Metagame np: PU Stage 4 - And Justice For All (Virizion stays PU)

[MZ]

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PU's first suspect test of the generation will be on none other than Virizion! A top threat we wouldn't have dreamed of ever receiving just a generation ago, Virizion stands out due to its insane mixed coverage and excellent Speed. It can vary its wallbreaking prowess by running all-out attacking sets physically, specially, and mixed, Calm Mind or Swords Dance, all with plenty of different coverage and support options to choose from. Very few Pokemon are safe from all of the common options Virizion might run and it can capably abuse defensive staples such as Palossand and Vaporeon. On the other hand dual base 90 offenses fail to outshine even Silvally, it has respectable bulk but not enough to avoid being revenge killed by many common threats from Archeops, Whimsicott and Talonflame to Choice Scarf Passimian and Togedemaru. While there are a good few Water-, Rock-, and Ground-types for Virizion to freely abuse, it still struggles against a significant amount of the metagame due to its extremely awkward defensive typing. The Pokemon that reliably check Virizion are metagame staples rather than niche picks and it is nearly always prediction reliant to truly maximize its wallbreaking potential.

There will be no suspect ladder. Instead we will use the normal PU ladder which will remain open for the duration of the test. A message will pop up at the beginning of ladder games to indicate that the suspect is going on. Anyone who wishes to participate in this suspect test will use a newly-made alt with a suspect-specific tag to indicate that you are trying to achieve reqs. The requirements for this suspect test are the following:

• All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! PU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "VST (nickname)" For example, I might register the alt VST Togerachi to ladder with.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt (i.e. someone other than myself making the account VST MZ), do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokemon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play 35 games with a minimum GXE of 80.
• A thread will be posted next week where people can confirm that they have achieved the suspect requirements.

The suspect test will last for 14 days, ending on Sunday January 31st Monday February 1st at 10PM EST. Good luck qualifying everyone!

 

[ManOfMany]

Council Minutes
Hi everyone and welcome to my first time doing Council minutes. Hopefully I did a good job!

Meta Discussion and Votes:

• The council voted on four pokemon last Friday. Only Roserade ended up getting banned. Between its massive Special Attack, utility moves, and ability to tear apart common defensive cores, it was considered too overwhelming to be kept around. How do you think this will affect the tier? There has already been some speculation regarding Fairy-types like Aromatisse improving, as well as other Spikers like Garbodor that were previously overshadowed.
• Due to the mixed voting record as well as popular sentiment from the community, the council decided to suspect Virizion. The above post explained this pretty well so I won't get into this here.
• These two pokemon were considered to be fine by a majority of the council. They are offensively threatening but have many common checks and counters in the current meta.
• Are there any other pokemon you would like to see Council take a look at in the upcoming weeks? There have been some discussion about Arctovish but the massive popularity of Vaporeon, Toxicroak, Jellicent, and Heliolisk has made it hard for this pokemon to spam Fishious Rend. Additionally, there has been concern regarding the sheer variety of Fighting-types in this meta and how difficult it can be to deal with them, considering they all have different checks and counters. Although few people in Council think any fighting-type (outside of Virizion) is broken at the moment, we will continue to keep a tab on this potential problem.
• There was also an interesting discussion last week that wondered if the council was not lenient enough in making tiering decisions; thanks to Chloe for bringing this up. A lot of this discussion was centered around Tauros, which some people thought was unfairly banned. Read Specs' response post for a reasoning why the Council thought this was a necessary decision to make. We hope that with the meta settling down, we can give the community more involvement in tiering decisions in the future, starting with the Virizion suspect test. Feel free to bring up any concerns you have about the council's tiering philosophy, or regarding any pokemon you think may deserve a second chance in the NP thread.

Forum Happenings:

• Viability Rankings are going well. It is still early to have a definitive Viability Rankings, but as he metagame goes along we will have a better idea of what pokemon are more consistently good than others. Are there any pokemon you think were completely overlooked? Or too overrated? Make a post, but be sure to follow the guidelines of the thread!
• BW PU just had a vote, and ended up banning Throh, Gothorita, and Sleep Moves. You can view the voting results as well as justifications here. This is obviously a massive change up for the tier, with Throh being one of the most common pokemon on teams, and trapping being such a unique element in the tier. These are exciting times for the future of the BW PU meta.
• PU Matchmaking is back, and this time we are taking a look at the fallen queen of SM PU, Mesprit. This is a great project to participate in if you want a fun way to improve your teambuilding skills.
• PU Analyses have started up! There are still plenty of important pokemon that have not been reserved yet if you want to help out. The PU C&C team would definitely appreciate the help!
• Secret Santa is well underway. It's too late to sign up but check out the fantastic teams being sent out currently. And if you're feeling an urge to share some of your teams for no particular reason, head to PU Team Dump and people will be happy to check them out!

Tournaments:

• LTPL has reached Round 5. Be sure to follow these games if you want to witness some of the top PU players battle, as well as top players from other tiers!
• Oldgens circuit tours are well under way. SM PU Cup has reached Round 2, and ORAS PU Cup has just started Round 1. Signups for the BW PU Cup are up now as well here. (and it's not too late to sign up for a substitute for ORAS Cup if you still want to get in.)
• You can view the schedule for the rest of the PU Circuit here.

 

[iceblazer]

I was about to share my thoughts about Rose, but oh well. Anyway, here’s my theorymon on what’ll change:

The Winners

With Rose gone, there’s a demand for offensive Spikers to fill the gap. While these two won’t be exact replacements to Rose (lets be honest, nothing can fill that gap right now, it is Rose after all), they still do the job well enough. Defensive Garbo is also a decent check to Viriz to annoy the hell out of it with Rocky Helm + Aftermath oh and CB Lass is pretty cool


All three of these appreciate Rose getting banned, as should be expected from rockers. In addition, while the omnipresence of viriz does hurt them, regi and claydol actually can handle viriz in a pinch right now thanks to iron defense & rindo berry respectively. They’re not surefire checks of course, but they get the job done.


Not much to say, Rose gone means there’s one less poison for them to worry about. And with Virizion on the rise, I expect them to only get better.

The Losers



There’s probably more mons that I missed, but basically any mon that appreciated Spikes support from Rose took a hit. These are the most notable ones I could think of. Not that they’re any worse than before, keep that in mind.


Anyway, onto good ol' Viriz here, star of the suspect. I haven’t gotten reqs yet, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I think I’ll vote no ban on this one. On the pro-ban side, I definitely get the arguments. It’s hard to switch into this thing without getting bopped by SE, and even with that your Viriz switchin may not even be the ideal switchin to whatever set Virizion’s using. Its special bulk isn’t half bad either and can use that to check mons like helio. However, Virizion has a really bad defensive typing, giving it weaknesses to types that every team runs such as Fire, Psychic and most importantly, Flying. While it’s speed tier is excellent, it’s prone to getting revenge killed by scarfers or being forced out in the first place. Like what has been said by the OG post, Virizion is very prediction reliant to really get its sweeping streak going, and no sane player would let Viriz set up in the first place.

Since this post is long enough as it is, I’ll drop my thoughts about recent duscussions quickly and get going.

Bans: Forgot to mention this in my last post, but yeah, now I see that the council was a bit too banhappy at the start of January. I still stand by that Tauros is stupid though. Alolachu and Sceptile could be looked at again, although terrain should be dealt with before that kind of stuff happens.

Recent meta: I’ve really been liking this meta so far, nothing feels too broken. The only exception was Rose, and even that could be dealt with swiftly and cleanly. There’s still a lot of room for exploration, and I’ve been trying out new options such as Basculin, Kabutops, Golbat, etc.

That’s all I have to say for now. Ciao!

 

[shooting star]

First time PU player here. I hardly faced any Virizion during the suspect ladder run, so do take this opinion with a pinch of salt.

I feel that Virizion at the moment is okay as there is more than enough offensive counterplay. Faster threats such as Archeops, Ribombee, Whimsicott, Heliolisk, and other Scarfers can revenge kill it, while Sticky Web users like Galvantula are also pretty common on the ladder. Flame Charge Silvallys also easily outspeed it. I used a hail HO team to get reqs, which is also perfectly capable of checking Virizion since Arctovish and A-Sandslash outspeed it under hail. Virizion also cannot afford to run Choice Scarf due to its initial underwhelming offensive stats, not that it wants to anyway since its main selling point is its wide coverage and set diversity.

