-
-Water
Last edited:
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Metagame np: PU Stage 1 - LA Devotee (Thievul Banned)
- Thread starter MZ
- Start date
- Status
-
-Water
You say minor tier shift, I say significant.
Ninjask was a strong blanket check on really borked things like Thievul and no bulk-up Throh as well. Ninjask had strong sweeper potential as well, it made its fellow bugs proud.
Clefairy is meh but at least it was a proper fairy aside from Mawile (who somehow didn't end up in NU) and togetic.
Silvally-water I personally never encountered, but I feel it didn't really add something to the table compared to the other common Silvally types of ground, fire, poison and even flying.
Wishiwashi is a real shame to be honest, a defensive resttalk set with scald and u-turn was hilarious and a strong cornerstone of my defensive core consisting of itself, Leafeon and Silvally-Poison.
Silvally is so critical as part of defensive cores as well as its role as a pivot and defogger that I feel like getting rid of him would just break any semblance of balance in the tier.
We really lack watertypes, and I feel Arctovish and Lapras just cannot live up to the potential all-around usefulness of a bulky water.. I should experiment with Ludicolo, though I doubt he'll be useful as it's Water/Grass typing, whilst interesting, just doesn't give it the strengths pure water or grass would in this tier.
Noctowl I've strangely not encountered much, maybe I should just run it myself.
Stonjourner is a joke, just a joke with stealth rocks.
Ninjask was a strong blanket check on really borked things like Thievul and no bulk-up Throh as well. Ninjask had strong sweeper potential as well, it made its fellow bugs proud.
Clefairy is meh but at least it was a proper fairy aside from Mawile (who somehow didn't end up in NU) and togetic.
Silvally-water I personally never encountered, but I feel it didn't really add something to the table compared to the other common Silvally types of ground, fire, poison and even flying.
Wishiwashi is a real shame to be honest, a defensive resttalk set with scald and u-turn was hilarious and a strong cornerstone of my defensive core consisting of itself, Leafeon and Silvally-Poison.
Silvally is so critical as part of defensive cores as well as its role as a pivot and defogger that I feel like getting rid of him would just break any semblance of balance in the tier.
We really lack watertypes, and I feel Arctovish and Lapras just cannot live up to the potential all-around usefulness of a bulky water.. I should experiment with Ludicolo, though I doubt he'll be useful as it's Water/Grass typing, whilst interesting, just doesn't give it the strengths pure water or grass would in this tier.
Noctowl I've strangely not encountered much, maybe I should just run it myself.
Stonjourner is a joke, just a joke with stealth rocks.
These are interesting shifts, albeit not that impactful
+Arctozolt could be a real menace w/ proper team support. I don’t think it’s gonna be a mon you can just slap on any team and expect results, Roseila and Silvally-Ground are going to be pretty common. If Arctozolt gets terrian from Pinchurin it’s going to be really hard to switch into as Ground types are limited to Palpitoad and Silvally-Ground. Zolt and Vish is going be a very scary offensive core.
-Wishiwashi and Silvally-Water weren’t really huge loses imo. Wishiwashi could poke holes but was too slow to take out that many things. Silvally-Water could’ve been neat but usually other Silvallys are better. I’d usually rather Arctovish to poke holes or Lapras as a support/wall anyways.
-Losing Clefairy is a bummer. Rocks, Teleport, Wish, and Magic Guard made this excellent utility. CM was something, never really saw success w/ it. This thing was nice, but really wasn’t something I’d consider critical to the tier.
-Ninjask is kinda big. This thing could easily get out of hand and sweep lategame. Nothing outsped it and there wasn’t any prevalent priority and walls were prone to chip. W/ Trapinch banned this thing was way more manageable but it was still a huge threat. Grass types are bound to become more of a pain and sun teams are really hard to check offensively now.
+Arctozolt could be a real menace w/ proper team support. I don’t think it’s gonna be a mon you can just slap on any team and expect results, Roseila and Silvally-Ground are going to be pretty common. If Arctozolt gets terrian from Pinchurin it’s going to be really hard to switch into as Ground types are limited to Palpitoad and Silvally-Ground. Zolt and Vish is going be a very scary offensive core.
-Wishiwashi and Silvally-Water weren’t really huge loses imo. Wishiwashi could poke holes but was too slow to take out that many things. Silvally-Water could’ve been neat but usually other Silvallys are better. I’d usually rather Arctovish to poke holes or Lapras as a support/wall anyways.
-Losing Clefairy is a bummer. Rocks, Teleport, Wish, and Magic Guard made this excellent utility. CM was something, never really saw success w/ it. This thing was nice, but really wasn’t something I’d consider critical to the tier.
-Ninjask is kinda big. This thing could easily get out of hand and sweep lategame. Nothing outsped it and there wasn’t any prevalent priority and walls were prone to chip. W/ Trapinch banned this thing was way more manageable but it was still a huge threat. Grass types are bound to become more of a pain and sun teams are really hard to check offensively now.
Posting some pretty obvious stuff for tier veterans, but may be some new stuff for those new to the tier.
Some pretty cool mons get a lot better with these two being now gone from the tier (yes I know Trapinch isn't technically fully gone but you know what I mean) The aforementioned Grass-types and Thievul but I'm just going to include a short list of some more mons that get better.
These two have similar roles with Unburden/Nasty Plot sets, while Liepard's Choice Band set also gets much better, without having to worry about Ninjask outspeeding it and Trapinch hitting it with First Impression.
Grass-types in general were already mentioned but specifically offensive ones like Ludicolo, Bellossom, and Leafeon (and Silvally-Grass) appreciate not having Ninjask's dual STAB to worry about, and don't mind that they now can't be trapped with First Impression.
Finally, offensive Psychics, like the offensive Darks, really appreciate not having a super fast Bug-type and a strong Bug-type priority move that can threaten them.
Really pumped to see what these changes do to allow more mons to be viable. Arctozolt immediately seems like kind of a problem with its BoltBeam STAB but I'm excited to use it. Feel like Seaking and Chinchou usage will skyrocket to check it while some people might just rely on their own Arctozolt to beat it. The meta seems pretty volatile, but I think it's going to be fun to watch how it all changes.
Some pretty cool mons get a lot better with these two being now gone from the tier (yes I know Trapinch isn't technically fully gone but you know what I mean) The aforementioned Grass-types and Thievul but I'm just going to include a short list of some more mons that get better.
These two have similar roles with Unburden/Nasty Plot sets, while Liepard's Choice Band set also gets much better, without having to worry about Ninjask outspeeding it and Trapinch hitting it with First Impression. Grass-types in general were already mentioned but specifically offensive ones like Ludicolo, Bellossom, and Leafeon (and Silvally-Grass) appreciate not having Ninjask's dual STAB to worry about, and don't mind that they now can't be trapped with First Impression. Finally, offensive Psychics, like the offensive Darks, really appreciate not having a super fast Bug-type and a strong Bug-type priority move that can threaten them. Really pumped to see what these changes do to allow more mons to be viable. Arctozolt immediately seems like kind of a problem with its BoltBeam STAB but I'm excited to use it. Feel like Seaking and Chinchou usage will skyrocket to check it while some people might just rely on their own Arctozolt to beat it. The meta seems pretty volatile, but I think it's going to be fun to watch how it all changes.
Really wanted to share my first impressions (rip) about those shifts and especially about the 2 most significant ones for our tier, Arctozolt and Ninjask.
: This pokemon was absolutely stupid lately thanks to its terrifying speed stat of 160 and access to both heavy-duty-boots and Swords Dance. Having now access to acrobatics which is a 110 bp move (it had only aerial ace before) has made it much better than it was before. During the hole period of alpha it was pretty simple : if you didn't have either 
, strong priority or you own Ninjask, you could've directly clicked on X. Choice scarf users weren't that relevent against it because of its awesome ability in speed boost. It's a pokemon that I am pretty sure would've been banned or at least suspected if it wouldn't have raised.
: I am really scared of this thing. Having access to stabbed bolt beam and a really good movepool is a bit scary for our tier. It has access to Bolt Beak, which is the Electric version of Fishious Rend as a main electric stab, Icicle crash for the ice stab, Freeze Dry for the few Pokemon that can resist to bolt beak + icicle crash (hey
) and the last move is really customizable. It can run Low Kick, Stompig Tantrum, Substitute, Stone Edge, Rock Tomb and Nuzzle. I can see a few sets that will be really strong on it : Arctozolt Sets
I really hope that this Pokemon won't be as broken as I expect it'll be because I really like it. I'm really happy that we lost Ninjask because it made teambuilding really boring. A bit disappointed about clef gone but it would've been a huge fodder for zolt as it was for Arctovish. I have high hopes on our new tier and I really hope it'll be fun!
) about those shifts and especially about the 2 most significant ones for our tier, Arctozolt and Ninjask. : This pokemon was absolutely stupid lately thanks to its terrifying speed stat of 160 and access to both heavy-duty-boots and Swords Dance. Having now access to acrobatics which is a 110 bp move (it had only aerial ace before) has made it much better than it was before. During the hole period of alpha it was pretty simple : if you didn't have either , strong priority or you own Ninjask, you could've directly clicked on X. Choice scarf users weren't that relevent against it because of its awesome ability in speed boost. It's a pokemon that I am pretty sure would've been banned or at least suspected if it wouldn't have raised. : I am really scared of this thing. Having access to stabbed bolt beam and a really good movepool is a bit scary for our tier. It has access to Bolt Beak, which is the Electric version of Fishious Rend as a main electric stab, Icicle crash for the ice stab, Freeze Dry for the few Pokemon that can resist to bolt beak + icicle crash (hey) and the last move is really customizable. It can run Low Kick, Stompig Tantrum, Substitute, Stone Edge, Rock Tomb and Nuzzle. I can see a few sets that will be really strong on it : Arctozolt Sets I really hope that this Pokemon won't be as broken as I expect it'll be because I really like it. I'm really happy that we lost Ninjask because it made teambuilding really boring. A bit disappointed about clef gone but it would've been a huge fodder for zolt as it was for Arctovish. I have high hopes on our new tier and I really hope it'll be fun!
Just gonna do some replies and put in some of my thoughts because I am bored. Thievul simply is not good. Don't see how its a threat unless you have 0 spdef on your entire team. It only works with Throat Spray or pincurchin. Ninjask was going to be banned anyways.
As HJAD puts it himself, imitating players in a battle, "Oh look, a ninjask on a free switch! I guess I'll just click a button? Yup, he clicks uturn. Seems he goes into a wallbreaker/sweeper that counters me! Guess I have to sack something now!" This is not a very good meta, wouldn't you say?
