Metagame np: Stage 15: Freeze Tag (Articuno-Galar NOT BANNED)

Status
Not open for further replies.
ishtar

ishtar

reward your grace
is a Top Community Contributoris a Top Metagame Resource Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
PUPL Champion
:sv/articuno-galar:
~~~
(ty DugZa for helping me write this)

Following the recent January metagame shifts, Articuno-Galar has soon rose to the forefront of the tier as a controversial presence. With the overall power level of the tier dropping drastically on top of losing some of its checks, it was only a matter of time before Articuno-Galar exerted a strong presence over the tier. Its Calm Mind set is by far its most potent set; access to reliable recovery and STAB in Psychic Noise and Hurricane makes it nigh impossible to reliably deal with it defensively for most teams. This forces the majority of teams to rely on offensive counterplay more often than not. It also commonly runs Steel as its tera of choice which not only flips some of its common weaknesses but also provides it with Toxic immunity which allows it to comfortably deal with otherwise would-be checks such as Bellibolt and Goodra. Despite Steel easily being the most common Tera type, it occasionally also runs other tera types such as Fairy, Fighting or Poison which only makes it harder to revenge kill reliably. Its ability Competitive further exacerbates is role as a setup sweeper taking advantage of common Defog users like Cramorant and Altaria and Intimidate users like Arcanine and Redbull to snowball quickly. Pairing it on hazard-heavy teams is a tried and true strategy solely for this reason as it can capitalize on Defog users exceptionally well as most Defog users in the tier are unable to pressure it in any way.

This does not mean that Articuno-Galar is unstoppable, it becomes commonly exploitable by faster physical threats after Tera and often has to be careful around common revenge killers in the form of priority, generally fast Pokemon and Choice Scarf users such as Pawmot, Skuntank, Zoroark to name a few. It's typing, speed and reliance on Tera to get over certain checks also means that it requires a decent amount of support to reliably function as a sweeper. Overall, Articuno-Galar has a miltitude of traits that make it a worthy candidate of a suspect test.
~~~​

Suspect test information:
  • To participate in this supect test, create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in PU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played PU before the test, full stop.)
  • At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
  • You have to reach a COIL of 2800 in order to get reqs. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 7.
  • This suspect test will last 14 days, concluding on Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 11:59 PM (GMT-5).
  • Check here to see if you have reqs.
  • If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or asa or post here!

GXE = Games Required
71 = 343
72 = 173
73 = 116
74 = 88
75 = 71
76 = 59
77 = 51
78 = 45
79 = 41
80 = 37
81 = 34
82 = 31
83 = 29
84 = 27
85 = 25
 
Last edited:
I'm going to go through my thoughts in a very basic way. Positive notes and negative ones.


- Positives:

Galarcuno is very scary in the late game. It can set up quickly and deal huge damage whilst being very bulky. It has base 85 def and 100 SPDf meaning that with even a little defensive investment, it can tank some of the hardest hitters in the tier.

252 Atk Choice Band Tauros-Paldea-Blaze Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Articuno-Galar: 229-271 (59.6 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Of course, you shouldn't be setting up in front of Banded Tauros but my point being that it has significant bulk for a special sweeper and when healthy can be hard to bring down.

It also shreds the strong bulky phys def mons in the tier. Bellibolt, Mudsdale in particular, who both let it set up for free (aside from Toxic from Belli). With access to Psyshock, it can also hurt strong specially defensive mons like Goodra.

It can also leave you guessing with its tera. The strongest seems to be steel, ground and fairy. This unpredictability can make it frustrating to fight.

With Tera Ground it resists its common rock weakness, meaning it can chunk Rhydon and also resists its electric weakness.

In conclusion, it's strong. Resources have to be managed well to be able to prevent it from cleaning house and it does restrict team building to some extent.