Theoretically, defensive teams may not find Virizion to be too overbearing either since the tier has many Poison- and Flying-types such as Weezing, Golbat and Talonflame to check/counter it, as well as other Pokemon like Mesprit. I feel that Calm Mind sets are pretty underwhelming as Grass- and Fighting-type moves do not provide enough coverage, not to mention Focus Blast having abysmal accuracy. Mixed LO sets provide good coverage, but once the item is revealed to not be Lum Berry the opposing team can proceed to status it, and none of them bodes well for Virizion. Rocky Helmet users such as Druddigon and Garbodor also wear down Virizion fairly quickly, and should SD or CM really prove to be a problem you can also opt to run Haze on Weezing or something. The only thing that the opponent needs to scout for is whether Virizion is running Stone Edge or Zen Headbutt before pivoting accordingly.

With that being said, come April some metagame staples like Talonflame will most probably rise, which could make Virizion more problematic in the future but this is pure theorymon so I shall stop right there.

I would also like to share a hail HO team that I have built for this suspect test. Honestly, this team is rather inconsistent and has quite a lot of flaws, with all 6 Pokemon being weak to Fire-types especially Talonflame, but yet still good enough to get me reqs (GXE 80 in 35 games is way less demanding than 50 games in other tiers and I'm thankful for that). Vikavolt may look like a weird choice for HO but I feel that its bulk is much appreciated to better check Fighting-types. Sticky Web is also pretty cool just in case hail can no longer be activated. I would also like to highlight one set that I have invented myself and really enjoy using.

Arctovish @ Leftovers
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
- Substitute
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While nuking stuff with Choice Band feels good, I don't think it is its best set due to the presence of many metagame staples immune to Water, such as Vaporeon, Jellicient, Heliolisk, and Toxicroak. Substitute is also a neat move to use against the former two defensive Pokemon since not only do they love switching in, Scald also does not break the Sub (hence Lonely > Naughty). Furthermore, you don't really need the extra power since most Pokemon either gets OHKO or 2HKO anyway. You can also try to bluff a Choice set and watch the opponent bring in a Grass-type before using Icicle Crash on it lol. Here is the team for anyone interested: https://pokepast.es/fa5294983e70ba4d

Looking forward to more arguments from both sides here since my opinion is not set in stone. Good luck with reqs everyone.

 

[PlusC]

I've quite taken to putting a bit of speed on Hitmontop, so that after 1 Rapid Spin you overtake max Virizion and can OHKO with Triple Axle.

I'm still working on recs but haven't had any issue with Virizion yet and consider it to be a fine part of the tier. I've had more issue with Archeops and Arctovish, the former of which certainly isn't broken but I still think Arctovish might be (but it is manageable).

This suspect test has really made me appreciate how varied the tier is. The recent OU Urshifu suspect made me feel like OU had about 5 pokemon in it, but you can go 10 games in a row in PU barely seeing the Pokemon twice.

Also regarding your Sandslash u/Jirachirite Hone Claws + Life Orb averages the same damage as Swords Dance + Wide Lens l and has more power if you don't get a chance to boost, plus you won't randomnly miss after the boost. SD is stronger at 2+ boosts though, and your other moves do more at 1 boost.

 

[gum]

my opinion on virizion has changed a ton of times ever since we got it during the mid-december shifts, and until like, the roserade ban, i was still rather unsure whether or not i wanted it in the tier

i'll be voting do not ban. virizion is an excellent wallbreaker; it's by far the tier's best one and it's not hard to see why thanks to its typing, bulk, movepool, sheer versatility, with the last one being especially important here as it allows it to pressure many would-be switchins like weezing and charizard. however, it kinda stops there. if u take all of its sets indivually, none of them are too much (like, on its own, calm mind is actually pretty mediocre). my biggest issue with virizion is that it often relies on the opponent guessing the wrong set, which most of the isn't even deadly due to virizion's pretty average attacking stats. speaking of which, it can struggle to actually wallbreak in certain common matchups due to how underwhelming 90 (special) attack is; it struggles to break even through neutral targets effectively, which also makes sets such as mixed more prediction reliant to hit targets like talonflame on the switch. this really makes it much less of a pain playing wise than it is on paper

our virizion answers aren't bad at all, and i'd say there's still plenty of room for healthy adaptation. outside of the boring defensive stuff, virizion is surprisingly easy to offensively pressure because its typing is ass in a tier filled of fast flying- and fairy-types. like, it's rather easy to prevent it from doing too much just by slapping a random talonflame, archeops, ribombee, whimsicott, sneasel, froslass, or a choice scarf user like passimian, mesprit, gallade, and braviary, which are all very solid threats in the current meta outside of just revenge killing virizion / being able to scout the set. yeah, we also have plenty of defensive stuff that give virizion a free switchin on paper, but in practice it actually ends up being quite untrue. pokémon that in theory let in virizion with no drawback can very easily annoy it with a random toxic like palossand, gigalith, or lanturn. similarly, swords dance (and to a certain extant mixed) virizion is a grass-type that can't even take advantage of random bulky waters due to the fear of a stray scald burn. while i don't think this argument is too important, i still think it's worth mentioning how easy it is to punish a reckless virizion and that it actually doesn't have as much defensive utility as its typing and special bulk imply, greatly limiting just how much opportunities it gets to do its job reliably

lastly, this is something i kinda mentioned earlier but we have plenty of defensive glues that are capable of, at the very least, scout the virizion set like weezing, aromatisse, garbodor, uxie, druddigon, golbat, xatu, and i'm certain i'm forgetting some that i didn't already mention in the previous paragraph. similarly to the offensive checks, these are all great mons and while some of them probably wouldn't be as good without virizion, they're also not niche mediocre picks that u would otherwise most likely never use

so yeah, a tl;dr would be virizion is for sure excellent at what it does, but it's held back by how mu reliant it can be sometimes & its average attacking stats. also offensive and defensive checks alike aren't bad at all and most of them would still be extremely solid without virizion, and u can always pressure it with pokemon it would otherwise take advantage of easily

ty for reading, and sorry if this post is a bit rambly. i've reread it a couple of times but i really can't figure out how to make it better without rewritting it entirely. i'm still hoping this still gets my opinion on virizion across and why i'm gonna be voting do not ban, so yeah

 

[zS]

my opinion on virizion has changed a ton of times ever since we got it during the mid-december shifts, and until like, the roserade ban, i was still rather unsure whether or not i wanted it in the tier

i'll be voting do not ban. virizion is an excellent wallbreaker; it's by far the tier's best one and it's not hard to see why thanks to its typing, bulk, movepool, sheer versatility, with the last one being especially important here as it allows it to pressure many would-be switchins like weezing and charizard. however, it kinda stops there. if u take all of its sets indivually, none of them are too much (like, on its own, calm mind is actually pretty mediocre). my biggest issue with virizion is that it often relies on the opponent guessing the wrong set, which most of the isn't even deadly due to virizion's pretty average attacking stats. speaking of which, it can struggle to actually wallbreak in certain common matchups due to how underwhelming 90 (special) attack is; it struggles to break even through neutral targets effectively, which also makes sets such as mixed more prediction reliant to hit targets like talonflame on the switch. this really makes it much less of a pain playing wise than it is on paper

our virizion answers aren't bad at all, and i'd say there's still plenty of room for healthy adaptation. outside of the boring defensive stuff, virizion is surprisingly easy to offensively pressure because its typing is ass in a tier filled of fast flying- and fairy-types. like, it's rather easy to prevent it from doing too much just by slapping a random talonflame, archeops, ribombee, whimsicott, sneasel, froslass, or a choice scarf user like passimian, mesprit, gallade, and braviary, which are all very solid threats in the current meta outside of just revenge killing virizion / being able to scout the set. yeah, we also have plenty of defensive stuff that give virizion a free switchin on paper, but in practice it actually ends up being quite untrue. pokémon that in theory let in virizion with no drawback can very easily annoy it with a random toxic like palossand, gigalith, or lanturn. similarly, swords dance (and to a certain extant mixed) virizion is a grass-type that can't even take advantage of random bulky waters due to the fear of a stray scald burn. while i don't think this argument is too important, i still think it's worth mentioning how easy it is to punish a reckless virizion and that it actually doesn't have as much defensive utility as its typing and special bulk imply, greatly limiting just how much opportunities it gets to do its job reliably

