Metagame NP: Stage 11 - Calm Down (Drought Banned #17, Mew Banned #18)

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etern

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NU Leader

:slowbro: :slowbro: :slowbro:

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Slowbro is being suspect tested due to the immense impact it has had on the NU tier both in-game and in the teambuilder. With excellent mixed bulk which compliments its defensive typing and access to the extraordinary ability 'Regenerator', Slowbro is far and away the best defensive piece in the tier with unmatched longevity. To compound this, it has access to Scald as it's main attacking move, giving it a relatively strong and spammable move which has a 30% chance to burn anything that switches into it. This is significant, as it immediately makes all forms of potential physical attacking switch-ins far less safe, as they will be unable to break it after a burn. Special breakers that try to switch into Slowbro can similarly have a difficult time between hazards, slowbro's offensive presence, and residual burn damage slowly racking up, as it safely switches out and regains HP with regenerator. Slowbro's premier set has become one which runs Calm Mind / Scald / Psychic Noise / Slack Off in order to become an extremely resilient win condition that has extreme staying power and the ability to boost it's way through special attackers that would otherwise scare it out. With Tera Poison, Slowbro is able to dodge Sludge Bomb poisons and Toxic, letting it turn would be defensive checks like Umbreon, Muk-Alola, Bellibolt, Goodra, and Dragalge into setup fodder. Slowbro has become a cornerstone of balance, with many balance v balances games turning into a match of who has more speed creep on Slowbro, or who can preserve the Covert Cloak on their Slowbro till endgame to win the 1v1. Other Pokemon in the tier have started to adapt by running Covert Cloak and Lum Berry as a means of circumventing Slowbro's Scald and Psychic Noise. That being said, those who are more inclined to using offensive builds may argue that Slowbro can be handled fairly comfortably by the myriad of strong breakers and sweepers we have, for example Nasty Plot Mew, Nasty Plot Thundurus, Gallade, Venusaur, Scovillain, Basculegion, and Toxtricity. Another point of argument is that Slowbro is often forced to switch into U-Turn users such as Mienshao, Flygon, and Talonflame, which constantly put the Slowbro player on the back foot to be taken advantage of by offensive builds. Furthermore, Slowbro is quite predictable and forcing it to tera can at times be simple when putting stress onto the more passive builds it finds itself on, leaving it to be taken advantage of post-tera. Overall, it's presence is a controversially contested one, and the NU Council believes that it is deserving of a public suspect test to let the community determine its fate.

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  • ***WE ARE USING A NEW METHOD FOR SUSPECT REQS*** Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. We will be trialing a new method for reqs that does NOT utilize GXE. Instead, the voting requirements are that you achieve an 80% winrate with a minimum of 32 games won. For example, a record of 32 wins to 8 losses is an 80% winrate which totals at 40 games overall, thus you would qualify for reqs with this. A record of 32-0 would also qualify for reqs, and is the minimum amount of games that can be played to qualify. There is NO maximum game limit, so you may take as many games as you need to achieve reqs as long as you arrive at an 80% winrate. For example, a record of 46 wins to 11 losses would also qualify me for reqs, as 80% of 57 is 46 wins.​


  • You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NUJJ For example, I might signup with the ladder account NUJJ etern
  • Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name.
  • We will be using the regular NU ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
  • Slowbro will be allowed on the ladder.
  • Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will result in infractions and further discipline.
  • Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied. This also includes throwing games to help other people qualify. Play your games normally and fairly.
  • The suspect test will last until Monday, June 3rd @ 11:59pm (GMT-4), and then the voting thread will be posted in the Blind Voting subforum.
 
just a reminder that this isn't where to verify reqs; we'll have the reqs identification thread up about a week after the test's start (or sooner)

also brother this system is (debatably) easier than the previous; you would still be laddering if we went by GXE D:
woops mb soz
 
Due to the lack of actual discussion in this thread, I figured I'd make a post about how my suspect run went and things that I came to realise about this tier through laddering, breaking them down into sections:

Slowbro
Despite the rise of other very powerful playstyles in the metagame, I still consider this guy to be borderline broken. I could list all the things that make Slowbro so good but I probably wouldn't be able to articulate myself as well as Meri did in her post, so if you want any good reasons to ban Slowbro I definitely suggest reading it if you haven't already. From my experience in this suspect test however, opposing Slowbro did not really do much of anything, never really scared me when I saw it in team preview and honestly it doesn't even come close to the other more egregious things that are in this tier which I will touch on later. I think the best of way dealing with from my experience is by using mons that threaten poison (i.e Umbreon, Bellibolt, Alolan Muk etc.) and pairing those with pokemon that can exploit Slowbro's common Tera Poison (i.e Gallade, SD Rhyperior, Mew etc.). Other countermeasures include strong special breakers such as Dragalge, Porygon-Z and the most reliable one of them all, Magnezone. Of course not all of these mons can be fit on a team together and in my opinion its not good to make every team consist of the same mons, because that is how the tier becomes stale (whether you think it's competitive is different but imo its boring as shit). I'm currently on the fence but that's probably just because of the other broken elements being more broken more than anything to do with Slowbro, I'll have to think a bit more.

Sun/Manual Rain
Simply put, Sun is way too overpowered and it's honestly shocking that it did not get banned initially. Venusaur definitely feels like the most broken element of Sun to me because it literally always forces you to tera because of it's insane coverage and high attacking power with Growth and LO. Scovillain is definitely scary with Tera fire but at the very least it is paper thin so it gets owned by all sorts of priority and if it goes Modest nature it gets outsped by Scarf Mienshao which is probably the #1 most used mon right now if I had to guess. Despite the claims that these mons make the playstyle broken, I personally believe it's the fact that all of the sun mons (Lilligant, Brute Bonnet, Pawmot, Charizard, Flygon, etc.) work so well in tandem with eachother which brings the best out of the playstyle. This is probably a bit reactionary but I think the fact that nearly every team needs a mon that's Tera Dragon or if not that then like 4 fire resists just goes to show that the playstyle is too much.

Manual Rain has also got some traction recently but it doesn't seem to be too overpowered and definitely has more sufficient counterrplay available. The fact that it has to be set manually is a massive drawback as Klefki can easily be exploited to waste some turns and the abusers are not nearly as good in my opinion. Basculegion and Kingdra in particular are pretty scary but we have plenty of good water resists and steel types in Kingdra's case that can handle them. It should be watched carefully though as I am sure people will begin to do more experimentation to bring the full extent of it's power.

Offense/HO threats in general
Feel like a lot people may disagree with me on this but this is actually one of the more broken aspects of NU at the moment. I think the level of offensive threats in this tier is far too high, with many of them being extremely good and they will only continue to get better if Slowbro is to get banned. Stuff like Oricorio Pom-Pom, Lycanroc-Dusk, Feraligatr and Gallade are very strong setup sweepers/breakers that are extremely difficult to answer if they are able to get going. The combination of many of them together is simply enough to overwhelm a team very quickly and tera will often have to be exhausted just to prevent an immediate loss. Not asking to look at them now but to play close to attention to the offensive nature of NU at the moment.

This was probably not worded well at all but I believe these are probably the talking points of NU at the moment. Hoping to see some more discussion about Slowbro or any other things people believe are problematic.
 
