Metagame NP: Stage 10 - I Must Apologise (post #41 Armarouge, Gyarados, Necrozma banned)

[etern]

Welcome to a new era of SV NU, we finally have water-types and a defogger that isn't Drifblim!!!

RU to NU:


We're also unbanning the entirety of NUBL as this is essentially a new tier, therefore the following Pokemon are also free:

Marty dhelmise

Tier Shift Changes

Armarouge moved from RU to NU
Bellibolt moved from RU to NU
Brambleghast moved from RU to NU
Chansey moved from RU to NU
Galvantula moved from RU to NU
Gastrodon moved from RU to NU
Gyarados moved from RU to NU
Incineroar moved from RU to NU
Infernape moved from RU to NU
Kilowattrel moved from RU to NU
Kingdra moved from RU to NU
Krookodile moved from RU to NU
Lycanroc-Dusk moved from RU to NU
Magnezone moved from RU to NU
Mew moved from RU to NU
Mienshao moved from RU to NU
Milotic moved from RU to NU
Minior moved from RU to NU
Muk-Alola moved from RU to NU
Munkidori moved from RU to NU
Necrozma moved from RU to NU
Noivern moved from RU to NU
Overqwil moved from RU to NU
Porygon-Z moved from RU to NU
Quagsire moved from RU to NU
Raikou moved from RU to NU
Regidrago moved from RU to NU
Reuniclus moved from RU to NU
Rhyperior moved from RU to NU
Rotom-Heat moved from RU to NU
Slowbro moved from RU to NU
Smeargle moved from RU to NU
Suicune moved from RU to NU
Swampert moved from RU to NU
Talonflame moved from RU to NU
Tentacruel moved from RU to NU
Torterra moved from RU to NU
Typhlosion-Hisui moved from RU to NU
Vaporeon moved from RU to NU
Venusaur moved from RU to NU

Expect tiering action sometime in the next week and until then, experiment and let us know how you feel about NU's brand new form!​

 

[cyrtie]

Gyarados went from being OU/UU the past gens to being in NU, how the mighty have fallen..

 

[schmoepesci]

As soon as I find out if Necrozma is good or not in this tier it's over

 

[Nightingales]

This is gonna be a wild ride, but I have a few things I think are gonna stand out.

Reuniclus @ Colbur Berry / Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

- Calm Mind

- Psyshock

- Focus Blast

- Recover

We got a lot of stuff, but this is probably the one mon I have my eye on the most. I don't think stall's gonna be too huge, but I think with Bellibolt / Chansey / Umbreon and some other tools, Reuniclus is pretty much able to shut down a load of them. Being bulky and hard to kill is common, but if you keep this thing healthy into the mid and late game, you can clean up so easily it's unfair.

Lycanroc-Dusk @ Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Tough Claws
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

- Swords Dance /

- Crunch

- Accelerock

- Close Combat

- Stone Edge

Press Swords Dance, win. If not SD, just click something. This thing is fast, hits like a truck, and has priority stab. It's pretty strictly an upgrade, even if it's like two points slower than Lycanroc-Day.

Muk-Alola @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Touch
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Tera Type: Steel
Careful Nature

- Poison Jab

- Knock Off

- Rest

- Sleep Talk

I was initially unsure about this thing. We have a lot of stuff with good ground coverage. But this thing eats and is gonna be such a good glue mon, I can see it tackling a lot of new threats. It won't just hard wall anything, but with stuff like Mew, Necrozma, and even Reuniclus showing up on teams, it's gonna be a nuisance. Definitely gonna be A-tier at the lowest. This probably isn't even the best set, it's just the first one I found.

 

[Heatranator]

Okay, looking at the list, imagine if politoed dropped. There are so many rain abusers in the tier, so maybe manual rain would be good.

Though Imma just going to spam torterra to the ends of the earth, get ready for shell smash shenanigans.

 

[Oathkeeper]

I'd like to formally redact my statement on Inteleon please! With the following mons now available to us, it's not as scary as it was pre-shifts



Sure, you could argue the fact that there were others around before shifts like Pawmot, Mowtom and the like, but as I mentioned in that particular post, those mons needed to be scarfed to check Intel properly. Now we have actual defensive switch-ins to it.


That being said, this meta just did get more chaotic with everything we got today. Stuff I'm keeping an eye on are Lycanroc-Dusk, Reuniclus, Gyarados, Infernape (goated mon), Krookodile, Regidrago, and Typhlosion-H as a start. Torterra with Shell Smash is also another to watch.

Glad we got those NUBL mons back too. Not sure if Lilligant-H still is a beast as it was before its ban, but nonetheless is something to watch. Drednaw is something we're all watching if I'm being honest since it's failed (been banned) every single time it's been brought back into the meta and rightfully so. However, we have some mons that I mentioned previously that could deal with it. Quag is the big answer to it imo. Water Absorb for Water STAB, resists Rock. Dred may just run Tera Grass Blast just b/c of that idk.

Long story short, this huge shakeup was good for NU. I cannot wait to build and test these mons out and see where and how the meta develops in the days to come.

 

[BluewolfZ]

This resembles the previous generation’s UU and I don’t even blame powercreep.