lastly, this is something i kinda mentioned earlier but we have plenty of defensive glues that are capable of, at the very least, scout the virizion set like weezing, aromatisse, garbodor, uxie, druddigon, golbat, xatu, and i'm certain i'm forgetting some that i didn't already mention in the previous paragraph. similarly to the offensive checks, these are all great mons and while some of them probably wouldn't be as good without virizion, they're also not niche mediocre picks that u would otherwise most likely never use

so yeah, a tl;dr would be virizion is for sure excellent at what it does, but it's held back by how mu reliant it can be sometimes & its average attacking stats. also offensive and defensive checks alike aren't bad at all and most of them would still be extremely solid without virizion, and u can always pressure it with pokemon it would otherwise take advantage of easily

ty for reading, and sorry if this post is a bit rambly. i've reread it a couple of times but i really can't figure out how to make it better without rewritting it entirely. i'm still hoping this still gets my opinion on virizion across and why i'm gonna be voting do not ban, so yeah

that's an excellent post which is a great discussion launcher so thanks for that gum. However, I strongly disagree with a lot of statements that are mentionned here and I'll be explaining why.

my biggest issue with virizion is that it often relies on the opponent guessing the wrong set, which most of the isn't even deadly due to virizion's pretty average attacking stats. speaking of which, it can struggle to actually wallbreak in certain common matchups due to how underwhelming 90 (special) attack is; it struggles to break even through neutral targets effectively, which also makes sets such as mixed more prediction reliant to hit targets like talonflame on the switch. this really makes it much less of a pain playing wise than it is on paper

Here is where I start to disagree with you. Yes, Virizion relies on the opponent guessing the wrong set at preview, but saying it's most of the time not deadly is super wrong. There's a simple reason for that, we don't have a single pokemon available in the tier capable of checking all virizion sets, and 90% of the checks you mentionned above only function well vs 2 of them at most but I'll get back to that after. Virizion's wallbreaking ability isn't due to its offensive stats, that appear to be underwhelming on paper because 90 isn't considered to be good nowadays. What makes it good is how powerful its moves are, and if they're not too powerful like zen headbutt or air slash, they still deal a lot of damage due to how much stuff they hit for super effective damage. Virizion is impossible to check effectively, although there are pokemon like Golbat or Garbodor who are able to get away relatively well against more sets than the others, they remain no less unreliable.

our virizion answers aren't bad at all, and i'd say there's still plenty of room for healthy adaptation. outside of the boring defensive stuff, virizion is surprisingly easy to offensively pressure because its typing is ass in a tier filled of fast flying- and fairy-types. like, it's rather easy to prevent it from doing too much just by slapping a random talonflame, archeops, ribombee, whimsicott, sneasel, froslass, or a choice scarf user like passimian, mesprit, gallade, and braviary, which are all very solid threats in the current meta outside of just revenge killing virizion / being able to scout the set. yeah, we also have plenty of defensive stuff that give virizion a free switchin on paper, but in practice it actually ends up being quite untrue. pokémon that in theory let in virizion with no drawback can very easily annoy it with a random toxic like palossand, gigalith, or lanturn. similarly, swords dance (and to a certain extant mixed) virizion is a grass-type that can't even take advantage of random bulky waters due to the fear of a stray scald burn. while i don't think this argument is too important, i still think it's worth mentioning how easy it is to punish a reckless virizion and that it actually doesn't have as much defensive utility as its typing and special bulk imply, greatly limiting just how much opportunities it gets to do its job reliably

Well Well Well, all the "threats" you just mentionned aren't even capable of reliably pressure offensively virizion because, bar whimsicott, none of them is able to take a hit depending on the set and whimsicott even fails to revenge kill it reliably due to how weak it is. And the problem doesn't stop there: we simply don't have as i mentionned earlier a reliable defensive counterplay, which forces many teams to deal with it offensively instead. It just almost invalidates bulkier structures, or forces them to run specific mons to be able to "check the set and revenge kill it", which is completely unhealthy. I Don't even talk about teambuilding which became a real pain. You're forced to run offensive playstyles to avoid giving it free turns, but if you do that just to beat virizion "reliably", archeops becomes a problem because it has an excellent match-up against offensive teams, but then if you Don't want to be weak to archeops your team has to slow down and it becomes yet again weak to virizion because the thing as I said earlier invalidates bulkier structures. My point is that one of them at least should go, and I'd rather go with the one with no defensive counterplay, the one which invalidates bulkier structures or risk to see your winning chances dramatically fall, or just even disappear if your counterplay is made of aromatisse + scarf sprit and you run into calm mind set for example. Archeops can be considered broken by now, but I simply think it's not because what makes it broken is the fact that you have to run offensive teams if you don't want to lose against virizion. This thing should go and has no room for existence in pu. Imo, the argument you consider to be not too important is the one that makes sense to me, because if you don't pack a cleric, it can feel harder to make sure your virizion is safe against the bulky waters. but what you say also supports what I said earlier, you have to pack too much stuff on your team to be able to beat virizion, and you're not even sure to do so if you run against the wrong set. It centralizes way too much teambuilding to be considered healthy, and the fact that you have to check that many boxes to beat virizion obviously makes you weak to other stuff, like the aforementionned archeops.

lastly, this is something i kinda mentioned earlier but we have plenty of defensive glues that are capable of, at the very least, scout the virizion set like weezing, aromatisse, garbodor, uxie, druddigon, golbat, xatu, and i'm certain i'm forgetting some that i didn't already mention in the previous paragraph. similarly to the offensive checks, these are all great mons and while some of them probably wouldn't be as good without virizion, they're also not niche mediocre picks that u would otherwise most likely never use

This paragraph is also true on paper, all of them can scout the virizon set, but what happens if you send your weezing or drudding on a specs focus blast and get 2hkoed? what happens if you send golbat on a Swords Dance set and die to stone edge because rocks are up? What if you had thought your team in order to reliably revenge kill Swords Dance virizon and you happen to face calm mind sets? Yes, it relies on you guessing the wrong set but given how versatile the thing is, it's not even possible to guess at preview what you are going to face, so you have to make midground plays in order to cover all the stuff it does, but wait, we don't have a mon that is able to do that on its own. It just transforms every turn into a constent 50 50 where the virizion player always has the advantage because he knows the set and you don't. Some people even started to adapt some sets in order to lure stuff that would normally check them, stuff like cm stone edge virizion that effectively lure talonflame. This thing can even adapt to the meta that tries to counter it, and to create even more viable options out of it, making it even more versatile and makes it even harder to guess the set after they even revealed their first moves.

so yeah, I'll be voting ban and I hope I managed to convice a few people that weren't too sure about what they were voting, thanks again gum for this post ily .

-zS out

 

[Hera]

Hello there! I was going to make a mildly long post detailing and addressing Virizion's strengths, weaknesses, common complaints, etc...but before I could do that, gum sniped me and basically summed up my entire position on it in much fewer words. There are so many Virizion checks such as Weezing, Talonflame, Aromatisse, and even stuff it wants to come in on, like Vaporeon and Palossand, cripple it with Toxic or a random burn. While the Virizion player has the advantage in a match due to having more information, it's not the hardest thing in the world to check its set: running Protect on something Virizion wants to come in on does that, and cores such as Weezing + Talonflame aren't dead-weight outside of scouting it. The fact that Virizion has solid set diversity barely matters when each of these sets comes with a significant opportunity cost. CM loses to Talonflame and bulky Fairies/Psychics, SD loses to Weezing, Golbat (if Rocks aren't up), and bulky Fairies/Ghosts not named Palossand, and Mixed is simply begging to be pressured offensively. The 50/50s Virizion supposedly forces only happen once or twice a match, and after that, any well-built team should be able to manage it. I can understand wanting it banned because it's a bit of a strain on teambuilding and I personally find it annoying, but I can't say it's broken or unhealthy for the tier. I would love to hear some more pro-ban arguments though. As of this writing, there's only been one.

With that being said, I would like to talk about some other, non-Virizion things.

