★ np: SS UU Stage 9 - Call Me By Your Name

[Moutemoute]

I personally agree with what I've been said by pokemonisfun and Estarossa and it's one of the main reason I don't play the tier a lot at the moment. I think Rain is way too good vs way too many teams and archetype. It has a shit ton of abusers which don't share the same checks. This leads to situation where team A can deal with a rain team without X abusers and just get rekted by team B that contains that abusers. There is way too many threats to cover under Rain and overall too many Pokemon which can actually be great with this weather.
However I think there is something we can act against and it's the current setter : Pelipper. Rain wasn't that great before and I refuse to believe it's because we didn't tried the archetype enough. I think it's the perfect tool to make Rain unhealthy and pretty much unbalanced for the tier. The fact that it can pivot, heal itself, bypass Grass-types and support its squad with moves like Knock Off or Defog are the things which lead me to think this setter is the issue. Considering I don't think we can solve this issue by taking actions against a specific abuser I would personally like to see a suspect test of Pelipper. Another option would be to act against Damp Rock but meh. Damp Rock was fine with Politoed so yeah I think the best thing we can do would be to act against Pelipper. Would gladly want to see feedback from other people who're playing the tier.

PS : post ugly, soz I'm on phone :palico:

 

[Adaam]

I am posting this to let people know we brought up rain as a result of these concerns. Currently we believe Rain has a set of flaws holding it back from being broken, such as lack of defensive cohesiveness and difficulty in stopping opposing offensive Water-types. Opposing Keldeo, for example, are massive threats when your Rain boosts their STAB too, and Rain often omits Steel-types which opens up a lot of offensive counterplay.

Overall there is a lack of evidence besides a couple of ladder games to fully measure Rain's power. We want to see it perform in UUWC, and if it's overbearing there, then further action will be taken.

 

[romanji]

I agree with all of the points, especially on Pelipper. Rain teams were pretty gimmicky and bad, considering that they had to rely on Politoed, which is essentially playing 5v6. Pelipper being able to nuke Grasses with STAB Hurricane vs Ice Beam dinking off of them. Reliable recovery with Roost vs using Rest w/o Sleep Talk and end up being useless besides setting up rain. Omastar is also one to look out for, as it can set up to +3 easily with the Shell Smash and Meteor Beam combo, and doesn’t worry much about the Grass-types due to Pelipper getting rid of them.

BUT

Pelipper is not without flaws, the glaring one being the Stealth Rock weakness. It is often the sole Defogger on rain teams, it often has to waste rain turns to Defog and kills momentum for its team. Choice Specs is also a good breaker, but it still has to worry about a Stealth Rock weakness, and is much easier to play around due to its increased prediction reliance. Not running Damp Rock also means it can’t help get its teammates the extra rain turns they sometimes need. Also, we must wait until after UUWC for any immediate action to be done.

TLDR; I am open to a Pelipper suspect test but 50/50 on banning it.

 

[pokemonisfun]

Also, we must wait until after UUWC for any immediate action to be done.

Suddenly this tournament is important after vivalospride's drunk texting sparked like a dozen people asking to cancel it...

Okay, jokes aside, by all means use the tournament as an evidence gathering expedition. It's not just Rain, metagame elements I will scrutinize include Aegislash and Gyarados. Also, I'm open to being wrong about everything.

 

[Indigo Plateau]

Following Adam’s post & our talks in council chat this morning, I can’t really say I’ve found rain overbearing to play with or against. When shifts happened Lily initially brought it up just for discussion, & we both (can’t speak for rest of council) tried it pretty extensively. If anything, I thought it was crazier back then that it is now.

In my opinion, the main things holding rain back right now is that 1) there’s no set “cornerstone” making it broken (i.e. SM MPert) and 2) builds with it have been very flimsy and “fishy” as a result of that. I’ve tried & seen a ton of variants of it: three swift swim abusers, Spikes, Kommo-O, Chansey, more “niche” Electrics like Helio or Raikou, Crawdaunt, etc. Sure, it can obliterate in the right matchup where you run into Rotom-W + Zarude/Guss or whatever, but weather’s always been like that. I’ve yet to see or use Rain build where I go “hm, yeah this one’s consistent throughout”, because we don’t have multi-purpose mons on it like Mega Pert and Ferro, and instead need to compensate with other mons who do less and thus require more slots to do so.

