★ np: SS UU Stage 7 - Hungry Like the Wolf (DLC2 plans - see post #42)

[Hogg]

Jirachi is a fading memory, and this post-OLT shift also saw some other big shake-ups, including our favorite big metal bird flying off to the greener pastures of OU. As the meta has settled over the past couple of weeks, one threat in particular has been cementing itself as particularly dangerous: Lycanroc-Dusk.

The Dusky Dog has long been a top threat in UU, having received a gigantic buff this gen in Close Combat. Boosted by Tough Claws, Close Combat does even more damage than Stone Edge, while also possessing significantly better accuracy and offensive typing. With its incredible Speed tier, two strong priority moves in Tough Claws-boosted Accelerock and Sucker Punch, and a great offensive movepool that includes Crunch to punch through Psychic types or Iron Head to threaten Galarian Weezing, Lycanroc has managed to even jump ahead of Terrakion as the number one breaker and cleaner in the tier.

Lycanroc-Dusk has been on the cusp of being voted on several times before, but always a more pressing threat has emerged. However, the recent shifts and bans have been especially kind to it. Losing Jirachi meant losing one of the few Scarfers that didn't fear a +2 Accelerock (though Sucker Punch was still a threat). Losing Skarmory meant waving goodbye to one of the few defensive Pokemon that could live an attack at +2 and KO back with Body Press.

While Lycanroc-Dusk is incredibly threatening, all is not perfect for the Very Good Boy. Its poor bulk means it has difficulty setting up without Screens support, leading many teams to abandon SD altogether in favor of four attacks with a Life Orb or Choice Band. It also is not entirely devoid of checks. Galarian Weezing is still an excellent pivot (though it must beware of Iron Head or Psychic Fangs, both of which 2HKO even defensive Weezing unboosted). Other good fighting checks such as Colbur Palossand can comfortably come into Lycanroc as long as Colbur is not broken. And on the offensive end, Scarf users that resist Rock or Dark, especially Fighting types, serve as excellent checks even if they do not switch in.

So, we open the question to the community: should Lycanroc-Dusk remain in UU? The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

Other than that, the test will operate as always. There will be no suspect ladder. Instead, the standard UU ladder will remain open. Those who wish to participate in this suspect test will instead use a fresh, suspect-specific alt. All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! UU ladder on a fresh alt with the following format: "UU7L (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UU7L Hogg to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.

Participants will have until Friday, September 25 at 8:59 PM GMT -4 to meet voting requirements and post in the Alt Identification Thread. Happy laddering!

Current UU Council

Adaam
Amane Misa
CBU
Donphantastic
Freeroamer
Hogg
Indigo Plateau
Lilburr
Moutemoute
Sabella
TDK
TonyFlygon
vivalospride

 

[Moutemoute]

Justice for washing gif Doggo ​

 

[Senhorolho]

Never tried getting reqs before but i'm doing it for this one. :)

 

[Chemical_Jackfruit]

It's nice that with a few movepool changes certain mons can be huge threats and even be better then things they were outclassed by. Imma try to do some reqs

 

[kino]

Hide

[20:08] +low lader bae 2: oml i must spy the neighbors dog

Yo so got reqs already somehow (dropping that just in case)

My thoughts on droggo are overall rather straightforward, it's offensively broken & annoying to face and prep for. Every check it could have is prone to get chipped through good doubles and die in the long run. Lycan's also really good at punching holes in teams for more offensive oriented builds and that's rather annoying too. On top of that, it's defensive utility through access to priority (both accel & sucker) and really good speed tier make it usable outside of offensive builds, as a wallbreaker that can revenge kill some set up sweepers after minor chip (either faster frail things like poltea or things that don't hit 350). Basically one can see a dog in every playstyle outside of stall, and thus prep for it has to be consistent.

When building, this means you'll have to pack a bunch of stuff to keep it in check, and that's sometimes painful. Most of its hardest checks can't even eat two times the super effective coverage (non full pdef rhyp drops, slowbro has 80% to do so as well, doublade eats but has no way to heal itself at all). This means that failing one prediction can end up in losing ur check, which on top of that shouldn't solely be here to check lycanroc, opening holes in your team. If you want to be sorta safe you'd have to rely on stuff like pdef rhyperior or mudsdale, which while not unplayable can't just fit in every team.
Since most can't eat two super effective hits (or one +2 se hit), bulkier teams will likely want a faster scarf user that's not prone to die to accelrock. Fortunately enough we have some tools for that (Zarude, Mienshao, Keldeo, Rotoms somewhat,), but that still sorta restrains your choice in terms of speed control.

In spite of this, I think that Lycan actually has qualities worth mentioning. It's speed tier is really nice to revenge kill some of our scariest offensive threats, most notably all the stuff hitting 105-8 ; like the blades and non scarfed zarude. Access to priority is also really nice in that matter, being able to pick off smashers, mons like noivern and even cheesier stuff like sun abusers/np alolachu (for what it's worth) after decent chip.

The most annoying thing for me concerning Lycanroc is how it just clicks. If you get one prediction wrong against it you're likely to lose a mon and be pressured by it for the rest of the game. Some games being decided on whether stone edge hits or not and lycan ties showcases that pretty well. It also has this unpredictability factor, since it has so many options to run as a 4th slot. Crunch is obviously the to go move rn, but you still gotta watch out for sd sets, mostly. I'll be voting ban, despite its qualities and the fact that I consider the argument "it chips itself down" sorta valid.

Here's the team I used through a big part of my suspect run, if anyone's interested

 

[solonor24]

my fuckin mcdonalds internet made me play a couple more games than i had wished

Anyways, I will be voting NO BAN on Lycanroc-dusk formation. I'll break down what this mon does in my eyes and why I feel this way.

Lycanroc is a premier offensive threat in uu, with an amazing speed tier that allows it to outspeed coballion/terrakion/keldeo, which is always amazing since the 346 speed benchmark is always clutch in uu tiers. It has all the textbook coverage u can ask for along with 2 options of priority and swords dance. On paper, this sounds completely busted. But in practice, I've realized this mon is a little overrated. Not saying that it's bad its obviously great but to say its broken I think is a bit of a stretch.