For funsies, I’ve decided to look through NUPL replays and analyze its use in battle to determine how healthy it truly is.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767061?p2

Halfway through, the game literally turns into a Calm Mind war in favor of drphdbj’s Slowbro due to it holding Covert Cloak, which I will touch on later here. Point is: this interaction crippled azogue’s Leftovers Slowbro so much that drphdbj just won with his Choice Scarf Krookodile in the back.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767554

Turn 4, max Defense Assault Vest Slowbro comes in on max Special Attack Noivern’s Draco Meteor and beats it down with Future Sight. Later, it gets flinched due to skierdude101 running Icicle Crash over Ice Spinner, which is unfortunate because Scald would’ve KOed Cetitan from that range, and Slowbro could easily live a +1 Earthquake after gaining Regenerator health from sacking Lucario. It doesn’t matter however as thankfully thiago nunes has priority on his Lucario, as he should.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767978

Freezai brings Sun, which preys on balances bulkier teams like eliaspsy’s. Slowbro comes in on Choice Specs Scovillain, planning to easily take a resisted hit but is 2HKOed by Sun-boosted Flamethrower. This says more about how broken Sun than Slowbro, to be honest.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767228

Another Sun vs balance game. Slowbro gets sacked to a resisted Fire Blast this time, though.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-766719

Wacan Berry Slowbro stays in on Magnezone just to get chip in on tier acid’s team. But, later, after terastalizing, tier acid’s own Slowbro easily clicks Calm Mind three times, and it destroys twinkay’s team, beating both the old Pokemon it checked before and the new ones it does with Tera Poison alike.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767679?p2

Slowbro comes into check kiyo’s Basculegion a few times and then comes out on a switch on a predicted Tera from Mew, but, even after terastalizing itself, Slowbro gets overpowered as Mew already accrued a Nasty Plot earlier, letting it clean the game after living a Gunk Shot.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767724

Another Calm Mind war with two Slowbro incites, and, “surprisingly”, the Covert Cloak Slowbro, robjr’s, wins the war and forces seraphz’s Slowbro out to Tsareena who survives on 1%. Noteworthy also, Slowbro gets a burn on Magmezone, limiting its potential to tank hits from Dragalge. Finally, one more Calm Mind war between the two Slowbro results in robjr’s Covert Cloak Slowbro winning.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767309

A Calm Mind war between fish anemometer’s Slowbro and ryusnow’s Sylveon starts, but, due to Slowbro’s Psyshock, it easily wins and KOs Sylveon. From here, it continues to sweep through the entirety of ryusnow’s team, barring Talonflame as Mienshao got Slowbro to low health, but, at this point, it doesn’t matter.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767127

Slowbro on both sides try to Calm Mind early but get easily pressured out; however, later in the game, kimius64’s Slowbro gets one Calm Mind off and easily beats soucou’s team from thereon, thanks to soucou’s Slowbro terastalizing into Poison.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767654

Slowbro tries to use Vaporeon as set-up fodder with Psychic Noise, but welli0u’s Vaporeon carries Haze. It still gets chipped away at, forcing Vaporeon to switch out and leaving it at below 10%. Later, kushalos pulls out the RestTalk Krookodile, KOing the Vaporeon and causing welli0u to forfeit as he cannot handle the rest of kushalos’s team.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767179

Yes, you saw that right; there’s a Cacturne. What is it good at in NU? Nothing, really, just countering Slowbro; it’s horrific against literally everything else. Someone brought a ZU Pokemon whose only niche is to completely counter a Slowbro into a team tournament in NU. If that was my teammate and they lost, I would be quite disappointed and upset with them. But, matchup fishing worked out here for the win. (No hate to tuthur OR matchup fishers. I respect the former. And, I respect the latter depending on how good and hardcore said matchup fish is.)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-767267

phantomistix’s Slowbro comes in on a Super Fang from Noivern and then dies to a +2 Shadow Ball from Mew.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-769395

zavgb’s Slowbro pulls of a Calm Mind and beats drud’s Torterra due to an overpredict. Later, zavgb’s Slowbro gets to Calm Mind again and beats all of drud’s team, barring drud’s own Slowbro. drud then tries to reverse sweep zavgb, but, even when terastalized, it gets overpowered.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-769481

Slowbro takes advantage of Vaporeon throughout the battle, but then gets sacked to a special attacking Talonflame. Due to this, mada gets beat by Haze Vaporeon.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-769518

twinkay just breaks away at kushalos; without Calm Mind, Slowbro failed to do much here at all.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-768684

Slowbro comes in to check Bascugion, but it dies the next time to Tera Blast Ghost.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-768634

Slowbro on both sides get pressured and, in vndrevc’s case, overpowered.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-768609

Slowbro comes in and checks a few things. Then, tries to Calm Mind later but is forced out.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-770083?p2

It just came in and checked threats here, nothing dumb or broken.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nu-770309

Slowbro gets sacked to Hydro Pump Kingdra in Rain.

Overall, Slowbro can be healthy at times, checking important and common threats like Mienshao, Lycanroc, Flygon, and non-Shadow Ball. However, especially in the mirror, Covert Cloak Slowbro tends to be difficult to handle and must be played around aggressively to hold it back from attaining boosts if you don’t wish to lose to it. It can also burn its checks, paving the way for its own sweep later. On top of this, after the initial Knock Off, Slowbro is able to take on later attempts to take it out from Krookodile way more comfortably.
Slowbro also forces itself to run Covert Cloak and Speed EVs if it wishes to win the mirror. Psychic Noise is also an issue, invalidating literally all walls that try to beat it including but not limited to Vaporeon, Milotic, Gastrodon, Bellibolt, and opposing Slowbro. Most are either suboptimal or forced to run one of Covert Cloak or Tera Dark to not be taken advantage of. Clearly, this isn’t centralization; it’s unhealthy. If a Pokemon can make an otherwise mediocre item required, that’s not balanced in my eyes.
Weather also has come on to the scene, though, and easily beats Slowbro by overwhelming it, notably taking care of it with even resisted attacks. This caused its fall in usage in later NUPL weeks, but it doesn’t only affect Slowbro. All balance and bulkier teams are forced to use Tera Dragon + Fire-resists + Speed control to deal with Sun, which is not healthy for the tier at all; this is a clear case of broken checking broken to me.
Please, Ban Slowbro.
 
