Metagame np: Stage 3: Savage (Tauros Suspect Test, Lilligant ban post #30)

[Stories]

I think Tauros is annoying at best (worst?) and while there's not many hard checks, there's plenty of soft checks to it and often has to click the proper move when it hits the field or it ends up doing nothing then ends up finding a hard time getting back on the field later.

I think Lilligant is something that should have been banned months ago with Vivillon and I'm really shocked it's still here. I'll vote ban on Tauros but Lilligant has been broken persisting through different metas for months now. I saw Danny vs Punny for PUPL and the SV game was best summarized as "Danny makes the worst plays possible consecutively for the entire game then sends out Lilligant and wins immediately because he has the right tera type" and I see this happen far too much in tours and on ladder, it's very annoying having to run Tera Poison Gogoat and Tera Grass Articuno on every single team just to lose to some random Tera Fire + Encore set anyway. Please ban Lilligant asap.

As for general metagame statements, I think hazard removal is fine, idk if that's a hot take or not. Quaxwell and Dartrix are both very solid Pokemon and being able to run items that aren't boots on stuff is very powerful (I go reqs with 0 Boots Pokemon here) Eviolite mons are cool, Choice item mons are cool, people should use them more.

 

[Shaneghoul]

Tauros has been banned from PU.

Following immediately on from this, the council would like to hear the community's feedback on the lingering threats in the metagame and so have decided to open up a survey. We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Form: https://forms.gle/7WPzfj3mYsWgp9hb6

 

[DugZa]

GXE is too shy to post so he convinced me to post about it instead but anyways, since Lilligant is almost certainly getting (quick-)banned in the near future I wanted to bring up another problematic Pokemon currently: Persian-A. I was very surprised that the tiering survey above didn't have Persian-A as a potential problematic Pokemon when Gogoat was brought up.

Its speed is one of its best assets, outspeeding all the commonly used unboosted Pokemon bar Electrode which still fails to do much against Tera Electric sets (Dugtrio and Wugtrio are faster but lol they're at best niche options and barely see any usage). Its also a versatile tera user; Steel, Electric, Ghost etc. can all be used to decent success as seen in the following games: mncmt vs. yandaud (PUPL week 2), Z Strats vs. Liz Angeles (PUPL week 1) and Z Strats vs. Prodigezz (PUPL week 2).

There's also the games where it doesn't even need to tera and it can comfortably break through half the opponent's team without much trouble as seen in pdt vs. Danny (PUPL week 2) and Floss vs. crying (PU Open finals). Admittedly some of the games linked had luck involved but the Dark Pulse flinch chance is a common, relatively unhealthy RNG element that only adds to making this Pokemon an even bigger problem than it already is.

It also only really needs Dark Pulse and Thunderbolt to be an effective breaker and is almost guaranteed to make progress in most games. Between Taunt and Tera Blast in the last slot to pick and choose what MUs it wants to further improve it can be very difficult to predict and play against it. Fur Coat also helps in giving it ample of setup opportunities against Pokemon it should have no business setting up on; comfortably setting up on some of the tier's better offensive presences like Dugtrio-A and Tauros (RIP him) as seen here but I have no replay for Tauros so I'll just drop some calcs.

Calcs

252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Tauros Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 149-177 (54.9 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Sheer Force Tauros Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 115-136 (42.4 - 50.1%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Tauros Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 216-255 (79.7 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tauros Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 166-196 (61.2 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Not to mention with Tauros no longer in the tier, there is even less reason to use bulky sets so Nasty Plot will almost always be the go-to set on every team now. Between its great speed and Fur Coat it also becomes very difficult to revenge kill; especially when you consider that the some of the commonly used Scarf users like Skuntank, Lycanroc, Sawsbuck and Dugtrio-A have serious trouble dealing with Fur Coat-boosted Persian-A.

Might be an unpopular opinion since I haven't seen a lot of people discuss about it but when I brought this up briefly in PU cord earlier, a few people shared the same sentiments as me. Curious to see what others think about Persian-A as well.

