keep the pace of Thwackboot and are actually more rewarded by it rather than trying to work against it. Sorry for the whole kingdom theme I've played too much three houses as of recent. Great game btw. I really suggest we look into suspecting Raboot, as a quickban just seems overkill and not worth it.

Eris · Sep 30, 2020

Hello everyone! With the recently released trailer of DLC The Crown of Tundra which will be released on the 23rd of October 2020 I thought it could be time to start talking about it. Within this trailer a lot of leaks were confirmed and the list of Pokemon coming back have been established as well as their new movepool additions. In the honour of this future metagame I have compiled all of the information we were given and what the metagame could be expecting in future months. Even if no new Pokemon were announced (other than Galarian Slowking) there still is possibility in new Galarian formes getting revealed as we get closer to the release date!

Returning Pokemon:

NFE:

LC:

New Movepool Additions:

Sources:
TR/TM - Datamine by @SciresM
IoA Tutor - Datamine by @mattyoukhana_
shoutouts to Chloe for having put together this post which made mine 100x easier

NFE:

:nidorina:

Nidorina
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - None!

:nidorino:

Nidorino
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - None!

:golbat:

Golbat
TRs/TMs - Agility, Assurance, Crunch
IoA Tutor - Dual Wingbeat

:electabuzz:

Electabuzz
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - Rising Voltage

:magmar:

Magmar
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - Scorching Sands, Burning Jealousy

:dragonair:

Dragonair
TRs/TMs - Fire Spin, Breaking Swipe, Hydro Pump
IoA Tutor - Scale Shot

:grovyle:

Grovyle
TRs/TMs - Solar Blade
IoA Tutor - Grassy Glide

:combusken:

Combusken
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - Coaching

:marshtomp:

Marshtomp
TRs/TMs - Sand Tomb
IoA Tutor - None!

:lairon:

Lairon
TRs/TMs - Body Press, Sand Tomb
IoA Tutor - Steel Roller

:sealeo:

Sealeo
TRs/TMs - Icicle Spear
IoA Tutor -Steel Roller

:metang:

Metang
TRs/TMs - Psycho Cut, Cosmic Power
IoA Tutor - Expanding Force, Meteor Beam, Steel Roller

:gabite:

Gabite
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - Scorching Sands, Scale Shot

LC Pokemon with no middle evolution:

:omanyte:

Omanyte
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam

:kabuto:

Kabuto
TRs/TMs - Rock Blast
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam

:smoochum:

Smoochum
TRs/TMs - None!
IoA Tutor - None!

:swablu:

Swablu
TRs/TMs - False Swipe
IoA Tutor - Dual Wingbeat

:lileep:

Lileep
TRs/TMs - Mud Shot, Rock Blast
IoA Tutor - Grassy Glide, Meteor Beam

:anorith:

Anorith
TRs/TMs - Mud Shot
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam

:tirtouga:

Tirtouga
TRs/TMs - Mud Shot, Rock Blast, Endure, Muddy Water
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam

:archen:

Archen
TRs/TMs - Swift, Rock Blast, Assurance, Endure
IoA Tutor - Dual Wingbeat, Meteor Beam, Lash Out

:tyrunt:

Tyrunt
TRs/TMs - Scary Face, Rock Blast, Assurance, Body Slam, Endure, Close Combat
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam, Scale Shot, Lash Out

:amaura:

Amaura
TRs/TMs - Weather Ball, Mud Shot, Rock Blast, Body Slam, Endure
IoA Tutor - Meteor Beam

:poipole:

Poipole
TRs/TMs - Pin Missile, Endure, Toxic Spikes
IoA Tutor - None!

feel free to let me know if I have missed anything!

On a personal note, here are my thoughts on the return of these Pokemon and how they could be affecting the metagame. First of, I'm quite excited to see many of these Pokemon back as they will be filling in roles we have been lacking in the current metagame, top threats are coming back such as Golbat, Electabuzz, Gabite, Marshtomp, Metang, Combusken and Magmar which is very exciting as hopefully our metagame will become less centralised as it currently is and will expand for more diversity in team building. Golbat will be an interesting addition to this metagame as many older generations have banned it for being too good, while Electabuzz will finally give us access to more Electric-type coverage and bettering pivot cores which we finally have gotten new answers for in Gabite and Marshtomp! I also think Combusken looks really interesting as well as I have no idea how it will settle in, thankfully it doesn't get all the moves Blaziken has gotten this gen like U-turn and Close Combat which probably would make it too good. That's about it for now, but please feel free to post your predictions on the future metagames as well as sets you could see being used or experimented with!