For starters, it has severe 4 move slot syndrome. You cannot fit all of stone edge/accelrock/cc/sucker/psychic fang/crunch//iron head/swords dance all on one set. I find that it's pretty easy to tell which moves it will have on preview; if the opponent has a steel type, they will likely not have iron head, etc etc. Some comparisons I've thought of is mega metagross in oras ou, and mega aero in sm uu, who were both deemed great pokemon but not an overwhelming presence by any means. Lycan will also never get a chance to sd 90% of the time if your a competent player, or will get severely chipped in the process of doing so.

Next, the uu tier has plenty of counterplay for this Pokemon. I've never seen a Lycanroc and went "noooooooo I've lost". Rhyperior, Cleric Sylveon, Bulky Waters, steels in general (doublade, esca, chople coba), wisp weezing galar, wisp rotom wash, gastrodon, reunicles, pallosand, and much much more. All of these are commonly seen pokemon/sets and do not force the user into using some random bullshit techs or anything.

I will now paste my signature team that everyone's been stealing from me (I should sue some of you.)
https://pokepast.es/8ed2fcf27e749311

Tell me how in the world is Lycanroc ever gonna break this? I haven't lost once to one using this team.

Overall, I feel this mon is totally healthy in this metagame for reasons stated above. I would argue there are actually different mons that are more broken than it but ig thats a discussion for another day.

 

[Band]

Couldn't get the reqs for the Frogman in NatDex but this one I'm determined to get!

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

Alright, our li'l grace period for reactionary posts has run its course. From here on, please be sure you follow the new UU Posting Guide and don't make substanceless posts!

 

[ramolost]

did too much games lol im dumb but enough of your clownery solo !

For starters, it has severe 4 move slot syndrome. You cannot fit all of stone edge/accelrock/cc/sucker/psychic fang/crunch//iron head/swords dance all on one set. I find that it's pretty easy to tell which moves it will have on preview; if the opponent has a steel type, they will likely not have iron head, etc etc.

okay first part is true even if it never needs pfang (vileplume lol ??? clownery) or sucker (rachi lol ???). i agree that fitting every moves on lycan is kind of hard and it really needs both edge and accel imo but w/e. second part is clownery : you can fit everything on lycan depends the team. ok if the guy cant break sylv then his lycan will be iron head but you can still easily slap iron head on w/e team especially when most lycan are aoa.

and mega aero in sm uu, who were both deemed great pokemon but not an overwhelming presence by any means. Lycan will also never get a chance to sd 90% of the time if your a competent player, or will get severely chipped in the process of doing so.

Next, the uu tier has plenty of counterplay for this Pokemon. I've never seen a Lycanroc and went "noooooooo I've lost". Rhyperior, Cleric Sylveon, Bulky Waters, steels in general (doublade, esca, chople coba), wisp weezing galar, wisp rotom wash, gastrodon, reunicles, pallosand, and much much more. All of these are commonly seen pokemon/sets and do not force the user into using some random bullshit techs or anything.

okay thats where the clownery start. beside his typing lycan has nothing in common with maero ?? but w.e. the second part is worse lol. lycan will never get a SD against a competant player ??? this means that everytime lycan will in against one of your mon, or at least most of the time, there will be a 50/50 between : is lycan clicking SD or is it clicking CC i.e. am i losing a mon or am i losing the game. this is the definition of unhealthy.

and already had a discussion about this with solo but i'll drop a calc for the "counterplay" (they all get 2HKOed)

bunch of useless calc to prove that im right

252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 185-218 (42.6 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (even if full def rhyp is an unset it will easily drop)
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Dusk Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sylveon: 187-220 (47.4 - 55.8%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
(iron head does more)

okay so bulky water (aka slowbro)

252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 187-221 (47.4 - 56%) -- 79.3% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Crunch vs. 252 HP / 64 Def Tentacruel: 177-209 (48.6 - 57.4%) -- 52.3% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery (also adding tenta to this since it resists close combat even if this spread is dogshit)

now steels :

252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 148 Def Escavalier: 172-203 (50 - 59%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (solo spread)
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Chople Berry Cobalion: 329-387 (101.8 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO (this is a check if it doesnt click SD spoiler it will)
okay doublade is the only good one who is surviving a crunch but bye doublade if it gets a bit of chip
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Crunch vs. 212 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Doublade: 257-304 (82.3 - 97.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Weezing-Galar: 179-213 (53.5 - 63.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
el famoso weezing

stopping the list here the only thing which checks it is palo if somehow you keep the colbur (lol). theres offensive counterplay of course (indeedee shao krook vacuum luke flygon mmq bulky starmie bish terrak panda keldeo but they are all forced to run a scarf bar luke and mmq and bulky starmie so they are all easy to punish once they are locked or easy to switch in to preserve the dog.
ok lycan is frail as shit and it will struggle to set up but what lycan does is forcing unhealthy 50/50 and cleaning games because of the lack of counterplays to it. i'll vote ban :P

 

[Adaam]

barks and rec (Lycanroc-Dusk) @ Life Orb
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Accelerock
- Crunch
- Iron Head

You don't need any other moves. SD, Psychic Fangs, and Sucker Punch are luxuries at best and Stone Edge hits like 1 mon hard. These 4 2HKO the entire tier except a 100% Doublade and Colbur Berry Palossand. It seems bizarre to suspect test Lycanroc in a Terrakion tier, but the slightly better speed, Rock-type priority, and Dark-type coverage is undescribably good for it. This mon forces Cobalion and Krook into suboptimal Chople Berry and makes any scarfer that can't handle Lycan unviable. Losing Skarm and Rachi made it that much better too, losing a viable Scarfer and the 1 mon that forced it to use SD to break it.