Negative Notes-

:Copperajah:This guy sits on Gartic's face. It can knock off its imperative leftovers recovery, threaten its boosts with Whirlwind and it happily resists the Stab moves this thing can throw out. It's very common right now as it walls Florges and Garticuno very very well. Great utility mon too.

:Orthworm: This snek also performs similarly and can gain momentum easily with coil/ and or with spikes setting. Without tera blast, theres not too much Garticuno can do to smash through it.

There are plenty of other mons that can give it a tough time too. Sp.Def Bellibolt can status it and pivot on it. Rhydon also can smash it into the ground with some spdef investment.

Garticuno has issues with strong priority users also. Arcanine's Espeed can chunk it hard, Sucker Punch from Grimmsnarl, Skuntank even Hecid can slow it down without tera. Even if Garticuno gets ahead, strong priority can shut it down even with an agility boost.

Its speed tier also isn't stellar. Pawmot, Zoroark and Tauros F all outspeed and all have the potential to hit it very hard. Its scarf set gets chunked by rocks and doesn't have the same power.

Its impact on the Meta-

I don't think the tier revolves around this mon. I think teambuilding is still variable however I dont think that it pigeon holes the styles of play.

I also don't think people are building around this thing on every team at all. Very few of my teams have it and it doesn't feel overtuned when I use it.

I think there's plenty of variety in the tier, however, the strong phys def mons are the more common repeat offenders. For example, most teams you face have a variety of Banded Arcanine or HDB, Curse Arcanine.

HO is still viable, Offense is viable, Bulky Offense is viable, Balance is viable.


Conclusion:

This mon does not feel broken to me at all. It can be, if you let it. Just don't let it! It can be revenged hard, strong prio exists and the defensive options for it are pretty reliable.

I also don't think removing this thing leads to a healthier building environment necessarily.

(Arcanine however is on every single team and is super duper annoying)
 
Last edited:
I achieved reqs today, and my opinion has actually changed over time regarding Guno, so I will talk about it. Here is the team I used if anyone wants a free team for reqs that uses a fun mon, I went 31-5 this run.
:lurantis: :tauros-paldea-fire: :copperajah: :bellibolt: :bombirdier: :bruxish:
https://pokepast.es/3d17d19d38991b5c

The team is focused around maximizing momentum and getting band redbull in as much as possible to break the opposing team, and clean with bruxish later. Lurantis is reliable removal so you don't get wore down pivoting around, and bombirdier is spdef to make your life a lot easier against many special attackers.

Anyways, I built and used this team as an experiment vs Guno. Lurantis hard loses to Guno and lets it in for free basically, so I figured if I can achieve reqs and win vs Guno with Lurantis then it certainly is possible to prep well enough for it. It turned out I did not have trouble with Guno a single time outside of one game where I could have lost to an Air Slash Flinch but did not. Why is this? Well, I chose to run the core of Bellibolt+Band Tauros, and this covers all Guno scenarios possible essentially. On top of this, I managed to fit Copperajah and Spdef Bombirdier, so I had a very fullproof plan vs it. Copperajah always beats Guno if it has the HP to do so, and where the problem comes is if it gets worn down too quickly. However, if it does get worn down too quickly dealing with other threats, then I have Bellibolt who tanks everything at +1 still and can toxic it. If it teras into poison or steel to block it, band tauros can always revenge kill it. If it teras to something else, toxic hits and I can stall it out. If I still lose to Guno, then I managed my resources poorly at that point.

I say all of that to say, there is definitely counterplay to this mon, and it requires some extra prepping in the builder to do so at times, but its there. Even if it teras, there are ways you can be prepared for that, band tauros is not the only physical breaker you can splash on Bulky Offense or Balance to achieve this. The toughest set I have faced and used is kee berry, which can turn the tide of a game easily but also can have its sr weakness exploited and still dies to strong attacks. And if it is kee, it is often easier to preserve your Copperajah or other answer for the long game due to it often dropping SpA investment for bulk.

Guno is a top-tier threat, but it also is kept in check by the strong attackers in the tier, bellibolt, copperajah, rhydon, and other niche mons like shiftry. It is actually a nice presence in other ways in my opinion, punishing intimidate, parting shot, and walling hecid well. It also keeps spikestack alive in a world with bad spikers due to its competitive ability. I think it just took me a while to adapt better to how this mon operates, but I do think you can prep for it and do not find it broken now, so I will be voting DNB.
 
articuno galar is not even close to broken. before shifts, i'd go as far as saying it was not very good. if it's running away with games often, that probably means your teams are bad or you are playing badly. every team in my scl dump is well-assured vs guno without having to bend your back. i assume there are several pokemon after shifts that are significantly stronger, namely salazzle and zoroark. band/specs zoroark with trick + encore, any trick user, offensively pressuring pokemon like salazzle, arcanine, firebull, slaking, sneasel, etc will force guno's hand well before it should become dangerous outside of isolated late-game scenarios. your own tera steel setup pokemon resist its stabs and win before guno does. hurricane is a shit move on a setup sweeper and air slash is weak. if guno tera steels, it becomes easy to revenge kill by something like decid-h. without spikes, guno is a toothless win condition that takes too long to activate in lieu of the offensive pressure currently existing in the tier. with gastrodon shifting, pu lost its best spiker by far (and spikes were generally not great in this tier anyway even with gastrodon).

the tier is barren enough with shifts and bans removing the broken, overwhelming pokemon. removing articuno galar does nothing to improve the tier and the pokemon has far too many deficits/lacks immediate power in a high octane tier to be banworthy. seeing what was nominated for potential quickbans with shifts (arcanine, florges, guno) indicates to me that after torterra's ban, there is nothing to be done in terms of suspects/bans until further shifts occur. salazzle might be kinda busted tho; certainly much more so than guno.
 
Hello peeps

After getting reqs Iam here to chime in my thoughts on the the Articuno-G situation. :Articuno-galar:

Firstly

I think that so long as you don’t get knocked off or toxic’d you can relatively freely save a very oppressive win-con.

Spike stack offence isn’t in a particularly strong spot currently with its biggest drawback being limitations of viable spikers. That aside I’m of the opinion that there’s simply not enough reliable counter play to this beast.

Between making setup bait of toxic users and eating any of the tiers phasers alive I haven’t found any consistent answer outside of Copperjah (which is still susceptible to hazards and chip and is very easily exploited with some decent building) also the other best answer in my experience the threat of choice scarfers.

With it’s 85/100 base defence/special defence respectively this Pokemon is very rarely threatened by a one hit ko and kept at a high enough hp threshold can pose a threat on a neutral hit (even on the stronger side thanks to Tera) to most choice scarfers and the likes of faster threats like ambipom and zoroark still have to be careful if that’s all you have for it.

Almost completely ruling out Defog as an option of removal it almost beckons your average team to run double removal in rapid spin also.

In conclusion: for me Articuno-g will receive a ban vote
 
1737825004460.png

1737825008489.png

Congrats to Hera for winning the first suspect tour!!
semifinals - toraflora! vs leoperi99
semifinals - bloodace vs hbdrosado
Finals - leoperi99 vs hbdrosado
 
when laddering for reqs, i discovered a few things:

1. sceptile is either dogshit or the funniest thing ever, no in-between. i personally used loaded dice sd/bullet/dp/rock slide and it either did nothing in a match or carried my team. granted that's what ho will do to you but i just found it funny.
2. lanturn should probably be ranked, resttalk va shuts down top tiers like belli and heattom, scald/vs is surprisingly difficult to switch into, and you're faster than most defensive staples meaning you get a surprisingly fast pivot. as the replays above show it can put in work in the right mus. too passive for anything higher than c though.
3. guno is not really broken, but people here have already argued that and i don't want to retread their points.

i think the bigger question we should ask about guno is if it takes too much to prep for. a lot of teams that i saw while laddering had copperajah or mutiple spdef mons or teras designed to beat guno or otherwise mid mons like magneton getting a lot more usage than previously, e.g the tom team above is good but has like 3 counters to guno that it struggles to get past. are teams that try to stuff out guno like this giving up important mus to do so? is it finding its way past its counters with minimal support/opprotunity cost? is the tier centralized around guno to the point where forgetting about it or having only one switchin is an insta-loss? currently i'm thinking no to all of these questions, but ladder is also not a great way to suspect mons like guno that tend to be stronger in tournament play and bo1 formats.

also re: lazzle yeah it's busted, with gastro gone np just doesn't have any switchins anymore barring like goodra and dudunsparce, which struggle to check other things and don't fit on every team + lose to subtoxic anyway. vs most teams it comes down to hoping you dodge the fire blast cause otherwise at +2 and after tera it runs through almost everything. it also outspeeds most of the tier so you have to resort to scarfers/priority to beat it. it usually trades 2 or even 3 for 1 with a sash intact and idt that's healthy or balanced.
 
I skipped the Meloetta suspect test after voting in the redbull one and I didn't make a post on the PU metagame, so I wanted to at least say something now, even with the qualification period being over.

I recognize that a lot of other users posting in this thread have expressed that they don't find Galarian Articuno to be a problem in the tier. Additionally, I agree with what Hera expressed, because ladder is not a good format to really encounter Galarian Articuno. It might have been the number of games I played, but I hardly had exposure to Galarian Articuno, and it didn't do much that was significant to the hyper offense team I was running in any of the times I saw it. It was actually kind of a bizarre experience to see that Galarian Articuno was #5 in usage last month at ~16.77%, but I played and qualified at the tail end of the suspect. I'm hopeful more people qualifying through the suspect got exposure to it.

In my opinion, Galarian Articuno doesn't add much value to the tier while being another potentially overwhelming offensive option. Psychic-type setup sweepers enabled by Terastalization are nothing new in SV, let alone PU. However, I don't feel like there's enough evidence to claim Galarian Articuno is banworthy at this point in time. I am concerned about metagame developments and cheesier sets like Agility, Kee Berry, and more potentially making Galarian Articuno unhealthier. I'm also apprehensive about making the tier reliant on Copperajah as one of the few reliable defensive Galarian Articuno checks when it's been threatening to rise to NU, but neither of those cases are relevant to the current suspect. Like Excal mentioned, Trick, Encore, and faster revenge killers provide viable counterplay in the forms of Hoopa, Zoroark, Uxie, Delphox, and Salazzle. However, Salazzle and Zoroark are both frail, making checking more aggressive Galarian Articuno tricky. Additionally, Trick and Encore are pretty easily telegraphed, and Galarian Articuno has Recover to attempt to set up multiple times.

Like I mentioned above, there's a couple of cheesier aspects of Galarian Articuno I do think are concerning and do not add value to the tier. While Excal mentioned that Air Slash is weak, it can still hax for a win. Decidueye rising removed another form of counterplay, and Defog Hisuian Decidueye can enable Galarian Articuno to really take off. I also think there's more potential to different Tera types to surprise and bust past checks, such as Fairy, Ground, and Posion. What I keep circling back to though is that this isn't really what I've experienced from playing and watching. Due to that, I'll be voting do not ban for this suspect test. However, I think it would be good to keep Galarian Articuno on the radar going forward, especially when the next full tier shift comes closer.

Ban redbull. Who said that? Did you just hear something?
 
1738541718141.png

A 50% + 1 (14/26) majority was required to ban Articuno-Galar which is no longer possible to achieve. As such, Articuno-Galar remains legal in SV PU. The vote will stay open until 11:59PM (-5) Friday, February 7th for the last people to vote.

Thank you everyone for voting. Here's hoping for some awesome developments in the meta throughout this next tournament season!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top