Not sure the best place for this post but I figured I'd give some thoughts on the state of the meta (and a lot of personal opinions) through four weeks of NUPL. This will come as a surprise to no one but this meta is very offensively oriented. BO and balance are options and still viable ones at that, but with the myriad of offensive options this tier offers (cheese included) (ban ori-pom), the default falls more towards HO. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and while I personally do not enjoy building for this tier much rn, it does offer a fun, fast-paced meta for people who enjoy these types of games

Flygon is king
flygon.gif
This will probably be one of my hotter takes considering he's not S tier at the moment, but I believe Flygon is the best pokemon in NU, above others like slowbro and mienshao. Bar maybe stall (and even there he's an option), I think Flygon is versatile enough to fit on relatively every single team in this metagame. Flygon has a myriad of sets, all of which are different and offer different roles. Some of these sets include band (incredibly potent in vortexes and offers one of the best priority options in the tier), specs (we haven't seen this much bar some uses by people like Elias. This set is incredibly potent into many of flygon's supposed checks like avalugg or slowbro), scarf (dont use this its bad), eject pack, which has seen really nice success on weather, and loaded dice, one of the single best options on HO. Between flygon's speed tier being incredibly valuable over other options like krook (who would otherwise be in a similar vein for me), levitate being one of the best abilities in a metagame with <3 good removal options (basically only talonflame), and a defensive typing that makes it much better into coverage from mons like thund, bellibolt, raikou etc than other grounds, I find it harder than not to find reasons not to use flygon

Weather is unhealthy- Not much to say here. Sun is more constraining than rain but to be perfectly honestly I dont love either for this tier (i know rain has not been a huge topic of discussion). Both offer 7 turns of incredible speed control with potent breakers that have to be accounted for. Having to prep for these team styles in conjunction with the impossibility of covering other threats in the tier is an unsavory task. It forces weird teras, speed control options (prio or faster or faster scarfers), or just generally options that will hurt the stability of the rest of your team. I miss when both weather rocks were banned

The dangers of passivity (switch+status+knock)-
registeel.gif
gastrodon-east.gif
The registeel/gastrodon theorem. Basically, these mons suck. (Regi is ok with twave and standard options). This tier plays too fast for users to get complacent with options like gastro, ID press rest regi, or honestly even a pokemon like draco uturn noiv. When building be really conscious of the type of pressure your pokemon exert. Walls are fine (i.e. slowbro can scald, swampert can flip turn, umbreon can tox+fp, talonflame can u-turn or wisp). But options like gastrodon who are limited to EP+Smog honestly just feel like they play way way too slow. Consider what your mons can do, if they can switch, status, knock etc, its probably going to be a way better option than another sitting duck. It's really just not too viable to play this way right now

Speed control options (+the increasing burden of faster and faster scarfers)- In part due to weather, in part due to all the other HO options at the moment, scarfers are getting faster and faster. It started with flygon and mienshao, before moving to lycanroc, intelleon, infernape, munkidori, noivern, etc. Be really conscious of the speed tiers mons are hitting, and actively decide which mon is going to best suit the needs of your team. Also consider the priority of priority. Priority options are absolutely invaluable right now. Can you build a team without a mon with priority? Absolutely. Should you? Idk prob not. Also ban mew tbh idk

The vortex (+difficulties forming defensive cores)- For me, the single biggest factor in determining the pace of this metagame is the absolute power of the volt-turn vortex. Pokemon like mienshao, magnezone, thundurus, flygon, and other u-turners/volters/flip turners really set the stage for sv nu. The breakers they can switch into (porygon, chandelure, gallade, etc.), are all incredibly strong in their own right, and make it really hard to find the right balance in defensive cores. In other metas where you could cover special and physical threats in 2-3 slots (i.e. chansey+lugg), right now to make a very solid defensive core youre dedicating ~4 mons, and even then you are going to have weaknesses in your team. It's really important to have mons that you know can slow down these options, whether its a regenerator core, pokemon like swampert/rotom-heat, or better yet, just playing proactively on your own


This meta is hard, ban sun



Nominate GXE for TL and I will executively ban it by tomorrow
 
Everyone already knows Sun is broken so I'll talk about other stuff

:pmd/flygon: I agree with GXE that Flygon is S tier, second only to Slowbro imo. Best speed control in the tier atm, with Scarf and CB First Impression. Choice Band in particular is something I throw on literally every single team because it checks an insane number of boxes in one slot.

:pmd/basculegion: Rain is broken and needs to be addressed, but we can't even get sun out of the picture. Basculegion in Rain has genuinely 0 counterplay outside of the 2 immunities available in the tier, both of which are admittedly quite terrible in the current metagame (mostly Gastrodon, Vaporeon is useable I guess). I have proposed a Basculegion ban for a while now, but Rain often feels more oppressive than Sun at times and when Basculegion nets easy 2HKO's on some of the bulkiest Water resists in the tier like Vileplume and Slowbro and doesn't even drop below half after recoil + Helmet? How is that okay? This Pokemon facilitates a playstyle devoid of skill and counterplay and is a net negative in the tier.

:pmd/oricorio-pom-pom: Many players whom opinions I greatly respect think that Oricorio Pom-Pom should be banned but currently I can't help but disagree. I think its stats are simply too terrible for the tier at the moment and the only thing netting it wins is a blatant lack of prep because nobody was really using it until now. I can see a point where optimization from both sides of the coin result in this Pokemon being too oppressive for the tier but at the moment I think it's just a solid anti-meta Pokemon that's farming the Water, Grass, Fighting, and Ground-dominated tier.

:pmd/thwackey: Grassy Terrain is super strong right now, also buffing the aforementioned Oricorio Pom-Pom, but facilitating Unburden Pokemon capable of dominating opposing offensive teams (like Sun, Rain, and general HO's) due to their insane speed tiers. I don't think the playstyle is broken at all, but maybe some Grassy Seed + Calm Mind Pokemon becomes really dumb, idk.

:pmd/mew: Mew is broken. Not even the "oh I don't know which set it is!" it's Nasty Plot. Nasty Plot is way too insane of a breaker while being difficult to KO due to 100/100/100 bulk and Tera Draining Kiss being conceptually broken. I think the recent development of Weakness Policy has really pushed Mew over the edge for me, as Mew is admittedly pretty weak, but getting a free +2 just for getting Knocked Off or U-turn'd is super unfair. Despite the advent of Psychic Noise from special walls like Assault Vest Reuniclus, Mew can just Nasty Plot until the Noise wears off, then heal all the way back with Draining Kiss every other turn, and god forbid Reuniclus goes for a Knock Off. I think the other Mew sets are straight up bad; Dragon Dance is too weak, Swords Dance is probably fine but lacks the OP coverage of Psychic + Dkiss + Earth Power.

Some underrated stuff:
:pmd/meloetta: Meloetta's stats and movepool are way too good for Meloetta to be bad. Assault Vest, Choice Specs / Scarf, and I've been using Echoed Voice + Metronome which does really comical things like 2HKOing Muk-A after a single boost.

:pmd/articuno-galar: Articuno-G is a Psychic-type that owns Krookodile and sets up on Slowbro and Vileplume; it's a perfect anti-meta Pokemon. Have used Adrenaline Orb for Scarf Krookodile, Grassy Seed on Terrain teams, etc..
 
:pmd/krookodile:
Krookodile @ Loaded Dice / Lum Berry / Clear Amulet (non-Dice is a bit rough for Scale Shot's damage but you don't NEED to use it as a primary attacking move)
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bulk Up
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Scale Shot

I think Krookodile can feel awfully unfair at times because of this set. I'm not calling for tiering action on it, but the Bulk Up set is ludicrous because you're oftentimes forced into assuming it's Choice Scarf or some utility Stealth Rock set because you can so easily obscure the actual set through teambuilding. Actual counterplay is often shaky, and if you're willing to take away some reliability from Scale Shot, you can reduce it further with items other than Loaded Dice.
 