I know you weren't on a side of the argument but I'm just saying. And you're right ninjask has a killer lategame sweeping ability
Its okay, but is just outclassed by mawile. Was really good in the speculation period. Hope it gets more viable now that the only water types are ice types as well. I guess theres basculin and ludicolo, but basculin isnt getting much usage, and ludi gets bopped by freeze dry, which apparently everything which has the darn move runs
Simply put, this is why Arctozolt will possibly be the first suspect. It has unresisted stab (because of freeze dry), bolt beak which is really strong, a better attack stat than arctovish (yes 100 > 90) and checks groundvally, arctovish, lapras, gourgeist etc. that are all either threats or walls in the tier. Arctovish has endless amounts of 'broken signs' for PU and I think we really should have just got Crustle, Golurk or Galarfisk instead if we could choose.I am really scared of this thing. Having access to stabbed bolt beam and a really good movepool is a bit scary for our tier. It has access to Bolt Beak, which is the Electric version of Fishious Rend as a main electric stab, Icicle crash for the ice stab, Freeze Dry for the few Pokemon that can resist to bolt beak + icicle crash (hey
Last but not least bye
we will miss you.
Last edited:
Yeah Arctozolt is blatantly broken. It's like Arctovish except its STAB combo is only walled by itself and Seaking, and it has a better defensive typing. It's probably just too good of a wallbreaker to handle right now.
Ninjask leaving is mostly a blessing, as its U-turn spam was getting pretty impossible to play against. Clefairy leaving on the other hand may make teambuilding a bit more difficult. Clefairy was able to check a bunch of special attackers like Ludicolo and Specs Noctowl that don't have much switch-ins otherwise. I expect to see a higher amount of Type:Null and SpD Musharna.
Stonjourner is a very good pokemon and not at all outclassed by Mawile. Idk why people think that. It has a good speed tier and hits very hard, plus its Scarf sets are genuinely scary lategame.
Ninjask leaving is mostly a blessing, as its U-turn spam was getting pretty impossible to play against. Clefairy leaving on the other hand may make teambuilding a bit more difficult. Clefairy was able to check a bunch of special attackers like Ludicolo and Specs Noctowl that don't have much switch-ins otherwise. I expect to see a higher amount of Type:Null and SpD Musharna.
Stonjourner is a very good pokemon and not at all outclassed by Mawile. Idk why people think that. It has a good speed tier and hits very hard, plus its Scarf sets are genuinely scary lategame.
Brionne is very underrated
The set is pretty self explanitory. Hyper Voice to catch walls like Shuckle off guard, Ice beam for Leafeon and the occasional Silvally-Grass , Moonblast for surprise coverage, and Draining Kiss for recovery mostly because I couldn't find a 4th move. You could run Hydro Pump if you wanted to OHKO Shuckle...
https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/battle-gen8pu-1089816035
Here I kill two mons, realize I forgot to put defog on silvally, then forefit.
Brionne @ Choice Specs
Ability: Liquid Voice
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Ice Beam
- Moonblast
- Draining Kiss
Ability: Liquid Voice
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Ice Beam
- Moonblast
- Draining Kiss
The set is pretty self explanitory. Hyper Voice to catch walls like Shuckle off guard, Ice beam for Leafeon and the occasional Silvally-Grass , Moonblast for surprise coverage, and Draining Kiss for recovery mostly because I couldn't find a 4th move. You could run Hydro Pump if you wanted to OHKO Shuckle...
https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/battle-gen8pu-1089816035
Here I kill two mons, realize I forgot to put defog on silvally, then forefit.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...nd-announcements-thread.3660650/#post-8413785
The first round of quickbans have ended, and Arctovolt, Arctovish, Swoobat, and Silvally-Normal are now banned!
The first round of quickbans have ended, and Arctovolt, Arctovish, Swoobat, and Silvally-Normal are now banned!
About the ban... the arctofossil and silvally are good bans. Strongers Wallbreaker... but Swoobat is easily manegable.. i never has problem fighting him bc he isnt the best mon to autopilot...
About the tier changes:
Ninjask was the best cleaner in the tier. You have to run a sturdy flyng resist to no be destroyed. Also Trapinch help him eliminating Mawile and Carkol.
Cleafairy and Wishiwashy was great pokemon on ther own but not as dominant as Ninjask.
Mawille is by far the best mon in the tier
About the tier changes:
Ninjask was the best cleaner in the tier. You have to run a sturdy flyng resist to no be destroyed. Also Trapinch help him eliminating Mawile and Carkol.
Cleafairy and Wishiwashy was great pokemon on ther own but not as dominant as Ninjask.
Mawille is by far the best mon in the tier
INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned deucer.
<\3 oh my poor Vish
I never once used any set other than banded and I absolutely played it like it was scarfed every single time I could.
Shiinotic did a fantastic job of checking it, but with wishi and Silvally water gone You can't really make a good counter argument.
If drops are favorable I hope it is the first unbanned, I wanted to try expert belt next.
Swoobat isn't broken, but with the state of the meta it would be the best thing on the ladder and just anti competitive. I expect stall will flourish and just imagining trying to cover stall+ swoobat to be a massive headache of high risk plays each game.
I hope type: Null has a serious look at along with throh
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pyukumuku: 160-190 (50.9 - 60.5%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I never once used any set other than banded and I absolutely played it like it was scarfed every single time I could.
Shiinotic did a fantastic job of checking it, but with wishi and Silvally water gone You can't really make a good counter argument.
If drops are favorable I hope it is the first unbanned, I wanted to try expert belt next.
Swoobat isn't broken, but with the state of the meta it would be the best thing on the ladder and just anti competitive. I expect stall will flourish and just imagining trying to cover stall+ swoobat to be a massive headache of high risk plays each game.
I hope type: Null has a serious look at along with throh
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pyukumuku: 160-190 (50.9 - 60.5%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Last edited:
Idk about the Swoobat quickban... the mon seemed pretty manageable to me. Swoobat is really frail and has the potential to be revenge killed decently easily, as long as you have a mon that outspeeds Swoobat (which isn’t too difficult, even if Swoobat is really fast. I find that playing around Simple Nasty Plot can be fairly tricky, as one wrong move can spell your doom, but again, if you have a faster mon in the back then it either forces a switch or revenge kills the Swoobat after you sack (and this is after you give them a turn of setup). Even if the NP set is running a Sash, unless it’s the lead, there’s no guarantee that you can set up in the first place, since hazards could be up, and at 1hp you’re very susceptible to priority from the likes of Mawile.
As for other sets, bulky Unaware is mostly a joke and I’ve never seen it work better than other options in the tier, but Specs is actually pretty good. I would say that, out of all of Swoobat’s sets, Specs is the best one right now; although it isn’t able to crush stall, it’s really good simply for the surprise factor in not being Nasty Plot and not requiring a turn of setup on an extremely frail mon. Even this set, though, is still pretty much just a worse Noctowl (except in speed). These opinions may possibly be hot takes, but I don’t think that Swoobat was at all broken in PU. I didn’t really find myself team building around Swoobat specifically, and it never hindered the performance of my teams too much, as I am usually able to play around it. Anyways, I’ve rambled for too long, so I’ll end it here. Do note that I agree with the Silvally and Arctozolt bans - Arctovish was kinda on the fence for me though.
As for other sets, bulky Unaware is mostly a joke and I’ve never seen it work better than other options in the tier, but Specs is actually pretty good. I would say that, out of all of Swoobat’s sets, Specs is the best one right now; although it isn’t able to crush stall, it’s really good simply for the surprise factor in not being Nasty Plot and not requiring a turn of setup on an extremely frail mon. Even this set, though, is still pretty much just a worse Noctowl (except in speed). These opinions may possibly be hot takes, but I don’t think that Swoobat was at all broken in PU. I didn’t really find myself team building around Swoobat specifically, and it never hindered the performance of my teams too much, as I am usually able to play around it. Anyways, I’ve rambled for too long, so I’ll end it here. Do note that I agree with the Silvally and Arctozolt bans - Arctovish was kinda on the fence for me though.
Last edited:
I'd like to propose that we allow for all of the banned mons to remain in the tier and to be suspected (if deemed necessary) by the community after we have been allowed to adjust to the recent metagame changes. I think we jumped the gun by banning so many threats right away without seeing how we could adjust to the presence of these new mons.
This generation has provided us the (arguably) least busted group of mons at launch of this tier that I've seen in 4 generations.
While I do believe that Swoobat will prove to be unreasonable to check as the meta progresses, I think that it's in our best interest to allow us time to find out ways to check it. Already, I started to see development of the meta with: Stonjourner, Glaceon, Pawniard, Gourg-Super, Liepard, and Munchlax in response to not only swoobat but also to a lot of other common threats. I think it's possible that if we let the meta play out, we'd see adaptations that may not make this mon outright broken.
Initially, I was on the bandwagon (or should I say... ban wagon. lol I'm done.) for kicking arctovish out as soon as possible but I became more and more convinced that the meta had ways of checking it outside of just running another arctovish itself. Palpitoad, Gourg, Mawile, Silvally-Dragon, Bellossom, Mareanie, Shedinja, Shiinotic, Pyukumuku are all mons that can be used in conjunction with good teambuilding to put enough pressure on arctovish to prevent it from being overbearing. These mons fit on most team compositions too so it's not like arctovish is invalidating any playstyles. We have answers for it available to most teams and if given time I think we could adjust to it.
We didn't even give this mon a full day. We didn't have any time to use it or to see what it could do in our tier. I fought it several times on ladder and I found ways around it by running bulky offense. It wasn't broken enough to justify a quickban. Bolt Beak is even less spammable than fishious rend due to the common ground immunties. We needed more time with this. I'm a little disappointed with everyone for instantly jumping on this thing. Remember, having diversity with our wall breakers is what makes this game fun.
Okay, I understand the reasoning behind the others but silvally? I've used band silvally-normal extensively and it's extremely good but we have so many mons in the tier that check it. Yes, it has access to coverage (flamethrower and surf) but it can't run both of them and you need to make predictions/lock yourself into that coverage to get those kills. While Mawile and Carkol are the preferred rockers, they're not specifically run for silvally normal and good teambuilding with Throh, Grapploct, Musharna, Gourgeist, Stonjourner, Shuckle, Klang handles many of the problems you have with this thing.
Overall, I think we need more time with these mons to decide whether they're broken. It's mind boggling to me that so many of the council decided to vote ban on Silvally-Ground (Silvally-Ground: 5 PUBL / 4 PU ) and Fire (Silvally-Fire: 3 PUBL / 5 PU / 1 Abstain). Silvally-ground is arguably one of the healthiest mons in the tier for what it can do for teambuilding and stopping volt-turn cores. Silvally-fire's weakness to rocks and inability to switch-in makes it extremely manageable.