 

[Serviperhater]

new drops looking crazy so thought I’d give first impressions on them real quick

four new shell smash mons in the tier at the same time looking great for ho. thinking that Torterra will probably be the best currently with its powerful stab combination and it’s immunity to klefkis thunder wave drednaw has the best speed tier though, swift swim, and Tera dark is good too. cloyster has skills link. then minior is kinda underwhelming tbh it doesn’t do well into many of the tiers defensive grounds and hits like paper if it’s in shields up form. any of these could get banned (except minior)

defensive waters??? in sv nu??? these guys are great and I think most of them will be good if not great in the tier. vaporeon and gastrodon give us a water immunity (inteleon getting stuffed frfr), quagsire is the first hood unaware mon the tier has had, swampert has good bulk pivoting and rocks, tentacruel has spin knock and pivoting, and milotic has haze recovery and pivoting. all good mons tbh just to varying levels

sun getting even better. h-liligant doing normal h-liligant stuff that got it banned before as a strong sun wall breaker with sd or victory dance. also function outside of sun with hustle sets. venasaur is a terrifying mon under sun with growth sets and it’s good coverage. outside of sun mostly outdone by vileplume though. h-typhlosion just does what normal typhlosion did but better with its secondary stab and immunity to espeed.

cetitan will do what it did before with belly drum slush rush but in this meta I don’t think it can pull it off as well and why use hail when only one abuser is good? the new manual rain drops are all good but probably came to late to be broken still amazing though. outside of rain overqwil might go back to be being a good spiker again and kilowattrel will be a nice side grade to thundy.
fast sticky webs + accurate thunder only really exists for ho teams but it’ll be the best setter for those
raikou should be in uu tbh but since he’s down here the calm mind set is going to be good and he kept scald so that’s nice also boots pivot set wouldn’t be bad either. it’s probably the scariest drop we got.
I mean it’s suicune it’s going to calm mind rest sleep talk and surf while being extremely bulky probably be pretty good at it too
ru gave us an actual defogger! good ability+speed+move pool and definitely going to have a place on balance and probably stall. love this addition
another defogger but probably won’t run the move that much. it’s a good offensive pivot though with a good enough speed tier.
rapid spin user with an interesting offensive and support movepool. probably came here a bit to late but might stick around for a while.
chansey is back and stall rejoices! the inability to run boots sucks but it’s great bulk on the special side makes up for that. chansey and avalugg love story continues???!!?
defensive pivot with an amazing utility movepool and cool typing allowing to check a lot of stuff. intimidate also helps a lot.
regenerator Mon with a healing move and a lot of good supportive and offensive moves. competes with its galarian counterpart and most offensive sets will be down better by the galarian form.
another amazing regenerator Mon but also has another amazing ability in magic guard. Tera will make set up sets incredibly potent but it’s low speed will allow it to be offensively pressured but definitely could be extremely problematic.
cool specs Mon and psychic terrain abuser despite losing indeedee-m did gain armarouge as a new abuser reminds me of chandy could be busted
I think it’ll finally not be overpowered??? quiver dancer and that’s about it but it’s amazing and it’s typing gives it so many set up opportunities. it’s going to be good but probably will drop to pu for no reason tbh
dragon dance with either moxie or intimidate to be a bulkier or more offensive move set naw it’s going to be insanely broken. can’t believe it’s nu
another dd mon probably not going to be crazy until the first wave of bans but this thing will just continue to do what it did before it got banned
band and sd just mow through most of the tier idk if he should stay defensive counterplay is very limited
I don’t think this Mon will be running specs and scarf much because it’s rock weakness but nasty plots and utility sets are probably decent
cool Mon that will probably compete a lot with flygon as a ground type scarfer. it’s slower but always makes progress with knock. lead sets maybe on ho.
cool Mon that’s probably one of the best options for a scarf fighter with some cool tools like Uturn and switcheroo and band could be cool too. special sets can bait slowbro in and beat deal big damage with grass knot
magnetic could be ok? only really traps copper without earthquake though. analytic specs will be amazing though and maybe iron press?
an electric type physical wall that can spread toxic in a tier with one cleric. cool mon
some people think this Mon is going to be bad? literally one of my favorite additions extremely powerful and free to always click that choiced Uturn. av isn’t bad either
cool glue mon with decent typing and amazing utility. big fan of any bulky Mon that has memento and stab knock, haze, and toxic are great too
great coverage and good speed and special attack with nasty plot and pivoting pretty good
this Mon is getting banned. it does too much too well and it’s versatility and unpredictable make counter play pretty slim until you know it’s set
mostly worse than mew rn but after mew is gone this thing will be doing the same things and it’s got the ability to be physically or special probably going to get banned eventually
ground coverage and the ability to Tera to hit fairy’s make this thing crazier than it was last gen but only power creep is so insane that it’s not that bad tbh
it’s ok at what it does and it has to great abilities to help its wallbreaking and Tera’s good for it
bulky ground that honestly will probably be one of the best Pokémon when the tier settles down. great at getting up rocks and taking hits
use your imagination to put any move to use. *jk just hazard moves and nuzzle, sucks even more without spore*
ok that’s my basic thoughts after only a few games on ladder so take it with a grain of salt

 

[Team Rocket]

Few matches in the new meta and right off the bat, Drought combined with is just broken. That thing has all the coverage it needs to sweep teams, add terra Water to nullify it's fire weakness and it's GG. We will hopefully see some quickbans soon, as there is no counter play to this.

 

[Bruxish supremacy]

Few matches in the new meta and right off the bat, Drought combined with is just broken. That thing has all the coverage it needs to sweep teams, add terra Water to nullify it's fire weakness and it's GG. We will hopefully see some quickbans soon, as there is no counter play to this.