As far as rain counterplay goes - well, for starters, popular mons like Keldeo and Prim are a pain for Rain builds that don’t have Guss/Tang/Chansey to pivot into, and even then you potentially give up rain turns & momentum. Chansey builds are extremely good right now and can usually solo 4 mons by itself. To no one’s surprise, fat Grasses continue to be amazing glues, and these are taken advantage of by stuff like Kommo or Mence but are by no means easy to muscle through either. Opposing Mence get free Hurricanes that are difficult to switch into without Chansey. Same goes for opposing Elecs like Thundy or Washtom who can spam their moves somewhat easily given that most of these teams aren’t even rocking a Ground-type. Hazards hurt you a fair amount too since you need Damp Rock on Peli & having to off them sucks for the fast-paced momentum game Rain usually wants, and if you run into a strong physical boi like Buzz with SR up, pivoting becomes much harder. etc etc, counterplay really isn’t as dire as some have made it out to be in practice.

As for other stuff that’s been brought up, I really don’t think Gyara is bad at all & hasn’t been for me since Light Clay ban. Maybe it’s my tendency to run more offensive oriented builds tho, idk. I actually firmly believe the metagame is extremely stable right now and don’t find anything overbearing or problematic. The closest thing would be Aegislash ig, which is & has been an insane force for a while now, although that doesn’t come as a surprise for me given its the premier Steel-type of the tier that’s also a Ghost-type (Ghosts have been kinda borked for the entirety of SS). I’d recommend maybe trying mons like Galartres, non Scarf Krook with a cleric, HDB Zarude, Kommo with a cleric, and AV Guss. These are all decently good options that I don’t see much of.

 

[Rae]

Though I’d planned to make this post a little bit later into the week, discussions been picking up recently about rain so I figured I may as well do it now! Enjoy the nice BOTW music! ^^

What’s up with Rain?



I absolutely agree with the statement that Pelipper is worthy of a suspect. Rain in itself is a surprisingly customisable playstyle, not being forced to be a strictly face-paced offensive archetype. In recent times, many Rain Balances or Bulky Offense teams have sprung up from time to time and I personally believe that these kinds of teams are normally better, as they aren’t just “cheese” and crumple on some occasions. Pelipper offers much more defensive and offensive utility than Politoed, which used to make the playstyle quite middling. Not only is able to fend off Grass-types thanks to Hurricane but the solid combination of Roost, Defog and U-turn makes it an amazing setter, being able to stay in the game longer, get rid of entry hazards and facilitate the team's breakers. While it is weak to hazards due to having to hold Damp Rock to keep the weather going for longer, it's still a pretty big threat, much more than Politoed.

The Abusers

some of this will more than likely be a little bit of an echo of a bunch of people's post, so yeah. Keldeo is already pretty tough to switch into, it's fantastic STAB moves and ability to slam Chansey with Secret Sword makes it an impressive wallbreaker, and coupling it with a hefty boost under Rain it becomes pretty problematic, capable of 3HKO-ing Chansey with it's Eviolite. Regieleki's fears of being invalidated by Ground-types disappear on Rain teams, which makes it very much effective! Swift Swim users are pretty self explanatory, they go zoom in water, not much else to say. Chansey does tend to have a relatively positive rain MU, being able to somewhat check the likes of Keldeo, Regieleki, Thundy-T, Seismitoad Salamence and Kingdra, though the likes of Crawdaunt and Azumarril make it's job a living hell and can easily wear it down or Knock Off it's Eviolite.

A Threat Lurking..

While a lot of Pokemon on the list above are stellar abusers of Rain, there's one particular Pokemon I've been investigating ever since the drop of Pelipper...

Choice Specs Volcanion

While the majority of Rain abusers provide little defensive utility and often lose their power once rain has ended, (bar some examples like Keldeo, Azumarill etc) Volcanion has a lot of attributes that makes it noticeably better and much less gimmicky, like impressive bulk, better and broader movepool and most importantly: It's own immunity to Water-type moves. This is pretty substantial, as it's a Rain abuser that does a magnificent job at checking other Rain abusers. Volcanion in itself is a pretty underrated presensce within the tier and i genuinely believe that with more experimentation and usage it could become a tier staple. But before i go tooting it's horn, I'd like to show you some impressive calcs for it.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Volcanion Steam Eruption vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey in Rain: 283-334 (40.1 - 47.4%) -- 53.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Pretty solid huh? Reminder that this is with it's Eviolite and Chansey's insane SpDef. Let's take a look at what it's bulk can do for it!

