★ np: SS UU Stage 8.1 - This Heart's On Fire

[Hogg]

DLC2 brought with it a huge number of radical changes, and UU as we know it is no more. What has emerged in its place is a new beast: stronger, faster, perhaps just a little bit scarier. The previously imprisoned UUBLs were freed, and most found themselves right at home in this new world. The chaos of turboshifts kept us on our toes for a while, with seemingly small changes like the rising of Hippowdon having major impact. But now, as things begin to settle, it is time to take stock of the tier as a whole.

Oddly enough, for a metagame with so many dangerous threats, few stand out as outright broken. However, one Pokemon in particular has been on everyone's mind: Blaziken. Relegated to Ubers just last gen, it has seen a big drop all the way down to UU, where it narrowly avoided a council ban in the last voting slate. But since that vote, it has emerged as perhaps the single most dangerous threat in the metagame. This should be no huge surprise: Blaziken has phenomenal attacking stats, two physical STABs sporting 120 base power and Speed Boost to allow it to easily steamroll teams. Its movepool beyond Close Combat and Flare Blitz is no small thing either: Swords Dance to provide a considerable boost to its breaking power, Knock Off to power through would-be checks such as Latias or Slowking, Thunder Punch for Primarina and Azumarill or Stone Edge for Salamence.

Perhaps the biggest pressure Blaziken applies is on the teambuilder. Speed Boost eliminates many methods of offensively checking it, leaving teams to rely on priority from Pokemon such as Azumarill or Crawdaunt. Pokemon such as Quagsire or bulky Salamence appear to be good checks on paper, but in practice they struggle: Quagsire falls to a pair of Close Combats from Adamant LO or Choice Band sets (and if Knocked loses to Jolly Blaziken as well), while Salamence falls to two unboosted Stone Edges and even has difficulty versus Knock Off sets due to its reliance on Heavy Duty Boots to consistently come in.

So, with the tier settling after several rounds of turboshifts, we open the question to the community as our first post-DLC2 suspect: does Blaziken deserve a home in this new 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: "UU8B (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UU8B Hogg to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.

Participants will have until Sunday, December 27 at 8:59 PM GMT -4 to meet voting requirements and post in the Alt Identification Thread. PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR CONFIRMED SUSPECT RESULTS HERE - there is a dedicated thread for identifying your suspect results. Happy laddering!

Current UU Council

Adaam
Amukamara
CBU
Freeroamer
Hogg
Indigo Plateau
Lilburr
Moutemoute
Ramolost
Sabella
TDK
TonyFlygon
vivalospride

 

[DiscoDucky]

Although I haven't been playing UU religiously for a long while, recent tier shifts have made Blaziken much more difficult to build against. Regieleki's drop to UU in December buffs Dual Screens' consistency. The Regieleki screens into SD Blaziken sequence is really tough to stop since Blaziken has the potential to get +4 off of two Swords Dances in this scenario. At that point, the issue of coverage moves (Knock Off / TPunch / Stone Edge) is moot, and Pokemon will be OHKO'd or 2HKO'd as long as the selected move hits them neutrally.

If Blaziken dies mid-sweep, it still breaks enough holes in opposing teams that other members of a Dual Screens offense can set up and clean.

Again, I don't play enough UU to give a more detailed insight of Blaziken's impact post-Regi drop, but it definitely seems like an increasingly worse problem in the near future.

 

[Hogg]

Reminder to all: this page is for discussion on Blaziken or the state of the metagame overall. It is NOT the place where you post your reqs to prove you qualified to vote in this test. You can find that thread here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-stage-8-1-voting-identification-thread.3674999/

You MUST post proof of reqs in the above-linked thread. Posting them here will not be considered sufficient to vote.

 

[fireblastmiss]

I'm personally kind of on the fence about blaziken. It's definitely very good, forces a bunch of 5050s and has the coverage to blow through a lot of its checks with Tpunch/Knock/Edge or whatever you wanna use last. What really pushes it over the edge for me though, is veils.