Why Tera water when it can Tera fire for very similar defensive profile while giving it stab on weather ball and even burn immunity

 

[King Roma]

Why Tera water when it can Tera fire for very similar defensive profile while giving it stab on weather ball and even burn immunity

cause then lycanroc-dusk just sweeps the whole team

 

[Bruxish supremacy]

cause then lycanroc-dusk just sweeps the whole team

That's good point NGL but I think steel is better as pure defensive typing as it gives immunity to all of ambipom and incineroar? Fake outs that ladder has been spamming and giving it accelerock resist to boot.

Ig what water does tho. It has its place like Tera water chandy.

 

[plznostep]

NEW SHIFTS

Hello NU, it's been a while since I've made a post and these Pokémon have been fun and pretty crazy to play with, so I wanted to share what I have been using.

Reuniclus

Set

Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Fighting / Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Calm Mind / Shadow Ball
- Trick Room

As soon as I saw Reuniclus I thought about using it with OTR, as its slow yet has a superb Special Attack stat with another amazing ability to compliment it in Magic Guard meaning it doesn't have to worry about status and in this case, Life Orb recoil giving it even more power without the restriction of having to be locked into a single move. This set primarily functions in a cleaner role, as Trick Room has a limited amount of turns tha make it better suited for late game interactions, but Reuniclus can go on the offensive early in the right matchups considering it has immense power right off the bat anyway. Just an overall fun and unique set for Reuniclus to use.

Gyarados

Set

Gyarados @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate / Moxie
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Waterfall
- Tera Blast
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance

So here is Gyarados. This is just one of the sets I have been trying out and wow, this Pokemon is really really good. Firstly, it has a great defensive typing for new mons like Infernape and Krookodile while also packing two great abilties in Moxie and Intimidate. Both work as Intimidate gives Gyarados even more setup opportunities while Moxie makes you snowball even more once you are set up. Terastallization also gives Gyarados reliable Flying-type STAB which is huge for Grass-types who could otherwise check Gyarados and Earthquake is a really nice coverage move for Bellibolt. Overall, its quite a conflicting Pokemon in the tier for me. While it is incredibly threatening, it's not that fast when at +1 and Water-types are common at the moment who can all try checking it, so it may not be that bad.

Muk-Alola

Set

Muk-Alola @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Touch
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Poison Jab
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Protect

I love this Pokemon. Muk-Alola is such good glue for balance teams, fending off various special attackers like Reuniclus and spreading poison to its switchins like Quagsire and Rhyperior while also removing items with Knock Off at the same time. I like to use Protect to give Muk-Alola the ability to scout Pokemon with Choice items while also giving it that extra bit of recovery from Leftovers to keep healthy. It also has Drain Punch to annoy any Steel-types roaming around like Registeel for minor chip damage. This slot can be a variety of moves though, like Haze, Shadow Sneak, or perhaps Curse. Overall just very good and I advise you use it.

Mienshao

Set

Mienshao @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Stone Edge

So here is Mienshao. Super good movepool with Knock Off and U-turn and some good coverage for Pokemon who are really annoying to it like Talonflame, although sadly it doesn't have Earthquake so Static from Bellibolt can be a nasty problem for it. Regenerator is super good through, it means it doesn't have to worry about hazards beating it down unlike other Fighting-types like Infernape which really suffer from this issue especially when facing Rocky Helmet users like Slowbro. Otherwise, it's like any other Fighting-type scarfer really, get in, hit hard, pivot, and Knock Off, and that's good enough to be one of my favourite new drops.​

 

[Segetarius]

Some quick initial thoughts on the nuke that fell on our laps, PS started writing this last night and then got sniped by plznostep sadge:

Broken:


Sun is revitalized and it's really dumb. Please identify the mon we have capable of switching into +2 Venusaur or Choiced Typh-H Eruption or Lilligant-H, just to name a few. We've hit enough of a critical mass on sun abusers that I say just ban Drought and be done with it. I'd be curious to see how the aforementioned sun abusers do in a meta w/out (automatic) sun.


Oh, you thought you could run any bulky mon ever? No, you can't, b/c it means that you give free setup to this mon and more than likely get swept. It doesn't help that all of the mons capable of actually threatening this mon immediately are very telegraphed switches, and most of them drop to Focus Blast with minimal chip. Even the things that can stay in the ring w/ this thing (Milotic and Haze Muk-A come to mind) need to stay very healthy lest they fall into range, and frankly, they're very susceptible to hazards and don't believe the hype, hazard-stack is alive and well. This mon feels very braindead with CM Magic Guard and remember, that's just one set. I haven't even mentioned Stored Power sets or Regenerator with Boots or AV or OTR. This mon feels very dumb and honestly the fact that it dropped at all is mildly baffling.


Yeah, Gyara in NU is about as dumb as you'd think. It's not impossible to play around, but it's very set dependent and the onus is on the opponent to not immediately lose to whatever variant you're running. The first time I went up against a Gyara I thought I was fine b/c I had Quag... and then it just subbed on me and I only won due to a lot of misplays on my opponent's part. Then I started building with Klef, and it felt really good b/c Foul Play breaks the Sub and then you have prankster TWave, but there are options for that to. Between Sub, Tera, and Taunt if you really want to go all in, this mon can invalidate basically all counterplay. When I ran Gyara I went Tera Electric, and that removed most of the obvious counterplay alongside Sub. That's just one set and the possibilities w/ this mon are kinda endless, we've really only scratched the surface. Might as well just kick it out before it becomes more oppressive.