 

[okispokis]

Well, I may not actually have the skill necessary to participate in this suspect, but on the subject of Dusk-roc: initially, I didn't find this thing to be too overwhelming. Then we lost Skarmory, and I realized that this thing is actually really damn hard to answer defensively. STAB and Close Combat are naturally really good, and he just happens to get Crunch for Slowbro and Palossand and Iron Head/Psychic Fangs for Geezing. Second, his speed tier makes him pretty hard to revenge kill without Starmie, a Scarfer or strong priority (Noivern does not want to take Accelerock). Sure, I've been able to play around Duskroc, but it was no easy feat (as seen in this replay, where +1 Crunch devastates my Bold Bro: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1181868521). Thus, I would probably vote Ban if I could; it's kind of crazy how the loss of one mon can make you realize just how insane another mon is.

In terms of general meta stuff, my test of Trick Darmanitan (as detailed on the last thread) gave me some observations that I kind of wanted to talk about, several of which are directly a result of my team.

Quite simply, Slowbro is currently the best physical wall in the tier. I've previously detailed how sturdy this thing can be against some of the scariest physical attackers in the tier, especially being able to punish them with Scald and further bolster its resilience. True, Geezing has the benefit of far fewer weaknesses (especially with Levitate), but I've found Bro more than makes up for it thanks to having no shortage of recovery, unlike Geezing, who has to rely on Pain Split for recovery, as well as pivoting in Teleport. I feel that part of the reason Bro is so good right now is largely because of what a big hole Skarmory left when it flew on up to OU; it's hard to deny the metal bird's absence left a big demand for physical walls (especially with the likes of Duskroc running around). Of course, Bro isn't perfect: like any defensive mon, it can easily be worn down, even with Slack Off and Regen, if the player is overreliant on its abilities, a real concern given how many strong physical attackers are running around right now.

Over the course of my laddering experience, I kind of fell in love with Slowbro-Sylveon as a defensive core. And it would seem I'm not alone, if Sylveon's recent rise through the viability rankings is anything to go on. Sylveon is a fantastic partner for Bro, being the special yang to Bro's physical yin, good defensive synergy in Sylv's resistances to Bug and Dark and Bro's to Steel, and last but not least Sylveon's access to Heal Bell, healing Bro of any pesky status that may hinder its longevity. Sylveon also has several distinctions of its own; even with minimal investment, its Pixilate Hyper Voice hits pretty hard against a lot of the specially frailer mons. It also just completely blanks Noivern (outside of Switcheroo, which I have not seen at all, even on lower ladder), and spreads Wish to make it arguably the best cleric in the tier.

My thoughts on Krook are- confused. If there's one trend that I noticed on the ladder, it's that a lot of teams seem to be stocking up on mons that are naturally good against Krook; there were quite a few matches where 5 of my opponent's 6 mons had super effective STAB against Krook, and yet many of them actually had good type synergy. I get that some naturally good mons like Terrak, Duskroc and Bro are everywhere right now, but they were only the tip of the iceberg. This was especially true of waters- Krook got KOed so much by water types that I actually considered swapping Chople Berry for Passho at one point. Even with Intimidate, Krook has an unnaturally hard time coming in. And yet- it actually still performed on a consistent basis. In a weird way, this just goes to show how good Krookodile is right now, in that it can somehow still make legit progress for the team despite having so many mons that should be able to invalidate it. I'm still curious as to why the 5 SE STABs thing was so common in my experience, though, even past low ladder.

Other Mons I want to talk about

Outside of Duskroc, Starmie is honestly the mon that I had the most trouble playing around. This thing is one of the fastest mons in the tier and packs absurdly great coverage, most troublesome Thunderbolt, which means that you can't rely on opposing Waters to counter it. With three attacks and Recover (which Star can effectively utilize because of just how many things it scares out), Life Orb Star is really damn terrifying for something I don't see many people talking about. It can also pack Rapid Spin to add utility for its team, although Spin variants are considerably easier to play around. t's definitely not broken or anything, but if Duskroc gets banned I expect this thing to pick up even more traction since it doesn't enjoy boosted Accelerock.

Slowking is kind of in an awkward position right now; Slowbro and Starmie are just overall better fits for the current meta, and higher tiers these days don't usually have that much room for 3 mons of the exact same type. Bro is overall better than King because of how physically oriented the tier's offensive mons are, making it one of the best mons in the tier right now. Star is able to overcome the same type issue with Bro thanks to its drastically different role. Sure, King is still good in a vacuum, but I fear it may have a hard time getting usage thanks to competition from the other two Water/Psychics.

Despite being quite good, I really haven't seen either of these two that much. Doublade primes itself as a surprisingly good sweepers with Swords Dance and bulk from Eviolite, especially thanks to priority in Shadow Sneak. If your SE hitters are weakened enough, this thing easily cleans late-game. But, I can see the argument of how Doublade requires team support due to its lack of recovery, in spite of what it can reap.

More confusing is Chansey: while I've occasionally seen Doublade, I have literally not seen one Chansey in my time laddering. This is rather baffling to me. After all, Eviolite makes this thing absurdly difficult to take out without Knock Off, especially with Natural Cure letting it shrug off status; on paper, this thing should arguably be just as a good a partner to Slowbro as Sylveon, as its even more specially bulky, also has Wish and Heal Bell, has defensive utility with Bro for shrugging off Ghost and Fighting moves, respectively, additional utility in Rocks, instant recovery as opposed to needing Wish and can pivot with Teleport (albeit not with Wish). So why does it seem like nobody is using this thing? Well, I have some ideas as to why:

1. Chansey is overwhelmed by a lot of physical threats. Chansey may only have one weakness, but that weakness includes Close Combat, one of the best attacking moves right now given that everyone and their grandma gets it this gen. Being weak to the STAB of Terrakion, Cobalion and Keldeo, as well as not handling Duskroc super well at all are not good qualities for a defensive UU mon right now. U-turn spam is also just as much a hassle as ever. Most damning of all, though, may be just how many physical threats carry Knock Off; it may just be one move that cripples it, but when that one move is really common it becomes a bit of an issue. Chansey's resistance-less defensive typing also means it can't really leverage its typing to take some resisted hits like Sylveon can. However, I think it may also be:
2. Boots. Just- Boots. Since their intro this gen, Heavy Duty Boots have become hyped to the point that I think their mere existence has hurt Chansey. For starters, Boots led to Blissey finally taking back its OU role from its prior state. Even in UU, though, I think that Boots hurt the egg because the sheer amount of hype they get has convinced many that they are essential for any would be pivot- which Chansey is now thanks to Teleport. However, using Boots means that Chansey isn't using Eviolite, aka the whole reason it's a higher tier mon in the first place. This item debate is one that many other defensive mons, namely Slowbro, don't really have to struggle with; even defensive mons that don't use Boots can still run whatever item they do choose without having to worry about what they're giving up in exchange. As such, I think this reason may be a matter of players being convinced that Chansey is trash (which it is in a way, just not that way) because it can't reliably run Boots without just folding to the bevy of scary physical attackers, and so the focus is on how worn down Chansey gets from all those Rocks and Spikes or its physical squishiness. What I'm saying is that Chansey's struggle for use may be just as much a psychological thing as a practical thing. After all, why use a defensive mon that naturally requires more support than say, something that effectively bypass hazards or synergizes perfectly with something else that can?
3. Chansey is really passive. This has also been true, but in light of the Boots vs Eviolite thing it becomes really apparent. Chansey does not move the battle along; it is that way by design. Its only relevant attacking move is a fixed damage move that can't even touch Ghost types. Which is not ideal given how offensively oriented UU can be and because other walls don't struggle with this; Sylveon, as previously mentioned, as well as Geezing can still do meaningful damage with their attacks, while the likes of Slowbro and Palossand use their STABs to provide extra utility, whether by burning, SpD drops or forcing enemy positioning in the case of Bro's Future Sight (plus getting SE hits on some key threats). Chansey's natural level of passivity just isn't that appealing in UU right now.

Just some quick (ha!) thoughts I wanted to get out. I'd be interested in hearing other's thoughts, though (especially since it might turn out that I just happen to be in the one region where no one uses Chansey and it's actually super common everywhere else. This post is just about stuff that I've personally seen).

 

[Aberforth]

Reqs

Got reqs, Lycanroc seems too good to me, I'll be voting ban when the time comes. The pressure it exuded was unreal and it seemed like there was nothing that I played that wasnt built either around it, or around stopping specifically it.

 

[ausma]

Hello it is me--school is cracking down like hell on me, so I don't really have too much time to get reqs; I'll give a shot at it though. For now I'd like to give my thoughts and experiences on MURDER DOG that I hope will help you guys in voting.



I've been screwing with Lycanroc a lot since its dawning in the tier, and even with Skarmory to keep it in check, it has been an undeniably top tier wallbreaker. There are a few notable reasons as to why this is, from its pivotal speed tier, to its sheer damage output, and to the utility of Accelerock; we know this already. However, I think Lycanroc's explosive, suspect-worthy viability comes hugely in part to its new, Tough Claws-boosted coverage.

1: Close Combat

This is likely the biggest reason Lycanroc is so powerful now, and, in my opinion, makes Lycanroc the superior Rock-type wallbreaker between it and Terrakion, too. The advent of Close Combat has completely changed the landscape for Lycanroc, gracing it with the ultimate middle ground option that, thanks to Tough Claws and its extremely promising Fighting-type, is able to cleave through non-resists with ease. Despite not being a STAB move, Tough Claws makes this Lycanroc's strongest, natural move, even moreso than its STAB Stone Edge by 6 BP, and the move to click in most situations thanks to its sheer power and great type offensively. As such, a gigantic setback from Gen 7 in the form of 4MSS has been greatly alleviated and single-handedly transformed it from a fringe wallbreaker into an extremely potent threat in the tier. Choosing to run your Lycanroc without Close Combat is putting yourself on a handicap, without a shred of doubt.

2: Psychic Fangs

Psychic Fangs is less prominent than Close Combat, but it has a lot of particular use for being able to compress a way to smash Weezing, Keldeo, Terrakion, and Tentacruel into one package, which can especially help with SD sets that can't forego Crunch or Accelerock. Despite being a good alternative, though, it obviously pales in comparison to the outright power and offensive presence of CC. But, it is a factor worth considering, since it adds an extra layer of threat to the Weezing matchup.

--

However, despite how incredible of a wallbreaker Lycanroc has become with these changes, I don't actually believe that it should be banned. That's a bit of a hot take, but allow for me to explain myself.

To understand why Lycanroc is so good, it's important to evaluate the opportunity cost that comes with Lycanroc. For one thing, it is immensely frail, and its neigh ubiquitous use of a Life Orb only worsens this, leaving it very prone to hazard damage and chip damage. Its abysmal bulk leaves it troubled to take any kind of a hit whatsoever, as it can only comfortably stomach resisted moves. Though, even then, any kind of chip damage is extremely bad for Lycanroc, as it limits the amount of turns it has to wallbreak to begin with. When you then factor such things as hazard damage that can rack up from Lycanroc being spooked by Accelerock-resistant Scarf users, Lycanroc's lack of longevity really comes to surface, and makes it difficult, on paper, to use to a great effectiveness, even with Close Combat on the table.

Lycanroc's longevity issue means that it necessitates support of momentum users, such as from the Slowbros, Noivern's U-Turn, etc.. However, it is imperative to understand that offense has been better than ever in the tier, and it's not just the fault of the abusers, but, I feel more prominently it's the fault of how good momentum is in the tier currently, with immensely powerful momentum cores facilitated by such partners like the aforementioned Pokemon, Chansey, Keldeo, and Cobalion.

I decided to run a small experiment in my free time yesterday to try and test my observation. I've been using a Sticky Web Hyper Offense team for the few games that I have played, and then I swapped with a Balanced Offense Lycanroc team that has the support of a few momentum users. In the games I've used of the Sticky Web offense, it has performed well, as to be expected, but it was never a solitary wincon. It could've been the moveset I was using, but in most games it picked off a target, it was scared out by a Scarf user, then when it came back in, it did some damage and was pretty easily picked off itself due to Life Orb/Stealth Rock/general recoil catching up to it. However, in games that I used a Balanced Offense squad with a couple of momentum users, Lycanroc performed much more consistently, and managed to open up major holes for me to clean up later, and Lycanroc in a couple cases cleaned up with Accelerock; it helped that this team also had hazard removal to keep Lycanroc healthy.