Veils has been deemed broken or unhealthy in various generations and I think this gen is no different. There's a bunch of very good set up sweepers in Blaziken, Gyarados, BD Azu, setup Celesteela or really whatever you wanna throw on these builds that are all just one turn away from tearing your team apart and veils provides just that. On top of that its fairly easy to use and honestly doesnt have a lot of drawbacks atm.
I've (mostly) used a basic veils build on an alt of mine to prove it is too strong atm and these are the results:

Banning Ziken would mean one less abuser for these builds, which would definitely weaken the playstyle as a whole, but I hope this stays on the radar in the future.

 

[Moutemoute]

Voted Keep UU last time we did a council vote and I must admit that I was so wrong for willing to keep this Pokemon in UU. I'll not write too much because I'm quite busy IRL but I do think Blaziken is super tough to handle and can adapt around its mates to bypass most of its checks. I've been using Knock Off more than any other filler because it has overall a great coverage and utility but Stone Edge is legit to nuke defensive Salamence while Thunder Punch is still viable to dent Water-types. I found it really tough to build Balanced team not weak to Blaziken without putting 2-3 fat things to handle it or a Aqua Jet user like Azumarill or Crawdaunt. I trully think that Blaziken is unhealthy for the tier not because it's impossible to deal defensively but because it's a pain in the ass when you're making teams. I think it forces some shenanigans and limitates our options to build and for those reasons, I'll vote ban on it.

click sprites for importable​

As usual, I'm sharing the team I used to get those reqs. Not gonna explain the concept, it's pretty straightforward, you set Stealth Rock with Krookodile then Screens with Regieleki, you boom and then you try to win with 1 of the 4 setup sweepers. Shoutout to "Sir Tetris" on Showdown for the Mew's set.. it's cleary a nightmare to face and it allows me to win a couple of games on its own like SubBD Kommo-o..have fun with it and gl for you reqs guys !

 

[BigFatMantis]

I got reqs with the very standard Pyukumuku HO team, and I'm voting no ban on Blaziken, but instead of talking about that (it's going to for sure get banned anyways regardless of what I vote - not complaining, it's just facts), I want to highlight some other heavy hitters that I saw in my ladder run the past few days:



The Steel Haven, Celesteela

Yeah I know, I've been talking about this thing for a long long time. But the HO Meteor Beam set w/ Automotize has been so good on the ladder. I won at least 10 of the games I played purely with Celesteela sweeping everything. Meteor Beam/Air Slash/Flamethrower gives all the coverage it needs - the only real "threat" to it is Chansey, Nihilego, or Regieleki since it outspeeds even at +2. Even against Chansey it can set up more Meteor Beams and then try for Air Slash flinch. In my opinion, the only two Special HO options for HO teams ATM are Celesteela and Goltres - all the rest are so far behind these two, but I personally put Steela over Goltres (though I can see an argument for Goltres). And, of course, the defensive Steela Leech Seed set is still a GOAT set that will win games in a different way - especially once Blaziken is gone.

-

(sorry Tetris)

The Cosmic Phenom, Mew

So a funny little thing has happened over the past few days with this Cosmic Power Mew set gaining much popularity. The concept was created by Tetris/Navii and lots of people are using it on teams. With Cosmic Power, Body Press, and Stored Power, it can also sweep entire teams unless something carries Lariat (like Bulu). It runs either Rest or Roost as the last move, but I personally think Rest is the way to go. Mew is also one of the best (if not the best) suicide leads in the game, since it is decently fast, can Spikes, Taunt, Rocks, and Explode, all as options. And, of course, there's always the stallbreaker Mew or the Transform Imprison Block Mew, but those are more niche. I would say that Mew has ascended as one of the top options for a lot of teams, and if you do not plan for it accordingly you could end up just flat out losing with no shot.