Great Additions:


All hail the new best Fighting type. Frankly, I don't think that's even a contest atm, this mon just feels miles ahead of every other fighter. Need speed control? Scarf is just as good as it was last gen (it's on like all of my teams). Want power? Banded Reckless HJK go brrr. Wanna sweep? LO SD is always an option. Want more bulk (for some reason, like why)? AV is there ig. This mon will perform in every game and Scarf in particular feels like a great way of dealing with a lot of offensive mons and cleaning up.


-> everyone point and laugh, how the mighty have fallen, suck a dick Glowbro. With that pent up frustration out of the way, this mon is great glue. Abusing Poison Touch Knock and PJab in all the ways that Grafaiai never really did (trust me I tried). RestTalk is a fine default, but Drain Punch/SSneak/Haze/Protect/TSpikes all work to round out the last 2 slots. I'm expecting great things.


I AM SPEED. I haven't gotten around to using Wattrel, but TFlame and Noivern have been very consistent pivots for me. I imagine Wattrel has a harder time fitting on a team bc of its worse bulk and competition with Thundy, but I'm sure it'll find its own niche somewhere. Having the ability to outspeed a lot of stuff in one slot with mons that have good STABs is a great feeling to have back, and I expect these mons to redefine speed tiers as we knew them.

SO MANY WATER TYPES
Eat your heart out Inteleon and Basc. Quag is a good anti-HO mon, Gastro if you want Water Absorb Quag, Vaporeon for Wish support, Swampert for Rocks and other utility, Milo for mixed Def longevity, Slowbro for its huge longevity, just to name a few. The offensive waters are probably going to be good too when NUBL is unbanned, Drednaw and Cloyster will def need to be watched. Some of these waters are probably going back to RU eventually with the rise of Slowking and Washtom, but surely we keep a few good ones right?

There's plenty to build with atm and once the immediately broken stuff is gone, I'm sure there will be a lot of cool mons that take the spotlight. I personally still need to build with CB Krook, Typh-H (out of sun), probably some Milo shenanigans asw. Thanks for reading!

 

[Shengineer]

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to one of my new favorite utility cores of Talonflame + Swampert



Excellent synergy with their defensive typing. Talonflame can remove hazards while Swampert puts them up. Talon spreads burn while Swampert removes items. They make a really solid backbone to balance builds right now, and I will continue to explore which mons I should pair with them. Here's a little team I built that got Lucario to rank 10 on ladder: https://pokepast.es/4164d4b55e479a6f

Maybe Regidrago is just broken though...

 

[Heatranator]

Okay, from my testing I have a few things to say. Reminder that I am a novice NU player, so take my points with a grain of salt.
My god this thing is powerful. It may struggle a bit to set up, but that isn't too difficult if you can come in on electric types. After you get a shell smash however, its lights out for the enemy. You outspeed everything in the tier bar the fastest scarfers, and you have enough bulk to take one hit from them. Add on tera which can usually guarentee you live a hit, and this thing is busted.
Another powerful mon, however this one requires scarf to function. Most likely going to be a good presence in the tier to keep many mons in check in the tier.
Analytic go brrr. While its low speed does hinder it a bit, that is well worth the tradeoff for the power of analytic boosts. Nothing can properly switch in on it, but it can be forced out. Happy my magnet boy has found a place it fits nicely in.
This thing is bs. Have been using an expert belt set with rain dance, and it destroys everything in the tier. Outruns most mons and can take light hits. Then with rain boosted hydro pumps, annihilates everything. While the tier got faster mons, I would watch out for this mon, it could easily become broken down the line.

 

[Lucario]

As Adele once said, hello, it's me. I want to talk about some Pokemon that are new to SV Neverused, all of which fall under one of 3 categories: broken, potentially broken, strong but balanced.

Broken:


Ninetales is here bevause Drought is incredibly broken... or is it? It is, but I have a possible solution: ban Chlorophyll. Banning Drought gets rid of automatic Sun as a playstyle while banning Chlorophyll keeps Sun as a viable strategy. Chlorophyll users like Venusaur, Vileplume, Lilligant-Hisui, and Scovillain are extraordinarily dangerous under Sun, as are Fire-types like Infernape and Rotom-Heat. I wouldn't mind whether Sun or Chlorophyll gets banned, but after SSNU, I think we could give Drought a chance to live without being held back by Grass-types. Regidrago needs no explanation, it clicks Dragon Dance as you swap out to your Fairy, and as you click your Fairy-type move it suddenly becomes a Steel-type and reverse sweeps you. Thanks to its monstrously high HP it can survive a hit before setting up while also tanking priority hits, though it is noticeably weak to Infernape's Mach Punch post-Tera. Reuniclus and Suicune are very similar. They both use Calm Mind while their opponents try to do something. Reuniclus's Magic Guard helps it against anything trying to Toxic or burn it while Suicune commonly runs Substitute to block status. Reuniclus also has the option of running AV or Specs sets with varying consistency. I don't think these 2 Pokemon are busted or anything of the sort, but they are very unhealthy due to their bulky setup + Tera. Torterra is similar to Regidrago, it clicks Shell Smash once and runs through teams. Ladder seems to love leading with it just to obtain 2 or more KOs that should never happen. Torterra's biggest downside is its weakness to priority since it isn't running White Herb, making it somewhat fragile. I believe all 4 of these Pokemon (and 1 of 2 abilities) should be banned.