 

[GXE]

GXE is too shy to post so he convinced me to post about it instead but anyways, since Lilligant is almost certainly getting (quick-)banned in the near future I wanted to bring up another problematic Pokemon currently: Persian-A. I was very surprised that the tiering survey above didn't have Persian-A as a potential problematic Pokemon when Gogoat was brought up.

Its speed is one of its best assets, outspeeding all the commonly used unboosted Pokemon bar Electrode which still fails to do much against Tera Electric sets (Dugtrio and Wugtrio are faster but lol they're at best niche options and barely see any usage). Its also a versatile tera user; Steel, Electric, Ghost etc. can all be used to decent success as seen in the following games: mncmt vs. yandaud (PUPL week 2), Z Strats vs. Liz Angeles (PUPL week 1) and Z Strats vs. Prodigezz (PUPL week 2).

There's also the games where it doesn't even need to tera and it can comfortably break through half the opponent's team without much trouble as seen in pdt vs. Danny (PUPL week 2) and Floss vs. crying (PU Open finals). Admittedly some of the games linked had luck involved but the Dark Pulse flinch chance is a common, relatively unhealthy RNG element that only adds to making this Pokemon an even bigger problem than it already is.

It also only really needs Dark Pulse and Thunderbolt to be an effective breaker and is almost guaranteed to make progress in most games. Between Taunt and Tera Blast in the last slot to pick and choose what MUs it wants to further improve it can be very difficult to predict and play against it. Fur Coat also helps in giving it ample of setup opportunities against Pokemon it should have no business setting up on; comfortably setting up on some of the tier's better offensive presences like Dugtrio-A and Tauros (RIP him) as seen here but I have no replay for Tauros so I'll just drop some calcs.

Calcs

252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Tauros Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 149-177 (54.9 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Sheer Force Tauros Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 115-136 (42.4 - 50.1%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Life Orb Tauros Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 216-255 (79.7 - 94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tauros Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Fur Coat Persian-Alola: 166-196 (61.2 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Not to mention with Tauros no longer in the tier, there is even less reason to use bulky sets so Nasty Plot will almost always be the go-to set on every team now. Between its great speed and Fur Coat it also becomes very difficult to revenge kill; especially when you consider that the some of the commonly used Scarf users like Skuntank, Lycanroc, Sawsbuck and Dugtrio-A have serious trouble dealing with Fur Coat-boosted Persian-A.

Might be an unpopular opinion since I haven't seen a lot of people discuss about it but when I brought this up briefly in PU cord earlier, a few people shared the same sentiments as me. Curious to see what others think about Persian-A as well.

thanks for the credit but this was all your idea

(my thoughts are v much reflected in his post though)


while I have everyone's attention I'd like to address an even bigger issue in PU

this ugly pokemon has been tarnishing this good tier for too long. between its unspeakably bad design and inability to do its single job well duckza is a stain on the pu tier. it's allure of being one of the few EXISTENT hazard removers may be promising but don't be fooled, you're playing 5 v 6 and you look silly. stop it.

 

[Shaneghoul]

Due to the overwhelming support that came back from the most recent survey, the council has decided to hold a quickban vote on Lilligant before the start of week three of PUPL. The results are as follows:

Shaneghoul	Ban
rien	Ban
gum	Ban
asa	Ban
Vulpix03	Ban
fish anemometer	Ban

With a full 6/6 Ban votes, Lilligant is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement please!

From a tiering perspective, we felt the need to have the community's support to hold this vote, which was a major motivating factor for the survey, as Lilligant has been in this tier since its inception and nothing has fundamentally changed about it as a Pokemon. We initially intended to wait a few days, but the survey gained huge support for this action in an incredibly short period of time, leading us to feeling that we should hold a vote sooner rather than later, leading to this vote 24 hours later. The following graphic shows this, with only 6 out of 88 voters selecting the "I do not support tiering action on Lilligant" option, telling us that this is something the community felt very strongly about.

We'll still allow the survey to run another day or two to allow more people to answer and we'll communicate the responses to the rest of the questions after that, as well as discuss the future direction of the tier.