-



The Little Doggo that Could, Zygarde-10%

I think this little mut has been really underappreciated in the UU meta. It naturally outspeeds everything in UU except Regieleki, Zeraora, and Alakazam. Thousand Arrows is obviously one of the best moves in the entire game, and the band set can even sweep entire teams unboosted if they are chipped (I ran into at least 5 teams where Zydog just cleaned up after one or two mons gone). Being able to just OHKO Rotoms, Terrakions, Lycanrocs, etc., feels quite nice. You need to be careful against Zeraora though because Play Rough will kill you first. It's also the best ESpeed user in the game with Band (unless you want to be anti-meta with Linoone). I don't think a DD set is viable, but you can probably end up using it in very niche situations with the right team - but setting up is usually not worth the time since you are revenge killed by Ice Shard anyways. With Regieleki annoying the meta atm, this is a solid ground option if you want something that is very fast and offensive while retaining the elec immunity.

-



The Real Dragon's Maw, Kommo-O

So this thing is completely terrifying, in that it has so many sets, and they are all very good, and some will sweep you completely. I have seen it sweep with: 1) Belly Drum Sub set, 2) Clang Soul mixed set, 3) Iron Defense Body Press set. And then it has the standard defensive rocks set for utility, which stops your own sweep most of the time. The Belly Drum/Salac set brings its speed up to just enough to outspeed Zeraora, making Regieleki, Mamo Shard, or a scarfmon the only option to assuredly counter it. The Clang Soul mixed set has to choose its coverage, but generally Scales, Close Combat, and a coverage move like TPunch will take out most things. But despite the team you are running, there is probably space for some sort of Kommo set on whatever you're making.

-



Bunny Terror, Azumarill

The little bunny has proven to be quite the wincon in many games. Belly Drum under Screens is one of the most frightening things to experience in the entire metagame. If it successfully get it off, you will need a faster water resist that KO's or you will lose (Tapu Bulu and Latias are good options). This thing will even OHKO Amoonguss and Tangrowth at +6 with Knock Off and Play Rough, unless Amoonguss has no item. And it is a destroyer of Trick Room teams also with Jet priority and average speed only, making it able to pick its mons to outspeed in and out of TR, while using Priority on the rest. There are very few things that can compare with this bunny atm for in the current meta.

-



I have opinions on both Conkeldurr and Regieleki that are not very favorable to them. Basically, I think Conk is overrated and Regieleki is very bad except for a screen setter. I had at least two teams try to Trick a Ring Target to my Zydog but I switched out because it was obvious. But since Research Week is currently doing these two mons, I'll do a full report there at the end of the week on these two.

Also, I didn't see many Terrakion on the ladder, and none of them proved to be very threatening and were pretty easily dealt with. It may just be the team I used though - I am sure some teams are totally terrorized by Terrakion.

-

That's all, good luck with reqs everyone!

 

[Moutemoute]

 

[shooting star]

Got reqs and I'm definitely voting ban due to how much it warps the teambuilder. Not going to repeat how powerful SD + Speed Boost is, but I feel that Blaziken is very unhealthy to the point that the metagame has degenerated into either a Regieleki/Grimmsnarl/A-Ninetales screens HO, where the game is generally won by whoever set up screens first, or into the other end of the spectrum called stall, where you bring in Quagsire and pray that the opponent does not run Choice Band Blaziken. The OP has already mentioned several checks to Blaziken such as priority Aqua Jet and Salamence, until you realise that these checks are actually the only checks, in the sense that it becomes necessary to include them in your team lest you risk allowing Blaziken to snowball in speed and power. Even stall is not 100% safe, since mons like Tangrowth and Skarmory are vulnerable to Blaziken, while Knock Off does considerable damage to Psychics like Slowking and provides a lot of utility in general.

TLDR: Ban

I got reqs with the very standard Pyukumuku HO team, and I'm voting no ban on Blaziken, but instead of talking about that (it's going to for sure get banned anyways regardless of what I vote - not complaining, it's just facts)

If you truly think that Blaziken is manageable, overrated or not broken, then I respect your choice to vote Do Not Ban. However, it is a fallacy to vote based on what you predict the final outcome will be. How others vote should be independent of how you vote.

 

[BigFatMantis]

If you truly think that Blaziken is manageable, overrated or not broken, then I respect your choice to vote Do Not Ban. However, it is a fallacy to vote based on what you predict the final outcome will be. How others vote should be independent of how you vote.