Potentially Broken


Armarouge is a Pokemon I have very little experience with, but in the few games I've seen it in, it did a lot. With Weak Armor + Calm Mind and STAB Stored Power in its arsenal, it is a very potent threat that is really only stopped by Dark-types like Muk-Alola, Krookodile, and Umbreon. It also has the ability to run Specs on Psychic Terrain teams, but I haven't seen that get used yet. I would need to see more from this to form a strong opinion. Gyarados is another setup sweeper, but one that is often found struggling due to its reliance on Tera. It's no secret that Gyarados can perform well without Tera, but it falls flat because of the many bulky Water-types we received this month. Not only is Gyarados Tera reliant, it is susceptile to Lycanroc's Accelerock and Lucario's Extreme Speed, 2 very powerful moves that can easily revenge it if it isn't running Substitute. Lycanroc-Dusk is a better Terrakion, but we don't have that anymore. Rock STAB is surprisingly really good right now when you look at its resists like Registeel, Swampert, and Mudsdale which all fold to Close Combat. Having Accelerock is really nice to revenge Scarfers and faster threats, but that's just it, it's a little too strong. Minior is in the same boat as Armarouge, I haven't seen much of it, but looking at the calcs, it sure is scary. Mew and Necrozma both have an infinite number of sets which makes counterplay really difficult. You might switch-in your Alolan Muk just to see them Tera Poison and setup. Alternatively you could switch-in a Registeel just to see it die to their endless coverage. These 2 are like Reuniclus and Suicune in the sense that they aren't broken, but are unhealthy. Slowbro is fat, clicks Calm Mind and Slack Off, and gets the Scald Burn every time. My only reasoning for not putting this in Broken is because of how susceptible it is to status due to it being so slow. Slack Off having 8 PP also hurts it when trying to 1v1 some Pokemon. These 7 Pokemon are all very strong and should be looked at by council.

Strong, But Balanced


I'm not going to go into much detail on these Pokemon as I have with the others. Infernape has a lot of sets which are all very good (Specs, Band, SD, NP, AoA, Pivot, Lead). Infernape does a lot of things well and pairs well with a lot of Pokemon, but it falls off a lot due to its bulk, poor matchup vs. Water-types, and the existence of Talonflame and Noivern. Krookodile is our new Flygon. Scarf, Band, and Lead sets are all very potent, having STAB on 2 of the most spammable moves is deadly. Krookodile's biggest weakness is when running choiced sets it can lose a lot of momentum since it has no pivoting move. Magnezone has maybe 2 sets, Specs is great, IDBP is the set you use to beat Fighting-types. Magnet Pull doesn't do too much, so Analytic Specs hits a lot of the tier like a truck. However, its poor Speed comes back to hit it in the face alongside its STAB combination having a good amount of switch-ins. Mienshao is probably the new best Scarfer next to Krookodile. It is very strong and has a lot of moveset options with pivot + Knock Off. Mienshao hates Talonflame and Bellibolt as their abilities can give it a status it does not want. Porygon-Z is only here because I remember seeing a couple people saying it's broken, but it's just Staraptor but specially offensive and without a weakness to Stealth Rock. Raikou is similar to Suicune, but less bulky and is more exploitable due to its typing. Sub + CM is still very dangerous and shouldn't be ignored, though neither can its weakness to Earthquake from Scarf Krookodile and Flygon. None of these Pokemon are broken or unhealthy, they're simply good Pokemon.

I was going to add on some under the radar Pokemon we had pre-shifts that are still great like Florges, Lucario, Aqua Pauros, Meloetta, and Goodra (and more) but this post is already long and I'm tired.

 

[SvelteSnake]

As soon as I find out if Necrozma is good or not in this tier it's over

I loaded up last month's team not remembering the tier shifts happened and was immediately blown back by Necrozma.
*sigh*
back to the builder

 

[Elias PSY]

Although we get a lot of more or less broken new toys these last days ,some pre-drops mons are still good and should not be underestimated.



Regidrago may overshadow most of his former sets but Flygon speed tier remain solid to outspeed the likes of Torterra,Flygon,DD Necrozma,Iron Thorns,Adamant Cetitan with scarf.Being faster than Krookodile and having more defensive presence than mienshao both competition as a scarfer is a plus .4th move slot is kinda mandatory to deal with setup sweepers so fitting rocks on scarf is hard to justify today but there's plenty of splashable options to vary builds.



There's a lot of water-types to abuse and make progress against and her ability is great against offenses who are dominant rn.Tsar is still the best spinner of the tier : Brambleghast is too frail to pull of defensive sets like Tsareena did and there's better water-types to run over Tentacruel.Sure Talonflame is a pain to face but protective pads are right there if needed.



Gligar is doing well on balance teams as a counter to most Muk-Alola and Quagsire sets and easily stop new threats such as Lycanroc-Dusk,Krookodile or non-Triple Axel Mienshao .Ice coverage weakness from fighting types was hard to cover on teams during last meta.Now it's easy to alleviate this issue with blanket physical walls like milotic,vaporeon or slowbro.



Offensive fairys feast on teams relying on Muk-A and AV Reuniclus as special walls.Registeel being a bit worse than previous meta also help since Copperajah and Magnezone aren't as bulky long term.They aren't great checks to Regidrago when tera steel comes into place but forcing tera on such a threat is a nice trade.