A perfect example of why we need time to adjust to the tier is evident by a conversation I had with a user yesterday. He had said he thought lapras was unmanageable in the tier currently. I suggested using Munchlax to check his team's weakness. I myself had not used munchlax this gen prior to yesterday. So I built around it and found that it may actually be one of the better mons in the meta right now. It's the most reliable ice/fire check in the tier and it serves as a great spdef wall to checks most every special attacker. At +1 it hits surpisingy hard too. This user and I would not have found this mon if we hadn't had time to first work with it in the metagame. I suggest we do the same for the mons mentioned above.
This generation has provided us the (arguably) least busted group of mons at launch of this tier that I've seen in 4 generations.
Overall, I think we need more time with these mons to decide whether they're broken. It's mind boggling to me that so many of the council decided to vote ban on Silvally-Ground (Silvally-Ground: 5 PUBL / 4 PU ) and Fire (Silvally-Fire: 3 PUBL / 5 PU / 1 Abstain). Silvally-ground is arguably one of the healthiest mons in the tier for what it can do for teambuilding and stopping volt-turn cores. Silvally-fire's weakness to rocks and inability to switch-in makes it extremely manageable.
A perfect example of why we need time to adjust to the tier is evident by a conversation I had with a user yesterday. He had said he thought lapras was unmanageable in the tier currently. I suggested using Munchlax to check his team's weakness. I myself had not used munchlax this gen prior to yesterday. So I built around it and found that it may actually be one of the better mons in the meta right now. It's the most reliable ice/fire check in the tier and it serves as a great spdef wall to checks most every special attacker. At +1 it hits surpisingy hard too. This user and I would not have found this mon if we hadn't had time to first work with it in the metagame. I suggest we do the same for the mons mentioned above.
Okay I think I'm going to respond to this because I feel like you completely misunderstand the philosophy taken by the council.
The approach taken is that of banning anything that is excessively restrictive in terms of checks, brokenness or too powerful, then when the tier has settled we can re-test and reintroduce them at a later date, hence the heavy banning philosophy. Secondly, I severely disagree with some of the pokemon you have mentioned as answers for the pokemon banned. "Stonjourner, Glaceon, Pawniard, Gourg-Super, Liepard, and Munchlax" - these are not checks for swoobat. Scarf ston / glaceon can revenge, sure, but they aren't switching in kindly most of the time, plus they are very limited in terms of answers. Pawn is restricted in the sucker mind game with sub + it lacks splashability on most teams. Gourg super doesn't check e-seed swoobat nor does any of the other revenge killers due to its speed - look at some simple calcs on assumed 0 investment def swoobat:
252+ Atk Gourgeist-Super Shadow Sneak vs. +2 0 HP / 0 Def Swoobat: 98-116 (35.6 - 42.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Pawniard Sucker Punch vs. +2 0 HP / 0 Def Swoobat: 152-182 (55.2 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Liepard Sucker Punch vs. +2 0 HP / 0 Def Swoobat: 144-170 (52.3 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Next we have munchlax, which is just setup fodder again for eseed variants and generally speaking, is easily chipped and overwhelmed. Either way, with the removal of ninjask and just the ability to be absolutely a click buttons and just win win-con, then it absolutely deserved to go.
Continuing on, "Palpitoad, Gourg, Mawile, Silvally-Dragon, Bellossom, Mareanie, Shedinja, Shiinotic, Pyukumuku" - idk about you, but pyuku / mareani / fully defensive gourgeist are the only proper checks for arctovish, literally the most restrictive mon in the team builder. The same applies for bolt beak spamming ice stab where the only checks in the tier are seaking, which let's be honest, makes team building an absolute pain. Sure, it might not turn out to be as broken as people think, but due to our tiering policy, I am very happy to ban it and reintroduce it at a later time.
Lastly silvally - I think this mon is by far the most restrictive thing in the tier. I'd personally argue that groundvally is much worse, considering you have a base 120 EQ, perfect coverage options with ice beam / flame charge / sd / u-turn, the mon is just absurdly good and beats all of its checks reliably, hence making it extremely difficult to deal with in the team builder, and it just lost another check in ninjask. So naturally, it is probably too good for the tier and needed to go. Taking this approach of "i can find these really niche and bad pokemon to check it (most of which aren't checks at all) to ask for suspect tests isn't the best way to take this, at all.
tldr; the mons you suggested are checks aren't checks, we have a tiering philosophy we're following, i completely support the decisions to ban the qb'd pokemon
ninjask was the hero to stop weather teams from running rampant, as w/ protect (which also helps stall out the turns) at +1 speed he still outsped all weather abusers + could ohko them with uturn or acrobatics
now that he (and to a lesser extent trapinch) is gone the floodgates of weather are opened
now that he (and to a lesser extent trapinch) is gone the floodgates of weather are opened
You're advocating for a specific split from current policy where you suggest that instead of banning and resuspecting we just leave the mons in the tier for a while. I really do understand why, these are not on the same level as previous quickbans in the same way. Furthermore, given how so many mons are like, lightly broken right now, it's very back and forth on which actually need to leave the meta. Like I had no interest in banning Swoobat, TJ voted no on everything except Noctowl, and 2x was the only one who wanted to ban Throh. Opinions vary drastically. Between this variation and the fact that as dumb as Arctozolt might be it's clearly no Tauros, I've seen plenty of comments about how these bans may not have been necessary. Understand that while I'm now going to explain why I completely disagree with this proposal and don't plan to change our approach, I do get where you're coming from.
Now, as Teddeh has pointed out, you've put forth an extremely bland assessment of the mons we banned. The idea that the council simply did not notice that Silvally-Normal can theoretically be checked by "Throh, Grapploct, Musharna, Gourgeist, Stonjourner, Shuckle, Klang" is pretty ridiculous. We just also noticed how it was an incredibly stupid mon regardless. I can't stress enough how strongly I agree with this ban because Silvally-Normal literally beats all of those Pokemon (aside from defensive Shuckle lol) with perfectly viable sets and puts solid pressure on them even with its sets that are less geared to handle that specific counter. So the first major split I have from you here is simply how stupid these mons are. "I'm confused, in what way shape or form does Silvally-Normal have counterplay"- HJAD
Secondly, resuspects are going to happen. I am 100% confident we will see a reassessment of Swoobat, Arctozolt, and Arctovish as long as they stay in PUBL. Gonna hedge my bets slightly on Silvally-Normal just because I really want more forms banned and handling a lot of those is going to be annoying, but I still intend to try to resuspect it at some point. We have this ability to remove and reintroduce Pokemon, it's a really wonderful thing that lets us prioritize creating a fun and playable metagame first and foremost. And to be clear, even if Arctozolt was not as instantly broken as Tauros or Medicham, I did not need more time to see how restrictive and problematic it clearly was. It simply was not worth keeping around in the meta. My goal with the bans was to eliminate what I felt warped teambuilding the most, output unfair amounts of pressure, had completely skewed risk/reward, or however else you want to think about it. That's why I want Noctowl banned too, when you have an uncounterably powerful breaker that also forces you to play around cleaning/sweeping sets with Blunder Policy Hypnosis or Agility, I find it way too much to reasonably prepare for. With the knowledge that resuspects are going to happen, it therefore becomes best practice to remove Pokemon that would warp the development of our meta until we reach a semblance of stability and then see if we can fit them in again.
I think the main thrust of your reasoning can be seen with the quote "I think we jumped the gun by banning so many threats right away without seeing how we could adjust to the presence of these new mons". This describes the mindset of a suspect test pretty well- take a meta and really take a while to evaluate how a Pokemon impacts it and whether that impact is healthy. But I am already 100% confident that Arctozolt's presence was going to necessitate major and likely problematic shifts to teambuilding. Could we end up managing it? Maybe. But it would define the PU metagame to an unhealthy degree. I see no issue with going "I don't want every team to try to fit in a Lightningrod user for the first 2 weeks of beta, we can resuspect it later once the tier has some kind of identity".
Ultimately I only voted ban on the things that I do not believe we have reasonable counterplay to- Arctovish, Arctozolt, Noctowl, Silvally-Normal, Silvally-Ground, and Silvally-Fire. I believe all of those would have or will now be a negative force in shaping our new meta. They have existing counterplay, but it's not good and not especially healthy and there are only so many incredibly silly offensive threats a metagame can take. Note my exclusion of Swoobat there- in this case I agree with your Munchlax example talking about how we can and will find more reasonable ways to adapt to certain threats. I think Swoobat deserved to continue on in the meta as people experiment with bulky Beheeyem, Vullaby, or whatever other checks we're innovating. But I also think we have to draw the line somewhere. Silvally-Ground is not one of the healthiest mons in the tier for stopping volt-turn cores, and just as you're flabbergasted that I could want to ban it I'm shocked that you could even think of its presence as being so benign (or Volt-Turn as being such a problem). Remember we have had a month to judge all of these mons except the one that has STAB BoltBeam and a 190 BP Electric attack. I've seen people try to adapt to most of these mons throughout alpha, which is why I came to the conclusion that Arctovish is adorable and fun to use but really just needs to get out now so we can sort this tier out rather than linger for a few weeks. The metagame will not fix itself, it is the job of the council to do so, and banning at the start of the meta is just how we do that.
If you totally disagree with me about how broken all these things are then fine, there's nothing I can do to convince you that a ban was necessary. But hopefully this explains the philosophy behind why a quickban rather than a suspect test is justified.
And a final note- I've seen people agree with all the above but not want to ban things because last gen we only had 1 resuspect. I get it, but this gen is going to be different for a myriad of reasons (not our first time around the block, less fear of screwing up our first official tours, DLC, general preparedness to freely resuspect). We're going to do our best.
Finally, a personal note, my own thoughts on the meta unconnected to the above- I think all the Silvallies are borderline broken. I don't care that Gloom and Shiinotic can kinda counter Silvally-Ground, if it can do like 30-40% on a switch so they're forced to stay healthy all the time that's bad enough but add in 2 excellent pivoting moves and it's just kinda stupid. Like, if Gloom switches into Multi Attack it already needs to Strength Sap to switch in next time and now you can freely Parting Shot to Beheeyem or Noctowl. Every time. Ok yes that's simplified but it really feels like how all of these work. Hit insanely hard and have amazing pivoting to keep your team abusing defensive mons that can't be risked. Don't take this as some kind of plan to ban every Silvally form because I'm loathe to remove anything else from this meta let alone another 14 mons (Ground and Fire can absolutely get the boot though because of how few things can even pretend to counter them), but I don't know how anyone could think these aren't just the stupidest things left in the meta outside of Noctowl. The only way they're mitigated is with constant, well-applied offensive pressure and a liberal dosage of entry hazards which really has less to do with them and more to do with just playing well generally.