I truly think that Blaziken is manageable, I am not voting based on any "predictions". But I think an overwhelmingly large number of people disagree with me and it is assuredly going to get banned regardless. If you truly must know why I think it is manageable, I'll repeat what I said in the last NP thread about it:

it's frail, gets 2HKO by almost any mon in the tier, gets OHKOd by lots of mons in the tier, gets revenge KO'd by Azu/Crawdaunt, gets revenge KO'd by fast scarfers, can only reasonably fit one coverage move with SD or give up STAB, etc. etc.

But I also very rarely like to ban anything (I voted No Ban on Lycanroc) unless I think it's totally tier warping or non-competitive (I voted Ban on Jirachi because I thought it was uncompetitive at the time, on top of everything else). So, I don't really want to argue with anyone voting ban, since I understand why they're doing it and I don't expect many to align with my opinion on this. That's why I believe it to be better to focus on discussing other things in the meta in anticipation of this ban, rather that attempting to go back forth discussing the pros and cons of the chicken.

 

[Hogg]

Hey y'all, voting thread is live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-suspect-process-stage-8-1-blaziken.3675363/

 

[Hogg]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...tage-8-1-blaziken.3675363/page-2#post-8699094

Well, that didn't take long. While there's still time to vote, 83% of the 47 voters who have responded thus far have voted to ban Blaziken, putting us well above the 29 vote minimum necessary to guarantee a ban. Therefore, Blaziken is banned from UU! Kris Marty please update the ladder when possible.

Everyone give one last hug goodbye to Blaziken before it goes...

 

[gglrg]

GOODBYE CHICKEN YOU WONT BE MISSED

 

[|Powerman|]

AMEN 25oof

 

[kino]

It might be a little early to do so, but now that the chicken is gone I'd like to address a few things



Yo so this is kinda broken. The current meta lacks reliable checks to the close combat/stone edge/megahorn/filler LO set. Palo would be a counter, and Doublade a nice check to non EQ Variants but both are pretty hard to justify, outside of running Palossand in stall I guess. Most of the time Terrak doesn't even need to click sd to break holes with little to no trouble. It doesn't even need to click the right move, as CC+Edge/Horn kills most of the things that'd try to come in to eat.
From this results absurd 50/50 wars to try and bring your intimidates/fasters mons on the correct move to try and handle the beast. Such sequences mostly happen against regen cores matchups, and while its nice to have an option to break those reliably, Terrak feels way too free against those and has the tools to annihilate a lot of other defensives cores in the tier. On the other hand, it hasnt done exactly stellar in snake, often being forced to die on a trade and being overall pretty mediocre in offense matchups.

With the departure of Blaziken, the meta'll likely shift away a little bit from the screens madness that's been running during suspect and Terrak might become a way bigger issue if the meta ends up being slower. It also can act as a sort of Blaziken replacement in the HO teams that lost Blazi. While it doesn't have the same defensive utility (mostly bp resist) and bigger trouble against stuff like Latias, it enjoys screens a lot and can go on a rampage after boosts. That makes me wonder whether it's healthy for the tier or not, with no definitive answer yet.



While they lost a huge tool, screens HO has been used a huge lot during the suspect test, with a decent bit of success and will probably continue that way. Some mons have proven to be absurdly hard to deal with under screens, Moltres Galar being the first that comes to mind. Eleki brings both boom and spin, godsends for HO, while the other two have niche of their own (prankster taunt/hypnosis & two screens at once). I don't know how good that'll end up, but it feels like we still have a ton of really good abusers to make the playstyle very solid.



Mentioning this cause both CB and BD are obnoxious af to face. CB can run Ice Punch for Guss and Tang pretty freely, limiting a lot the answers, making it very hard to handle for slower teams. BD is a obvious pick for any kind of HO, since it's able to both break and clean very easily. I was glad we had it for Blaziken, especially in HOvsHO matchups, but now I get the feel it could end up more annoying & overpowered than helpful. Id love to hear other ppls' thoughts on Azumarill by the way.