By no means am I trying to say we should suspect these moves, but it is a testament to the fact that Lycanroc's ease of use comes hugely in part to the ability for it to almost completely freely get in against its targets. Though, that being said, it needs that team support to function to the point it can, and that can be exploited with strong team pressure and abusing Lycanroc's opportunistic nature. And even when it can get in and take a life, it is scared out by many rising Scarfers, such as Flygon, Mienshao, Krookodile, and Rotom-C or scared by a Pokemon that manages to resist its combination of moves, and it either takes more hazard damage coming in later, or needs to wait for another opening; in many cases, it is held back by both!

The metagame is shaken greatly by the loss of Jirachi, Blissey, Kyurem, and Skarmory, but it is imperative to understand that with these changes come huge metagame shifts; Lycanroc could arguably be broken now, but from what I've seen on the ladder, people have been adapting pretty well, and I've personally had little issues handling it with use of hazards, momentum, and speed control. There could be a greater issue here that Lycanroc is just the best abuser of, and I feel that very well could be the case, but I feel there's no way to be sure until the metagame settles from the loss of our titans, given it hasn't even been very long since the tier shifts and the ban of Jirachi.

For now, I would vote no ban.

 

[Lily]

I got reqs a while ago:

Here are my thoughts on the murder puppy. Don't have a ton to say this time but anyway:

Lycanroc's a weird one as far as banning goes. It's not like Jirachi, which offered a lot of defensive merit and utility to the tier, and it's not like Scolipede where there just wasn't any counterplay to begin with. It's interesting because Lycanroc actually does have a few solid forms of counterplay that I'll get into shortly, but I'm still going to explain why I'll be voting ban.

Defensive counterplay

note: none of these mons are foolproof and lycanroc can bust through all of them on its own at +2 with the exceptions of tangela and mudsdale.

As you can see there's not a lot here. Most of these mons are either not solid defensive answers in the long run / can be 2HKOd by the appopriate coverage move, are just not great in general (the aforementioned tangela, muds) or even both (vileplume, jellicent). This means that you often have to fit two or three of these Pokemon on defensive teams if you want to avoid getting completely swamped by the dog which is just not really healthy. So now that we know that defensive counterplay is virtually nonexistent, let's go on to offensive counterplay.


I'll be splitting this section into three: Pokemon that can outspeed Lycanroc and resist Accelerock, Pokemon that can outspeed Lycanroc and resist Accelerock and Sucker Punch, and Pokemon that can take a hit from Lycanroc and KO back.

Accelerock-resistant offensive checks (if a Pokemon here isn't naturally faster than Lycanroc, assume it's holding a Choice Scarf)

...bad looks. Okay, no problem. Factor in Sucker Punch and you can remove Flygon from that list. So what about Pokemon that can take a hit and KO back?

Offensive checks that can take a hit and retaliate

This is really starting to look dire. Lots of these Pokemon will also drop to a +2 hit from Lycanroc and some of them can't even OHKO it without using an inaccurate move so you're never rly safe. There are other Pokemon that can take a hit depending on their set and Lycanroc's set but I didn't list them here bc obviously this thing can only carry 4 moves at once but you can't really be sure what those 4 are at any given time.

Everyone knows that this mon is far more scary on paper than it is in practice, but the issue is that it's only ever fine in practice bc of severe overprep. You simply NEED at least two checks, usually three, and that places a massively unhealthy strain on teambuilding. I think that if we were to keep Lycanroc in the tier, it'd be workable - the tier wouldn't become unplayable or anything - but it'd just be so much easier on teambuilding if we didn't have it. As I said before I'm 100% voting ban and I encourage those who plan to vote dnb to think about what they're doing and why they're doing it; just because it's not as broken as Jirachi or Haxorus doesn't mean it should stay. Ty for reading o7

 

[DnB]

almost day 1 yay

Hide

didnt see that many lycanrocs on ladder, but i still think its unhealthy for the meta. you are pretty much forced to run a scarfer thats not weak to rocks, or you run a team where every mon doesnt allow lycanroc to set up SD. you never know which coverage it runs and sometimes you expect to barely survive a LO attack, just to get KOed by a CB set. the biggest problem is its speed, being able to outspeed the entire meta while having a stab prio move that deals with everything thats faster, is just stupid.

i want to share a team too, its pretty stupid but it surprisingly works:
https://pokepast.es/e4603d506b72f5a6
sashspam, no rocks, but hear me out:
always lead lycanroc and click buttons, try to weaken waters so the shell smashers can win the game. if the opponent gets up rocks, just suicide talonflame for defog and set up with something else. i found this team in the rachi suspect and although it doesnt like slowbro, you can just overwhelm it.
is it matchup fishing? yes.
is it fun? yes.
is it fun for the opponent? hell no.

 

[Notily]

yo

i went into my reqs run thinking that lycan was not broken; the tier has largely adapted to being able to punish the teleport pivots that lycan relies on to get on the field, which means that porting lycan in often required you to give something up. on top of this, teams are stacking mons that can eat a resisted hit / neutral stone edge and threaten it back, so in order to make progress it still has to click the right move or it gives up momentum + you lose 1/5 of lycan's hp with hazards up. while definitely strong in the hands of a capable player, i didn't think that this was unhealthy. when using lycan on bo/balance, i felt that clicking the wrong move often put me in a genuinely awful position that was difficult to come back from. i thought this was completely fine for what i considered to be a high risk / high reward mon.

i think where lycan really shines is on ho for a couple reasons:

• on balance, lycan's lack of defensive utility means the other members have to make up for it. this often leads to lycan being responsible for most of the team's offensive pressure, putting a lot of emphasis on it making correct predictions in order to make progress. this isn't an issue on ho
• offensive counterplay to lycan is mostly limited to scarfers, which is very abusable for lycan's teammates on ho
• lycan's coverage (mainly referring to the set adaam posted) means that its able to force significant damage on whatever's in front of it if its slower. on ho, this means theres less even less emphasis on clicking the right move as you can always just sack the lycan to whatever defensive answer your opp choses (bar regen mons) for basically guaranteed progress. it helps that most of lycan's defensive answers are also going to be relied upon to check other common ho mons, making them easy to overload.

after using lycan offense for reqs (cough team here cough), i'm leaning more towards ban. on the building side of things, its fairly restricting (it is an s-rank mon after all) but not to a degree that i think its inherently unhealthy. theres some counterplay options that i feel are underutilized (ie helmet + pain split weezing / druddigon, colbur celebi, steels like physdef klefki / bish / np luc) and imo perfectly viable in non-lycan matchups. i could be def be convinced to vote dnb so i'd like to see what arguments that side comes up with.

cheers

 

[BigFatMantis]

Lycanroc is such a weird situation. I don't think it would ever be considered overbearing in standard play - and it truly isn't THAT strong. The problem, I think, is more the current state of the UU metagame than Lycanroc itself.

UU, in its current state, simply doesn't have many answers for Lycanroc. This is not, so much, indicative on how strong Lycanroc, but rather on how defensively deficient the current UU metagame is. This type of situation can happen to lots of different pokemon - their checks get removed little by little until suddenly they can run wild. Let's look, for example, at the list of UUBL mons that could have checked Lycanroc before:

Conkeldurr - easy check, one of the best.
Diggersby - great Accelr resist, but takes prediction and scarf.
Jirachi - well, we all know about Jirachi
Venusaur - In sun
Aegislash - (I think it's actually OU again, but it's UUBL whenever it drops)

And then, let's look at some OU mons that are not "super" OU and can feasibly be seen becoming UU one day when more DLCs are introduced and OU shifts:

Amoonguss - if no Psychic Fangs, then blanket check almost
Azumarill - Any set with Aqua Jet
Hippowdon - Can totally stop it - Was UU in previous Gens, could easily become UU again in the future
Scizor - Bullet Punch EZ - Was really close to dropping to UU at one point
Skarmory - This was one of the best checks last month while it was in UU

Now before everyone goes and jumps on me for theoreymoning too much, I am not saying that we should expect any of these to be unbanned or drop to UU. My point is just that Lycanroc's smashing good time in UU right now is more of a product of the tier itself than the power of Lycanroc itself. UU just, right now, does not have a lot of things to stop it. While this is similar to my argument in banning Jirachi, the problem I had with Jirahci was that, on top of this argument, there were 4-5 other additional arguments on why it should be banned. I don't think those exist for Lycanroc - I think it is just purely the state of the UU metagame as we see it today.


I don't personally think Lycanroc is that overbearing and wouldn't vote to ban it (with good predictions it's usually alright), but I think it's probably going to get banned since it seems to have enough ban support. My only hope is that, after it does get banned, this ban gets revisited once the UU metagame changes up a bit with a new look.

 

[Twilight]

I'll start by saying that I am glad that there are mixed feelings about this Pokemon. I don't personally think Lycanroc-D is broken at all but I can agree with the line of argument that it can be unhealthy. In the 30 games played I didn't really have much trouble playing around Lycanroc-D but as Lily said this could predominantly be due to me using the core of Sylveon + Slowbro with an offensive check. I didn't use much Lycanroc-D in my run outside of using Notily's team for a bit, nor have I really spammed it much outside of this. I have played a good deal against it especially today with running into Bisharp + Lycanroc-D Voltturn like every other game this run, so this isn't coming from pure theorymon or anything. I can't recall if I have ever had the opinion that Lycanroc-D is unbearably too much for the tier and even now I can't say my opinion has shifted. I personally consider it to be a high risk / high reward Pokemon that either puts in work or falls short depending on if you click correctly.

I use a lot of defensive cores because I prefer to use BO teams, so a lot of my teams have Pokemon like Sylveon, Slowbro, Cobalion, Galarian Weezing, Rhyperior, etc. This could be clouding my judgment on Lycanroc-D but I consider having two of these Pokemon adequate enough defensive counterplay + some kind of offensive check. With how the meta currently is, I don't think it is particularly difficult or uncanny to not use these Pokemon as your defensive backbone, because there aren't that many good alternatives to handle everything else in the tier. Now just because you have these Pokemon on your team it doesn't mean you've successfully walled Lycanroc-D. Most of the counterplay stems from playing around its coverage well, which from personal experience hasn't been overly difficult. Lycanroc-D wears itself down really easily with LO and hazards and because of its paper defences it can't just pivot into anything safely and claim something. I've seen discussion about Swords Dance, which can tear through a lot of its defensive counterplay but using SD has a lot of drawbacks too. I ran into this Lycanroc-D set once this run and didn't have an issue with it given I got the play correct with my Noivern vs Lycan. This isn't to dismiss that SD Lycan isn't a threat because if it gets a Swords Dance off then the likelihood is your defensive counterplay is going to vary in that match drastically. However, having to drop coverage and finding opportunities to set up isn't easy for Lycanroc-D to do. That is why AoA sets have much more potency because it takes better advantage of clicking a move when it comes in with its arsenal of coverage options.

With regards to Speed control that handles Lycanroc-D, I think you can definitely get away with using some that don't resist Acceleroc. Zarude, Rotom-C, and Rotom-W (defensive Washtom stomachs hits too) can run Choice Scarfs and stomach a boosted priority move from Lycanroc-D. Yes, they take more than Pokemon like Keldeo or Mienshao but if their health needs to be preserved because you lose to it otherwise then that is something you're forced to take into account. I've also explored with less common Choice Scarf users like Celebi and Indeedee, the latter actually being a pretty cool Pokemon imo outside of just revenge killing Lycanroc-D. Even common priority users like Bisharp and Mamoswine, despite not OHKOing Lycanroc-D they can serve as good means of checking it offensively. You obviously have other things like Chople Berry Cobalion and Krookodile or Mimikyu. Threats that naturally outspeed Lycanroc-D like Starmie.