0 SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Volcanion: 126-148 (34.7 - 40.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Primarina Moonblast vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Volcanion: 135-159 (37.1 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

These are two pretty good calcs, but with it's bulk and useful defensive typing it can actually come in on a lot more stuff and pressure the other team, though for a choice-locked Pokemon like this you normally want some form of pivoting and hazard removal support, but for an explosive playstyle like rain, which uses Pelipper as the setter, which just so happens to have both of these things, it's able to be incredibly effective in a match and use it's incredible assets to it's full potential. I could even see it rising on regular teams with it's access to Defog, making Heavy Duty Boots sets also solid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can't really think of a way to finish this except for saying that waiting for UUWC to be done is probably the best course of action,yes i took a really long time talking about my silly monster with a donut on its back but I think I'd make the people aware of it. Thank you for listening and have a great day/afternoon/evening depending on your timezone!​

 

[Adaam]

I brought this up in council chat, but wanted to toss a feeler for others to chime in. I want to suspect Thundurus-I. UU is the slowest it’s ever been since the gen’s inception, making it far too difficult to cover its base 111 speed tier. Our natural options include Starmie, Zydog, Azelf, Barraskewda, and Noivern. None of these crack even A-, besides Starmie which is probably overranked. Scarfers don’t work since Knock Off neuters all of them, and even Lycanroc is unreliable since Accelerock is a roll (or not at all with 72 Defense EVs).

Thundurus is guaranteed to make progress every game. Knock Off is a broken move, and it has near perfect coverage with Thunderbolt, Psychic, and Grass Knot. Playing around it involves pivoting multiple times every time it comes in, hoping you finally get your Grass in on a Thunderbolt, or your Scarfer on something that isn’t Knock Off (or U-Turn for Krook/Zarude). It also isn’t even that frail, it’s surprisingly tough to take out with neutral moves from 100%. I know some people have expressed concern on rain, but Thundurus is my public enemy #1

 

[Monky25]

I actually sorta agree with the above post. Thundurus is hella cracked and is really tough to handle in the builder. I talked with some people about what is broken in the US West server (b4 we lost, RIP the dream) and I said that the only Pokemon I consider to be broken or warrant a suspect is Thundurus. Not Aegi, not rain, not Gyarados, Thundurus. Now I'm not saying we have to suspect it right now, but I can see many of us going "holy shit this is broken" during UUWC and do a test after since this guy is pretty nuts. Thundurus reminds me of Zeraora before it rose, pivoting around, knocking shit, being a bitch to kill, and just making progress in nearly every match. The thing that makes Thundurus really overbearing is the middling amount of counterplay we have to this. Down below are the "checks" to Thundurus scrolling through the VR without resorting to utter shitmons.
Defensive

Offensive

(choice scarf)

There's probably some shit I'm missing or whatever but I don't give a crap. Lets look at this list. Most of these options are either vulnerable to Knock, such as Rhyperior and Diancie, meaning it can just Knock and wear them down with U-turn, not to mention these mons are tasked with checking other Pokemon on the team, or just get U-turned on like Nihilego and Thundurus-T. Same goes with the Grasses which I didn't even include on this list, since it Knocks Tang' Assault Vest and can wear it and Amoonguss down with Psychic. Azelf and Noivern cant even OHKO with without some chip, while others like Mienshao and Krook have the chance to lose their scarf, making them food for U-turn. This leaves us with few options that can reliably handle Thundurus, either fitting on only balance/fat shit (Gastro and Umbreon) or KO with priority (Dusk rock and mamo). There's also starmie and zydog but that's not enough really. In my opinion, this isn't great counterplay, especially on paper. In practice, Thundurus can outlast its checks by wearing them down and pivoting, and often times I have to resort to trading with this threat with something that eats a hit as my main counterplay or trade with it and KO with priority.