This is still so good o; , Blaze being banned leaves it free to just run special sets w/max-max instead of weird spreads to secure rolls or just defensive sets. It's one of my fave mons to use right now, even if it makes teams weak to Terrak and Latias. One's gotta be careful when using it but it's tons of fun and our most reliable defogger by a long shot

That's all for me gobofolks, hopefully I didnt just state the obvious for a few paragraphs. If I did, please excuse me

 

[Pheo]

was fun

 

[Sickist]

was not fun, please give us drops that are actually gonna stay UU this time, OU.

Honestly, besides Azu and Terrak, I think Scizor should have an eye kept on it as well. With Blaziken leaving the tier, Scizor is a lot scarier as a revenge killer. Bullet Punch scares a lot of our offensive threats, like Terrakion, Latias, or Duskcanroc. There are few pokemon that can actually beat Scizor consistently, and pokemon such as Celesteela fail to pressure Scizor, despite resisting both Stabs and having Flamethrower, still just gets Uturn'd on until its in range of boisted attacks or coverage from Scizor. Now Scizor does have a few issues which in my mind hold it back from being like S tier and completely Gen 7 levels of bonkers, but I think its a mon that we should keep an eye on regardless.

 

[Hogg]

Just a couple of things from this meta.

The ladder was absolutely miserable as many have commented, but mostly because it was just so cheese heavy. It's really hard to build something super solid against every possible Screens/Veil team because Screens make so many random things viable. Laddering was just a grind through lots of HO mixed with the occasional full stall (mostly via the team ShinyAzelf posted, though there were some cool variants I liked, such as the Shedinja stall that I believe is currently at the top of the ladder).

I ended up embracing the cheese myself this run and used Scolipede HO with Sub Sitrus Polteageist to break fat. Both Scoli and the teapot ended up being way better than I'd expected, and after getting reqs I was able to ladder up to 4th with the team despite it having some significant flaws (most significantly, the complete and utter lack of Azu switches, and the weakness to physical fatmence).

In any case, I've been tinkering in the builder for a post-Blaziken meta, and while it's not perfect it already feels a lot nicer. Blaziken wasn't even necessarily that broken in practice, mostly because if you danced around it enough you could often force it to kill itself, but it put so much pressure in the teambuilder. In particular I found the combination of Blaziken and Azumarill was particularly obnoxious, with the best and most splashable Blaze answer being a free switch and easy setup for Azu. Overall it just felt really limiting when I was trying to build anything other than HO or full-on stall. Still plenty of threats to keep an eye on, but most of them have more varied forms of counterplay even if in theory something like Terrakion or Azu is nearly impossible to come into.

Also it's not remotely broken but holy hell I do not like Regieleki. It's such a huge matchup fish - four games out of five it does almost nothing, but on that fifth game it's straight up impossible to deal with. Luckily UU is not short on decent grounds right now (speaking of which, Mamoswine and Diggersby are amazing and both should get used way more than they are), so keeping it in check isn't exactly hard, but that doesn't stop it from being a super annoying 'mon.

Anyhow, for those who haven't been following the overall tiering updates, we'll have one more shift on January 1st, and from there we revert back to the three month shift cycles we used previously. That should allow us plenty of time to see the metagame stabilize. I'm looking forward to it. Definitely think there's probably still more cleaning up we have to do, but as toxic as that ladder was this most recent suspect, I actually think the meta is moving in a promising direction.

 

[Moutemoute]

 

[Revelation]

If Screens/Veil continue to be a problem would considering banning Light Clay be the way to go or would all 3 moves have to go?

 

[BigFatMantis]

If Screens/Veil continue to be a problem would considering banning Light Clay be the way to go or would all 3 moves have to go?

I think it would be tough to ban an entire playstyle unless it has warped the tier so bad that it has become the only viable playstyle to use. Right now, Veils HO is very good, but there's plenty of other teams that are very good without using it. What is more likely to happen is they will just try to identify the worst abusers and deal with them on a case by case basis.