:sv/slowbro:

I am leaning towards ban on Slowbro. Slowbro's kit in Calm Mind, Scald, and Psychic Noise means that throughout the match it's going to be poking around with Scald to fish for burns. Cool, that is an aspect of the game, and according to tiering policy, IV.) Probability management is a part of the game, so that's a pill we have to swallow. But, that's not what makes Slowbro broken entirely. Psychic Noise in particular has put the tier in a weird stage atm. Psychic Noise is a 75 BP-special attacking moves that prevents the target from healing for two turns. This in comparison to Psyshock means that Slowbro can now nullify the recovery of opposing Calm Mind users in (non-Covert Cloak) Reuniclus, Slowbro, and Vaporeon. I wasn't sold on a Slowbro ban until I saw a Covert Cloak Slowbro simply win over non-Covert in a NUPL game and I view this as an unhealthy element for the tier. Some are opting for checks like Vaporeon (where you are forced to either Tera Dark | Spam Haze + run Covert Cloak), just running an offensive comp like sun or setup-spam, or Alolan Muk, and let's be real, with Krookodile and Flygon being so good atm, it has such low usage and its reflective on the NUPL Usage Stats with a 0.00% win rate and 3 brings. I find it really hard to prep for a Pokemon with such an amazing ability in Regenerator and such perfect kits in Scald / Psychic Noise. From a building perspective, I feel like I'm throwing if I'm not running something extremely aggressive like sun / rain but I don't believe just spamming a HO/aggressive playstyle means x-Pokemon is deemed not-broken. Balanced / BO / Bulky Offense playstyles are like the fundamentals and if the fundamentals/go-tos of the tier are weather & Covert Cloak Slowbro then there needs to be a change. With the introduction to terastalization mechanics this generation, I believe this is icing on the cake and even a bigger W for Slowbro. Slowbro's most prominent Tera-options are between Fairy, Poison, and Steel when using the Calm Mind set. Tera Fairy is a nice middleground for top threats like Flygon and Krookodile. Tera-Poison Slowbro is useful for avoiding incoming Toxic's from the likes of Quagsire and Umbreon, as well as providing a defensive backbone against Alolan Muk and Vileplume. Tera Steel avoids Toxic as well but you become a Steel-typing, you resist Dragon-attacks and I think Dragalge/Flygon in particular can be threatening. Regenerator is what makes Slowbro Slowbro and it makes this Pokemon way too obnoxious to beat longterm. Its entire goal is to be obnoxious and insanely unhealthy from a building POV and it deserves a ban.
 
Not gonna lie. My ability to estimate what is broken or not has completely fallen apart this generation. There's just so. much. cheese. That said: no, one 'mon shouldn't be able to serve as both an early game defensive pivot and a late game wincon -- or at least it would have to pick which one it's going to be on a match-by-match basis. Regenerator (plus Tera) means Slowbro rarely has to choose, absent some absolutely phenomenal prediction and/or significant pressure. Ladder is ladder, so I'm grateful to mostly be running into Future Sight + Boots/Helmet instead of Psychic Noise + Cloak because that's even a step further in terms of its utility and longevity.

That said, a few slightly off-standard sets that I've really been enjoying in the 1400s:

Four Attacks Flygon:
:Flygon: @ Silver Powder
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- First Impression
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- U-turn

I really thought DD Flygon would be better in a Tera metagame, but there's so much priority running around that it has a hard time. I started out using the LO 4 Attacks set that I got surprising mileage out of in OU, but in a meta where Flygon actually exists, it's really nice being able to bluff other sets (band in particular). Silver Powder adds a little oomph to First Impression and U-Turn early, while Tera Ground helps your EQs net key late-match KOs (though I rarely ever tera this thing).

Double Dance Diancie
:Diancie: @ Leftovers | Covert Cloak
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Iron Defense
- Draining Kiss
- Earth Power

Rocks + Diamond Storm + Body Press + Moonblast is probably the best utility set. TR Meteor Beam is definitely the best Breaker. IMO, this is the best Diancie wincon by far. Fairy + Ground is nearly perfect coverage, and Tera Fairy Draining Kiss is one of the dumbest things in the game. Not much else to it. Leftovers gives you a little extra wiggle room to set up, but Cloak protects you from random poisonings/flinches/Psychic Noise shenanigans and is probably the better option. As a bonus, its bulk can give it multiple set up opportunities, so you can bait a Trick or other counterplay and come back to it later.

Curse Brambleghast
:Brambleghast: @ Colbur Berry | N/A
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Curse
- Spikes | Rapid Spin
- Rapid Spin | Leech Seed | Strength Sap | Poltergeist | Power Whip

Brambleghast already has massive 4MSS, but Curse is worth considering for a couple of reasons. First, it can help you keep Spikes up against a predicted defog, improving your utility as a spin blocker. Second, it can put a setup mon on a timer and force it out. Third, it can create openings for your own sweeper to come in and get set up. In that last role, it really likes to have access to Leech Seed or Strength Sap to create an even more favorable situation for your own `mon, but Poltergeist is really handy on sets with Rapid Spin to check other spin blockers. Itemless is a solid alternative to Colbur to both weaken Knock Offs (though not by as much) and to block opposing poltergeists.

Bulky BD Hariyama:
Standard BD Hariyama (at least per the sets on Calc), but with 4 HP / 216 Atk / 92 Def / 196 SpD EVs. Hariyama's pitiful defenses mean that EV investment actually goes a long way. Those 196 SpD EVs represent a 20% increase, which is a solid increase in survivability, letting you eat some surprising SE hits without committing your tera -- or if you already committed it elsewhere. For instance, (un-boosted) Defensive Sylveon will fail to block your BD most of the time. And with Bullet Punch being a key part of BD Yama's kit, the loss of speed doesn't hurt over-much. Fun to lead with Double Dance Diancie in the back, as you can smash holes early without pressure to sweep, knowing that for Diancie can clean up.
 
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-nu-slowbro-suspect-voting.3744667/#post-10140805 Slowbro remains legal in SV NU!

Council will now revisit the issue of sun. We plan to conduct this vote in multiple stages:

1) Ranked choice with options of No Action, Ban Drought, Ban Ninetales, Ban Scovillain, and Ban Venusaur. If no option receives a supermajority of support...
2) Top-two voted options advance to regular council vote. If STILL no option reaches supermajority support...
3) Tier leader decision.
 
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-nu-slowbro-suspect-voting.3744667/#post-10140805 Slowbro remains legal in SV NU!

Council will now revisit the issue of sun. We plan to conduct this vote in multiple stages:

1) Ranked choice with options of No Action, Ban Drought, Ban Ninetales, Ban Scovillain, and Ban Venusaur. If no option receives a supermajority of support...
2) Top-two voted options advance to regular council vote. If STILL no option reaches supermajority support...
3) Tier leader decision.

Slight change of plans to this, since our last council vote on Sun was so recent, we've instead made a compromise and will be conducting a Survey on Drought so that the community can be a part of this decision. Here's the link to the June 2024 SV NU Survey, make sure you fill it out within the next week!
 
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-nu-slowbro-suspect-voting.3744667/#post-10140805 Slowbro remains legal in SV NU!