For me personally, I don't feel like the defensive or offensive means of handling Lycanroc-D are that lacking or difficult enough to throw onto builds. I also don't believe it heavily constrains building that much, I am more of the opinion that this is due to the current state of the tier. Maybe hyper offensive teams might have more freedom but it is worth noting that Lycanroc-D is relied upon a lot to deal with shit like Noivern on those builds too. I consider Lycanroc-D to just be a dominant S rank threat that you have to consider when building, just like Noivern, another Pokemon that can be a pain to defensively check reliably. I will probably be voting Do not ban and I can't really see my opinion on this shifting. Regardless I will continue to read future posts in this thread for both sides of the argument.

 

[ramolost]

Now before everyone goes and jumps on me for theoreymoning too much, I am not saying that we should expect any of these to be unbanned or drop to UU. My point is just that Lycanroc's smashing good time in UU right now is more of a product of the tier itself than the power of Lycanroc itself. UU just, right now, does not have a lot of things to stop it. While this is similar to my argument in banning Jirachi, the problem I had with Jirahci was that, on top of this argument, there were 4-5 other additional arguments on why it should be banned. I don't think those exist for Lycanroc - I think it is just purely the state of the UU metagame as we see it today.


I don't personally think Lycanroc is that overbearing and wouldn't vote to ban it (with good predictions it's usually alright), but I think it's probably going to get banned since it seems to have enough ban support. My only hope is that, after it does get banned, this ban gets revisited once the UU metagame changes up a bit with a new look.

Please for those who are getting reqs, don't think like that. Don't wait for the meta to change to fix a problem because :
1. You dont even know if the meta will change and adapt to this mon. This is just random.
2. If the meta change, you have to wait and let the tier be a shithole with broken threats.

If the meta change and adapt to the presence of lycan, then we can always retest it if its banned. When you vote and when you think of voting the question is : Is lycan broken in UU right now ? You look at the 43 mons in UU right now and just ask to yourself : is lycan ok ? You should never think about how UU will be : would lycan be ok after shifts ? If X mon drops, would it fix lycan (see Mamo ban lol thankfully it was banned) ? Suspecting a mon requires no speculation.

okay end ty

 

[Cynde]

going into this originally thought i was gonna vote ban but I think I'm gonna vote dnb instead. i kinda like that it keeps teams on their toes and you cant mindlessly abuse teleport + breakers because lycan has the coverage to 2hko most cores and has the ability to outspeed most breakers too. definitely hard to switch into. never saw a game where either good teambuilding or good playing couldn't limit how often it gets a chance. i guess the strongest ban argument I conceived was if u go into a defensive answer and it sds u lose a mon. tbh that wasn't a strong enough reason for me to point a finger at lycan and say that its the reason the meta feels pretty bad rn. I think it's worth looking at zarude or mimi probably. damn does this meta feel bad tho u_u

 

[cottoneepain1023]

honestly i dont think lycanrock should be banned
its not completely powerful, 117 base attack is great dont get me wrong and cc is a powerful move, but there are plenty of mons who can stomach a cc and retaliate.
its also insanely frail. it cant take a hit to save its life and between life orb recoil, hazard damage and priority from the likes of mamo, it wont be on the field for long.
and if you choose to fix the life orb recoil with a band, it will be easy to play around due to band's reliance on prediction.
while it has great coverage, it cant have all of it on one set. it has the neccesary close combat and crunch, for is primary attack and slowbro/pallosand, and it also wants swords dance, accelrock, iron head, psychic fangs and all that.
so ill be voting stay.

 

[Moutemoute]

Hey there, since I finally got my reqs I guess it's time to give my two cents on Lycanroc-Dusk. In my opinion, LycanDusk is a iffy Pokemon to talk about because I definitively don't see it as a Pokemon like Crawdaunt or Urshifu-S which can basically rely on 2 moves to break most the metagame. Indeed, LycanDusk basically needs 3-5 moves to be able to bypass all the metagame and while the aforementionned Pokemon can abuse their STABs without a lot of risk, LycanDusk really need to hit the right move if it doesn't want to regret it. I think LycanDusk is a high-risk, high-reward Pokemon because you need to hit the correct move on it in order to be effective and not lose a shit ton of momentum. However, there is a specific thing that I don't like about Lycanroc-Dusk and it's how it restrains to a extreme extent in my opinion the metagame and the teambuilding. Most of my builds are relying on things like Chople Berry Cobalion + a Pokemon faster than LycanDusk which doesn't get tear apart by Accelerock + sometimes something else. I really have the feeling when I'm building that I just can't play a shit ton of Pokemon just because of Lycanroc-D and I think that's a big issue.

I also strongly agree with Adaam post and I firmly believe AoA LycanDusk is currently the best way to use it since it can really pressure almost all its switch-ins. Accelerock + Close Combat + Crunch + either Iron Head/Psychic Fangs can obliterates most of the tier and it's kinda insane to handle it, especially in mid/endgame when its checks have been a bit weakened. With that in mind, I'll be voting ban on Lycanroc-Dusk.

Also sorry guys but this time, I'll not share teams I used because of Grand Slam..

 

[pokemonisfun]

Sylveon and Galarian Weezing seem to be at their peaks right now. Two points of evidence for that: both of them were top 10 used mons last week in Snake and Sylveon balance seems to be stronger than Chansey balances right now because Sylveon offers a bit more pressure and can check or counter nearly all Fighting types like Keldeo, Terrakion, Mienshao as well as Zarude and Lycanroc while Chansey cannot. I would say if you don't feel pressured by Lycanroc-Dusk, double check your builder. Are you using a defensive core of Sylveon/Weezing + Slowbro a lot?

I noticed two people in this thread who are in the Do Not Ban camp - okispokis and Twilight - mentioned using defensive cores and specifically talked about Slowbro + Sylveon as Pokemon they used. The other person who talked about defensive responses to Lycanroc, Lilburr, did not mention in her post Sylveon, and she's in the Ban camp.