I've been on the #BanVish train ever since Day 1 of the Crown Tundra drops. Being able to spam Banded Fishous Rend in a tier that really didn't care to consistently pack Water-immunes was very dumb, and with the recently gained Slush Rush, it could now do it in hail. Admittedly, the tier has adapted well enough to the Band set, with Vaporeon being commonplace on more defensive teams and Heliolisk/Toxicroak being okay checks on offensive teams. However, my main point of grievance now is the Mixed LO set. Solid switch-ins such as Vaporeon and Water Absorb Lanturn suddenly become 2HKOed by Freeze-Dry while Arctovish is now able to spam Fishous Rend much easier, and in general your switchins are simply non-existent outside of something like Assault Vest Cofa. Unlike Virizion, which I feel can easily be scouted without much drawback, scouting Arctovish can often lead to death due to its coverage and how hard Rend hits. Arctovish is easily capable of adapting to the meta around it and nullifying defensive and offensive counterplay (Sub avoids priority and Hasty outspeeds Scarf Passimian, the most common Scarfer). I think after Virizion is decided on, the PU community should look at Arctovish next.

I think Chloe brought up a very interesting point about the recent bans and how they felt that the bans were very strict and how a few threats, such as Sceptile and Tauros, were not given a fair chance due to not being considered as broken across the board. While I could just give my opinion on all of them and be done with it (they're all super stupid btw), I think that retesting them should be a priority of the council, albeit a low one. Tauros seems to be the one most non-council members were surprised, so I think that would be a good starting point if any. Regarding the council's tiering philosophy, I am fine with it. Ever since I started being more active, I haven't really felt like my voice, or others, wasn't heard by the council, and I have generally agreed with or understanded the quickbans, even though I may have disagreed on some (Sawk).

That's really all I have to say. Let Virizion stay, #BanVish, and retest a few mons if the time allows it. I hope to see more discussion on Virizion, Arctovish, and underrated threats such as Galvantula and Aggron.

 

[GVA1]

Before you go and and vote BAN/ DNB try to experience different play styles and see if virizion manageable or not

You can’t be spamming hail , sticky web offense or dual screen offense and say that Pokémon is fine for the tier
There’s literally 0 Pokémon’s capable of countering virizion and defensively checking it , in the entire tier let alone come safely without getting punished
Due its wide movepool and set up options

Bulky poison type like Garbodor drop after one knock off to +2 Zen headbutt
Or 1 spikes and rocks
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Virizion Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garbodor: 289-341 (79.3 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
Golbat drop to +2 stone edge after rocks
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Virizion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Golbat: 265-315 (74.8 - 88.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock


+2 252 Atk Virizion Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 202-238 (49.7 - 58.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

meanwhile aromatisse can’t kill back it in one hit

these are just some example of how this mon capable to adjust its set and beat what supposedly be it’s“counters” and whatever your team struggling with

Not to mention it’s mixed leaf storm set
Or it’s calm mind variant

plus most of the scarfer in the tier can’t reliably kill it without prior chipping

252 Atk Togedemaru Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Virizion: 190-224 (58.8 - 69.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Virizion: 105-124 (32.5 - 38.3%) -- 98.2% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Mesprit Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Virizion: 204-242 (63.1 - 74.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Passimian Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Virizion: 243-286 (75.2 - 88.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
the point of these calcs just to show how even some of the most common scarfer can potentially lose to it for how bulky it’s
And you can pass wish or healing wish it after to wreck havoc again

not to mention it’s a tremendously powerful wall breaker that can leave your opponent team crippled and easy pick for your scarfer after

question is are we going to be forced to run
Archeops or froslass on every team to offensively check it ?

I’m wondering what’s your defensive backbone if you Think this mon is manageable
Poison type / aromatisse / talonflame and pivot and pray for flame body to activate
I’m genuinely curios ...
Cause I’m not seeing alotta of options if any

Apology for my bad English
Mods feel free to correct my grammar if needed

I’ll definitely vote ban if I finished my 35 games
And I won’t forget to vote this time

 

[PlusC]

Or, conversely to the above, maybe stall just sucks in this tier? Different teams thrive in different tiers and honestly there are enough Offensive pokemon without real defensive counter play in this tier that I'm not sure I care that stall can't handle Virizion easily. I mean it has no healing, doesn't wear boots, and often has a Life Orb, wear it down.

 

[Revenge Killer]

Where is the identification thread?

 

[BulbaBrain]

Blanko

A thread will be posted next week where people can confirm that they have achieved the suspect requirements.

its gonna come out sometime this week keep patient :)

 

[shooting star]

After playing more games on the ladder using a balance team this time, my opinion has more or less solidified. I will first explain how this team works and my reason for voting Do Not Ban. Click icon for importable.



General pointers

• Laddering with this team made me realise how weak this tier is to Spikes/Toxic Spikes in general (Yes, that includes Virizion), which is the reason why Charizard/Talonflame make good Defoggers since they can pressure Spikes setters like Weezing. So nope, you are not forced to run Talonflame just for Virizion; it provides much more utility than that.
• I would actually argue that Arctovish is more centralising than Virizion since it has immediate power to invalidate defensive teams without Water-immunes and the speed under hail to counter offense, and mixed LO can be a pain to deal with as Heracross2.0 pointed out. My only issue is how easily mixed LO gets worn down as the opposing Vaporeon spams WishTect. Technician Hitmontop also gives hail HO a run for their money. Nevertheless, Arctovish is also surprisingly versatile, being able to: run HDB as well and do damage before switching out, run Rock Blast or Psychic Fangs to deal with opposing Arctovish and Toxicroak respectively, or even run a gimmicky Water Absorb set to nullify opposing Fishious Rend. Certainly a mon to be kept under our radars.

How this team works

• This team was built to account for the two most prominent wallbreakers in the tier: Virizion and Arctovish. It features your standard Weezing/Talon/Aromatisse core that is able to check the whole package called Virizion. This team firstly aims to check as many Pokemon as possible, while relying heavily on Toxic Spikes and Burns to pressure the opponent.
• Weezing is a great physical checker, with two nice abilities to boot. I mostly used Levitate, but Neutralising Gas is not too bad an option either since it can help absorb Toxic Spikes. Having a good matchup against Tsareena also helps. You can choose either Sludge Bomb for Fairies or Flamethrower for Steels.
• Vaporeon is my primary Arctovish check and the team's cleric.
• Talonflame is there for utility and speed control, and forms a nice VoltTurn core with Rotom.
• Gigalith checks Special Attackers, and Sand Stream helps to nullify Hail.
• Aromatisse is the team's wincon, sporting great typing and bulk to set up CM. It is actually pretty good and has netted me several wins before.
• Rotom has great typing and compresses so many roles: Defogger, Spin Blocker, spamming Wisp/Hex, Utility, and counters Pokemon that only run Body Press.
• This team is weak to Head Smash Aggron, Toxicroak, and Electrics like Heliolisk (Gigalith being a shaky check). Also, Specs Magneton goes ham on this team. And nope, Virizion does not break this team easily.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1268352546-l6mrnt4vscrctrp4l6qgq9y9cm6ym9ipw (vs Virizion, most relevant since predicting is harder in practice)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1268417352-n2oep02mqgx563u3asl70fuxzspyks4pw (vs Virizion)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1268399973-b9bxzwj0zoq72e54kznhba0c08fisdppw (vs Virizion, CM Aroma wins)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267733606-esn6oinguhshnglgadp3ucj6mn24l79pw (vs vika hail HO)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267377435-o4mqn8javdgldthfpr4e9zk00gufa5wpw (CM Aroma wins)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267371174-x52r4i3033u09x818c5ugdyf8um79unpw (vs offense)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267278860-ga9mkwbaczsocxjov7fa3ptivtaw7pfpw (vs balance, CM Aroma wins)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267959141-l0zwt7w7gyp5qljnmp7jzexv117b3yipw (vs balance)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267909892-8g45ttvxvbxdkjcv4ajvexx6r1tagnepw (vs hail HO)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267862899-o6v27bjwz5n3z9evbcbmukii7k8namopw (vs hail HO)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267850902-mvx0vqlgvwit2evfh6awwcry55k13tdpw (vs bulky offense)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267763279-psf8zqy1eep9wz54099x7ys8f3u4u4qpw (vs bulky offense)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1267771360-8lk2wbuh6j0kvo8vcuthbuokb3g9v2upw (LOST to stall)

With that being said, the next question is: Is Virizion so centralising that you are forced to run the aforementioned Poison/Flying/Fairy core to beat it? The answer in my opinion is no, because there are many viable bulky Psychic- and Ghost-types able to check it too.