Tl;dr: Thundurus is either broken or pretty damn near it and I wouldn't be opposed to a suspect test after UUWC. I'm mostly sure I would ban it, but most of my problems have been in the builder rather than in practice, so I'm certainly going to keep an open mind in the coming weeks to further my opinion. With the ban of Thundurus it would certainly be easier to fit checks to other top threats in the builder.

 

[BigFatMantis]

Just want to point out that this Amoonguss deals with almost all variants of Thundurus very easily:


Amoonguss @ Eject Button
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spore
- Foul Play
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis


You can change the item obviously - it doesn't matter since it's getting knocked anyways. You can also change Synthesis for Grass STAB if you need it. But it's the perfect counter for Thundurus if anyone is really having issues with it. Psychic does like 38 damage maybe to this. Amoonguss actually has more SpD than Def and is very underrated as a SpD tank.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not I think Thundurus is broken - just wanted to throw this out there for people that may want to try it as a solid answer to it.

 

[kino]

put a thundurus sprite cause my post looked ugly with only text​

I also think Thundurus-I is a massive issue right now. There's nothing to prevent it from making progress in a game, seeing how nothing that outspeeds it wants to come on Koff or stab Tbolt, and its speed tier is crazy good. The amount of progress Koff+Uturn (Volt if you choose to run Psychic + Gk) allows is insane, seeing how none of our potential switchins really want to come on those two. Tangrowth straight up loses more health than it heals, Rhyperior hates losing its leftovers and just drops to GK, Chansey eats anything but you probably don't want to let your chansey die on koff and it hates uturn.

Even stuff that could be reliable, long term counters on paper get pivoted on and other than the aforementioned SpD Guss, most can't get their health back that easily. Another option could probably be Bulky (even SpD) bulu, which has the tools to avoid getting chipped by endless move+uturn patterns. I've also ran AV Glowbro with last move Slack Off solely for this (had to run +spd too), and it did its work decently (albeit getting paralyzed a fair amount) on top of helping against some rarer koff users like tenta, scarf shao and av reuni. One could probably list other stuff that go down in viability or probably lose to agressive pivoting/in the long run anyway (Umbreon is one).

Overall I don't feel like we have a reassuring amount of Thundurus counterplay without having to use very suboptimal options. A lot of times facing it I had to resort to trade the cripples on greedy plays by the Thundurus, ie sometimes having to resort to letting my Aegi get knocked early to trade for a Toxic or a Shadow Ball. Most of the times I also just risked losing to GK Thund (staying in w/ Krook, Rhyp or Toad just to "trade" some progress), which fortunately enough I didnt see much, and I really think it should be used more (GK kinda forces you to run Volt > Tbolt but covers the ground Immunity and some checks at the cost of some power, feels very worth it in some cases)

I'm also 100% supportive of a suspect if this has any chance of happening. I'm also very looking forward to see if people come up with crazy shit in UUWC to punish it, but for the time being if a suspect were to happen, i'd be leaning towards ban for sure.

 

[hs]

Fully echoing Adaam and other people's sentiments about Thundurus. As the aforementioned post addresses, Thundurus-I is an insane progress maker thanks to its crazy speed tier in a relatively slow metagame coupled with a wide array of moves that makes it close to being unwallable without having to resort to more niche options like Chansey, Diancie, Umbreon, SpD Amoonguss or Bulu, most of which are still not totally reliable against it (Chansey gets knocked / U-turned on, Diancie is extremely prone to being chipped because it lacks recovery, and Bulu can not simply switch in without fearing Sludge Wave). Tangrowth isn't and never will be a good Thundurus-I check unless you're running AV Synthesis, it gets knocked / chipped by Psychic + hazards and U-turned on to something that takes advantage of its passiveness i.e Kommo-o. As Monky stated, it quite reminds me of Zeraora / Victini (though to a lesser extent) in how much Boots enable it to grab momentum without further punishment while still being bulky enough to do its thing while not having to worry about dying to Noivern / Lycanroc-Dusk / LO Starmie's hits, and even Zydog is forced to get locked in Outrage to get rid of it, so revenge killing it is still insurmountable for most of the mons that outspeed it.

Overall, I think the tier currently finds itself in a good state, perhaps the best it has been in some time as I don't think there's anything that impacts it negatively outside of Thundy-I, so I'd like to wait more to see some UUWC and perhaps some SCL action as well prior to that, but as of now I'm 100% in favor of a suspect test and also leaning towards the ban.