 

[Rabia]

Both of these goblins have seemed pretty broken so far. Gyarados snowballs games way too easily, and Substitute murks most of the counterplay you'd otherwise have to it (most revenge killers are actually pretty alright into it, and bulky Water-types could maybe poison it otherwise). I think it needing only one boost to really ravage teams is what worries me the most; it genuinely feels like playing into it, if you CAN'T keep it from having Substitute up, you have little chance of beating it. It doesn't help that Quagsire MUST be Haze to reliably stall out Gyarados.

Suicune my usage with it is less extensive, but wow. I'll link a couple replays here just to showcase Suicune's prowess:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-2073423194-cxmrvmnj0pfrouoegvf54cjrrrpjfx1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-2073438400-ixs3kelu6nwg43uhip1r6zyeorcty0ypw

Toxic Spikes weren't even needed all the time, but getting the layers up certainly makes it arbitrary to win with Suicune. I think it's less straightforwardly broken than Gyarados but still worthy of a ban.


These two I have not used enough to comment on but have that on-paper problematic element to them that worries me. +2 Lycanroc does not have meaningful defensive counterplay. Hell, it hardly has meaningful OFFENSIVE counterplay because of Accelerock. Meanwhile, Regidrago is still capable of most of what it did last generation, except now it has coverage moves! The main limiting factor to it that at least somewhat softens the blow is that unlike natural Fairy-types that will struggle more with a Tera Steel Regidrago, you can Terastallize into a Fairy-type... anything! This is nice so that your Fairy-type becomes less of fodder into a Terastallized Regidrago and can potentially still survive to tell the tale, but I worry about its overall constraint on teambuilding, definitely a Pokemon I plan to use tomorrow to get better thoughts on.


Torterra isn't broken in my experience. It's too slow to consistently win games like Blastoise used to, and that's probably the biggest difference between those two Pokemon: Speed. Blastoise really didn't have a lot of offensive counterplay last generation outside of priority moves; the only reasonable Choice Scarf user that could outspeed it, Heliolisk, was still vulnerable to a simple nature change to become outsped. Torterra doesn't have that luxury because it's just so damn slow; any Choice Scarf user above base 80 Speed is good into it. I did run into a Tera Ghost Torterra earlier, and that seems kind of cool to help against Brambleghast and Choice Scarf Mienshao some, but I don't think Torterra has shown enough yet to be on a slate.

Reuniclus is great, but I struggle to see it as banworthy at the moment. There are plenty of Dark-types in the tier that limit its overall effect on games, and the Recover nerf REALLY hurts it. Taking trades against Registeel, I noticed I'd struggle a lot with running low on PP pretty quickly and sometimes just losing the exchange due to paralysis luck. So far, I just see it as another solid Pokemon in the tier.

There are other Pokemon/elements that I definitely can see being problematic that I just haven't gotten around to using or thinking about yet: Armarouge, Cloyster, Minior, Necrozma, and sun to name a few.

 

[Dr. Phd. BJ]

Shoutouts The NU Elites for topping ladder OML you know who you are. Here are some observations I have from laddering


This mon is broken. The two main sets that Regidrago runs are DD and Specs/Scarf with Dragon Energy. If your team doesn't have a fairy, you are pretty much screwed because of Dragon's Maw being a really absurd ability. There are only 6 fairy types in NU, and 3 of them are extremely similar role wise (Sylveon, Florges, Scream Tail). Even if you have a fairy, DD sets can easily manipulate fairy/steel types with tera and coverage. For example, Regidrago can run Tera Blast Steel and go through fairies, or it can run Tera Ground with EQ to pop steels (like Klefki) and Diancie. These sets are what I find to be the best rn. I personally like sub a lot rn because you can sub on status, sacks, and some pivoters pretty easily. I think the issue with DD sets is that it has just enough speed after setting up, enough immediate power, and it does not have to make risky plays in order to get going. For example, it is really easy to send it out to pick something off that is below 100% with Scale Shot and boost its speed. Every good team pretty much needs tera fairy rn to prevent this thing from sweeping, and even then that is not always enough. It feels similar to how Iron Thorns did in past metas, where if you guess the tera wrong you basically lose. DD sets also do not have any contact moves (they shouldn't run them imo), so chipping it with Helmet or trying to Flame Body/Static it are off the table.


I'm on the fence with sun, I think it is probably slightly too strong for its own good rn, but I am heavily biased. I would not ban it right away, but I think it monitoring Venusaur/Hilligant and others are worth mentioning. I know sun has been voted on recently, and two amazing abusers just dropped making it arguably stronger than before. Keep an eye out for sun.


I do not think Torterra or Minior are broken from my experience on the ladder. Torterra is too slow and Minior's ability + functionality hold it back from my experience. I am not ruling out that they could both potentially become problematic, but I do not find either banworthy atm. I have admittedly not seen enough Cloyster or Drednaw to form an opinion, so I will leave that there.


I agree with Rabia's take that Gyarados snowballs too easily. It sets up on fat waters with Substitute and can opt to run Taunt for Quagsire. Moxie and tera make this thing a nightmare to play against for pretty much any playstyle. I would not mind seeing it leave the tier, but I'm also fine keeping it short-term. Suicune is weird, I think its gameplay is pretty brainless but I also think it's manageable to an extent? Idk. I think Suicune is very unhealthy, and I do not think it adds anything useful to the tier.