• Mesprit and Xatu are common checks. I have seen people running Grassy Seed/CM/Stored Power Xatu (which incidentally sweeps this team too) with Thwackey. Digging deeper you can find Uxie, Musharna, and Malamar, the latter two being slow but good set-up sweepers. Sure, you can run Megahorn, but is it worth running it over Zen Headbutt and Stone Edge?
• Bulky Ghosts are not too shabby either, with the majority of them being able to spread statuses. Cofagrigus has great bulk and can set up with either Iron Defense or CM (it shouldn't be C-rank imo). Gourgeist-Super hits surprisingly hard with Poltergeist, while Prankster Sableye and Strength Sap Corsola-Galar are annoying to face. You can run Air Slash for the former as well, but then comes the 4MSS argument.

So yeah, TLDR: Do Not Ban. Thanks for reading.

Edit: grammar
Edit 2: forum post structure

 

[Specs]

The alt identification thread is up! Post your proof of getting reqs there, and best of luck to everyone still laddering!

 

[Lambovino]

hi Jirachirite , i have some questions about your team :

Don't you feel like you built this with the "trying not to lose" state of mind ? From what i see, you had to put a specific core just to prevent virizion to do what he wants (and he can still break through with some special + stone edge sets, especially with some support from his team), and then you were forced to play on a defensive plan not to lose to the other threats that are in the tier. The main problem with virizion isn't that you can't counter it, if you play 6 pokemons that can check each of his sets you'll win against virizion's teams. The main problem is that you can't properly check this pokemon while having the liberty you needs to actually play the tier.
From what i've seen so far, all my builds were going to the exact same process while trying to improve them : playing a lot of defensives checks to viri and then trying not to lose to the rest, but you can't check many mons offensively as the base of your team needs so much defensive ressources to beat virizion (and you can't even play an offense that would always pressure viri because of the things like archeops or the hails that have a really good match up against this playstyle). At the end, you end up always having a defensive based team with 1 or 2 wish users, heal bell, and everyting that goes with it.
Have you tried to make other teams ? If you don't want to lose, all your future teams will look like the one you built, but this is not the only problem.
This team doesn't lose to a particular mon alone, that's a thing. However, how do you respond to a volturn based team, while having no elec immun ? How do you respond to the tier breakers as aggron, while having 0 instant power ?
In conclusion, Virizion forces you to play the same styles (that doesn't even checks all the possible sets properly), but those styles are losing against some other common things that you can find in the tier. I hope that we'll have more liberties after a ban of this pokemon.

 

[shooting star]

Hi Lambovino, to your first question, my answer is a definite yes! Yes, I play to win, and yes, I build balance teams that aim not only to cover Virizion, but other threats as far as possible. While the core I have mentioned serves me well in checking Virizion, they are not exactly deadweight against other match-ups as they are still able at putting in some work, as you can see from the replays I have posted above. Do note that the team that I shared are comprised of Pokemon that are at least A- rank in viability, which means that I am not forced to run other niche Pokemon that specifically check Virizion but are otherwise unviable.

This is, in my opinion, is the whole point of a defensive team: to wear down your opponent primarily by residual damage like entry hazards and status, while ensuring that your own team has enough longevity via support moves such as Wish and Heal Bell. Additionally, all balance/stall teams are bound to have a threat list, notwithstanding our efforts to adequately cover as many threats as possible. The solution to the problem then is learning how to position yourself and make plays that do not give your opponent any free turns. I would also like to point out that the defensive counterplay is not exactly restricted to the aforementioned Poison/Flying/Fairy core from my ladder experience thus far; quite the contrary, in fact.

I do not really have the luxury of time to build, test out, and fine-tune other balance teams though, unfortunately, but here is another replay of me fighting against Virizion using another bulky offense/balance team I have built hours ago: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1268555317-42jwdtf4bipw2gm4b9e1rhp3pvpwz9spw. Incidentally this team has a W-L ratio of 16-4 on a fresh alt so far, so I daresay it is not too bad, though more work can be done to improve this team.

I would then like you (and everyone else) to answer your own question: Have you tried to make other teams? And have you tried out other defensive cores that can cover the whole tier? If Virizion is indeed centralising or broken due to its versatility and unpredictability, are there any replays to substantiate this point? All arguments put forth so far are sound on paper, but do they apply in practice? Convince me otherwise.

EDIT: after further thought, perhaps we should not create a dichotomy between offense and defense, but instead ask ourselves: whether we are able to build slower teams without being invalidated by Virizion but nevertheless viable.

 

[Lambovino]

Thanks for answering!


Before I respond to your questions, I'd like to point out some parts of your post with which I disagree.


First, you are mentioning the fact that the Virizion checks you are using have high utility in the tier and are not dead weight. I agree with that point.
The problem is: are those mons really checking Virizion properly? Indeed, Virizion can easily break through his checks, and even if it does not have the exact set that wins against your 3 pokemon, it can still open a hole for its team (or sweep with some help from the latter).
Another point is that the core you used in your first team was indeed useful against most of Virizion's sets and a good part of the tier, but there are not that many cores that can do both. In a tier where there are a lot of dangerous threats plus Virizion, I don't think you will find many ways to cover everything effectively. One would often like to play some cores that can counter the offensive threats of the metagame, but can't do so properly because of the need to have teams that cover every relevant offensive threat, Virizion first and foremost. The fact that one can’t run a defensive core that has a great match up against most of the offensive metagame safe for Virizion because it would result in a tremendous disadvantage against this mon at team preview really hampers the building creativity. Again, there is an extremely limited amount of defensive cores that can claim to check Virizion along all other relevant threats, and this would easily be solved by merely banning the Sword of justice.


To respond to your questions, I have tried to build many teams, mainly for French tournaments and the suspect test. I obviously tried a number of defensive cores, and, even if I am still learning from other players that are better than me, I think that I located a problem that makes teambuilding really difficult. I don't think that one can properly cover all the match up one may want to at the moment; and what comes closest in doing so is a specific type of builds that forces a restriction on the viable playstyles.


I unfortunately don't have any replays that shows how powerful Virizion is, I didn't really think that I would need some one day. However, I don't think the one you just sent really describes how easy it is to check it properly. Indeed, if I'm not mistaken, you are facing a classic set of Virizion that can easily be checked (at least on a short term) by a poison type pokemon. You played well against it, but the fact that you effortlessly beat this specific set doesn’t showcase how versatile Virizion really can be.


Imagine if Virizion was SD + Zen Headbutt here, after the turn 2 nearly all your team would have been in danger.
Whimsi cannot kill it in one hit and can die to a roll of that boosted attack. Garbodor can die of this attack after a layer of spikes and Gurdurr also fails to check it properly.
You may have a scarf Malamar in the back (if not this is a really difficult situation), but even if you do the opponent just has to switch and come later on a Lanturn switch in.
You can say that you can play around it, but I think this is still a difficult situation for a pokemon that should be easily checked by 2 of your pokemon.


You will just lose a pokemon each time on a bad prediction, but you can only start those "50/50" once you know Virizion’s set, and by that time it might be too late.


If you look at the first team you sent, with Aromatisse, Weezing and Talonflame, here is what can happen : if a Virizion comes for free on regirock in the early game, what do you do?
1- Obviously, bringing talon is a very bad idea, even if you don't know the other 5 pokemon of the opponent you can understand that you will need it later, at least to rk Virizion. Stone Edge is a move that is easy to click in this case, and it would be dumb to lose talon so early like that.
2- So, you bring Weezing or Aromatisse (depending on the opponent's team):
If Aromatisse is your choice, you can either take a hit of a choice specs set (and take a lot if physdef), facing a cm set and lose if you are not cm yourself, or face a SD set against which you can't win. You might think that after that turn you have scouted the set, so you can play in consequence, but this really is not the case : try bringing your talon against a CM set while it reveals Stone Edge, try bringing your Weezing against a +2 boosted Zen Headbutt...
Depending on the set, you never are really safe, and guessing which set it is isn't as easy as in theory. On top of that, even if you succeed in whittling down Virizion’s health with for example rh + LO + aftermath recoil, the pokemon will for sure have taken down what its teams needs if he has the right set.