 

[KaenSoul]

Arctozolt @ Life Orb
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Icicle Crash
- Stone Edge
- Low Kick
I have been experimenting a bit on the ladder and this is something more people should give a try, Hail has a really good match up against Rain and Arctozolt is almost impossible to switch into, thanks to god is slow and most scarfers are able to revenge kill it.

252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 220+ Def Amoonguss: 283-335 (65.5 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 187-221 (46.2 - 54.7%) -- 98% chance to 2HKO after hail damage
252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mamoswine: 341-403 (94.4 - 111.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Bolt Beak (170 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 398-469 (56.5 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Bolt Beak (170 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 300-355 (74.2 - 87.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Arctozolt Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Heat: 224-265 (73.9 - 87.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I use Sub toxic Aegislash to wear down stuff with hail damage to clean later with Arctozolt, is pretty hard to deal with.

 

[KM]

i've agreed with the thund sentiment on discord but want to put it here as well in an effort to not make all the discussion non-forums

thund is super broken, and there's a few things that I think are worth pointing out that contribute to this.

1. it's very rare for thund to have bad moves:

i'm gonna compare thund to another pivot, zarude. for zarude, there's generally a significant downside to clicking the wrong move. if you lariat the aegislash as it king's shields, you drop your attack. if you jungle healing as they cc, you lose most of your HP. if you u-turn / power whip on a rocky helm user like buzzwole or amoonguss, you lose your longevity.

the same rules do not really apply to thundurus. if you knock as they king's shield, you get a defiant boost and become even more threatening. it's harder for rocky helmet users to switch into u-turn because they get punished heavily by psychic / knock. you get plenty of free knock turns because most of the targets that would normally want to switch into a knock (eject kommo, amoonguss, cobalion, zarude) fear thund's coverage moves. defiant prevents counterplay like intimidate users and stat drops. all of these come together to mean that there are very few situations in which thund is choosing between a (bad move) and a (good move) -- more often then note, the ideal click and the worst click are both progress-making, momentum-retaining, and ultimately better for you than your opponent.

2. thund isn't constraining in the builder

unlike other similarly centralizing mons like aegislash or keldeo, thundurus doesn't really limit your other choices in the building process. typing-wise, it doesn't really take up the slot of an "electric-type" or a "flying-type" because its immunity to ground prevents it from stacking weaknesses and ice-type moves aren't common enough to generate a significant concern of overall team weakness. nearly every team outside of a few niche styles benefit from its utility, and it can run its standard sets with mild alterations to fit niche playstyles like rain (weather ball pivot is an excellent set on rain balance, and np weather ball is excellent on more offensive rain teams).

3. thund's nasty plot and pivot sets have distinct checks

this to me is the final nail in the thund coffin. there ARE checks to the standard pivot set -- the eject button amoonguss BFM posted (which I run all the time) is a good example of this. You outheal psychic damage, punish u-turn momentum, and win in the long term barring hax. however, you're complete set-up bait for np sets. the same is true for other checks to the pivot set -- rhyperior loses to np fb (with minor chip), grass knot pivot, np gk, or np weather ball. diancie loses to np charti or np weather ball. chansey loses to np focus blast or superpower pivot. this problem is compounded by the fact that flexible counterplay to the pivot set mainly comes in the form of switching out -- for instance, you can switch into krookodile on a knock off and then go to a celesteela on the u-turn. this plan disintegrates the minute the set isn't what you expected.

because of these three things, thund is basically never bad in games. it's either really good, or straight up wins. i'd absolutely support a suspect

 

[Freeroamer]

Thundurus is obscene, it has literally 1 major drawback in that it’s difficult to get on the field without pivot support/doubling. It can even be argued that this is not a big deal given the high amount of other pivot options there are available in this tier and that it’s fantastic speed tier means only scarfers and a couple of mid to fringe viable threats outspeed, meaning it’s always capable of revenge killing other fast threats such as Keldeo.

There’s been talk of using SpDef Amoong or Synth on AV Tang to try and reduce the amount the pivot set punishes you but I actually think this speaks volumes to how strong the set is, because both of these mons are extremely passive and allowing to other threats to come in and pose a real issue, not to forget Tang losing the AV can severely diminish your capability to deal with something else such as a Keld or a Prim. There really isn’t much else you can send into the pivot set multiple times in a game though.

I’m not really as high on Nasty Plot as the pivot set at all, I don’t think it reaches nearly the same level of consistency because Knock and Turn are so free to click a lot of the time, but it definitely adds another dimension to Thundurus, particularly when searching for defensive answers. There’s no doubt to me that Thundurus is the single biggest outlier in this tier currently and should be suspected.

 

[Indigo Plateau]

I’m all for a Thundy suspect but I’m going to play devil’s advocate and say that I really don’t think it’s broken, at least from my personal experience. I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s posts so far but the only instance I’ve seen of someone actually mentioning Thundy’s flaws (and not extensively) has been Roamer re: bringing it in. I talked about this in council chat but want to bring up some issues I have from using it; and please realize this might just be my experience:

1) It’s a phenomenal progress maker when it comes in. I got the sentiment from most, if not all, posts here that Thundy is consistenly coming in and making progress. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Thundy’s not frail but its typing makes it so that it can’t really come in on anything safely - look at most BO builds, and ask yourself when you can afford to actually switch it into something. This leads to most instances of it coming in being via a double or to revenge kill something, since I don’t think that most other things that can use pivoting moves flow well alongside it.

2) Thundy isn’t really splashable for me. I talked to rob about this in council chat and know that he has an easier time building with it that I do. I ended up looking at the ~14 post shift teams I had, and only 3 had a Thundy, while 6 had other Electric-types. The issue for me is that unless I’m committing to full offense (usually through the Thundy-Keld-Guss route or a variation), it doesn’t provide any defensive utility at all. The Rotoms have arguably better pivoting capabilities, and I’ve found success here & there with some more niche stuff like Raikou too (since I can run Lefties).

I’ve struggled more than I thought to come up with consistent Thundy builds. I heavily disagree with KM’s sentiment of it not stacking weaknesses or not constraining in the builder. Things like Mamo, Lycan, Zydog, are rare, but potentially dealing with them when these builds are already strapped for slots can be a major detriment. I’ve also found it hard to find builds with it that can deal with stuff just like Aegi and Buzzwole (might not be the best example but its the first physical attacker that came to mind lol) too, since fitting a Goltres, Salamence, or other mons that I would use to answer these feels so awkward alongside Thundy. All around it’s just been something that’s been way more awkward than I thought it would be to build with.

3) Thundy is more threatening on paper than in practice. Especially for a mostly offense user like myself, I’ve had a lot of instances where I’ve seen a team & been like, “well fuck, I can’t switch into Thundy at all without getting knocked/pivoted on.” Yet when I play against it, it has very limited opportunities to come in & do stuff. I don’t want to downplay its ability to run different sets but I’ve seen zero NP sets outside of rain just bc of all the utility it gives up. TBolt is good stab & it’s decently strong but it’s not some unswitchable force either, often trading a lot of health vs stuff like Mence, Rotom, Guss, Kommo, etc. We don’t have a lot of Ground-types but I’m not sure why people are quick to write off stuff like Rhyp/Gastro/Mamo/Bunny or just assume that Krook is the only relevant one. GKnot has been mentioned too & tbf I haven’t used it at all (only used Superpower once as last move), but dropping U-turn has obvious drawbacks too. The two premier glues of the tier in Guss and Tang get knocked and pivoted on but if they were really that easy to abuse, then they wouldn’t be as popular as they are. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want people slapping some niche mon to answer just Thundy, but that it’s totally feasible to use some things like Gastro, Zydog, etc on certain builds for more reasons than just Thundy or just limit when Thundy can come in, because most of my teams rely on that.

Phew that was a longer post than expected. Again, I’m playing devil’s advocate because it hasn’t been nearly as bad in practice for me as has been stated in the thread. I also really can’t remember seeing a Thundy team or replay that I’ve been overly impressed with despite how broken it’s being made out to be. By all means, I highly encourage people to post teams and/or replays to change my mind. I do support a suspect before SCL since most people seem to want one, but at the moment, I think the utility that Thundy offers for a top tier offensive mon is perfect alongside its drawbacks.