Council will now revisit the issue of sun. We plan to conduct this vote in multiple stages:

1) Ranked choice with options of No Action, Ban Drought, Ban Ninetales, Ban Scovillain, and Ban Venusaur. If no option receives a supermajority of support...
2) Top-two voted options advance to regular council vote. If STILL no option reaches supermajority support...
3) Tier leader decision.
I’m gonna say ban venusaur as a way to possibly preserve the playstyle, as it seems to be the main problem point, Chlorophyll Venusaur is definitely too good and I would rather not remove sun if only venusaur is overbearing with it
 
There has been a lot of talk about the current state of NU, with a lot of reputable players having expressed their frustration with the current state of the tier. I have admittedly been biased in regards to avoiding tiering action because I have achieved some level of success playing in tours throughout the past month or so. I rarely ladder and I do not frequently build teams outside of nupl teams. I do not say this as a brag, but rather that over the course of time, my takes within the meta have shifted a lot over the past couple weeks, heck even the past couple days. As of late, building NU has flatout sucked. While this is subjective and I still thoroughly enjoy playing the tier, I know others do not enjoy the state of the tier right now. I think in order for people to understand why people are frustrated with the current metagame, I thought I would tell the story that has been NU these past couple months.

Pre-NUPL
:armarouge: :gyarados: :lilligant-hisui: :necrozma: :regidrago: :suicune:

1718065897427.png


Before NUPL even officially began, there were the March drops that drastically shook up the tier. It took some time for the meta to stabilize, and there were not any major tournaments happening within NU. Eventually, the mons with sprites above all left NU in some way shape or form. As you can see, there were a lot of drops, including new metagame staples such as Slowbro, Talonflame, Krookodile, Lycanroc, Reuniclus, Magnezone, Mienshao, and plenty of others. The metagame did not stabilize overnight, and week 1 of NU was very reflective of that. There are other tours going on such as BLT and NU Open, but for the sake of this post I will only refer to NUPL as I have the most knowledge on that and I believe it is the most important of the 3 current tours going as far as meta development goes.

Week 1 NUPL
:slowbro: :muk-alola:
Going into NUPL, people were very fixated on Slowbro + Alolan-Muk as a core. The tier just banned some things, and naturally the player base started to experiment with balances that featured really fundamentally sound options. This core was so good at the time because both mons have good type synergy, the physical/special split between the two both offensively & defensively, and the secondary effects of their moves being very strong and reliable at making progress (Scald/Psychic Noise, Poison Touch Knock Off + others). Both of these mons are historically above NU. The fact that they were legal made everyone want to use these new tools even more. In week 1 of NUPL, 3 teams used Alolan-Muk. None of these teams won. In fact, these teams lost pretty quickly. While it is a short sample size, the games that featured Alolan-Muk showcased how the lack of true resistances allow it to be overwhelmed and how it can struggle entering the playing field against teams. It does not help that it is competing with Krookodile for a team's choice as a ground type.

:ninetales: :scovillain: :venusaur:
This is where part of my bias hindered my view of the overall meta, but also where NU really saw its first meta development that caught everyone's eye: sun. Now sun is not new, as many players have used sun in the past including this game from week 1 of SCL. Sun usage dropped off before NUPL with the ban of Hisui-Lilligant, not to mention there were some nuisances to sun teams including Armarouge, Regidrago, Suicune, and others to name a couple. When week 1 of NUPL happened, there were 3 games in which sun received usage in. Freezai won with it against Elias, roxie won with it against Axrtix, and xavgb timed out against TheFranklin. In these games, the new development with sun came in the form of Choice Specs Tera Fire Scovillain. Previously, Scovillain would run Life Orb/Charcoal sets with different Tera typings to punish Chandelure, Goodra, Priority, and to avoid staying locked into the same move. I have posted about Scovillain in the past, and I have always thought that the mons ceiling was insane. With Choice Specs Tera Fire, its ceiling was finally found. When you watch these games, the deciding factor in all 3 of them is Scovillain. It kills practically everything in both wins, and xavgb was set back far because Overheat missed on Talonflame (which it killed). When week 1 happened, my first thought wasn't "sun is broken", it was that Scovillain might be a problem in the metagame.

The reason I wanted to highlight week 1 specifically is because I believe that is where the biggest change in the metagame happened. People swayed away from Alolan-Muk, and sun became something to monitor. There were a lot of Slowbro Calm Mind shenanigans going on, but I did not feel the need to highlight that at this time.

Weeks 2-5
:basculegion: :ditto: :kingdra: :mew: :oricorio-pom-pom: :reuniclus:
The past few weeks of NUPL have featured some more exploration in the tier, which is a good thing. I'll link some replays from this week to show off some things that weren't really seen before NUPL. For example, this rain team GXE loaded displayed how strong manual rain was with Basculegion as the primary spammer people would use going forward. This Danny game showed off how Ditto was becoming increasingly viable in the meta, but it also showed off how obnoxious oricorio can be in the right circumstance, even to a team with solid counterplay. There were other things going on within the tier too, with Trick Room receiving usage and np Mew doing the same. There were still basic offensive structures and balances being used, but these teams are simply not able to keep up with the power creep of the tier in a healthy way.


The Issue of SV NU
Many people have compared the current state of building NU to rock/paper/scissors. While I hate the idea of this, I honestly find myself agreeing with people about this. There is a pretty simple problem with the current state of NU that causes this. The sheer offensive output and variance of teams makes it really hard to build a sturdy, foundationally solid team. When you're building, there are significantly stronger offensive mons and playstyles than there are defensive ones. This leads to what I essentially view as an offensive roulette, where games are essentially decided on who loads the better revenge killers or speed control options. The fact that Trick Room/Offensive Trick Room threats and Ditto are seeing high usage is not the result of a diverse metagame where every play style is legal. The reason these two things are seeing such high usage has to do with the unreliable counterplay the metagame has to offer to its offensive threats. I do not think there is an issue with a metagame or tier being primarily offensively oriented. I originate from Other Metagames, a community that has experienced plenty of offensively geared metagames. The issue with NU is not that it is offensively oriented, it's the fact that it is too offensively diverse for its own good. It becomes impossible to build teams with consistency when you have to prepare for Sun, Rain, Sticky Web, Trick Room, Standard HO, not losing to Scald, and plenty of others. You have to go out of your way dramatically when building to give yourself a fighting chance against play styles such as Sun and Rain, or to not lose to Tera win conditions such as Mew, Lucario, and Oricorio. The reason there is a lot of concern about the tier currently is the fact that there is quite simply no consistency when building. Even offensive teams can just fall short against teams that are more offensive or teams that pack a Ditto. The most consistent play style in the tier might genuinely be sun, and to me that is a problem.

Addressing the Issues
I did not want to write this post to be a strictly negative pessimist, but rather to explain why NU is currently in the state that it is in right now and why some people who are content with the tier might have bias in the same way that I do/did. The council has been working very hard over the past few weeks in order to make the tier better. Whether it was putting sun up for a vote, Slowbro suspect, or the most recent NU Survey, we are seriously doing everything we can in order to push the metagame forward in a direction that makes the tier better for everybody playing. I urge everyone that reads this post in time that has not voted on the NU survey to please do so, as this is an important step in pushing this metagame forward.
 
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-nu-slowbro-suspect-voting.3744667/#post-10140805 Slowbro remains legal in SV NU!

Council will now revisit the issue of sun. We plan to conduct this vote in multiple stages:

1) Ranked choice with options of No Action, Ban Drought, Ban Ninetales, Ban Scovillain, and Ban Venusaur. If no option receives a supermajority of support...
2) Top-two voted options advance to regular council vote. If STILL no option reaches supermajority support...
3) Tier leader decision.


Well at first i was a supporter of letting the playstyle stay saying that we didn't had enough time to find answers .

Now time have passed, sun is strong. The biggest problems are those 2

9Tails > This mon is bulky enough that it can stay on most leads and either threat with dmg or burn and late game can set sun and pass healing wish or memento making playing with 16 turns of sun something very consistent wile being usefull. Vulpix would aways be in danger wile on the field and with no bulk and 65 base speed many games isn't clicking a single move, but at least you have automatic sun. Making the sun player at least have a couple of turns playing reactive instead of having the tempo from turn 1.

Villain> There is nothing that comes close to its immediate sun boosted power + speed . Every other mon either needs a turn to setup or isn't that fast. Its simply not balanced for our tier power lvl, there aren't generic good switch ins.

Either of those can be ban targets to make the style less oppressive and more skill intensive to play.
 
It does seem crazy that we had a month and change between the second wave of bans after the March drops and very little happened, but with NUPL/tournament innovations I really think we are in a new era of NU. I was one of the people playing a lot on the ladder during this time and frankly, there is just a lot we missed out on/didn’t utilize fully. I wanted to share my thoughts on a couple of these controversial mons in the meta. Great post BJ!

Sun :Ninetales: :Venusaur: :scovillain:
To me sun is the number one issue in the tier. Yes there is counter-play in priority, and some good resists but sun is really good at pressuring through your checks with the sheer amount of power and speed these mons have. Counter teaming sun too hard often leaves your team weaker into other playstyles; There is a lot of pressure on the builder here. Venu and Scov are the premier abusers. Venu has a lot of setup opportunity and (similar to mew that I’ll mention later), a lot of times if you can’t kill it it drain its hp back with giga drain. Specs scov is the biggest innovation for sun, and it is crazy how hard this mon hits its “resists” in sun. I think most of us agree that sun needs a nerf but we don’t all agree on what the nerf needs to be. Personally, I don’t think banning any one chlorophyll mon is enough. Venu and scov are the premier sun abusers, but we have a lot of other great sun sweepers waiting behind them. I’ve used a lot of them: victreebel, sawsbuck, charizard specifically, but there are more. I think even the “bad” sun abusers are still really strong in this meta. For that reason I think if we were to start banning chloro mons it would take at a minimum venu and scov, and it may take even more bans than that. That’s why I think the best course of action is to directly nerf the play style. I’ve mostly been pro drought ban as this give sun teams a chance at manual weather (over heat rock) and still nerf the playstyle, but Rabia made a good point about potentially banning ninetales instead as a mid ground. Sure vulpix sun may still be crazy (as you don’t get too much out of the ninetales slot sometimes other than drought), but we don’t have proof of that. I think either drought or ninetales is the best course of action here personally. While this isn’t a reason to nerf sun, it would also be nice to see sun and rain on more of a level playing field as well.

Mew :Mew:
Mew has been great since its drop to NU, even if it was overshadowed by necrozma initially. Mew has a million good sets but it didn’t have any broken sets… until we discovered NP draining kiss. Mew has a very solid speed tier, great breaking power after a boost, and it is so hard to kill. Especially with Tera fairy, most of the mons that are faster than mew just can’t kill it effectively. Often in building I hear people say that your team is weak to gallade if you have too many mons slower than it. Your team is often weak to mew if you have too many mons slower than it, and most of the tier is slower than it or can’t effectively revenge kill it. NP mew is bit too good of a balance breaker in my opinion, but I think weather is the main thing holding it back. While I’d like to see a quick ban on sun, I’d like to see a suspect on mew after.

Oricorio-Pom-Pom :oricorio-Pom-Pom:
Pom pom has been in the tier for a long time and has a history of being banned in different lower tiers. Oricorio is a great quiver dance user and can go bulky with mono air slash and taunt, or two attacks with revelation dance. While I do see Pom Pom as potentially problematic, this thing has flown even further under the radar than the mons above. I think part of the issue may be a lack of preparedness (and/or builder restrictions) and I’d like to see more development here. Personally I’d like to see the changes I’ve mentioned above happen first and revisit this later on.

Rain :basculegion: :kingdra:
Rain may be my guilty pleasure playstyle, I’ve used it a fair amount in the past few months even before it was on everyone’s radar. While rain is manual we have good manual setters with natural rain synergy in klefki, thundurus, and tornadus. I do think both legion and kingdra are very strong right now and do a great job powering through teams. Other rain abusers like Ludicolo and qwilfish-h do a great job filling in some of the gaps on these teams too. I do think we need to keep rain on the radar, and potentially banning both of the rocks (heat and damp rock) may be the move long term. Still though I’d like to see the sun nerf first and revisit rain in the near future.

I think council has really been doing a great job so far! I’m thankful that we are getting these suspects and surveys started as fast as we are. SV NU has a ways to go as a tier imo, but I think there is a lot of potential here!
 
My turn to echo the global feeling that current SV NU is terrible.

  • Unhealthy can also be a state of the metagame. If the metagame has too much diversity wherein team building ability is greatly hampered and battling skill is drastically reduced, we may seek to reduce the number of good-to-great threats. This can also work in reverse; if the metagame is too centralized around a particular set of Pokemon, none of which are broken on their own, we may seek to add Pokemon to increase diversity.
I think this statement from Tiering Policy Framework describes perfectly the state of SV NU. The point is often misunderstood, as balance / fat enjoyers whining about the shift from SS to SV, where balance was king and game lasted more than 20 turns on average. "offense being the best archetype does not default make a tier bad" is a valid statement, but doesn't make "offense being the only viable archetype default makes a tier bad" less true.

All the threats mentionned in the thread / survey that people want action taken on have valid and reliable counterplay. Strong choice attackers like Scovillain, Basculegion-M, Kingdra, Porygon-Z, and Magnezone do have very reliable answers, but these are so limited and different that your best option is to only cover a few and arm yourself with offensive checks that won't give them too many opportunities. Dumb setup sweepers like Lucario, Lycanroc, Mew, and Oricorio can get very quickly out of hand when given a simple turn and do also have a ridiculous amount of checks, who's best counterplay is to not have anything that lets them setup and attack them whenever they are on the field whichever the risks are. Even Pokemon like Mienshao and Krookodile, that most people dont see an issue with, are a part of the problem, as they are so effective at making progress and putting pressure at any point in the game, that is very hard to get momentum back against offense when using bulkier teams.

gxe touched on it already, but one of the main problem is that Pokemon like Registeel, Gastrodon, Vileplume, and Umbreon, that have great bulk and are usually great balance /fat stapples are very hard to justify because of how much of a momentum sink they are. You either need immediate progress with Klefki, Slowbro, and Muk, offensively threatening pivoting with Dragalge, Talonflame, and Swampert, or stupid damage output with an Assault Vest with Reuniclus, Gallade, and Magnezone. Defensive options only exist through their efficiency in the short term. The metagame is only about outpowering offense, because beating defense is far more trivial and most teams will have a positive matchup against balance without even trying to.

I'm happy that the council is finally looking in the right direction with Mew (would love to say the same about sun, but drought ban is goofy), but I feel like it's too late. July shifts will remove the best Pokemon in both BO (Krookodile, Mienshao) and balance (Slowbro), reshaping completely the tier. I fear one or two ban won't be enough. I hope we learn from our mistakes and don't rush into a nonsensical suspect test when the tier gets reset next month. From the get-go, Slowbro teams have been underwhelming with mostly negative matchups, and the suspect test results were no surprise.

tldr: let's not reproduce the same mistakes in july
 
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Hi all, just gonna jump straight into the survey results here without further ado:

Drought received an average scoring of approximately 4.1 / 5. This is obviously an extremely high scoring and indicates that overall the majority of the community shares the sentiment of Sun as a playstyle being too strong for the tier at this point in time. 4.0 - 4.1 is the general range we look for when considering whether or not an element in the NU tier needs to be removed. Therefore, Drought is now banned from SV NU effective immediately. (As a side note, Drought also received the highest amount of support from our most recent internal council vote on Sun.)


yuDFB2f.png


Mew received an average scoring of approximately 3.2 / 5. This score indicates that there has been a sharp spike in Mew's deemed threat level this month, and we will be discussing the possibility of a Mew suspect test in the near future to address the noteworthy concern indicated by the survey.


H6o6mzp.png


Oricorio-Pom-Pom received an average score of approximately 2.45, which indicates that it isn't yet viewed as something worth of tiering action by the majority of the community, however it is something that we can and will continue to monitor as the meta develops in the coming months.
H1kEaYv.png


Finally, Rain received an average score of approximately 2.63, garnering slightly more support than Oricorio-Pom-Pom, but again not enough to warrant any sort of action in the near future. We will definitely be monitoring it though, and would love to hear more opinions on Basculegion in particular, who received the most mentions of the rain abusers by a wide margin.

iERYjZL.png


In terms of tier balance, the average score was 6.0, while enjoyability faired slightly better, averaging at around 6.45. While these numbers are OK, they are not where we'd like them to be, and hopefully with the departure of Drought we'll be able to make some inroads towards getting the tier into a more enjoyable spot for the community.

zVzngYp.png

U062zhc.png


That's all for now! Enjoy your not-so-sunny remainder of the week and let us know what you think benefits most from the removal of Drought in the tier!
 
https://imgur.com/DCG3dHs

In what is probably the least likely outcome ever for our council, Mew has been unanimously banned from SV NU following the survey. dhelmise or Marty implement when you can please.

Some may wonder why we opted to do a council vote with the survey score being relatively low for that standard. There are a few reasons:

1) Internal support. Everyone in council supported action of some kind, with about half of us supporting an outright vote, a couple of us wanting a suspect test, a couple of us not caring which route we took, and one of us being undecided.

2) Timing. We're halfway through June, and tier shifts are going to be large next month. There's really not much time to act, and given what the usage stats have indicated so far, Mew will be losing counterplay anyway. Thus, it made sense to us to act now instead of waiting, giving us extra time potentially to act on anything else that crops up before July hits.

3) General discourse. People aren't happy with NU, and although I think the issues stated are largely overblown, we don't want to sit with our hands under our asses and just let the tier sit. This is a small change, but a change that should ease teambuilding somewhat.

---

For the remaining period before tier shifts, we're looking to monitor rain (Basculegion specifically), Oricorio-Pom-Pom, and any other threats that emerge as even more of an issue.
 
I got curious and did some math and ended up writing a post about the cumulative stats for this NUPL, starting from W1 and ending at W6 Shengineer vs. Taka. Without further ado, here are the stats and some highlights.