I appreciate that you read my post and took time to respond to me. I also respect the policy in place to protect the tier from being unplayable with the current mons. I'm just noticing that we had a reasonably large tier shift with losing ninjask and clefairy and banning a mon that we gained and I'd like to see us have a few weeks to see what works and what doesn't. It's similar to the process of not posting a VR nomination the day after a mon drops into the tier. I understand that you've seen enough to have an opinion on these mons in the tier but I feel as though experience with these mons has only helped me see that they're not as outright broken as they appear on paper. If we really go forward with the resuspects I understand the decision. I also understand that we resuspected Yama last gen because many of the other mons weren't worth resuspecting (magmorter/archeops/ect). I'm really not trying to get into a back and forth or have to do a bunch of calcs because I don't have the time and I know that ultimately it devolves into cyclic "I'm right, you're wrong-type arguments" due to different meta experiences.
I just wanna drop one thing. All Silvallys have 4 move slot syndrome and most can't forego coverage to fit defog, flame charge, and/or a pivoting option. I think Silvally-Ground's best set is SD, Multi, Rock Slide, U-turn (ice beam hits vibrava which isn't that relevant or threatening. Rock slide hits vespiquen/noctowl and makes Silvally-G much more threatening). In practice, the silvallys can't take on everything that can possibly check them. If they're running one form of coverage then they're missing out on another and that allows some of the mons that have been listed previously to check them. It's not like silvally is able to take on every mon in the tier because it has access to all these setup moves and all this coverage. It has to go without something so we shouldn't say the mon has no answers because often times you're going to run into one that has the wrong coverage and it's countered.
Banned? Of all the things that could be quickbanned - Swoobat? No way. Swoobat not only is incredibly frail, unlike other similar fast sweepers that we have - or had - it's also very passive and reliant on setting up - it can't set up on forced switches. Generally it takes like 30-70% HP just to set up and then gets revenged by any priority move or any scarfer above base 60 speed. Or you can just hard switch in your Liepard/Pikachu/Stonjourner/Glaceon/... and kill it - because what can Swoobat do against it? Weak to rocks, most common priority moves are supereffective vs it, there's a good couple of mons that can tank a hit and kill it back. Nasty Plot sets are plain bad, Calm Mind is solid but manageable, SubSalac can catch people off-guard but that's it - as long as you don't let it get both boosts and a sub - your mistake if you do. The only set that might seem banworthy is that Electric Seed CM Roost stuff - but that's like saying that Zangoose behind screens or Leafeon in sun is broken - you have to use the very mediocre support mon in Pinchurchin and build the rest of the team around that. Ninjask left and it was faster than Swoobat - yes, but it also lot the best support in Trapinch. Not even that Swoobat is not particularly difficult to stop - it's not constricting in teambuilder. Priority or/and scarfer.. or Persian, Liepard, something bulky.. Mostly what you would want anyway for Raichu/Liepard/weather or Silvallies.
The counterplay to these two just is too limited. A few Water/Electric immunities, Mareanie, Gourgeist, some NFEs that lack recovery or can't do much else except checking a handful of physical attackers. They are too restrictive, and, especially Arctozolt, very versatile. Don't forget that these are very good with scarf - but are much better at breaking with Boots or other items, so no, Palpitoad or... Shedinja are not really effective.
Noctowl can run pretty much any combination of Hurricane, Nasty Plot, Agility, Substitute, Roost, Hyper Voice and Defog. Or Specs. Without SpA boosts it's not too strong. (enough to clean a weakened team with Agility, though). Without Speed boosts/Sub it's not *that* difficult to revenge kill - not easy either, 70 base speed and 100/50/96 defenses are pretty solid. The issue is that it can have like every move or stat spread and a wrong guess will cost a lot.
The counterplay is:
- Absurdly bulky mons that can beat Nasty Plot Noctowl, such as Null/Munchlax
- Other fat NFEs such as Togetic, Klang or Chinchou. Hope Noctowl doesn't have a SubNP or double dance set.
- Hard switch in Silvally with a neutral STAB or super-effective coverage and hope it doesn't end up losing 70-80% HP to Specs Hurricane
- Try to sack something to force it out with a faster/bulky enough mon and hope that Noctowl doesn't use Substitute.
- Priority attacks, Stealth Rock, chip damage help - sometimes. Boosts are probably the best item, Sucker Punch is dangerous versus a potential Substitute and there's also Roost..
- Offensive pressure. Pretty difficult, as it has a solid typing that allows it to abuse many slower mons such as Gourgeist.
- Hope that your opponent's Noctowl has just some harmless Defog set
- Dodge Hurricanes
Probably not everything, but hey, I'm just trying to make a point. Hopefully it's clear what I want to say.. Several amazing sets, each with different - limited - counterplay, very few switchins, solid speed tier and bulk that lets it switch into and abuse a large part of metagame... It should be banned, i think it's much worse then say, Arctovish, people just don't use it as often...
If there's something that was completely fine during Alpha and has the potential to become completely stupid now, it's Ludicolo. Ninjask, Trapinch, Clefairy gone... I'm glad that council didn't just outright ban it and gave it time. On paper it's stupid, in practice - hopefully it's not. It has always been very vulnerable to chip, there are still many problematic bulky Pokémon. Lack of opportunites to heal itself up with Giga Drain also still holds it back as opposed to gen7..
Silvally-Any
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive/Hasty Nature
- Multi-Attack
- Surf/Flamethrower/Ice Beam/Grass Pledge/...
- Second coverage move
- Parting Shot/U-Turn/Swords Dance
Every single Silvally can do this, with possible variations with EVs etc. Most of them also can use a purely physical SD set. I'd say that Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Grass, Ground and Poison are viable right now, Rock possibly becoming better if Groundvally leaves. Psychic, Bug and Ice are worse defensively and there probably isn't much reason to use them now when other vallies are in the tier.
The two coverage moves provide all that Silvally needs to get past most of its checks. Not all, of course. I'm sure you could name a few good counters for every type of Silvally. Togetic and Roselia beat Grassvally, Klang and Shiinotic beat Dragonvally, etc.. But the most splashable would-be checks that don't beat just one or two specific Vallies - Mawile, Stonjourner, Gourgeist, Carkol.. get bodied by special coverage (except Gourgeist, you need rocks or some special investment to 2HKO). Obviously, Silvallies are very fast and quite bulky, making them rather difficult to revenge kill. Persian, Liepard, Basculin, Manectric, Raichu and scarfers - this is a truly short list of Pokémon that outspeed Silvally - and none of these can do enough damage to all types. It practice we have the lovely Silvally vs Silvally speed ties. Or you can slowly chip the opposing Silvally down with Fake Outs and U-turns..
I believe we should get rid of all Silvallies. Can you possibly fit checks for all of those 7-8 viable Silvallies on one team? And also have counterplay to all the other threats in the tier? So that the team would make some sense, have rocks/removal etc? Unless you use stall - it's very difficult to have at least some counterplay that doesn't involve repeatedly sacrificing your mons to chip it. It's the most annoying Pokémon in the teambuilder of the tier, it has enough coverage options to beat any "adaptation", if any of it's uncommon checks were to become popular. All Sillvally forms are one Pokémon - they have the same role, they all use the same sets (not talking about utility here, of course some won't be good defoggers), and the sheer amount of variety and unpredictability is what pushes them over the edge. Banning them one at the time is useless, Silvally as a whole is too strong for the PU tier, when you ban one type, others will do it's job almost equally well - actually since most Silvally types can check some other SIlvally types, they will get better - losing their checks and eventually being allowed to forgo speed investment and to run bulkier SD sets.
I wrote a post and am bad at this, so i probably forgot 99% of the points i wanted to make. Sorry for broken English and typos. It would probably be naive to think that all Silvallies will actually be banned at once, so i'd like to at least propose: if you don't ban them all, ban the better offensive types such as Dark/Dragon/Fire/Flying/... first. Don't start with Ground, the most popular one that might be the only one that is somewhat good for the tier just because it's popular, ban those that are clearly unhealthy but not as popular rn. Variety is what pushes them over the edge, otherwise they are all the same.
Last edited:
i think it's definitely worth exploring the possibility of getting rid of silvally as i already mentioned before, but i do think we should be somewhat prudent rn with regard to banning them since the meta shift rly did open up a lot of new possibilities that should be explored. silvally-ground i think is for the moment a healthy addition to the meta with its ability to reliably check big threats like manectric and stonjourner, and while its offensive capabilities should by no means be understated, it definitely has reliable counterplay that could be explored further. ninjask's rise and to a lesser extent swoobat's ban i think have had the positive side effect of making grass types less of a liability, and the bulky kinds such as shiinotic, gourgeist, and bellossom are perfectly capable silv-ground checks it cannot circumvent too easily. leafeon, meanwhile, seems like a potentially decent scarfer without ninjask in the tier, and it can come in on multi-attack, reliably outspeed, and KO silv after some minor chip. speaking of which, while silv-ground benefits a lot from a rocks resistance, theres not a lot that lets it switch in completely for free due to a lack of common resists. the things it's supposed to check tends to have ways to seriously damage it, so without pivoting and double switches it gets worn down pretty quickly. this is without even mentioning miscellaneous checks like solrock, bronzor, koffing, vullaby, palpitoad, and a host of things that can beat silv-ground if it's lacking this or that coverage move.
this is not to say it's necessarily ok, but i think it warrants a decent amount of testing at least. silvally-normal really was the only form that was unquestionably broken here, i tried running mixed lo and the extra dmg output compared to other forms plus the perfect coverage literally leaves it without defensive counterplay. there are some forms im very fearful of rn, especially fire, flying and dragon due to how their already great stabs pair so well with its coverage options, but a bunch of them do not necessarily make the meta any worse and sometimes even make it better imo. there seems to be something inherently unfair about these mons that are so statistically superior to everything else in the tier and undoubtedly the meta will warp itself somewhat around them, but this centralization may also provide some sense of stability in a meta that could otherwise become a lot more volatile. while i understand "broken checks broken" is traditionally dismissed as an argument, i do think it's worth considering if banning most/all silvally forms really frees up teambuilding or if instead it becomes more difficult and certain threats start feeling more oppressive than they otherwise are (maybe a minitour that bans all silvally could be an idea if we want to see how the meta might look in practice)
this is not to say it's necessarily ok, but i think it warrants a decent amount of testing at least. silvally-normal really was the only form that was unquestionably broken here, i tried running mixed lo and the extra dmg output compared to other forms plus the perfect coverage literally leaves it without defensive counterplay. there are some forms im very fearful of rn, especially fire, flying and dragon due to how their already great stabs pair so well with its coverage options, but a bunch of them do not necessarily make the meta any worse and sometimes even make it better imo. there seems to be something inherently unfair about these mons that are so statistically superior to everything else in the tier and undoubtedly the meta will warp itself somewhat around them, but this centralization may also provide some sense of stability in a meta that could otherwise become a lot more volatile. while i understand "broken checks broken" is traditionally dismissed as an argument, i do think it's worth considering if banning most/all silvally forms really frees up teambuilding or if instead it becomes more difficult and certain threats start feeling more oppressive than they otherwise are (maybe a minitour that bans all silvally could be an idea if we want to see how the meta might look in practice)
I think the same on Swoobat case.
Banned? Of all the things that could be quickbanned - Swoobat? No way. Swoobat not only is incredibly frail, unlike other similar fast sweepers that we have - or had - it's also very passive and reliant on setting up - it can't set up on forced switches. Generally it takes like 30-70% HP just to set up and then gets revenged by any priority move or any scarfer above base 60 speed. Or you can just hard switch in your Liepard/Pikachu/Stonjourner/Glaceon/... and kill it - because what can Swoobat do against it? Weak to rocks, most common priority moves are supereffective vs it, there's a good couple of mons that can tank a hit and kill it back. Nasty Plot sets are plain bad, Calm Mind is solid but manageable, SubSalac can catch people off-guard but that's it - as long as you don't let it get both boosts and a sub - your mistake if you do. The only set that might seem banworthy is that Electric Seed CM Roost stuff - but that's like saying that Zangoose behind screens or Leafeon in sun is broken - you have to use the very mediocre support mon in Pinchurchin and build the rest of the team around that. Ninjask left and it was faster than Swoobat - yes, but it also lot the best support in Trapinch. Not even that Swoobat is not particularly difficult to stop - it's not constricting in teambuilder. Priority or/and scarfer.. or Persian, Liepard, something bulky.. Mostly what you would want anyway for Raichu/Liepard/weather or Silvallies.
The silvally ban is something i would like to see. You need to run Silvally- bc he is a great support/cleaner/pivot. ht Multiattack buff was stupid, like GroudVally has a PrescipiceBlade with perfect acurracy..
Hello, PU. Ive decided to chime in into this subject that I had no idea was gonna become this controversial after the bans but that warrants a very worthwhile discussion nonetheless and that’s the proposal of a Silvally ban.
First I wanna say that as someone who played quite a lot of Alpha and participated in the PU Alpha Tour, I understand where a lot of the complains with the most common Silvally formes stems from. I personally have had quite a bit of trouble in recent weeks dealing with Silvally Ground and I find other types equally threatening, while maybe not as common, but I do believe that a lot of the posts regarding this subject have been largely missing in explaining a certain reality in how this Pokemon and its various formes can affect the tier as a whole.
Silvally on paper:
It is true that Silvally stats and coverage options allow for a very threatening wallbreaker that can lend itself into almost any type it wants, create mind games prior to the type being revealed and even after create a lot of trouble for opponents who might have failed to identify the type.
One of the major issues Ive found when this point has been argued is that a lot of it is regarding what certain lesser known Silvally formes are able to do on paper. Ground, Fire, Fighting, Dragon, Flying are amongst the most used Silvally formes and they take most of the ecosystem by simply being too vital as defensive Pokemon, or as great wallbreakers in their own right. This fear of lesser known Silvally formes being equally broken is definitely a possibility that should be looked at, but I find little to no point in exploring this possibility on paper when the you get a lot more out of Silv Ground than lets say Silv Ice (as an example), which leads me to my next point.
Competition amongst Silvally:
Truly you cant fit a reliable counter to every Silvally forme in PU, but I feel like when analyzing the possibility of all Silvally formes being broken, theres been a heavy omission of how Silvally functions as a Pokemon in a team. I will explain this in the most obvious way possible but for a point that will be analyzed further: we all know that you can only utilize one Silvally per team and that most of the common Silvally formes are utilized to this extent because they offer certain utility due to their typing, offensive power, etc., which in turn means that Silv Electric, Bug, Psychic, etc. are pretty much left in the dark or without usage to even make it into PU, while still being viable in certain scenarios.
I believe that this hypothesis about all Silvally formes being broken is credible, but I would only look at all of them down the line if the ecosystem becomes kinder to said formes. How would the ecosystem become kinder to these lesser known formes so they can show how problematic they could be?
In my opinion, a lot of the Silvally formes offer a much better ecosystem than if they didn’t exist, but it is essential that we don’t hypothesize about how X and Y Silvally could break the tier while in reality they barely gets a spot on a team.
For this reason I would really like to see replays of these lesser known Silv formes being used and doing what theyre supposed to do in practice. This isn’t supposed to come off as rude, but I do think its essential that we move away from this idea of “Silvally in theory” to what these formes could actually do in the tier, and if these sets become more common in the future. It shouldn’t be about “how dumb this Silvally would be if it was used at all”, but how realistic it is to utilize said formes when you get so much out of the other ones for the most part.
Whats the proposal then?
The first step should definitely be to look at these more problematic formes, the ones that have many split votes in the Council, the ones people bring up the most and the most obviously consistent and threatening formes right now. The most obvious right now would be Ground and Fire, but rushing and getting rid of all of them when lots of them barely show up would be handicapping the tier from many healthy defensive and offensive Pokemon, which in turn could make other Pokemon actual broken threats. Focus not on whats dumb on paper but what is actually proving to be a problem to the userbase (thru the userbase, this thread, the examples being presented, council, auth and wherever youre able to form a solid opinion on the manner in a healthy way) and then look at the lesser used ones if the ecosystem allows for them to be equally or more threatening.
Thank you so much for reading.
First I wanna say that as someone who played quite a lot of Alpha and participated in the PU Alpha Tour, I understand where a lot of the complains with the most common Silvally formes stems from. I personally have had quite a bit of trouble in recent weeks dealing with Silvally Ground and I find other types equally threatening, while maybe not as common, but I do believe that a lot of the posts regarding this subject have been largely missing in explaining a certain reality in how this Pokemon and its various formes can affect the tier as a whole.
Silvally on paper:
It is true that Silvally stats and coverage options allow for a very threatening wallbreaker that can lend itself into almost any type it wants, create mind games prior to the type being revealed and even after create a lot of trouble for opponents who might have failed to identify the type.
One of the major issues Ive found when this point has been argued is that a lot of it is regarding what certain lesser known Silvally formes are able to do on paper. Ground, Fire, Fighting, Dragon, Flying are amongst the most used Silvally formes and they take most of the ecosystem by simply being too vital as defensive Pokemon, or as great wallbreakers in their own right. This fear of lesser known Silvally formes being equally broken is definitely a possibility that should be looked at, but I find little to no point in exploring this possibility on paper when the you get a lot more out of Silv Ground than lets say Silv Ice (as an example), which leads me to my next point.
Competition amongst Silvally:
Truly you cant fit a reliable counter to every Silvally forme in PU, but I feel like when analyzing the possibility of all Silvally formes being broken, theres been a heavy omission of how Silvally functions as a Pokemon in a team. I will explain this in the most obvious way possible but for a point that will be analyzed further: we all know that you can only utilize one Silvally per team and that most of the common Silvally formes are utilized to this extent because they offer certain utility due to their typing, offensive power, etc., which in turn means that Silv Electric, Bug, Psychic, etc. are pretty much left in the dark or without usage to even make it into PU, while still being viable in certain scenarios.
I believe that this hypothesis about all Silvally formes being broken is credible, but I would only look at all of them down the line if the ecosystem becomes kinder to said formes. How would the ecosystem become kinder to these lesser known formes so they can show how problematic they could be?
- If a very threatening Pokemon or core warrants the use of a Silvally forme that isn’t seen much right now. Lets say you really need Silv Rock to check Noctowl otherwise everyones losing to it (dumb example but you get the point).
- If the utility offered by types like Ground and Poison becomes less essential to the tier.
- If the main Silvally formes that are deemed problematic right now are looked at and potentially banned, leading to others being more dominant and even dumb.
In my opinion, a lot of the Silvally formes offer a much better ecosystem than if they didn’t exist, but it is essential that we don’t hypothesize about how X and Y Silvally could break the tier while in reality they barely gets a spot on a team.
For this reason I would really like to see replays of these lesser known Silv formes being used and doing what theyre supposed to do in practice. This isn’t supposed to come off as rude, but I do think its essential that we move away from this idea of “Silvally in theory” to what these formes could actually do in the tier, and if these sets become more common in the future. It shouldn’t be about “how dumb this Silvally would be if it was used at all”, but how realistic it is to utilize said formes when you get so much out of the other ones for the most part.
Whats the proposal then?
The first step should definitely be to look at these more problematic formes, the ones that have many split votes in the Council, the ones people bring up the most and the most obviously consistent and threatening formes right now. The most obvious right now would be Ground and Fire, but rushing and getting rid of all of them when lots of them barely show up would be handicapping the tier from many healthy defensive and offensive Pokemon, which in turn could make other Pokemon actual broken threats. Focus not on whats dumb on paper but what is actually proving to be a problem to the userbase (thru the userbase, this thread, the examples being presented, council, auth and wherever youre able to form a solid opinion on the manner in a healthy way) and then look at the lesser used ones if the ecosystem allows for them to be equally or more threatening.
Thank you so much for reading.
Last edited:
Idk If exist the posibility to ban Multiattack and not Silvally. Outside of the breaker/swepper potencial, Silv provide good rol for a team, mainly Defog and Momentun (uturn is better bc of Pawniard).
I mean Ban the thing than make broken the silvally form: BAN MULTIATTACK
INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned deucer.
+2 252+ SpA Tinted Lens Noctowl Hurricane vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 138-164 (38 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Now that I have Your attention I would like to present
The reason I tried sand 2 weeks ago was to try out specs Weatherball Lunatone and I gotta admit sand is actually pretty decent and has a lot of reliable outs even when we had Actrovish in the meta and outspeeding my whole team with scarf. Shiitonic+carkol is a pretty all around solid pairing that lunatone could always revenge kill throh, vish, owl, glaceon, ludi,Fracture, heatmor, and etc. with sand up and correct psychic/psyshock , rock, and ground buttons lunatone 2 hit Ko's everything besides Type: Null and with the sand boost hits 309 Special def without investment, in practice this means lunatone has the bulk of 90/65/136, it's so fat that life orb ludicolo hydro pump is a roll and is at risk of being Koed back.
I love my specs weatherball, cause it can just 2 hit hit mawile, why click earth power when I'm specs locked and could just blow up EVERY switch in. However I can see sets using bulky colbur berry double dance putting in work as well, just if You run specs it really needs weatherball and modest else it will be vs near to enough damage and then it'll die.
Carkol is straight up able to spin in the face of stuff it otherwise would have no business doing so and I don't think 200 evs is needed
252+ SpA Choice Specs Glaceon Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 68-80 (18.7 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO
+2 252+ SpA Analytic Beheeyem Psychic vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 190-225 (52.3 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Lapras Surf vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 228-268 (62.8 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This non max bulk set is literally comparable to max bulk shuckle
+2 252+ SpA Beheeyem Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Shuckle: 121-144 (49.5 - 59%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Analytic Beheeyem Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Shuckle: 157-186 (64.3 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is the most ridiculous special wall in the tier under sand and another great pokemon that gets even better thanks to sand. Just from the burns, spikes, and sand You tack on a rude amount of damage on their whole team all at once and if You have hippo You're freed up on rocks and can really cause some hell with with options like scald, flamethrower, stone edge/rock blast, highpower horsekick(baby E-quake), and etc. etc. etc. thing has AMAZING coverage that is good enough from base 60. It is truly a threatening pokemon under sand that is completely up to You to abuse. And i'm sure whatever You think can come in and abuse carkol loses to specs lunatone or Pyukumuku, I love the extra freedom of bulk this thing is allowed with a chance to flame body sillvally if You didn't already burn it
Hippopotas @ Smooth Rock / Eviolite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Whirlwind /yawn / toxic
- Slack Off
- Earthquake / bulldoze
This thing is surprisingly bulky with smooth rock
252 Atk Life Orb Stonjourner Heat Crash (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 139-165 (40.8 - 48.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
It's still fairly frail, but hippo will hold through the bad times, just if it's out of range for max Hp it's in danger
+2 252 Atk Silvally-Ground Multi-Attack vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 267-315 (78.5 - 92.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas on a critical hit: 171-202 (50.2 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Leafeon Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 222-264 (65.2 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Whirlwind is honestly it's best support move option to run, it just creates so many good match-ups where You can definitely get in a breaker or carkol and just keep chipping a team down to the dirt. Great compression
From here on are the more liberal picks and thoughts, You don't have to have overcoat/immunity to sand to have a spot on a sand team or to directly benefit, if You can complete a core/abuse counters. These are just some of the more notable mons I've looked at or used
Silicobra is an option I want to try at some point, spreading glare for pawn to iron head down a team sounds good enough to try, but just the amount less of bulk it has, lack of hazards, needing to be hit to active sand, and the just nearly complete crap movepool really has me unconvinced of even trying it because there just isn't enough space to run hippo and silicobra. Coil, glare, heatbutt/dragon rush(20% flinch) and better speed just doesn't seem like enough for the trade.
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Silicobra on a critical hit: 175-207 (56.8 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
It's taking about 7% more from every attack
Vullaby- I've been hearing how it's a good bulky mon, I don't think sand really wants a defoggger so You might wanna pass even tho it doesn't take sand damage, it's just kind of stally if You want that out of sand with a good knock/foul play/u-turn/roost user
Pawniard
Oh You offensive powerhouse, You know what You need? You need free chip after every iron head flinch!!! 100% reason for them to have to respect sucker punch just that much more and a possible answer to healing wish Mush by Sd on switch in, then iron heading into a knock off O.K., which by Pu standards does a pretty good. Often sucker punch can force mush to have to come in early because their answers to +2 sucker are to weakened.
Dusion- Mareanie has the better regen Def but Dusison could use reg to flush out dark types and knock off users or even opt to run trick room sash endeavor and let sand knock out something out this You can go straight into boldore with sand force boosted stone edges without their dark/fighting answer thanks to dusion and any switch taking sand, spikes, and rocks then blowing up before room ends.
it can definitely use sand tho it might be a really cheesy H.O. team
Boldore- Aka the Crack Rock
You mostly want to only click stone edge/curse then Boom, it 1 shots the sillvallys as does +1 stone edge after hazards vs non bulky ones. It has a few options, but heavy slam shouldn't be one
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Boldore Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Shiinotic: 274-324 (84.5 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
It's defense is high as it's attack so curse can be a really nice boost, but if You opt to forgo body press I'd definitely go 232 Hp evs or find a balance cause each def will get to +1 and yes it really needs to be +1 and life orbed, but 3 turns of chaos are plenty
252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Basculin Aqua Jet vs. 232 HP / 0 Def Boldore: 200-236 (58.9 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Boldore @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Spe
- Earthquake / curse
- Stone Edge /rock slide
- Explosion
- Body Press /curse
If You opt to run it without Tr/life orb in favor of bulk, just know it doesn't hit hard enough without a curse
After a curse it can tank throh
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Boldore: 230-272 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Boldore on a critical hit: 260-308 (75.5 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
A +1 sand sand E-quake does 61% max so You really need to click boom and boldore for throh is honestly a really, really good trade when You think about the ease of having layers of hazards and the threat fighting types can be.
+2 isn't worth going to from what i've seen, doesn't help vs throh
Boldore @ Eviolite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Explosion
- Curse
I've been eyeballing boldore since pu theorycrafting, it's nearly ready to break out as a huge threat to every team, just imagine not being choice locked
+1 252+ Atk Stonjourner Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 273-322 (82.4 - 97.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Sand Force Boldore Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally in Sand: 286-337 (86.4 - 101.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage
shiinotic- This is the glue that keeps gross toes together
knock offs, u-turn, spore, ground, fighting, water switch in? yes please. not something that directly benefits to sand but other grass types won't be able to recovery stall it out in sand, making it more reliable in it's less idea match-ups but somewhat worse vs stuff it hard counters anyhow. Leftovers can counter act sand, but seems like a poor choice in item picks for a knock switch in
Drilbur
+2 252+ Atk Drilbur Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 280-331 (84.5 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and sandstorm damage
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Drilbur Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 364-430 (109.9 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Silvally Multi-Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 330-388 (99.6 - 117.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
if You want a sillvally with a no contact earthquake and harder hitting coverage moves and 450 speed. Yeah i'm sure this could sweep a team with just eviolite and from all the chip sand can cause
Quake, rock slide, poison jab
+2 252+ Atk Drilbur Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gourgeist-Super: 158-188 (42.2 - 50.2%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
Unfortunately shadow claw misses it's mark. better to jab fish for poison or double
Whiscash
I have ran this with specs on a sun team with weatherball, I like whiscash in general, very sub par mon, but very sneaky. Just something thrown into the maybe later pile.
Solrock
If You don't like lunatone cause You like solrock, enjoy the extra bulk and the typing is really nice in general and psychical defense pairs better with carkol, but I think it just isn't the same offensively and You really gotta ask Yourself if You wouldn't just do better with Stone J or Sudo cause solrock should be focused on being a hard stop to throh/Grapplock and don't have faith in it if they have a mush in the back if they run the not playing to lose set.
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Solrock: 237-280 (73.8 - 87.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Grapploct Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Solrock: 231-273 (71.9 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
then Sucker punch/switch
252+ Atk Solrock Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Throh: 266-314 (69.8 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and burn damage
Still a good mon to at least check out and most throh's aren't running flame orb superpower same with grapplock. They just are super scary pokemon that can only be offensively checked
Lapras-It's the water type pokemon
Ludicolo Gets weatherball and switching weather and having another abuser of rain would be devastating with all the priority switch ins that chip their whole team from sand
Beartic-would love a sand engine+rain dance ludi and it takes out problem pokemon like throh, lapras, carkol, silvallys, if all they have left is priory spam, well sand doesn't care about that at all.
Trevenant- Big spooky Tree who pairs up well and spin blocks and E-quakes carkol, very nice offensively/defensively
Gourgeist- Baby Pumpkin here eats water, ground, fighting, it goes with carkol perfectly besides lapras, so maybe speed creep lapras with it, You also avoid pawn and possibly heatmor.
Mawile
Go mawile Go!!!
Now just go and lure in then annihilate every steel type with 88 evs in special attack fire blast nukes other mawile/pawn/bron/etc. While offensive mawile goes to town, the biggest benefit might be being impossible to switch in to with silvally
252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Mawile Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 239-283 (72.2 - 85.4%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
Mawile @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 212 Atk / 80 SpA / 216 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Ice Punch
- Fire Blast
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
This set is always faster than 252 throh, and might always wreak something, but it's walled by fire types, but hippo or carkol can normally wall unless it's drain punch giga drain. So be sure to look for another piece to checking heatmor and silvally fire, but often lunatone/solrock are a great revenge killer in any event I just don't think sand can have a 100% answer to the fire types without running Pyukumuku. Generally the chip damage to them is good enough to support switching around till they're in range and wanna risk letting something else in for free
212+ Atk Life Orb Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Silvally: 82-97 (24.7 - 29.3%)
Vibrana
Resting Stone-quake is really nice for carkol and as a pivot able to roost stall or dragon tail shuffle. It's just a really annoying pokemon to hit hard and carkol covers all of it's weaknesses
Maractus
Water sponge, gets cool moves, and weatherball, has nice traits as a whole worth a glance on just about any weather team
Sillvally ground/rock/grass/etc.
They win games and are great bulky pivots and often they'll counter something with something if the rest of Your team is solid and clean. I rarely run sillvallys cause it feels like a really lumpy peanut butter sandwich and aren't the piece i'm looking for. However I'm sure most people will feel at home to shoe horn sillvally onto sand like ninjask/mawile were everywhere, just cause sheer match-up ratios.
Vesiqueen
Death to fighting types, one knock is fine, carkol is a solid spinner and why not really hard counter the fighting mons not running rock coverage and pair it with shiitonic?
0 Atk Vespiquen Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Throh: 174-206 (45.6 - 54%) -- 94.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
Stone-J
Thin unprotected booty gets a small reassurable bump in thiccness, just another really good mon that just benefits from sand
Sudowoodo- I'm a fan of rattled and it's like a mid ground between Stone-J and boldore with taunt and cool coverage. It's definitely viable
Eiscue- Dumb mon I always think of in terms of being a psychical wall one time then loses or wins
Think about how well carkol spins and eats nearly every special hit, they're like an old couple really to bitch, finger on the trigger.
Pyukumuku- it can wall everything and force switches, great stall mon
persain fake-out lefts overs/taunt control is extra nice and just leftovers it's really to go back to work in the storm
Galar Meowth- same but much weaker, but bulkier and steel type. it's worth a skim then a pass
Hakamo-o
bulletproof is immune to weatherball and it gets overcoat to bulk up drain punch and just be an awful fat dragon that easily fits in a fairy, dragon, steel core. Everything about it on paper appears solid
Cherrim-
I really like this move set, there aren't many good speed control answers for sand and it kind of does everything You need
252+ SpA Cherrim Energy Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 254-302 (76.7 - 91.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
and weatherball 2 hit Ko's sillvally fire, heatmor, and completely nukes ivysaur in sun while avoiding a +0 Ko back thanks to flower gift, if a sun team ever let's cherrim in and doesn't have x-scissor on leafeon, they lose
Cherrim @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flower Gift
EVs: 20 Def / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Energy Ball
- Weather Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Healing Wish
Pupitar- it does get some nice bulky for owl, but I don't think it's worth a slot on sand, but in Zu it could be a really nice sand win Con
I love my specs weatherball, cause it can just 2 hit hit mawile, why click earth power when I'm specs locked and could just blow up EVERY switch in. However I can see sets using bulky colbur berry double dance putting in work as well, just if You run specs it really needs weatherball and modest else it will be vs near to enough damage and then it'll die.