I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Armarouge. I don't think it's banworthy, but this thing is probably the most 0 to 100 mon in the tier. It can flip games very easily, and it single-handedly is keeping psyterrain teams afloat atm imo. Endure + Weak Armor + Weakness Policy is cash, and under psychic terrain Expanding Force + Armor Cannon deals silly damage.

This is the most drastic change I have seen in NU so far amongst tier shifts, there were over 30 drops from higher tiers. Here are things that changed:

1.) Speed Tiers - Kilowattrel, Noivern, and Talonflame are all faster than Inteleon. Inteleon was essentially the fastest unboosted mon in the tier before drops, as I personally did not find the mons faster to be viable *cough* electrode *cough*. As an added bonus, the tier just got Galvantula. Ladder loves webs, and Galvantula is extremely common on ladder. Overall, the dynamic of speed control is very different. Scarf Flygon was the most common scarfer last meta, with Scarf Pawmot picking up some traction as well. Now, the tier has Mienshao, Infernape, and Munkidori as potential alternatives that are 105 speed or higher.

2.) Waters/Grounds - We finally got fat waters, and now Scald is gonna be something teams need to actively plan for. Tentacruel, Suicune, Slowbro, Milotic, Vaporeon, Quagsire, and Swampert are all new water types with defensive utility that have been added to NU. While most people are looking at the effect that these waters will have on the tier, something I have noticed was the quiet change of ground types in the tier.

With the additions of Swampert, Quagsire, Gastrodon, Rhyperior, Torterra, and Krookodile, electric types are at an impasse when it comes to choosing coverage. One thing I would keep in mind when building was that none of the ground types had access to recovery moves last meta. This made none of the ground types have self-sufficient longevity, with Gligar, Flygon, and Mudsdale all having to rely on wish passers or leftovers for recovery. Quagsire and Gastrodon specifically learn recover, which finally gives NU ground types with longevity that it had been lacking before. I found grounds in the past easy to chip with Hazards, Helmet, and general overloading of attacks. Quagsire and Gastrodon have the potential to change that thanks to having access to recover. I find Swampert to be a better fit for a lot of pivot offenses that you would see Gligar ran on in the past thanks to having item flexibility, better overall base stats, and not giving opposing water types as much opportunity as Gligar did. Overall, I find more ground types in the tier to be a good thing, and this allows for more customizability on teams that choose to use a ground.

3.) Status - The tier now has a plethora of Scald users, Talonflame/Hyphlosion/Incineroar to spread burn, Bellibolt/Overqwil/Munkidori to spread toxic, and Chansey/Galvantula/Bellibolt to spread Paralysis. Status users are a great way to make progress, but also a great way to slow down set-up sweepers.

4.) Removal - NU now has defoggers that are not Altaria! Noivern, Talonflame, Pom-Pom and Hilligant can all run Defog depending on what your team needs. Additionally, NU got two new spinners in Tentacruel and Brambleghast. My favorite part about these new removal options is the fact that they all have respectable speed tiers. Tsareena, Tatsugiri, and Avalugg were the main removal options last meta. All of the mons I listed above have higher base speed than Tatsugiri/Tsareena/Avalugg. Teams won't need to rely on Tsareena or Boots spam as much anymore, which should hopefully lead to some unique meta adaptations.

5.) MU Fishes - Reuniclus, Suicune, Armarouge, Shell Smashers, Cetitan, Weather, Mew, Necrozma, and more. There are a lot of very potent win-conditions in the tier right now, and I am unsure of how I should classify them. I don't think all of these mons are MU Fishes to clarify, but I think there is definitely an excess of pokemon that autowin at team preview. I do not think this is a particularly healthy aspect to the metagame rn, but I assume this number will shrink within the next couple weeks.

SV NU feels more like SV RU right now. I am uncertain about the future of the tier, yet I am intrigued to see what happens with the metagame.

 

[skierdude101]

Quick Post
Probably Broken:

Not going to waste much time going over these.
Suicune is able work its way past checks with pressure and sub+tect+roar shenanigans, maybe it's fine as we figure out more ways to deal with it. Regidrago's DD set with Tera seems very difficult to keep in check throughout an entire match. unless you have a natural fairy-type, you may need to commit your tera in order to check it. Lycan is way too strong after one SD, and CC+Crunch+Accelrock manages to hit seemingly everything hard. I actually think Gyarados is a bit under explored. It has a lot of different tera options, coverage choices, and even Sub or Taunt.

Under-explored and could be busted if solved

These Pokemon all have a ton of different stuff going for them and we've only scratched the surface of potential sets. I'm watching out for meta developments with these Pokemon because I get the sense there's a lot of untapped potential

Under-explored and prob fine:

I don't think there's any innovation that can break these Pokemon, but they definitely have some set variety or use that could be pretty good!

Stuff I want to see more of:

I haven't seen these much on ladder but they all seem like they should be used more at the moment. Particularly goodra and Toxicroak, since they are kinda behemoths of past metas that we've slowly forgotten. Goodra being a coverage tank is great right now, particularly its ability to soft check parts of sun. Toxicroak's water immunity is quite handy for suicune, although you'll need to run an attack with high PP so you don't get pressure stalled.

Appreciate:

I really like having all of these in the tier and I'm quite glad we finally have some of them. I think some of these will become meta staples and become the backbone of our final tier. Really looking forward to the cores that we will create with these mons.