I hear lots of complaints on the server about veils HO, brainless HO, etc. etc., and I think some of it is legitimate but it is mostly overblown. The fact is, HO (screens or not) has always been a legitimate playstyle, and now we have so many good screen setters in UU atm (Grimmsnarl, Ninetales, Regieleki, just to name a few), that this has caused screens to be so much more attractive. If you look at OU, there aren't really any great screen setters there, and the ones that can set up screens are better served in other roles (Clefable, Fini, for example). In UU, there is pretty much no reason to use Grimm or Ninetales unless you're using screens, and Regieleki is not great unless it's a screen setter, although some teams can still try to use it as a cleaner. I've even seen Rotom screens before. It may seem absolutely disgusting to some people, but I think that's just sort of where the UU meta is at atm. It has a lot of attractive screens options, so HO teams opt to use them. But you can still make solid teams without them too, whether they are HO or not.



Or maybe if people really wanted to clean the screens they can use the penultimate screen cleaner Mr. Rime. Freeze dry those abusive Gyarados and Azu behind screens.

 

[Monky25]

Adding on to the above post, often times screens can get outplayed by a well rounded balance or bulky offense team. I personally use HO myself as it's my favorite playstyle, and I usually fight opponents around the 1400-1600s who are at times able to outplay my screens and beat me. Its very good but it hasn't exactly warped the tier as other playstyles are still very viable. Also, most screens HO are weak to offensive electric mons. Here's a nice set I've been using on the ladder and it's been doing work.


Thundurus @ Life Orb
Timid Nature
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Nasty Plot
- Thunderbolt
- Sludge Wave/Psychic/Dark Pulse/Focus Blast
- Focus Blast/Dark Pulse/Sludge Wave/Psychic

This mon dunks on so many screens mons its crazy. I've noticed lots of screens mons are weak to electric types so a fast electric breaker is something that greatly helps against these teams. Yeah, it looses to boosted mons like BD azu, but its still a great way to take advantage of uboosted sweepers.
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill through Light Screen: 448-528 (130.9 - 154.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gyarados through Light Screen: 743-876 (224.4 - 264.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Scizor through Light Screen: 224-264 (79.7 - 93.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Moltres-Galar through Light Screen: 308-363 (95.9 - 113%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Celesteela through Light Screen: 368-434 (109.8 - 129.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mew through Light Screen: 221-260 (54.7 - 64.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Kommo-o through Light Screen: 265-312 (91 - 107.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

As seen above, even through veil thundurus can OHKO lots of the most common screens mons after rocks and a boost. Admittedly it doesn't have the greatest matchup against fatter teams and faces competition from zeraora, but it should be pointed out that there is a solid mon that works well against screens HO and with the right team support it can work against other styles as well. With a speed tier outspeeding latias, keldeo, and terrakion alongside a colorful move set in dark pulse, focus blast, psychic, sludge wave, knock off, and many more, thundurus is something that definitely deserves a lot more attention now.

To make this post more unique I'll talk about a post-Blaziken meta. For the most part, nothing has changed. No mons particularly got incredibly better or worse with blaziken leaving. Azu, mence, and slowking are still very good mons to use but now they're not mandated to be on teams to check blaziken. Similarly, stuff like bulu, celesteela, and tangrowth are just as good even in the blaziken meta. I guess something that fell off a lot would be incineroar, but blaziken leaving doesn't exactly solve it's problems....

These 2 are the closest things we have to suspect worthy, but I personally find both of them to be fine. They are more "on paper" threats and usually when building a team I find natural checks to these 2. They are still very good and possibly could be suspected down the line, but neither of them stand out like crazy. Terrakion, for example, has a poor matchup against top mons like latias, scizor, and azumarill, so it's brokenness is lessened. Of course, I could beat my words and they still prove to be problematic, but neither of them particularly look threatening enough to warrant an immediate suspect. Idk not going to go into more depth with these 2, but they just dont stick out as super broken mons and if we do test them there's a good chance I'd vote no ban, of course depending on how the meta develops (not much from this ban, everything stays the same except mence isnt forced onto every balance team)

I'm calling it now: UU will have a future sight epidemic like OU and RU at some point. Slowking is a fantastic mon, and through regenerator +high natural bulk+ teleport, can prove to be problematic as it can future sight, teleport out, and bring in a breaker. Both azumarill and terrakion's checks cannot take a future sight + banded CC or play rough. Hell, even crawdaunt does wonders with this strategy as it's switch ins like kommo-o and tangrowth crumble to future sight. Not saying this is super problematic or anything, but it's something we should keep our eyes on in the future, especially if this upcoming shift gives us yet another benefactor of this archetype.