252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 36 SpD Lunatone in Sand: 291-346 (90.6 - 107.7%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252+ SpA Lunatone Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ludicolo: 232-274 (77.5 - 91.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage
+1 252+ SpA Lunatone Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ludicolo: 232-274 (77.5 - 91.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage
252+ SpA Choice Specs Glaceon Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 68-80 (18.7 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO
+2 252+ SpA Analytic Beheeyem Psychic vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 190-225 (52.3 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Lapras Surf vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Eviolite Carkol in Sand: 228-268 (62.8 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This non max bulk set is literally comparable to max bulk shuckle
+2 252+ SpA Beheeyem Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Shuckle: 121-144 (49.5 - 59%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Analytic Beheeyem Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Shuckle: 157-186 (64.3 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is the most ridiculous special wall in the tier under sand and another great pokemon that gets even better thanks to sand. Just from the burns, spikes, and sand You tack on a rude amount of damage on their whole team all at once and if You have hippo You're freed up on rocks and can really cause some hell with with options like scald, flamethrower, stone edge/rock blast, highpower horsekick(baby E-quake), and etc. etc. etc. thing has AMAZING coverage that is good enough from base 60. It is truly a threatening pokemon under sand that is completely up to You to abuse. And i'm sure whatever You think can come in and abuse carkol loses to specs lunatone or Pyukumuku, I love the extra freedom of bulk this thing is allowed with a chance to flame body sillvally if You didn't already burn it
Hippopotas @ Smooth Rock / Eviolite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Whirlwind /yawn / toxic
- Slack Off
- Earthquake / bulldoze
This thing is surprisingly bulky with smooth rock
252 Atk Life Orb Stonjourner Heat Crash (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 139-165 (40.8 - 48.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
It's still fairly frail, but hippo will hold through the bad times, just if it's out of range for max Hp it's in danger
+2 252 Atk Silvally-Ground Multi-Attack vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 267-315 (78.5 - 92.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas on a critical hit: 171-202 (50.2 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Leafeon Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippopotas: 222-264 (65.2 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Whirlwind is honestly it's best support move option to run, it just creates so many good match-ups where You can definitely get in a breaker or carkol and just keep chipping a team down to the dirt. Great compression
From here on are the more liberal picks and thoughts, You don't have to have overcoat/immunity to sand to have a spot on a sand team or to directly benefit, if You can complete a core/abuse counters. These are just some of the more notable mons I've looked at or used
Silicobra is an option I want to try at some point, spreading glare for pawn to iron head down a team sounds good enough to try, but just the amount less of bulk it has, lack of hazards, needing to be hit to active sand, and the just nearly complete crap movepool really has me unconvinced of even trying it because there just isn't enough space to run hippo and silicobra. Coil, glare, heatbutt/dragon rush(20% flinch) and better speed just doesn't seem like enough for the trade.
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Silicobra on a critical hit: 175-207 (56.8 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
It's taking about 7% more from every attack
Vullaby- I've been hearing how it's a good bulky mon, I don't think sand really wants a defoggger so You might wanna pass even tho it doesn't take sand damage, it's just kind of stally if You want that out of sand with a good knock/foul play/u-turn/roost user
Pawniard
Oh You offensive powerhouse, You know what You need? You need free chip after every iron head flinch!!! 100% reason for them to have to respect sucker punch just that much more and a possible answer to healing wish Mush by Sd on switch in, then iron heading into a knock off O.K., which by Pu standards does a pretty good. Often sucker punch can force mush to have to come in early because their answers to +2 sucker are to weakened.
Dusion- Mareanie has the better regen Def but Dusison could use reg to flush out dark types and knock off users or even opt to run trick room sash endeavor and let sand knock out something out this You can go straight into boldore with sand force boosted stone edges without their dark/fighting answer thanks to dusion and any switch taking sand, spikes, and rocks then blowing up before room ends.
it can definitely use sand tho it might be a really cheesy H.O. team
Boldore- Aka the Crack Rock
You mostly want to only click stone edge/curse then Boom, it 1 shots the sillvallys as does +1 stone edge after hazards vs non bulky ones. It has a few options, but heavy slam shouldn't be one
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Boldore Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Shiinotic: 274-324 (84.5 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
It's defense is high as it's attack so curse can be a really nice boost, but if You opt to forgo body press I'd definitely go 232 Hp evs or find a balance cause each def will get to +1 and yes it really needs to be +1 and life orbed, but 3 turns of chaos are plenty
252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Basculin Aqua Jet vs. 232 HP / 0 Def Boldore: 200-236 (58.9 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Boldore @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Spe
- Earthquake / curse
- Stone Edge /rock slide
- Explosion
- Body Press /curse
If You opt to run it without Tr/life orb in favor of bulk, just know it doesn't hit hard enough without a curse
After a curse it can tank throh
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Boldore: 230-272 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Throh Storm Throw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Boldore on a critical hit: 260-308 (75.5 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
A +1 sand sand E-quake does 61% max so You really need to click boom and boldore for throh is honestly a really, really good trade when You think about the ease of having layers of hazards and the threat fighting types can be.
+2 isn't worth going to from what i've seen, doesn't help vs throh
Boldore @ Eviolite
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Explosion
- Curse
I've been eyeballing boldore since pu theorycrafting, it's nearly ready to break out as a huge threat to every team, just imagine not being choice locked
+1 252+ Atk Stonjourner Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 273-322 (82.4 - 97.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Sand Force Boldore Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally in Sand: 286-337 (86.4 - 101.8%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after sandstorm damage
shiinotic- This is the glue that keeps gross toes together
knock offs, u-turn, spore, ground, fighting, water switch in? yes please. not something that directly benefits to sand but other grass types won't be able to recovery stall it out in sand, making it more reliable in it's less idea match-ups but somewhat worse vs stuff it hard counters anyhow. Leftovers can counter act sand, but seems like a poor choice in item picks for a knock switch in
Drilbur
+2 252+ Atk Drilbur Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 280-331 (84.5 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and sandstorm damage
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Drilbur Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 364-430 (109.9 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Silvally Multi-Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 330-388 (99.6 - 117.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
if You want a sillvally with a no contact earthquake and harder hitting coverage moves and 450 speed. Yeah i'm sure this could sweep a team with just eviolite and from all the chip sand can cause
Quake, rock slide, poison jab
+2 252+ Atk Drilbur Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gourgeist-Super: 158-188 (42.2 - 50.2%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
Unfortunately shadow claw misses it's mark. better to jab fish for poison or double
Whiscash
I have ran this with specs on a sun team with weatherball, I like whiscash in general, very sub par mon, but very sneaky. Just something thrown into the maybe later pile.
Solrock
If You don't like lunatone cause You like solrock, enjoy the extra bulk and the typing is really nice in general and psychical defense pairs better with carkol, but I think it just isn't the same offensively and You really gotta ask Yourself if You wouldn't just do better with Stone J or Sudo cause solrock should be focused on being a hard stop to throh/Grapplock and don't have faith in it if they have a mush in the back if they run the not playing to lose set.
252+ Atk Guts Throh Superpower vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Solrock: 237-280 (73.8 - 87.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Grapploct Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Solrock: 231-273 (71.9 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
then Sucker punch/switch
252+ Atk Solrock Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Throh: 266-314 (69.8 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and burn damage
Still a good mon to at least check out and most throh's aren't running flame orb superpower same with grapplock. They just are super scary pokemon that can only be offensively checked
Lapras-It's the water type pokemon
Ludicolo Gets weatherball and switching weather and having another abuser of rain would be devastating with all the priority switch ins that chip their whole team from sand
Beartic-would love a sand engine+rain dance ludi and it takes out problem pokemon like throh, lapras, carkol, silvallys, if all they have left is priory spam, well sand doesn't care about that at all.
Trevenant- Big spooky Tree who pairs up well and spin blocks and E-quakes carkol, very nice offensively/defensively
Gourgeist- Baby Pumpkin here eats water, ground, fighting, it goes with carkol perfectly besides lapras, so maybe speed creep lapras with it, You also avoid pawn and possibly heatmor.
Mawile
Go mawile Go!!!
Now just go and lure in then annihilate every steel type with 88 evs in special attack fire blast nukes other mawile/pawn/bron/etc. While offensive mawile goes to town, the biggest benefit might be being impossible to switch in to with silvally
252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Mawile Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Ground: 239-283 (72.2 - 85.4%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
Mawile @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 212 Atk / 80 SpA / 216 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Ice Punch
- Fire Blast
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
This set is always faster than 252 throh, and might always wreak something, but it's walled by fire types, but hippo or carkol can normally wall unless it's drain punch giga drain. So be sure to look for another piece to checking heatmor and silvally fire, but often lunatone/solrock are a great revenge killer in any event I just don't think sand can have a 100% answer to the fire types without running Pyukumuku. Generally the chip damage to them is good enough to support switching around till they're in range and wanna risk letting something else in for free
212+ Atk Life Orb Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Silvally: 82-97 (24.7 - 29.3%)
Vibrana
Resting Stone-quake is really nice for carkol and as a pivot able to roost stall or dragon tail shuffle. It's just a really annoying pokemon to hit hard and carkol covers all of it's weaknesses
Maractus
Water sponge, gets cool moves, and weatherball, has nice traits as a whole worth a glance on just about any weather team
Sillvally ground/rock/grass/etc.
They win games and are great bulky pivots and often they'll counter something with something if the rest of Your team is solid and clean. I rarely run sillvallys cause it feels like a really lumpy peanut butter sandwich and aren't the piece i'm looking for. However I'm sure most people will feel at home to shoe horn sillvally onto sand like ninjask/mawile were everywhere, just cause sheer match-up ratios.
Vesiqueen
Death to fighting types, one knock is fine, carkol is a solid spinner and why not really hard counter the fighting mons not running rock coverage and pair it with shiitonic?
0 Atk Vespiquen Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Throh: 174-206 (45.6 - 54%) -- 94.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
Stone-J
Thin unprotected booty gets a small reassurable bump in thiccness, just another really good mon that just benefits from sand
Sudowoodo- I'm a fan of rattled and it's like a mid ground between Stone-J and boldore with taunt and cool coverage. It's definitely viable
Eiscue- Dumb mon I always think of in terms of being a psychical wall one time then loses or wins
Think about how well carkol spins and eats nearly every special hit, they're like an old couple really to bitch, finger on the trigger.
Pyukumuku- it can wall everything and force switches, great stall mon
persain fake-out lefts overs/taunt control is extra nice and just leftovers it's really to go back to work in the storm
Galar Meowth- same but much weaker, but bulkier and steel type. it's worth a skim then a pass
Hakamo-o
bulletproof is immune to weatherball and it gets overcoat to bulk up drain punch and just be an awful fat dragon that easily fits in a fairy, dragon, steel core. Everything about it on paper appears solid
Cherrim-
I really like this move set, there aren't many good speed control answers for sand and it kind of does everything You need
252+ SpA Cherrim Energy Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 254-302 (76.7 - 91.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
and weatherball 2 hit Ko's sillvally fire, heatmor, and completely nukes ivysaur in sun while avoiding a +0 Ko back thanks to flower gift, if a sun team ever let's cherrim in and doesn't have x-scissor on leafeon, they lose
Cherrim @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flower Gift
EVs: 20 Def / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Energy Ball
- Weather Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Healing Wish
Pupitar- it does get some nice bulky for owl, but I don't think it's worth a slot on sand, but in Zu it could be a really nice sand win Con
Thoughts on any sillvally bans
First off get the fuck out of here when You say it's impossible to cover all of them, cause 1 You don't and 2nd You certainly can
+1 252+ SpA Raichu Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Ground: 290-342 (87.6 - 103.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252+ SpA Raichu Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Silvally-Fire: 260-308 (78.5 - 93%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
Webs raichu can cover and beat all of them with Np
same with swift swim ludicolo/rain supported bascillun
or the few methods I listed with sand
or sun can break all of them and run flash fire carkol/heatmor
or trick room
or liepard
+2 252 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 262-309 (79.1 - 93.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
eiscue can revenge somewhat well
+1 252+ Atk Eiscue Liquidation vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally-Fire: 230-272 (69.4 - 82.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252+ Atk Eiscue Icicle Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Silvally: 172-204 (51.9 - 61.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Right now the most ban worthy is Fire, but I won't be heart broken if we lost ground, fire, dark, dragon, flying, fighting, and poison.
I don't think it's hard to check them offensively, but that's the only way to be sure You can outside of hard stall and even still While I can break all these sillvally in 2 hits it's a pokemon You can shape like clay in Your builder, it's very easy to hit only 263 speed and balance to avoid most 2 hit Ko's.
It's stats are to good for the tier to handle defensively so i'm really open to banning mutli attack, it just falls apart as a tier slayer without it and is still an amazing pivot, defogger, sweeper
Pro Sillvally bans
Thank You for the support, I may have to mass edit in more because I get really mindlessly obsessive
Last edited:
I've seen zero talk about this mon at least on the forums since the start of the gen, but after testing it seems it's actually quite good
Linoone-Galar @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 Def / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Taunt / Protect
- Parting Shot
- Facade
- Knock Off
There's a lot going for this mon, not only is it incredibly fast with T-orb but the lack of Mach Punch/Vacuum Wave in the tier helps it to clean without any real opposition: Ninjask's leave and Trapinch's nerf only helps it in this regard. STAB Facade, backed up by STAB Knock Off for Ghosts (which can't burn or Night Shade it), hits surprisingly hard off base 70 attack and with its naturally insane speed thanks to Quick Feet you can afford to run Adamant. In fact it's so fast you can run 0 speed and still outspeed Raichu lol, however if you do this I recommend Protect over Taunt as poison isn't immediate if Linoone switches in after a KO. The speed on this set is out of preference, it outspeeds offensive Gourgeist without poison. To top it all off you have Parting Shot to pivot out of bad MUs like Mawile while avoiding Helmet chip (good for a T-orb mon) and give momentum to a teammate. The frequency at which this mon can come in and either RK or pivot out is surprising.
^Thanks if you read all this but here's some calcs and replays if you don't want to
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Silvally-Ground: 174-205 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Grapploct: 181-214 (49.7 - 58.7%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Noctowl: 289-342 (84.7 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Eviolite Dusclops: 122-146 (42.9 - 51.4%) -- 9.8% chance to 2HKO
Winning an otherwise lost game
Pivot shenanigans
Linoone-Galar @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 Def / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Taunt / Protect
- Parting Shot
- Facade
- Knock Off
There's a lot going for this mon, not only is it incredibly fast with T-orb but the lack of Mach Punch/Vacuum Wave in the tier helps it to clean without any real opposition: Ninjask's leave and Trapinch's nerf only helps it in this regard. STAB Facade, backed up by STAB Knock Off for Ghosts (which can't burn or Night Shade it), hits surprisingly hard off base 70 attack and with its naturally insane speed thanks to Quick Feet you can afford to run Adamant. In fact it's so fast you can run 0 speed and still outspeed Raichu lol, however if you do this I recommend Protect over Taunt as poison isn't immediate if Linoone switches in after a KO. The speed on this set is out of preference, it outspeeds offensive Gourgeist without poison. To top it all off you have Parting Shot to pivot out of bad MUs like Mawile while avoiding Helmet chip (good for a T-orb mon) and give momentum to a teammate. The frequency at which this mon can come in and either RK or pivot out is surprising.
^Thanks if you read all this but here's some calcs and replays if you don't want to
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Silvally-Ground: 174-205 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Grapploct: 181-214 (49.7 - 58.7%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Noctowl: 289-342 (84.7 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Linoone-Galar Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Eviolite Dusclops: 122-146 (42.9 - 51.4%) -- 9.8% chance to 2HKO
Winning an otherwise lost game
Pivot shenanigans
Last edited:
The council is currently discussing a second round of voting on quickbans. I'm going to cover what's for sure on there, what may or may not be on there but probably will because there's no harm in including them, and what that means for future PU tiering.
Noctowl- Definitely getting voted on with current strong quickban sentiments among the council. I hate to get rid of a fantastic support mon but specs is pretty much uncounterable, agility is an excellent sweeper, and blunder policy hypnosis sets can coinflip games very hard
Silvally-Ground- Definitely getting voted on with moderate quickban sentiments among the council. We've talked at length about how good the Silvallies are and, while Ground also has a very important defensive role to play, the offensive typing and coverage is very very difficult to deal with
Silvally-Fire- Definitely getting voted on with moderate quickban sentiments among the council. See Silvally-Ground except it doesn't do much support and it has even better offensive typing due to our lack of Fire checks
Silvally-Dragon and Silvally-Flying- Probably getting voted on, weak quickban sentiments among the council. Also very very powerful Silvally typings, those on the council who really want as many strong Silvallies gone as possible want them at least voted on but we know this is something that the community at large hasn't really come around to and they aren't incredibly common and their most devastating sweeper sets often aren't used
Type: Null- Probably getting voted on, very weak quickban sentiments among the council. It's incredibly hard to break and will just bulky boost through some teams, we've got a ton of tools to pressure it and it's clearly not sweeping every game, but it can still be potent and restrictive. Lots of potential but we really haven't seen it blow up yet
Sun/Vulpix- Possibly getting voted on, very weak quickban sentiments among the council. Sun is a big sleeper threat at the moment, the people who've played a lot with/against it swear it's going to be a big matchup problem similar to its heyday in ORAS PU when we had to suspect test the weather but some people don't really consider it a major issue at all yet. There's no harm in voting on something so we'll definitely be discussing it and you might see it on the ballot but currently the idea of quickbanning Vulpix has not taken off much
There are plenty of other very strong and potentially unbalanced threats and I can't promise something else won't sneak onto our slate (Pawniard, Throh, Lapras, Hail/Aurora Veil, Mawile, Stonjourner, etc.) but these are currently the largest discussion topics.
I'm hoping we talk things over enough to have this vote happen within the next week. Once we're through this round of voting we'll take a bit to reevaluate the PU metagame but I'm hoping we can move into actual suspects relatively quickly. Whether it's on something the council narrowly decided not to quickban (say Silvally-Fire stays in PU on a 5-4 ban vote because it doesn't hit the 60% threshold that'd be a pretty good candidate) or something that only becomes more of an issue once we see the kickoff tour start and have some more broken things out of the way remains to be seen. Regardless, the meta is balanced in a kind of odd way where the council voting on a big slate of Pokemon to quickban is going to soon become unnecessary because we need to take more in-depth looks at particular issues. I won't promise a third slate won't happen but I'd be shocked if there was a fourth. Anyway that's where we're at right now in terms of balancing discussion, feel free to leave thoughts on any of the Pokemon discussed above. Just a reminder that voting on something does not mean we're convinced it's a massive problem and I would frame arguments less as "you shouldn't vote on this at all" and more as "you shouldn't vote to quickban this because".
Noctowl- Definitely getting voted on with current strong quickban sentiments among the council. I hate to get rid of a fantastic support mon but specs is pretty much uncounterable, agility is an excellent sweeper, and blunder policy hypnosis sets can coinflip games very hard Silvally-Ground- Definitely getting voted on with moderate quickban sentiments among the council. We've talked at length about how good the Silvallies are and, while Ground also has a very important defensive role to play, the offensive typing and coverage is very very difficult to deal with Silvally-Fire- Definitely getting voted on with moderate quickban sentiments among the council. See Silvally-Ground except it doesn't do much support and it has even better offensive typing due to our lack of Fire checks Silvally-Dragon and Silvally-Flying- Probably getting voted on, weak quickban sentiments among the council. Also very very powerful Silvally typings, those on the council who really want as many strong Silvallies gone as possible want them at least voted on but we know this is something that the community at large hasn't really come around to and they aren't incredibly common and their most devastating sweeper sets often aren't used Type: Null- Probably getting voted on, very weak quickban sentiments among the council. It's incredibly hard to break and will just bulky boost through some teams, we've got a ton of tools to pressure it and it's clearly not sweeping every game, but it can still be potent and restrictive. Lots of potential but we really haven't seen it blow up yet Sun/Vulpix- Possibly getting voted on, very weak quickban sentiments among the council. Sun is a big sleeper threat at the moment, the people who've played a lot with/against it swear it's going to be a big matchup problem similar to its heyday in ORAS PU when we had to suspect test the weather but some people don't really consider it a major issue at all yet. There's no harm in voting on something so we'll definitely be discussing it and you might see it on the ballot but currently the idea of quickbanning Vulpix has not taken off muchThere are plenty of other very strong and potentially unbalanced threats and I can't promise something else won't sneak onto our slate (Pawniard, Throh, Lapras, Hail/Aurora Veil, Mawile, Stonjourner, etc.) but these are currently the largest discussion topics.
I'm hoping we talk things over enough to have this vote happen within the next week. Once we're through this round of voting we'll take a bit to reevaluate the PU metagame but I'm hoping we can move into actual suspects relatively quickly. Whether it's on something the council narrowly decided not to quickban (say Silvally-Fire stays in PU on a 5-4 ban vote because it doesn't hit the 60% threshold that'd be a pretty good candidate) or something that only becomes more of an issue once we see the kickoff tour start and have some more broken things out of the way remains to be seen. Regardless, the meta is balanced in a kind of odd way where the council voting on a big slate of Pokemon to quickban is going to soon become unnecessary because we need to take more in-depth looks at particular issues. I won't promise a third slate won't happen but I'd be shocked if there was a fourth. Anyway that's where we're at right now in terms of balancing discussion, feel free to leave thoughts on any of the Pokemon discussed above. Just a reminder that voting on something does not mean we're convinced it's a massive problem and I would frame arguments less as "you shouldn't vote on this at all" and more as "you shouldn't vote to quickban this because".
Last edited:
- Status