 

[Heatranator]

Firstly, bronzong sweep (kinda) against a player 200 elo above me. Was a really fun match.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nu-2074588298
Secondly, some thoughts on mons that are in the meta.
This mon is disgusting, it can set up and destroy a lot of teams if they don't have a bulky mon. Something like milotic with haze can do decently well, but it still is a pain in the side to deal with. Please ban.
Great mon that can be both defensive and offensive, in the above match they were using a dragon tail + moonlight set, and I feel like this mon can have lots of applications in the tier.
Just a good bulky mon, it can semi-check anything with access to knock + parting shot. Drain punch is something that is great on it to not be setup fodder to regirock (shown in above match) and to give incin some recovery.
I haven't seen anyone talking about this mon, so I decided to try it out for myself and it was great. It can threaten a lot of mons with just its stab moves and with specs it can obliterate a lot of teams. Its typing is even good defensively as it quad resists fighting which means that id + bp mons can't do much to it. Keep an eye on this, its a sleeper pick.
Idk, this mon is great. With just id, bp and heavy slam, you can deal a lot of damage to opponents while not taking much in return. I think this mon is severly underated and is one of the better steel types in the tier due to ground immunity.

 

[LeonLeeds]

NU Weather Report:
By LeonLeeds

"I don't like sand, it's coarse and rough, and it gets everywhere."

Rain: The rain archetype is by far my favorite of the options available.

• Has access to removal that fits within the play style in Tentacruel, the pdef set I stole from Emvee can come in on fighting types and then flip turn out to get your sweepers in
• Its hard for your opponent to cover all of your potential swift swimmers making it less predictable than sun or snow
• Kingdra with specs or dragon dance is a ohko/2hko machine
• Kilowattrel is the fastest unboosted mon in the tier and in worse case scenario can hax past its supposed checks
• Until Gastrodon usage starts to rise rain should be a formidable presence in NU

V1: https://pokepast.es/6383e5743fe512d8
V2: https://pokepast.es/3c2f9e87785f4b65

Sun: I think everyone is well aware of the power of sun right now (I mean it carried me to the mid 1500's), but I just wanted to go over some quick points.

• In the teams linked below, Brute Bonnet of all mons was the one that put in the most amount of work to me, can just tera on talonflame will-o or brave bird and win
• Hisui-Lilligant is OU viable, not much to say other than ban this plz
• A mon I ran into that gave me trouble was sub tera flying gyra, sun doesn't have a good amount of flying resists to begin with so dealing with one setting up is a problem

V1: https://pokepast.es/8d191a6ce96a0dd6
V2: https://pokepast.es/65e04c90ce6db7f6

Snow: I was unsure if I should even try this out since gen 9 took away our good slush rush users, but I became genuinely surprised when I wasn't losing all of my games.

• Cetitan is super strong, and with tera ghost you avoid common priorities like extreme speed, vacuem wave, and mach punch (your opponent ends up having to rely on sucker punch or flame body proc to avoid the sweep)
• Sandslash-alola is very bad and ends up being a tera sink 99% of the time, should only be a spinner in my opinion
• I was scrolling through mons that can take advantage of snow and was scratching my head, until I came across big Regice
• Regice along with other ice types in gen 9 gets the defense boost, catapulting to OU/Uber level bulk
• It serves as an excellent special sponge that can dish out reliable amounts of super effective damage when needed, including tera blast that rounds out its perfect coverage (fire, ground, and fairy all work)
• Obamasnow is fast enough to set up veil reliably, and cetitan or rouge don't need the full 8 turns to begin a sweep

https://pokepast.es/a45a6263137e6d39

I had a lot of fun with these builds, and encourage players to give weather teams a try! (Sorry Hippopotas )

 

[Shengineer]

Hello NU!

Eternally has invited me to vote as rotating council on the slate this week, wanted to share my thoughts and current leanings here before making my final votes. Here are my thoughts at the moment.

BAN:

Regidrago

Get this thing out of the tier ASAP. Hope I don't even need to explain myself.

The 'Cune

Way too good at what it does, bulk is absurd, counterplay is difficult especially through sub. Kinda fun to use but then you match up against it…

Lilligant

Victory dance is nuts, the mon has crazy damage output, great speed, and good coverage. Broken both in and out of sun teams. Hustle gives it the equivalent of a base 182 attack!

Gyarados

Not that naturally fast, but a lot of the things that can take a hit from +1 Gyarados can't do a whole lot back to it. Has enough innate bulk to shrug off many scarf users and runs away with games a little too easily.

Lycanroc-Dusk

SD Life Orb calcs are kinda funny. The mon is not without counterplay entirely, but its priority limits revenge killers. Too much for the tier. Sun gets scarier with it gone tho.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Of the remaining items on the slate, I will likely vote do not ban as its hard to get a perfect read on the meta with so many drops, but I am still on the fence about the following:

Drought

Maybe people using sun on ladder are just boosted by the archetype's power, but from my experience sun isn't the biggest problem in the tier, Lilligant just pushes it too far. It is a little constraining in the builder but I think its mostly manageable. Keep it on the radar!

Cloyster

Exploitable on the special side, Not sure if we have enough defensive counterplay, and special attacking scarfers are not common in this meta. I'm kinda concerned about this mon but could let it ride for a bit.

Armarouge

Usually a good way to beat a setup mon is to hit it, but hitting Armarouge can often mean giving it what it needs to sweep you. Fire + Psychic is still really good offensive coverage. Priority is good vs it, and a few mons can effectively wall it. I think it has enough counterplay available, but you may have to second guess whether you should hit it or not. Iron Defense set scares me the most.







can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters