Hey PU i've been investing a lot of time with the tier as of lately and as i promised to my man
tlenit (yes, i know it took me 4 days lol i'm sorry bro was just lazy lmao) i'm going to post my thoughts on how the tier looks. I would like to start by saying that i didn't liked how the tier looked pre shifts at all, it had so many threats to cover with very mediocre answers around, the rimes being broken, a lack of good answers to liepard making throh be everywhere, which resulted to also be an amazing pokemon; everything was just yikes and building was a headache. I'm very excited to see how the tier develops after the shifts which are awesome to have specially with this unbans which imo where needed. But let's talk about some of the mons that got into the tier.
SHIFTS MONS
- Is this finally a good dark resist? Can't believe we finally got one! Now with jokes aside, Alcremie came to be an awesome pokemon, it has bulk for days to stop threatning fighting and dark types pokemon such as throh and liepard, but not only that, it can be a really good wallbreaker and/or sweeper. From CM, to a stored power sweeper with acid armor, aswell as the defensives sets without forgetting 3 atks recovers; makes alcremie so versatile. Mystical Fire ans Psychic gives it perfect coverage.
- Cursola is pretty one dimensional but its so good at its job. Excellent rocker that can move to be a sweeper if you play around it careless. Weak armor paired with Endure and a Focus Sash having into account how good the coverage it has (Hydro Pump and Earth Power mainly) makes it to be threatning for a lot of teams, but is not as if it didnt had counters or checks, things like bouffalant, liepard to name some. But I can't try to talk about this pokemon without mentioning how it doesnt really add something defensively, it works the best in HO builds, for balance you'd rather go with runerigus and for fat/stall its pre evo G.corsola but we'll see; i'm honestly very high on this pokemon tho.
- The table has one and only one job but hell it does it well. The ability of stomaching physical hits of the table is uncomparable in the tier. It also adds more hazard control options and an option to hit very hard with Bpress and Avalanche. Sadly with the additions of so many ghosts and a lot of the physical attackers being fighting types will the ice wall have success on the tier?
- Ayeee another steel type!!!... that still loses to broken rimes
(fr tho can we ban those 2 already?). This aside, Ferroseed is a very good add, it has a notable bulk that is rather helpful aswell as being a very good hazard setter capable of keeping in check a lot vast majority of the tier to the point that i could see things like alcremie, kangaskhan, the silvallys or things like that to run fire coverage just for it.
- Talking about kangaskhan... hjad favourite mon is back, can't wait to see some kanga spikes teams rolling. This mon needs no explanation tbh; if you were around this tier in SM you already know what this does. One of the questionable pokemons to me since there's not much you can do as there's no actual safe switchin to it. The speed tier is cery good and it doesnt suffer from a 4MSS at all since a set of fake out/double edge/fire punch/earthquake already covers everything. But maybe things like runerigus, ferroseed and stunfisk to name some makes it alright to handle.
- The saviour of klinklang and therefore the tier from the ice types reing. Quagsire is the pokemon that this tier needed, not only it's a good pokemon for silvallys but also for recently unbanned klinklang. This mon is very dimensional in fact that it has one role to fullfill and it can't actually come out of it, but yet still can keep teams in checks rather easily thanks to its overall bulk.
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*checks the bug resists on the tier* .... *checks how many of those can eat a thunder or a Energy Ball*... Uh oh... Broken mon alert, i repeat, broken mon alert. I'd say the spider is just to good and powerful for PU as it has not a safe switchin as per se. Having hdb makes it very hard to punish with hazards and theres not much in the tier that can revengekill it.
- Another electric type woohoo, this time it's a very good one tho. Jolteon FINALLY DROPPED (s/o the nu ladder for holding it for 5 months), an unrivaled speed tier added to a decent spa stats makes jolteon to be a threat you need to think about when building. But does this mean Jolteon is broken? No, i don't think so. Not having hidden powers really sucks for it, and while you could argue gimmicks like weather ball in rain to make it be able to hit grounds, it just doesnt have enough coverage to get pass grass types such as appletun or roselia.
- Oh boy, i can't wait to use this little spiky fish. It can work several ways and all of them will be solid, being a spikes support setter or a rain sweeper you can bet qwilfish will put on work for sure. Rain one specially very scary to face since it has powerful stabs with an awesome speed tier that can get to be an issue for some teams that are not prepared for it after an SD.
- Do i need to talk about sawk for real? Well... ig i will...
Classes of how to win with sawk:
Step 1: Catch once their alcremie with poison jab.
Step 2: Keep cleaning the game until you win.
So yeah, now for real, can we get this pokemon banned asap? It doesn't have ways to be handled at all, Bulk Up, Scarf and Banded are all to powerful.
- Okey so hot take here but as long as you hit lol (70% acc moves are cringe) this pokemon doesn't have actual checks but you can counter it offensively with one of the electrics that we have in the tier. It can work as a defogger aswell with very much success as its bulk isnt bad at all. But is not the best addition of the shifts sadly because i like the mon.
- Very good rocker with amazing bulk and also adds Tspikes? Where do i sign! Runerigus is all that the tier could have asked for, it not only has the tools to handle all the physical threats of the tier but can also fire off power attacks as its base Atk isn't something that people should forget about that can make some offensive sets such as 3 atks TR or hell even Banded to be quiet a threat.
UNBANNED MONS
bug - I will start saying that i really think some of the other silvally forms could have been freed but this is definetly a good start tho. About bug one, it has one of the worst typing to use with multi-attack since pretty much all the rockers resist it, defensively isn't a good typing as per se either since it mainly checks fighting types but those have access to coverage that makes it not want to hard switch without scouting first. But not everything is bad ig, you can have fire/water coverage to hit those pokemons that would lile to switch such as runerigus or ferroseed for example. And another big thing about this vally form is that it adds a way to handle liepard easier altho who knows, we might see some NP sets come out. Overall i think that it's not busted at all and will make a good fit in the tier.
- Exeggutor has HUGE raw power but idk... tier has got a lot of stuff to handle it, silvally bug being on the tier, ferroseed, klinklang and the ice types, more ghost types and liepard being here makes it ok to be. It opens up to more stypes and type of teams which is always welcomed tho. Future Sight and Teleport will make it the slowbro of PU but idt it will be broken at all.
poison - Same as Bug vally, poison isn't the best typing to have to use multi attack on and i could honestly keep talking about it but it would be pretty much the same things i said about bug one but changing one or two things; mainly on what can it check/counter and what checks/counters it.
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*Unpopular opinion alarm* Klinklang did nothing wrong to be banned, in fact it made the tier to be stable, but can't do nothing with that now as that's past and past can't be changed. Now that it's back we now have again a way to handle ice types partially well. Shift Gear sets will not be that good either as it got new checks added to old ones. I'm happy that this pokemon is back because it adds a lot to the tier being able to keep in check certain pokemons (old and new ones) that otherwise could probably be broken.
- This boy did nothing wrong to be banned imo.
Bouffalant just was banned based on hipotetic scenarios where as it would have no counters nor checks when it did have them. But oh well... It's back and while now it would face competition with kanga for a spot in teams if you want a normal pokemon they are far to acomplish the same job. Bouffalant helps a lot to keep checked pokemons as drifblim, gourgeist or lilligant quite easily. But it has checks to switch into its powerful attacks, specially now with all the ghosts types that has been added.
I'm excited to keep testing things out and overall i'm so happy with the course of actions of the council and can't wait to see how the meta develops with all this changes.