Slowbro-Galar @ Grassy Seed
Calm Nature
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SpD
- Calm Mind
- Sludge Bomb
- Scald
- Slack Off
Now I'm just talking about neat techs (we should totally make a heat thread, would be down to start one if allowed to). Anyway, grassy seed slowbro is super fun to use. Not only does grassy seed boost its defense, it also lessens the knock off damage while terrain weakens super effective earthquakes. Calm mind is general set up while scald and sludge bomb are great at statusing the opponent. Nothing much to say, try it out it works really good. That's all I have to say, excited for upcoming shifts, meta is better off without blaziken and nothing really sticks out as banworthy. All playstyles are viable too, so that's really great to see.

 

[The Damned]

I too am glad that Ultra Mega Chicken is gone. I was a bit afraid it was going to actually survive another banning given the amount of people I saw arguing it was "balanced" mostly just because it had 4MSS. Here's to (futilely) hoping that OU doesn't dump anything too bad on us and/or take something from us next month for once, though given that it seems likely we're getting at least Urshifu-Water....

Or maybe if people really wanted to clean the screens they can use the penultimate screen cleaner Mr. Rime. Freeze dry those abusive Gyarados and Azu behind screens.

All this did was remind me a) that I wish all of our Infiltrator mons were better & not weak to common HO mons, especially since we are (thankfully) never getting Dragapult's busted self, and b) that Mr. Rime's drastic speed drop from Mr. Mime-Galar still greatly annoys me. I have to wonder what's been possessing Game Freak to have evolutions ditch 30 base Speed (or more), especially on something as defensively poor as Ice/Psychic, given they don't care about actually balancing things outside of Doubles otherwise, but I'll stop before I rant.

Still, if we're going to scrape the bottom of the barrel for possible answers to Screens being everywhere, then I don't think we have to go down quite as far to Mr. Rime when Whimsicott exists:

Losing Prankster Encore kind of sucks as does still being outsped by max Speed Regieleki even with Scarf on, but it might legitimately be one of better Screens answers (even if that's damned by faint praise) given the only HO mons that outright maul it are Moltres-Galar, Salamence, and Scizor, with Scizor being the worst of those--Ice Fang Gyarados too I guess. Whimsicott at least doesn't automatically die to +6 Aqua Jet from Azumarill like every other Infiltrator mon available to UU save for Noivern does, and unlike Noivern, it's also not deathly allergic to Mamoswine, so that's something in its favor. Hell, even just keeping Prankster might still be good enough against Hyper Offensive's non-Dark-types due to Encore, even against Scizor if you manage to switch into Swords Dance.

Shrug. Just another overlooked mon to maybe consider if Screens continue being such a pestilence. Shame that my other esoteric consideration of maybe using Spiritomb for that obnoxious Mew set with Cosmic Power went nowhere given that I finally realized two days ago that for some reason Punishment is among the 20+ moves that Game Freak quietly excised from this gen. It would be nice if there was a list of what got removed somewhere even if Game Freak itself should have given it to us. Oh well.

 

[PlusC]

Whimsibro can just Prankster Defog after Regileki goes boom to end hazards. Or Encore during screens to stop them setting up both (go Sub -> Encore -> Defog)

 

[467 11 11p]

If Screens/Veil continue to be a problem would considering banning Light Clay be the way to go or would all 3 moves have to go?