Sylveon + Slowbro is an easy way to build but I believe it's also very exploitable right now as we have Marowak, Chandelure, and a rising Galarian Slowbro to take advantage of this. If you don't mention Sylveon + Slowbro cores like Lilburr, then it's easy to think why Lycanroc has too little defensive counterplay. But there's another point, even if you consider the power of Sylveon + Slowbro, you have to realize Lycanroc can actually adapt by using Iron Head + Crunch to make it merely a guessing game. This is something I believe the metagame is capable of but isn't reflected if you're doing a reqs run.

Frankly, what I'm saying is this - if you're using Slowbro + defensive Fairy a lot, you probably won't have too much issue with Lycanroc for now, but 1) other parts of the metagame can easily exploit you and 2) Lycanroc can evolve to beat you.

While I do think we should ban Lycanroc, I think the Do Not Ban camp should highlight how frail Lycanroc is. The Life Orb point is a good mention, and only the OP + Ausma and cottoneepain1023 mentioned it. Unlike other ferocious attackers like Keldeo, Terrakion, and Bisharp, Lycanroc not only has to use LO it also has basically no bulk so it dies really quickly, and is prediction reliant or else it can be whittled down by Life Orb. For example, I've cycled between Galarian Slowbro on CC and Bewear on Crunches to whittle down Lycanroc.

My post in 2 bullets:

• Lycanroc should be banned because there is only an illusion of easy defensive counterplay with Slowbro + Sylveon, actually this core is exploitable and Lycanroc itself can beat it if it chooses to do so
• The strongest Do Not Ban argument comes from how frail Lycanroc and implications, like how Lycanroc cannot use SD very effectively without Screens

 

[TaxiCab]

I have already made a post saying why I think lycan was broken in the old np thread that mostly focused on the difference between the old meta and the current meta+the potency of the sd set, but I wanted to make another post just outlining some other thoughts I had. First of all, I want to just say that the AoA set is phenomenal as well-and I think its much more consistent than the SD set. However, people are saying that lycanroc has 4mss-I respectfully disagree, as some others have as well. You really only need the set Adaam posted above, accelrock/crunch/iron head/cc to hit everything, and if you're running sd, dropping iron head can be very annoying because you don't hit Sylv and Weezing as hard, but SD Lycanroc is still very dangerous, especially when weezer is easy to chip and wish sylv is very easy to take advantage of.

I will say that it is very easy to chip lycan, I think helmet weezer is very good and the LO recoil+tspikes if you can get them up rack up very quickly, which, like pif said, is the biggest downside to using the mon. However, I don't think getting every pivot right so you don't lose a mon makes is very healthy, yes, if lycan user guesses wrong its annoying, but you have more tries, also, you do not know initially whether it is sd or not which really changes how you would pivot around the thing in the first place.

The coverage, ability, perfect speed tier and excellent and powerful priority make this thing a menace to prep for. People are mentioning that the tier feels crappy right now, and I totally agree; I think Lycanroc is not the only problem but I think it is the most glaring and the easiest one to put a finger on, and it needs to be addressed. If you look at snake or just play a few ladder games, most every team is bo/balance with slowbro+weezer/sylv+zarude and I think that if people want a more diverse tier in terms of structures and archetypes, banning Lycanroc would give harder offense teams a lot more wiggle room in the builder and would make them much more viable. Lycan is a pain in the ass for more offensive teams. The fact is, trying to fit one of the several bleh scarfers (scarf bish is unironically one of the better ones. '-') and some ways to not lose a mon every time to it onto a team to deal with lycan while still pressuring common cores and not falling over to fs+tp+zarude/other breakers and not losing to vern is a tall task. The presence of Lycanroc makes it very hard to build and use good offense, and I think banning lycan would make offense much less restricting to use, and would keep these bo/balance structures more honest. When offense is able to be more effective/common these bo teams will have to change, and perhaps tp will become less simple to mindlessly abuse and easier to punish. I'm not saying that we should ban lycanroc to make offense more viable/force some change, I am just saying that for those unhappy with the state of the tier, I think a side effect of banning lycan would be creating a more healthy and diverse tier.

I agree that lycan's success is tied to your ability to click the right move and that it can be held back chip from correct pivots, but the insane pressure that it exerts on teams when it comes in, the decisions it forces, and the difficulty of prepping for it, especially when using offense, all caused by its insane speed, coverage, power, and accelerock makes it unhealthy in my opinion.

 

[467 11 11p]

After thinking about checks to lycan I realized that there is honestly only 1 mon in the entire tier that can come in on it safely no matter what it clicks.

Tangagod

Tangela @ Eviolite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Knock Off
- Sleep Powder
- Leech Seed

Calcs

252 Atk Life Orb Tough Claws Lycanroc-Dusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 90-107 (26.9 - 32%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Dusk Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 87-103 (26 - 30.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 110-133 (32.9 - 39.8%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 94-110 (28.1 - 32.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Mimikyu Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 130-153 (38.9 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Mimikyu Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela on a critical hit: 153-181 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 47.7% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Guts Obstagoon Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 117-138 (35 - 41.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Golurk Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Tangela: 136-162 (40.7 - 48.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Tangala also has access to regenerator which is the most broken ability in the game so it can just shrug off those hits like its nothing. While also being able to fire back to most of those mons with either an ohko or 2hko with leaf storm or take their item because it has access to knock, even though its not as good as wishpass tangela can also use leech seed to help heal its teammates

Leafstorm calcs

0 SpA Tangela Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Lycanroc-Dusk: 396-468 (136 - 160.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Tangela Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Terrakion: 306-360 (94.7 - 111.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Tangela Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mimikyu: 135-159 (53.7 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Tangela Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Obstagoon: 166-196 (50.7 - 59.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Not the first one to think of tangela but I would definetly want and like it to be more explored in the current UU. Its like chansey but can actually come in on terrak and lycan but w/o the instant healing (Soft Boil). A short post but I hope I got the message across that even when lycan gets banned tangela will still have a niche in UU, thanks for reading and have a good day.