As a conclusion, the main problems that I see with this pokemon are : that it's really hard to check all of its sets in the teambuilding phase ; that scouting which set it actually possesses in game is by no means an effortless task, but one that can cost you the game. And even after guessing the set and not falling into the lures, Virizion can cause a lot of 50/50.
As I said, I don't have any replays to prove you my point, but I hope the little reconstitution I tried embarked in helped clarifying my opinion!

edit : thanks gman for the help redacting this ily

 

[gum]

hi rlly quick post

and even if it does not have the exact set that wins against your 3 pokemon, it can still open a hole for its team (or sweep with some help from the latter).

i have a really big issue with this being used as an argument. that's exactly what wallbreakers are supposed to do; soften up the walls so then you can clean with your wincon or w/e. if we don't allow them to do that, then what will? we need pokémon capable of beating common defensive cores, without them you end up with extremely stale metas where the same defensive cores can easily be spammed with little to no opportunity cost. and fwiw defensives cores like vaporeon + gigalith are still very usable and solid despite losing to virizion

i already talked about this in my earlier post but, defensive answers are not scarce or bad at all and same goes for offensive ones. from what i've seen and from my personal experience, you don't have to overprep for virizion at all, and you also don't need to go out of your way to find virizion answers. i find the "it can beat all of its answers" argument to be extremely overplayed, because it will more often than not struggle in various matchups due to not having the right set / last slot.

anyway, i'd like to see actual proof of virizion being broken and 6-0ing teams when it shouldn't simply because the opponent was using a solid team prepared for all of its other sets but the one they faced. on paper, i agree with all of the points the pro-ban side has brought up but in practice it just ends up being completely different due to reasons people have already brought up multiple times

 

[zoowi]

hi I wanted to just point out a quick compendium, using the VR as a guide, of high rank VR mons that Viri can switch into safely
these mons, which are from S to A- rank on VR will be categorized in 1 of 3 ways: nope (it cant/very unsafe), iffy (depends on their set + move), and yup (it can) - I should expand on this by I'm only using very basic/well-known sets as a reference, that is, what the Virizion user expects of these mons when seeing them blind, and deciding to send them in or not in an attempt to start wrecking havoc utilizing its 'bulk' - this does not factor in coming in from pivots

Hide

S-Rank

• Archeops nope - outspeeds, can KO
• Virizion iffy - just all around iffy

A-Rank

A+

• Charizard nope - fire/flying attacks are pretty much all this thing does
• Heliolisk nope - hyper voice threatens 2hko and volt switch keeps momentum
• Passimian nope - uturn/cc are the most common moves it throws out, neither it wants to come into
• Regirock iffy - Body Press is a 2hko, chance of status, although it could just be rocking, either way you're still not KOing (unless LO focus blast/leaf storm/giga)
• Scrafty yup - doesn't really threaten it
• Toxicroak iffy - only if you carry Zen (unlikely) and only if it's not going to poison jab
• Vaporeon iffy - dislikes scald burn and is still bulky enough to tank a leaf blade + try again in an emergency, otherwise it wish'd to something that can handle you, thought that does give a chance to SD

A

• Braviary nope - its a bird, will kill you, even edge will not ohko regardless
• Gallade nope - cc + sneak/psychic move both ko, it has does have knock but still thats a big risk, and you're still losing life orb
• Gigalith yup -toxic at worst
• Guzzlord yup - but it will do a chunk
• Magmortar nope - fire bad
• Palossand yup - doesn't do much, toxic at worst
• Ribombee nope - hurts you
• Silvally-Fairy nope - you can't ohko it even if you come into non multi, and it KOs you with multi
• Silvally-Steel iffy - multi does a ton, any move that isn't defog still isn't something you want to deal with (uturn, flame charge)
• Sneasel nope - outspeeds, KOs
• Talonflame big nope
• Togedemaru iffy - iron head is a shaky 2HKO, but again uturn, and it could be scarf, still much in the Viris favor
• Vikavolt iffy - not ohkoing you, but you're not ohkoing it, may gain momentum on you or deal about half
• Weezing nope - even if you're cm, you still don't wanna come in on it
• Whimsicott nope - resists everything and moonblast is an easy 2hko, air slash does not KO

A-

• Arctovish iffy - if it's in and it's hail, welp, you KO it otherwise
• Aromatisse nope - moonblast or wish, then moonblasts you
• Basculin nope - *flipturns u*
• Exeggutor-Alola nope - any of its attacks will cause enough chip it will KO you next turn, you can't KO it
• Jellicent iffy - physical gets burned, special is fine
• Kabutops yup - Viri tanks, flip turn it not as clicked as often as on basc
• Mesprit nope - either too bulky (SR) or too strong and bulky (scarf/atker) uninvested psychic is a 2hko, uturn, healing wish, trick from scarf, all bad
• Rotom iffy - burns, tricks, or volt switches, indirectly ruins you somehow
• Uxie nope - bulkier than mesprit, psychic is a 3HKO, or memento/screens on you
• Vanilluxe nope - ice hurts

out of 34 mons viri can potentially switch into
5 are safe switchins
10 are iffy switchins
leaving 19 as shouldn't really be switching in
yeah I didn't include every mon, maybe I'll add more later

can we infer anything with this current information? I dunno

 

[Ktütverde]

Council Minutes

Hi these are my first Council Minutes, sorry in advance for any English writing mistakes.


Metagame Discussion:

Council has been -as you probably expected- talking about Virizion. We have been unable to actually pinpoint something broken about virizion, since every set has massive flaws. The main discussion revolved around Life Orb Mixed Virizion (LeafStorm CloseCombat StoneEdge ZenHeadbutt/AirSlash), which is apparently the only potentially broken set and by far the most used, allowing it to potentially beat the checks to SwordsDance and CalmMind Virizion at the same time at the cost of its staying power diminished by the Life Orb and statuses. We mostly wondered about whether it was too overwhelming for PU fighting checks. Good posts were made both pro and against Virizion and we went over some of these points, but also discussed the dominance of fighting types in PU...

...indeed, PU features an unbelievable amount of viable fighting types: Virizion obviously, but also Toxicroak, Passimian, Gallade, Scrafty, and the brothers Hitmonlee and Hitmontop. While the use of cores like Weezing+Talonflame could be called centralization around Virizion by some, it might actually not be as such: Fighting types as a whole shape teambuilding more than anything else, and we might need to use 2 or 3 Fighting resists per team, whether Virizion is in the tier or not.

It is also worth looking at the impressive amount of Fighting resists in PU, how different they are, how good they are outside of checking Fightings and how well they synergize together: Weezing, Mesprit, Talonflame, Whimsicott, Palossand, Sandaconda, Garbodor, Aromatisse, Vikavolt, Braviary, Charizard, Uxie are excellent examples. What do you think about Fightings in PU? How does it affect your building? If they are to define the tier, does that make Virizion less banworthy? Should we get rid of Virizion to lessen the burden of stacking Fighting resists? Or will that change nothing? Lots of questions.

Other topics (quickly):

Arctovish was brought up but we feel like it isn't a problem at all due to the presence of bulky waters, weezing and dryskin being commonplace, as well as ChoiceScarf Togedemaru being quite a thing now.

Ice-types (outside of the hail context) were discussed: Sneasel, Aurorus and Sandslash-Alola and Vanilluxie as standalone mons were compared. All have their own perks, even though Sneasel and Sandslash function similarly, just like Aurorus and Vanilluxe do. All in all they all are potent breakers.

Charizard seems to be unexplored and too often left in the shadow of Talonflame.

Archeops is a topic we ended up dropping, since there are two many "if"s surrounding it and it's too difficult to call it an issue with the amount of defensive and offensive counterplay there is. We agreed that it can open holes, but that it is also difficult to bring in, and is too easily forced out.

Whimsicott stood out as the best glass cannon of PU, featuring an incredible speed stat and a typing turning it into one of the best Virizion checks, while having an advantage vs bulky waters, rocks, grounds and fightings. Sneasel and Jolteon, while extremely fast and powerful, were deemed too helpless on the defensive side, and too difficult to build with.