I think that taking away a whole playstyle would be a bit too much however I would love to see light clay go.
It's Honestly no surprise that screens HO is overwhelming especially with the new screen setters Ninetails-Alola and Trashieleki. With Bulky mons such as Cm Latias, Chuerk Mew, Sd Scizor, and Mb Celesteela become hella hard to deal with meanwhile other offensive threats such as azumarill, bisharp, diggersby, polteageist are extra threatening under the screens. All of the setters that we have amazing speed tiers regieleki being the fastest pokemon in the tier grimmsnarl with prankster and ninetails-alola being the 7th fastest pokemon in the tier. Aside from Trashieleki they all have good support options to keep up the screens and let in the breakers Grimmsnarl with taunt, Ninetails with encore and hypnosis because of this they will get up screens in almost every game, sometimes even multiple times in a game and keep them up. Although they are reliable there is some counterplay knocking the light clay is always a good option with zeraora being one of the fastest mons to do so. You can also kill them with a faster mon like iron head lycan scarf rachi or scizor bp, I'm not including eleki because it just set's up and explodes. Now that they are encored asleep or taunted, Grimm, Alolan Ninetales now switches out and is able to set up Screens later. Against bum ass ho, a free turn is all it needs for the opponent using ho to win easily. With the fact that they can save A-Ninetails or grimm and keep it for later and get free opportunity to set up and easily win the game not only shows how broken On top of the fact that they could easily switch out, preserve Alolan Ninetales as well as get the free opportunity to setup shows how broken it is and how limited counterplay is. Overall I believe that screens control the metagame. The reason why I believe that we should ban light clay instead of the breakers because it would take way to long look at each one of them. I don't believe that screens ( the move) should be banned either because other setters, would take multiple turns to get them up and would need more support. However the ban of light clay fits this perfectly by shortening the time that the screens are up while not getting rid of the playstyle.

 

[DiscoDucky]

I think that taking away a whole playstyle would be a bit too much however I would love to see light clay go.
It's Honestly no surprise that screens HO is overwhelming especially with the new screen setters Ninetails-Alola and Trashieleki. With Bulky mons such as Cm Latias, Chuerk Mew, Sd Scizor, and Mb Celesteela become hella hard to deal with meanwhile other offensive threats such as azumarill, bisharp, diggersby, polteageist are extra threatening under the screens. All of the setters that we have amazing speed tiers regieleki being the fastest pokemon in the tier grimmsnarl with prankster and ninetails-alola being the 7th fastest pokemon in the tier. Aside from Trashieleki they all have good support options to keep up the screens and let in the breakers Grimmsnarl with taunt, Ninetails with encore and hypnosis because of this they will get up screens in almost every game, sometimes even multiple times in a game and keep them up. Although they are reliable there is some counterplay knocking the light clay is always a good option with zeraora being one of the fastest mons to do so. You can also kill them with a faster mon like iron head lycan scarf rachi or scizor bp, I'm not including eleki because it just set's up and explodes. Now that they are encored asleep or taunted, Grimm, Alolan Ninetales now switches out and is able to set up Screens later. Against bum ass ho, a free turn is all it needs for the opponent using ho to win easily. With the fact that they can save A-Ninetails or grimm and keep it for later and get free opportunity to set up and easily win the game not only shows how broken On top of the fact that they could easily switch out, preserve Alolan Ninetales as well as get the free opportunity to setup shows how broken it is and how limited counterplay is. Overall I believe that screens control the metagame. The reason why I believe that we should ban light clay instead of the breakers because it would take way to long look at each one of them. I don't believe that screens ( the move) should be banned either because other setters, would take multiple turns to get them up and would need more support. However the ban of light clay fits this perfectly by shortening the time that the screens are up while not getting rid of the playstyle.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes the playstyle is broken for every iteration of a Dual Screens team, which, in reality, is not the case. For example, a Dual Screens team that runs something like SD + RP Rhyperior or Shell Smash Omastar will mostly be worse than one that runs SD + RP Terrakion or Shell Smash Polteageist. As a theoretical result, the threat of Dual Screens isn't from the Screens itself but rather the Pokemon that set up under it. The way you nerf screens is to either hit the most consistent setters (namely AlolaTales) or the most prominent sweepers (Blaziken, Latias, Terrakion, etc.). The relative success of the playstyle in general means either AlolaTales is being problematic again, or there are too many borderline broken offensive Pokemon that capitalizes on the free defensive boost from Dual Screens. The metagame overall is also still far from settled post-DLC2, so pulling the trigger when most tiering is still in flux is rash to say the very least.