flygon.png
SV NU
flygon.png

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Flygon             |   73 |  40.56% |  46.58% |
| 2    | Talonflame         |   68 |  37.78% |  52.94% |
| 3    | Slowbro            |   56 |  31.11% |  41.07% |
| 4    | Krookodile         |   46 |  25.56% |  50.00% |
| 5    | Reuniclus          |   39 |  21.67% |  53.85% |
| 5    | Mienshao           |   39 |  21.67% |  43.59% |
| 7    | Magnezone          |   31 |  17.22% |  54.84% |
| 8    | Mew                |   28 |  15.56% |  60.71% |
| 9    | Lycanroc-Dusk      |   25 |  13.89% |  56.00% |
| 10   | Diancie            |   21 |  11.67% |  47.62% |
| 11   | Vileplume          |   20 |  11.11% |  60.00% |
| 11   | Thundurus          |   20 |  11.11% |  55.00% |
| 11   | Noivern            |   20 |  11.11% |  35.00% |
| 14   | Swampert           |   19 |  10.56% |  57.89% |
| 15   | Lucario            |   18 |  10.00% |  77.78% |
| 15   | Sylveon            |   18 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 17   | Basculegion        |   17 |   9.44% |  52.94% |
| 17   | Klefki             |   17 |   9.44% |  41.18% |
| 19   | Tsareena           |   16 |   8.89% |  31.25% |
| 20   | Gallade            |   15 |   8.33% |  66.67% |
| 20   | Incineroar         |   15 |   8.33% |  40.00% |
| 22   | Ditto              |   14 |   7.78% |  92.86% |
| 22   | Registeel          |   14 |   7.78% |  50.00% |
| 22   | Oricorio-Pom-Pom   |   14 |   7.78% |  42.86% |
| 22   | Brute Bonnet       |   14 |   7.78% |  35.71% |
| 26   | Rhyperior          |   13 |   7.22% |  61.54% |
| 27   | Umbreon            |   12 |   6.67% |  66.67% |
| 27   | Munkidori          |   12 |   6.67% |  50.00% |
| 27   | Chandelure         |   12 |   6.67% |  33.33% |
| 30   | Vaporeon           |   11 |   6.11% |  72.73% |
| 30   | Dragalge           |   11 |   6.11% |  63.64% |
| 30   | Muk-Alola          |   11 |   6.11% |  54.55% |
| 30   | Brambleghast       |   11 |   6.11% |  45.45% |
| 30   | Feraligatr         |   11 |   6.11% |  36.36% |
| 35   | Copperajah         |   10 |   5.56% |  60.00% |
| 35   | Porygon-Z          |   10 |   5.56% |  60.00% |
| 35   | Ninetales          |   10 |   5.56% |  50.00% |
| 35   | Venusaur           |   10 |   5.56% |  50.00% |
| 39   | Scovillain         |    9 |   5.00% |  55.56% |
| 39   | Galvantula         |    9 |   5.00% |  33.33% |
| 41   | Rotom-Heat         |    8 |   4.44% |  62.50% |
| 41   | Ludicolo           |    8 |   4.44% |  62.50% |
| 41   | Toxicroak          |    8 |   4.44% |  50.00% |
| 41   | Wo-Chien           |    8 |   4.44% |  37.50% |
| 45   | Inteleon           |    7 |   3.89% |  85.71% |
| 45   | Scream Tail        |    7 |   3.89% |  71.43% |
| 45   | Tornadus           |    7 |   3.89% |  57.14% |
| 45   | Florges            |    7 |   3.89% |  42.86% |
| 45   | Sandslash-Alola    |    7 |   3.89% |  14.29% |
| 50   | Torterra           |    6 |   3.33% |  66.67% |
| 50   | Tentacruel         |    6 |   3.33% |  50.00% |
| 50   | Bellibolt          |    6 |   3.33% |  33.33% |
| 50   | Espeon             |    6 |   3.33% |  16.67% |
| 54   | Avalugg            |    5 |   2.78% |  80.00% |
| 54   | Kingdra            |    5 |   2.78% |  80.00% |
| 54   | Decidueye          |    5 |   2.78% |  60.00% |
| 54   | Qwilfish-Hisui     |    5 |   2.78% |  60.00% |
| 54   | Pawmot             |    5 |   2.78% |  40.00% |
| 59   | Lilligant          |    4 |   2.22% |  50.00% |
| 59   | Infernape          |    4 |   2.22% |  50.00% |
| 59   | Cacturne           |    4 |   2.22% |  50.00% |
| 59   | Grafaiai           |    4 |   2.22% |  50.00% |
| 59   | Froslass           |    4 |   2.22% |  50.00% |
| 59   | Thwackey           |    4 |   2.22% |  25.00% |
| 59   | Rotom-Mow          |    4 |   2.22% |   0.00% |
| 59   | Cloyster           |    4 |   2.22% |   0.00% |
| 59   | Quagsire           |    4 |   2.22% |   0.00% |
| 68   | Toxtricity         |    3 |   1.67% | 100.00% |
| 68   | Heracross          |    3 |   1.67% |  66.67% |
| 68   | Slowbro-Galar      |    3 |   1.67% |  66.67% |
| 68   | Milotic            |    3 |   1.67% |  66.67% |
| 68   | Abomasnow          |    3 |   1.67% |  33.33% |
| 68   | Cetitan            |    3 |   1.67% |  33.33% |
| 68   | Whimsicott         |    3 |   1.67% |  33.33% |
| 68   | Meloetta           |    3 |   1.67% |  33.33% |
| 68   | Golurk             |    3 |   1.67% |  33.33% |
| 68   | Scrafty            |    3 |   1.67% |   0.00% |
| 68   | Exeggutor-Alola    |    3 |   1.67% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Ambipom            |    2 |   1.11% | 100.00% |
| 79   | Gligar             |    2 |   1.11% | 100.00% |
| 79   | Smeargle           |    2 |   1.11% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Iron Thorns        |    2 |   1.11% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Kilowattrel        |    2 |   1.11% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Glastrier          |    2 |   1.11% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Crabominable       |    2 |   1.11% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Articuno-Galar     |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Typhlosion-Hisui   |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Delphox            |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Drednaw            |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Salazzle           |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Mabosstiff         |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Phione             |    2 |   1.11% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Grimmsnarl         |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Decidueye-Hisui    |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Duraludon          |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Porygon2           |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Alcremie           |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Arcanine           |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Altaria            |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Frosmoth           |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Gastrodon          |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Trevenant          |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Morpeko            |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Sableye            |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Shiftry            |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Dudunsparce-*      |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 93   | Sawsbuck           |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Tatsugiri          |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Staraptor          |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Sceptile           |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Snorlax            |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Ursaring           |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Mesprit            |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Hitmonlee          |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Gurdurr            |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Minior             |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Persian-Alola      |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Hoopa              |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Virizion           |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 93   | Coalossal          |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |

Starting from the top down we have none other than our top 6 Pokemon :flygon: :talonflame: :slowbro: :krookodile: :reuniclus: :mienshao:

These shouldn't shock anyone. These are hands down the best Pokemon in the tier, so it makes sense that they're the most used... except for Reuniclus. It often sees competition with Slowbro, although it has the same amount of uses (with a higher winrate) as Mienshao. Is it possible the inevitable loss of Reuniclus does impact the tier more than we believe? Flygon and Talonflame are swooping in as the top 2, they're really missing the SS meta. I have been a non-believer of S-rank Flygon, but maybe this will make me believe. Slowbro manages to fit in top 3 like it fits on all teams. Lastly, Krookodile is the most used Pokemon with a winrate of at least 50%, which is a lot.

Now, onto some Pokemon with a really high winrate. :lucario: (77.78%), :ditto: (92.86%), :vaporeon: (72.73%), :Inteleon: (85.71%), and :Scream Tail: (71.43%).

Tuthur recently brought up 10 Pokemon he believes should be banned before Slowbro; this list started some discussion on some of those 10 Pokemon, and one of the ones he ranked the highest was Lucario, and would you look at that 77.78% winrate. Not to be biased and not to say it's broken, but that is something that should be studied by scholars. Lucario is a deadly sweeper that is known to lose to some of the best Pokemon in the tier, including 4 of the top 6 most used, with the only exceptions being Reuniclus and Mienshao. Lucario has proven itself to be a strong Pokemon this NUPL, I think it's time for more respect to be put on its name.

Ditto... oh boy. 92.86% winrate at 14 games brought is insane. Ditto, as we all know, is an anti-meta option used to counter offense. Is Ditto simply a great Pokemon in the tier? Or, are we currently in a poor meta due to Ditto's success? Only time will tell.

Vaporeon and Scream Tail are some bulky wishpassers that don't see much discussion these days. While they haven't been brought to too many games, their 70+% winrate really does show they are capable of holding a solid spot in the tier, proving the haters wrong. Lastly, Inteleon appears to be an under-the-radar threat with that high winrate, though low usage.

Onto some lowlights we have :noivern:, :tsareena:, :oricorio-pom-pom:, :chandelure:, :feraligatr:, :galvantula:, :torterra:, :cloyster:, :infernape:, and :typhlosion-hisui:.

Both Noivern and Tsareena have seen drastic drops on the VR, and now I know it's for good reason. They're both outclassed heavily by Talonflame. With 20 and 16 uses, respectively, both Pokemon have a winrate under 36%, which isn't great. I'm still a Noivern believer, but Tsareena isn't so majestic anymore. We know RU is stealing Noivern in July, but it's possible that Tsareena stocks go up after that due to the lack of removal.

Oricorio-Pom-Pom makes me mad. For a Pokemon to only have 14 uses and 42.86% winrate, why is it considered by some to be broken? Not to mention that this bird was recently featured on the tier's survey. Why is everyone so scared of this? Of all Pokemon, why was this on the survey over something like Lycanroc-D, Gallade, or Lucario? The bird is extremely overrated.

Galvantula sees low use and low winrate, dragging not only Webs, but Feraligatr, Cloyster, and Torterra with it. This is a very interesting pattern to see considering how often Webs is used on ladder. Chandelure has seen a decent 12 games, but a very low 4 wins. Is this Pokemon overrated? Surely not, but maybe. We originally saw Chandelure rise as counterplay to Sun, although that was not enough. I'm curious to see more from this Pokemon. Infernape... lol. 4 uses and only 2 wins, it's time to let it go. Although, Infernape is doing much better than fellow Fire-type Typhlosion-Hisui which sits at 2 uses and 0 wins.
 
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