Forum Happenings:

• The Virizion Suspect Test Alt Identification Thread is up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-pu-virizion-suspect-test-alt-identification-thread.3676946/ Thanks Specs. You also have 6 days left to terrorize the ladder with your VST alt.
• The thread Good Cores is back! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-pu-good-cores.3664886/#post-8731138 Thanks Raahel.
• And the Next Best Thing! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...heops-submissions.3669868/page-3#post-8725166 Thanks Bulbabrain.
• Are you competing in the PU Classic which features 4 Cups? You can check how many points you have with this spreadsheet https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-pu-classic-iv-commencement.3675426/#post-8730997 added by Akir, thanks.

Tournaments:

• DPP cup signups !! Come play a tier where PU stands for Purugly!!!! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-dpp-pu-cup-signups.3676996/ Thanks Brandon.
• BW cup round1 is live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bw-pu-cup-round-1.3676981/#post-8731032 Thanks Meri Berry.
• ORAS cup round2 is live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-pu-cup-round-2.3677026/#post-8731100 Thanks Skipkan.
• SM cup round3 is live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sm-pu-cup-round-3.3677003/ Thanks Raahel.
• LTPL has reached week6: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/lower-tier-premier-league-iii-week-6.3677008

That's all! Have a good week everyone. Feel free to make a post about your stance on Virizion too! sprites from serebii.net (pokédex)

 

[shooting star]

Hi everyone. I happen to be lurking around on Discord and come across this conversation about me. Here is my response.

• If I have irritated you with my long ass post, then that is too bad, I guess.
• Obviously my main point is not to proclaim that hey, I did well using this passive team with Aromatisse + Tflame + Weezing, so no ban. I already explained that there are many other Pokemon like Psychics and Ghosts that are just as capable of checking Virizion; the team that I have built and posted is merely an example.
• On hindsight, I should not have described in detail how my team works, what a waste of time.
• Why did I make that post? I wanted to explain that trash HO is not the only way to beat Virizion. I tried to be objective and share that balance is still able to work in the current meta, based from my experience.
• Why did I post so many replays? It is to show how the team works against not only Virizion, but against the whole meta in general. Last time I checked, replays are useful in furthering your argument.
• I didn’t know it is criminal to have an opinion that Arctovish is more centralising lol. That being said, I acknowledge that there are just as many viable Pokemon capable at checking Arctovish.
• I merely pointed out that Hitmontop checks hail HO pretty well. So now I have a boner?
• I already acknowledged the flaws of my hail HO team, so is that right or wrong?

With that out of the way, here are my concluding thoughts.

• Ladder scrubs should not be commenting on Smogon forums. But then where else can random people like me go to share their experience and thoughts about the metagame?
• I’m still going to comment when I feel like doing so (not that I post a lot anyway, lol). Nevertheless, I feel that the whole community stands to benefit if everyone learns how to be a little less condescending.

Cheers.

 

[Squash]

Hello there! This is probably the first time I make a post to share my opinion on a Pokemon suspect tested, so here we go (Sorry in advance for my English). From what I learned playing on the ladder with a team that hasn't 3 pokemons to check 1 set of virizion (lol), the main issue we have with virizion is his incredible versatility. Indeed, even if the probability to have the good set to counter the good team isn't that high, it still relies on the "luck" if I could call it like that, and most of the time, virizion will be extremely painful to deal with. One of the way you could try to check it is the defensive approach, with poison types etc.. But even with pokemons like Weezing or Garbodor, which are super easy to chip with EH or because of their lack of recovery, it's still really hard to check it on the long term : Virizion's users are in most of the case using it in an offensive team, with momentum control, making the effectiveness of this approach not as good as it is on paper. Then you can try to check it offensively with stuff like Whimsicott or Vikavolt, but you can't know the exact set of virizion until he reveals his 3 moves and his item, because as I said earlier, people can run many variant sets that could lure your offensive check. Moreover, it isn't possible to guess what is the set with only one or two moves revealed. For exemple, if the opponent uses Calm Mind, it doesn't mean Giga Drain/Focus Blast/Air Slash are his 3 last moves. And a third way to deal with it, use as much EH as you can. But with gen8, Heavy-Duty-Boots became one of the most used item, and personally, I think Virizion with boots is a really solid way to play it. As a conclusion, I have a good mind to vote BAN, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, even if it looks like the other posted before. peace :D
-Squash

edit: s/o McSim for the re-reading

 

[Leni]

View attachment 311533​

Hi everyone. I happen to be lurking around on Discord and come across this conversation about me. Here is my response.

• If I have irritated you with my long ass post, then that is too bad, I guess.
• Obviously my main point is not to proclaim that hey, I did well using this passive team with Aromatisse + Tflame + Weezing, so no ban. I already explained that there are many other Pokemon like Psychics and Ghosts that are just as capable of checking Virizion; the team that I have built and posted is merely an example.
• On hindsight, I should not have described in detail how my team works, what a waste of time.
• Why did I make that post? I wanted to explain that trash HO is not the only way to beat Virizion. I tried to be objective and share that balance is still able to work in the current meta, based from my experience.
• Why did I post so many replays? It is to show how the team works against not only Virizion, but against the whole meta in general. Last time I checked, replays are useful in furthering your argument.
• I didn’t know it is criminal to have an opinion that Arctovish is more centralising lol. That being said, I acknowledge that there are just as many viable Pokemon capable at checking Arctovish.
• I merely pointed out that Hitmontop checks hail HO pretty well. So now I have a boner?
• I already acknowledged the flaws of my hail HO team, so is that right or wrong?

With that out of the way, here are my concluding thoughts.

• Ladder scrubs should not be commenting on Smogon forums. But then where else can random people like me go to share their experience and thoughts about the metagame?
• I’m still going to comment when I feel like doing so (not that I post a lot anyway, lol). Nevertheless, I feel that the whole community stands to benefit if everyone learns how to be a little less condescending.

Cheers.

Hi Jirachite,

Great posts honestly. Gives me good flashbacks to point when I started to post and got more familiar with smogon, thanks to Mirbro. I used to use (and still do) all kind of sleeper picks while building and have found the game being more entertaining that way. Imo this also develops the meta game way more than spamming only A+ mons on VR. Not being actively part of the community and only known as 'ladder hero' who only stalls or tries to flinch with Sawsbusken lead people trash talking, being arrogant and generally being rude for no reason. Neither familiar name from other tiers/having success in tournaments. Like, why even bother to provide any kind of content if thats all we can get in return? "Fun fact" I only signed up for the God Among Us PU tournament to see if these so called "PU tourmanent" players are as good as they were saying - once again, I blame Mirbro.

What have actually changed from those times within couple years? Welp, this is internet, so not too much unfortunately. Couple old faces have disappeared and replaced with newer ones to continue the story line with new players. I think your original post already was good post about Virizion and had nothing wrong in itself. You pointed out things well, went through your thought process and provided even replays.

• On hindsight, I should not have described in detail how my team works, what a waste of time.

Actually, please keep describing. I'm always down to see people thought processes behind teams and what lead them to use X or Y things. Could teach trick or two to me as well.

• I didn’t know it is criminal to have an opinion that Arctovish is more centralising lol. That being said, I acknowledge that there are just as many viable Pokemon capable at checking Arctovish.

Whereas you think Arctovish centralizes the meta, I think Archeops is very problematic and centralizes building a lot. I think removing it from our tier it would free building quite a bit. Pointing these things out is good, keep them coming in future.

• I merely pointed out that Hitmontop checks hail HO pretty well. So now I have a boner?

Honestly, whenever theres good buzz going, it looks like you've done something right. Hitmontop is underrated in this meta and extremely good in my opinion. Since it got triple axel, it became great glue. Good move pool and stats paired with ability gives it room to do multiple things. That was weird call off, but just saying, use more hitmontop guys.

• Ladder scrubs should not be commenting on Smogon forums. But then where else can random people like me go to share their experience and thoughts about the metagame?
• I’m still going to comment when I feel like doing so (not that I post a lot anyway, lol). Nevertheless, I feel that the whole community stands to benefit if everyone learns how to be a little less condescending.

Hala Ladder Scrubs!

Ladder is arguably super underrated within community for whatever excuse. All alone during this suspect test we have seen lot of common faces struggling to get what? 35 games together with 80% gxe? Instead of complaining how irrelevant ladder is to play, how about take a look on your own team and plays. Is your team actually that good as you're trying to say? Are you actually playing it optimally out or did your opponent hard predict you to do X move and you felt for it? Ladder is more casual place for sure than tournaments, but theres still good bunch of good players around. Not to mention Ktutverde for example messing with mono-psychic and beating people. Laddering with friends is actually good way to spend time and play casually

Keep posting buddy! Let haters hate and bring up your thoughts in future too more actively. Looking forward what you have on you mind next time, good stuff,

To others, lets try to argue with some manners, shall we.

Cheers

 

[BulbaBrain]

Okay I've wanted to do this post for a long time now but I've been super busy in the past two weeks so here we go.

Just so I get my central line of argument out there I will be voting ban and what's going to happen with this post I'm going to run through a bunch of common no-ban arguments and reply to them with my pro-ban arguments, and put across somewhat new and explained arguments.

No-Ban Argument #1 (Are you saying the wallbreaker is not allowed to wallbreak?)

No. At least not me. There is absolutely no problem with Virizion wallbreaking. The problem is with its heavily limited counterplay, which leads to Virizion limiting teambuilding and being overcentralising. zS said it himself. You can't build a team so focused on countering Virizion and making Virizion have the worst matchup in the world, prove that it beats Virizion and say Virizion isn't broken. By building that team that so many people have gone through posts about, you have only proved that Virizion limits teambuilding and its centralising. Why else would you build that team?

As pointed out beforehand, Virizion has limited counterplay, and its coverage and speed prove it. When you have to go through a 50/50 every turn to make sure Virizion does not sweep your team (or if not a sweep, kills half and chips the other before a revenge killer comes in), even when you have a Talonflame/Weezing/Aromatisse core (which is obviously the worst matchup possible), I don't see how people think that this is not broken.

Take for example that Virizion comes in on a Claydol, and you have a Talonflame/Aromatisse in the back. You can't switch in Talonflame because if Viri clicks Stone Edge you die, if you go Aromatisse, you can't OHKO Virizion and if it SDs you die. If you stay in you die if he clicks Leaf Blade and all you can do is guess your opponent's move, and your opponent has the advantage because not only does he know the Virizion set, but he has the momentum in battle as well. And then what if you don't have a Talonflame/Weezing/Aromatisse in the back? Does Virizion just get a free kill to let your revenge killer in? What if said Virizion has support for scarfers like Toxicroak and Passimian and can just switch out and back in after your revenge killers are gone?

Now obviously some people will argue "but getting free kills is what wallbreakers do", or something along the lines of "just play better", or "just make sure you don't have a losing matchup". First off, this wallbreaker isn't Perrserker from July - it's fast and his limited mons that outspeed it, and it can set up on unexpecting opponents that lose the 50/50, and although Perrserker was very threatening, it was easily revenge killed and was predictable - it didn't put you in 50/50s that potentially loses you the game. Secondly, 'just playing better' doesn't mean anything when an originally reasonable matchup against the metagame is losing because 1 stupid mon puts you in a constant guessing game which you are more than half of the time losing. Furthermore, making sure you don't have a losing matchup basically means putting at least one of Talonflame, Poison type and Aromatisse into every single team you make, and if that's not centralising, I don't know what is.

No-Ban Argument #2 (We have a bunch of scarfers that kill it, and Talonflame and stuff)

And? What is this trying to say? That you're able to force Virizion out? Every mon has stuff that forces it out! Be real here, every single Pokemon we have banned in the past wasn't because it had nothing to force it out or revenge kill it. Take Roserade, way too powerful, has Sleep Powder, opens up for sweepers while inevitably paralyzing a mon on the opponents team as it takes kills for granted with its base 125 Special Attack. The mon had counters and the mon had a bunch of things capable of forcing it out. Does that make it not broken for this tier? Hell no. This argument is nonsensical and proving absolutely nothing. Virizion is centralising and provides unprecedented amounts of pressure while building and while in-battle. That's what matters, not whether or not it has checks. Prove that Virizion isn't centralising and then we'll talk.

No-Ban Argument #3 (In practice its not as good as it is on paper)

I honestly don't really know what to say to this one. From what I've seen there haven't been replays that have shown Virizion isn't very good in some matches without the opposing team desperately trying to counter the mon. And I'm not going to provide calcs or replays of my own. I don't need replays to show that Virizion is overcentralising, and people have provided enough calcs to show that Virizion is threatening. At this point we can all agree that Virizion is a very potent sweeper and I'm not going to waste time proving that.

On that note: saying this means not very much whatsoever if you don't provide 'in practice material' yourself. Saying 'in practice, in practice' and having people agree with you also means nothing because you have no proof whatsoever and its totally subjective to who you are talking to and who is agreeing with you.

No-Ban Argument #4 (Virizion doesn't have many mons it can switch in into)

Yes, thank you, you proved a pattern, but a pattern that goes for pretty much every single offensive mon ever. Because I would like to see whether or not my Virizion can switch into a Toxicroak matters right? And similarly, Archeops doesn't want to switch into Heliolisk... right? Virizion abuses free switch ins and slow VoltTurnTele to the maximum, so not being able to switch in to some mons doesn't really matter at all tbh.

Okay that's it for me:
tl;dr Virizion is centralising deal with it, its practically been proven already and saying 'in practice its not very good' means not very much.

Something else I'd like to mention is let's not be so aggressive on this thread, calling people 'ladder scrubs' (and zS is definitely not a 'ladder scrub' lol, btw thx tlenit for explaining that ladder is underrated and this term means nothing and is condescending), and implying people are stupid for saying Arctovish is more centralising (and trust me its not, and I won't get into this because it is a waste of time) is kinda rude ngl. We're all friends around here and saying something like "I’m still going to comment when I feel like doing so" out of spite makes the thread feel like a big childish brawl - nobody's stopping you from posting. Nobody is stopping anybody from disagreeing either, so don't make a big deal out of it and take it easy. Everybody has a different opinion and even if their character isn't the kindest when theyre ranting about your post, ignoring it 100% makes you look like the better person so do that instead.

Thanks for reading!
- Braindead Bulba who just finished his exams so this post might have really bad grammar

 

[zS]

View attachment 311533​

Hi everyone. I happen to be lurking around on Discord and come across this conversation about me. Here is my response.

• If I have irritated you with my long ass post, then that is too bad, I guess.
• Obviously my main point is not to proclaim that hey, I did well using this passive team with Aromatisse + Tflame + Weezing, so no ban. I already explained that there are many other Pokemon like Psychics and Ghosts that are just as capable of checking Virizion; the team that I have built and posted is merely an example.
• On hindsight, I should not have described in detail how my team works, what a waste of time.
• Why did I make that post? I wanted to explain that trash HO is not the only way to beat Virizion. I tried to be objective and share that balance is still able to work in the current meta, based from my experience.
• Why did I post so many replays? It is to show how the team works against not only Virizion, but against the whole meta in general. Last time I checked, replays are useful in furthering your argument.
• I didn’t know it is criminal to have an opinion that Arctovish is more centralising lol. That being said, I acknowledge that there are just as many viable Pokemon capable at checking Arctovish.
• I merely pointed out that Hitmontop checks hail HO pretty well. So now I have a boner?
• I already acknowledged the flaws of my hail HO team, so is that right or wrong?

With that out of the way, here are my concluding thoughts.

• Ladder scrubs should not be commenting on Smogon forums. But then where else can random people like me go to share their experience and thoughts about the metagame?
• I’m still going to comment when I feel like doing so (not that I post a lot anyway, lol). Nevertheless, I feel that the whole community stands to benefit if everyone learns how to be a little less condescending.

Cheers.

Hi bud, I’m writing this cuz I wanted to apologize if I sounded condescending or if I hurt you with my discord post who I admit was rly rough. My point was moreso about how your argument even if it was meant to be pro-dnb was clearly showing how centralizing Virizion is. I have no excuse for my tone so I’m sorry again, and my goal wasn’t to stop you from posting, like not at all. So please as a tl;dr of this rly small post, don’t stop posting, continue sharing your thoughts and I’ll try next time to answer in a more formal way and to be less aggressive.