xavgb · Oct 18, 2020

I thought I'd make a post to share how I've been getting on with teambuilding since the end of the recent NFEPL since I enjoyed the tier a lot during the tour and have carried on building teams pretty regularly since it finished. I got the chance to experiment with a lot more things thanks to being outside of a tour scenario and I feel like I figured out quite a bit so I'm gonna try to go into detail about general trends in how I build and also explain some of the teams more thoroughly. I know DLC 2 is now under a week away but a lot of this post will probably still be relevant post-dlc and hopefully I get round to making another post about the post-dlc metagame once we actually get to play it. If you just want some teams to try out and don't want to read essays I'll drop a link to all the teams I talk about at the bottom of the post.

Hyper Offense

The first thing I wanted to look at in more detail was the potential of HO in the meta. There were a few reasons why I was interested in making this work:

- Strength of hazards: Hazards are especially powerful in NFE thanks to the smaller amount of HDB users (and complete lack of Lefties users), so any team that manages to regularly set hazards through a suicide lead can usually force a lot of offensive progress. This can be a bit harder to consistently abuse when Hattrem is around, but the reward for managing to set Rocks past a Hat build is usually still pretty high. Hat also usually implies the absence of Kadabra, which is something that can definitely annoy HO in general thanks to its Sash set.

- General offensive pressure: Obviously this should come as a given with HO but the main reason I was drawn to this here was because of the flaws in the general BO structures. Most of the mons that are easier to fit into BO structures have annoying gaps in their offensive synergy, because they lack shared checks to overwhelm and often rely on forcing out each other's checks instead which is less efficient for breaking. Even though something like Raboot + Kadabra or Raboot + Thwackey can keep momentum really nicely in some matchups, they can still fall flat against various balances without a practical way to make progress or get things going, especially if the opponent can successfully keep hazards off. I wasn't necessarily expecting HO to be more consistent overall than standard BO/offense, however I wanted to see what other matchups it could cover better so I tried it regardless.

- Thwackey: Yes, literally just Thwackey. This Thwackey set is a huge deal for HO, thanks to some dumb calcs making it annoying to stop without sacking mons (252 Atk Raboot Flare Blitz vs. +1 136 HP / 0 Def Grassy Seed Thwackey: 266-314 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery). Effectively, if you can get Thwackey a free switch (any U-turn or sack) it can pretty much SD for free since the only offensive check that can really beat it from full is Counter Kadabra which is just one option on Sash Kadabra (and also wont usually risk hard switching into Thwackey). As for defensive checks most of them technically lose due to Thwackey's coverage and bulk, for example Tangela will die to +2 Knock followed by +2 Acrobatics while Sludge Bomb does 73 max back, Vullaby and Corsola-Galar which are the two most common defensive mons don't really do anything back with their most common sets, other random Grasses like Ferroseed just kinda get rolled over and so on and so forth. Once it manages to break through a defensive answer it can fire off a boosted Grassy Glide which cripples most of the speed control options, or alternatively it can just switch out and save its priority for later. HO does a fantastic job at enabling Thwackey to do this, because Taunt leads prevent Rocks early on in the game, and the playstyle in general provides plenty of good opportunities to set up, plus rocks support can also be super useful for punishing weaker checks like Vullaby and forcing them to choose between clicking Defog or U-turn. Thwackey's ability to consistently bait and weaken speed control options is also huge for teams with multiple offensive partners, as it racks up offensive pressure super quickly and its teammates can capitalise on the work it does much more effectively.

While these positives are super cool, HO still has some issues to work around. Most mons are pretty tanky so you have to be able to cleanly force out a wide range of threats, as a lot of offensive mons struggle to set up in front of stuff like Machoke, Tangela, or Piloswine so you have to be pretty careful about how you position around them. Raboot and Kadabra are two super fast threats that are both immune to hazards too so they can be hard to build around. Hattrem can 50/50 against p much every lead, including ones that beat it like Krokorok, which can go badly wrong for the HO user if they mispredict. Thwackey's priority is an annoyance in the builder too, cutting down the amount of consistent sweepers in general.

Leads

Leads I tried: :krokorok:

Leads that I didn't try but are viable: :charjabug:

Sets here

Krokorok is the most viable lead here, since it has solid bulk, pressures Hat pretty well, and access to Taunt to prevent opposing Rocks and Defog. It's also one of two leads here with item removal which is p huge.

Drilbur's main advantage is being able to click Rocks for free even against Hat teams. Avoiding 50/50s is v nice, however it's worth noting that you'll rarely be able to spin opposing hazards with Drilbur, as Corsola just spinblocks you and Piloswine can hit you with Rocks -> Shard if it really wants to. Both mons take a Toxic in that exchange which may or may not be valuable depending on your teammates.

Fast Koffing can be run on dual hazard lead builds as a Tspike absorber as well as another mon that sets directly past Hattrem. Max speed investment ensures that it outspeeds Defoggers like Vullaby and punishes them for trying to remove Rocks/Tspikes with Taunt, and it also outspeeds the main spinner in Wart to get off Boom before it spins. Neutralizing Gas can give some extra utility in wearing down Regen users and other wild interactions but that only happens if you preserve it so that can be tough to pull off. Tspikes are also typically easier to remove in this meta though thanks to the popular Poison types so it can end up being weaker than Spikes in general.

Meteor Beam Carkol is something I've only run on dual hazard lead builds due to its access to Spikes and generally being outclassed by other leads even with Rocks + Spin variants. As a secondary lead though Carkol is kinda cool because Spikes are super powerful and Meteor Beam pressures defensive mons (including Hat) pretty hard which gives it an actual offensive presence on its own unlike many other secondary leads. Rapid Spin helps avoid Hat mishaps and also helps with random Rockers like Clef, unlike Drilbur you can actually force a lot of immediate damage onto Corsola if they try to spinblock you. Just make sure to be careful because this is a lot less bulky than your average Carkol.

Magnemite is the first of the weather leads I've included here (even though weather teams aren't necessarily HO). Sturdy as an ability frees up the item slot to run Damp Rock and Magnemite's speed tier allows it to escape most walls and set Rain. Steel Beam also hits like a truck and i've messed around with it to take out things like non-evio Thwackey in a pinch, but for the most part you're just putting up weather and dying.

Onix was interesting to me as a way to compress Rocks and sun setting. Unfortunately, it kinda sucks because you have to do so much work for it to both get up Rocks and Sun, which just means you should use Vulpix instead.

I think everyone knows Vulpix does (though iirc the set I've been using there probably isn't optimal), so I won't bother talking about this.

Charjabug's good, I didn't bother building webs though because I didn't feel I had much to add to the style, uhuhuhu's 6 mons from Week 6 of NFEPL are pretty optimal (maybe change some sets like running Grassy Seed on Thwackey) and the webs on samples is also fine.

Dwebble is probably fine, I just went for double setters instead of running Rocks + Spikes because I wasn't confident in being able to get both hazards up with one mon.

Screens Morgrem can enable some setup sweepers to become really annoying to deal with, lack of hazards on the lead allows a lot more positioning round what you let in though, and it becomes harder to pressure bulkier teams in general so I'd generally pick some other form of HO before screens. It's also worth noting that Morgrem fits elsewhere on HO teams thanks to its NP Twave set, and still provides a lot of utility there.

Attackers

There's a lot of things you can kinda fit on HO, so I'll just talk about the most interesting things I found.

:morgrem:

Morgrem can pull off a super useful NP + Twave set that can muscle through a large portion of the meta after a Nasty Plot, while also helping with speed control and providing an immunity for Kadabra's Psychic which makes Kadabra and other speed control options much easier to pivot around. It does struggle with Klang without something else to draw in and remove its Eviolite though.

:togetic:

Togetic with NP + 3 attacks can muscle through pretty much every common defensive core in the meta at the cost of its walling capabilities, which makes it a fine pick for HO. Like a few mons it just about escapes the standard Machoke spread/offensive Klang/Wartortle speed tier which is about where you can outspeed every fat mon

:thwackey:

I've already talked about Thwackey above, I'll just add onto that by saying this should be on pretty much every HO team, nothing more to say.

:raboot:

I wanted to talk about these two mons too because I feel like they both have more issues than you'd expect on HO. Raboot in particular is a mon that benefits from slightly more drawn out gameplans where it can constantly U-turn and bring in other threats until the team crumbles, which makes it a more effective pick for other playstyles than it is on hyper offense. Additionally since some of Raboot's checks are harder to get Knock Off onto (such as Mareanie for example) it's often stuck when it comes to pushing through teams itself. One Raboot set I'd like to try in the future is itemless acrobatics, which can actually 2hko max def Mare after a Bulk Up, and also gives Raboot some very nice extra, recoil-less coverage against the likes of Machoke. As for Kadabra, while it really likes Spikes support to help it break through Steel type checks, it's still very hard to support it in a way that allows it to get through things like Klang or Psychic resist + Thwackey/Piloswine cores in a timely manner. Both mons would rather be given more time to break compared to a lot of good HO picks that have immediate impact. However, both of these mons have some pretty nice defensive utility so they can be nice picks on some HO teams.

Teams

Ordered from favourite to least favourite, click on the screenshots for pokepaste links. 3rd one is slightly older hence lack of Thwackey but I thought I'd include it anyway.

Other Playstyles (and mons)

In the current meta I mostly like balance and bulky offense, so I've been looking at innovating within those playstyles quite a bit. This section will include a lot of stuff from during as well as after NFEPL mostly because this is also my general commentary on the meta's development over the last few months.

For balance teams, the most important thing to focus on in the builder is how you go about handling cores of the most popular mons. The nice thing about balance compared to bulky offense is that you get the opportunity to make your team a lot more solid defensively because you can expand your defensive cores or simply avoid relying on unreliable blanket checks (looking at Cors and Vull) to deal with everything. If you can stop your opponent's threats from putting combined pressure on the same mon on your team, or if you can bring multiple checks for most of the big offensive mons, while maintaining decent hazard counterplay, then you're in a really good spot. A large portion of most teams aren't really able to make offensive progress themselves outside of maybe clicking rocks or getting a Knock Off on a mon of your choice, usually delegating all of the breaking to mons that often struggle to break multiple layers of defensive counterplay.

Here's some of the main cores that I've been using on balance for a while now:

:vullaby:

Vullaby is the biggest Defogger in the meta, however it can face a lot of issues as a defensive mon mainly due to the fact that it can get worn down by Rocks and Knock Off from mons it wants to check like Tangela and Kadabra. Additionally, those matchups can get much worse if Vullaby attempts to drop U-turn for something like Toxic or Taunt to improve its rocker matchup. One good solution to these issues is to run Spdef Klang alongside Vullaby, which provides much needed insurance vs Tang/Kad/other special attackers and also pivots on them. This can free up Vull to run Toxic or Taunt, while also preventing it from getting overwhelmed too easily.

:corsola-galar:

Similar to Vullaby, Gcors is a mon that is prone to getting overwhelmed by things it wants to check, and it often doesn't really want to switch into some threats because of its unreliable recovery. These problems are most commonly seen against Machoke and Thwackey, with both mons carrying Knock Off and also just being able to completely bypass Corsola in general. Koffing checks both of these mons and generally isn't needed to beat much else, while also providing constant Tspikes to pressure the opponent into awkward scenarios.

:tangela:

I know this isn't a core but it needs to be mentioned anyway. Tangela is an incredible tool for balances as potentially the most consistent Machoke and non-Grassy Seed Thwackey check, as well as a very potent offensive threat. It's absolutely one of the defining mons on fatter teams as a whole whether that's balance or stall, and if you get an opportunity to fit this on balance you should take it, simply because it's more consistent at its job and freer to play with than any other defensive mon in the meta. I don't have much else to say here, just use it.

Those are just some of the more common examples among my teams, these aren't your only options though, so just make sure to consider which mons get easily overwhelmed by the various offensive threats above A+ rank as well as cores like ThwackBoot and ChokeBoot.

An alternative way of dealing with common builds defensively would be to deal with the pivoting directly. The two main mons in the meta that do this are Fletchinder and Mienfoo, though Larvesta is a more niche option that requires much more support (and loses to Raboot if Eviolite gets knocked) but also pressures non-Mareanie builds significantly harder with its stabs. Since Fletchinder can punish U-turn users with its Flame Body, and Mienfoo can Fake Out + slow U-turn to break most offensive cycles, both are great at disrupting pivoting cores.

I haven't built as much Bulky Offense recently, but when I have been building BO I've mostly been trying to improve my ways of actually abusing Tangela, more so than anything else like Corsola or Vullaby because that's where I perceive the biggest threat to be matchup wise. One of the main ways that I looked to tweak these teams was by experimenting with the other viable Magic Bouncer in the tier.

Natu @ Eviolite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Night Shade
- Roost
- Reflect / Feather Dance
- Teleport

Natu has a niche over Hattrem mainly because of its reliable recovery and access to Teleport, which gives it the ability to switch in on Corsola-Galar in pretty much any situation without having to worry about being trapped by Whirlpool. The choice between Reflect and Feather Dance is mainly just dependent on teammates; if you have mons that can set up like Thwackey then Reflect is a super nice tool, and on top of that you can weaken SG Klang's attacks which you can't do with Feather Dance, however Feather Dance is more consistent vs mons like Piloswine if you plan to stay in against them for an extended period of time (which you actually can as long as you don't hard switch into Icicle Spear/Crash).

You may be wondering what the hell using Natu has to do with the Tangela matchup, and the answer comes with Natu's teammates. To give an idea of what teambuilding aspects are at play here, I'm going to showcase and comment on three different variations of Natu builds I've made recently.

This is my favourite of the Natu builds. First things first Thwackey should probably run Acrobatics (even with Evio) over Drain Punch here - I had Drain Punch because I was testing out Thwackey's sweeping capabilities with a draining move but in general Drain Punch isn't particularly needed on SD Thwackey and Acro can legitimately help remove Tangela since you'll probably get Knocked at some point. The main thing to note here is that I'm not running Defog as I don't think Natu builds can generally afford Defoggers, Vull really wants this specific set to actually pressure things offensively including Machoke so I'd rather not run Defog on this. Normally with Hattrem as sole hazard control, Gcors will be able to put hazards up fairly easily because it just Whirlpools anything and then gets up Rocks (unless you have something like Encore Choke), however with Natu this doesn't happen so the build gets freed up a bit. Being able to fit Toxic over Encore on Machoke helps it pressure Tangela much more efficiently, and being able to run Rocks 3 attacks Pilo without Cors just trading Rocks is p huge, and in turn the Piloswine set frees up Wisp Corsola which makes matchups like Thwackey easier. Dark type is p much mandatory in the last slot to give an extra pivot into Kadabra and at least something against Duosion, we've ended up with 3 atks Vull instead of Linoone here because we still need some sort of switchin to Tangela. Overall I feel this makes good use of Natu's few niches to improve the build in other places, which is as much as you can really ask for when using Natu. Not quite my favourite build overall as it can have some awkward matchups trying to break through some things but I feel like most common builds are handled pretty decently by this.

My original idea with Natu was to run it on a hazard-stacking build like this one, while using Natu to keep off opposing hazards and thus win the hazard game convincingly. However, it does suffer from a few issues that can easily become regular problems with Natu builds. The main problem with building Natu hazard stack is that you have to find convincing ways of keeping up hazards, while still maintaining ways to break or draw out the game until you can force hazards up. This leads to some messy matchup issues vs extra fat builds, because I'm forced to run things like Mienfoo to blanket check the BO meta, in a place where the team would really appreciate a Machoke for example. At the time I thought Frillish solved a lot of potential issues, and it is admittedly pretty close, but cores like TangClef are still super difficult to break because Frillish just doesnt really force offensive progress vs Tangela unfortunately. While I do have a defensive answer to Tangela in Ferroseed, there's definitely a few Tangela matchups where Ferroseed and co can just get outlasted and if I run into those it's a majorly uphill battle. Ultimately it comes down to a mix of hazard stacking builds being weaker in the current metagame and Natu just not doing quite enough defensively or offensively to patch up every matchup with the rest of the team (at least not while maintaining the idea of the team) that stops this build from being consistent.

I think this is actually a fine team. The reason I've put it at the bottom here is simply because I'm not really sure it qualifies as a Natu build. What I mean by this is that I don't think these mons really do enough to justify running Natu over Hattrem in this case. It's a valid option, but I'd probably trade in the stronger Corsola matchup for having access to Hwish and better bulk here. With Koffing Tspikes, Palpitoad, Forb Choke, and the Klang set, I should be able to maintain enough pressure on the Corsola to stop it from getting too much value out of either Rocks or attacks. This team serves as an example that even if you tick all the boxes when it comes to supporting Natu (mainly a consistent gameplan vs Tangela and other fat mons) that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually the right fit for the team. Again, while Natu can lead to some interesting routes in the builder and is genuinely worth using, it's still a relatively niche mon compared to how good Hattrem is.

Anyway I think I'll leave this post here, I kinda ended up making three posts in one here because of the upcoming DLC, but I wanted to share various ideas I had with building. They're not perfect, and most of these are still slightly worse than my NFEPL teams, but regardless I enjoyed trying to build new things and talking about them, and I look forward to seeing what metagame changes happen with the Crown Tundra!

List of teams mentioned in this post + NFEPL teams

https://pokepast.es/fcb320acaa0610d0 - Hyper Offenses
https://pokepast.es/980cbe31ad6b7fed - Natu teams
https://pokepast.es/9e0bd570b100bc74 - NFEPL teams

NFE NFE Metagame Discussion

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