 

[FishSucksAtPKMN]

Due to the overwhelming support that came back from the most recent survey, the council has decided to hold a quickban vote on Lilligant before the start of week three of PUPL. The results are as follows:

Shaneghoul	Ban
rien	Ban
gum	Ban
asa	Ban
Vulpix03	Ban
fish anemometer	Ban

With a full 6/6 Ban votes, Lilligant is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement please!

From a tiering perspective, we felt the need to have the community's support to hold this vote, which was a major motivating factor for the survey, as Lilligant has been in this tier since its inception and nothing has fundamentally changed about it as a Pokemon. We initially intended to wait a few days, but the survey gained huge support for this action in an incredibly short period of time, leading us to feeling that we should hold a vote sooner rather than later, leading to this vote 24 hours later. The following graphic shows this, with only 6 out of 88 voters selecting the "I do not support tiering action on Lilligant" option, telling us that this is something the community felt very strongly about.

View attachment 535479

We'll still allow the survey to run another day or two to allow more people to answer and we'll communicate the responses to the rest of the questions after that, as well as discuss the future direction of the tier.

finally, that stupid flower has diminished the existence of this tier for far too long, NO MORE QUIVER DANCERS!!! (watch as soon as i say this someone makes qd masquerain popular)

heat tech with honch so no one liner

Honchkrow @ Mirror Herb
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Dark / Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swagger
- Acrobatics
- Sucker Punch
- Foul Play

 

[Melt Gibson]

Due to the overwhelming support that came back from the most recent survey, the council has decided to hold a quickban vote on Lilligant before the start of week three of PUPL. The results are as follows:

Shaneghoul	Ban
rien	Ban
gum	Ban
asa	Ban
Vulpix03	Ban
fish anemometer	Ban

With a full 6/6 Ban votes, Lilligant is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement please!

From a tiering perspective, we felt the need to have the community's support to hold this vote, which was a major motivating factor for the survey, as Lilligant has been in this tier since its inception and nothing has fundamentally changed about it as a Pokemon. We initially intended to wait a few days, but the survey gained huge support for this action in an incredibly short period of time, leading us to feeling that we should hold a vote sooner rather than later, leading to this vote 24 hours later. The following graphic shows this, with only 6 out of 88 voters selecting the "I do not support tiering action on Lilligant" option, telling us that this is something the community felt very strongly about.

View attachment 535479

We'll still allow the survey to run another day or two to allow more people to answer and we'll communicate the responses to the rest of the questions after that, as well as discuss the future direction of the tier.

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD

also so it isn't a one liner, here's a Persian-A set i've really been liking lately :)


Persian-Alola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fur Coat
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Power Gem
- Parting Shot

tera dark +2 dpulse does some craaaazy numbers

 

[pokeclysm]

Good riddance, Lilligant was silly especially with the other drops. Tauros did only get banned by 1 vote, but it probably would have risen to NU if it survived anyway.

I didn't feel like Carbink was that banworthy before, but losing one of its best answers and main competitors in Lilligant getting banned might change that. A lot of the best special attackers are either Fire or Dark now, both of which Carbink resists.

 

[Pabloaram]

Due to the overwhelming support that came back from the most recent survey, the council has decided to hold a quickban vote on Lilligant before the start of week three of PUPL. The results are as follows:

Shaneghoul	Ban
rien	Ban
gum	Ban
asa	Ban
Vulpix03	Ban
fish anemometer	Ban

With a full 6/6 Ban votes, Lilligant is now banned from SV PU. Tagging Marty and Kris to implement please!

From a tiering perspective, we felt the need to have the community's support to hold this vote, which was a major motivating factor for the survey, as Lilligant has been in this tier since its inception and nothing has fundamentally changed about it as a Pokemon. We initially intended to wait a few days, but the survey gained huge support for this action in an incredibly short period of time, leading us to feeling that we should hold a vote sooner rather than later, leading to this vote 24 hours later. The following graphic shows this, with only 6 out of 88 voters selecting the "I do not support tiering action on Lilligant" option, telling us that this is something the community felt very strongly about.

View attachment 535479

We'll still allow the survey to run another day or two to allow more people to answer and we'll communicate the responses to the rest of the questions after that, as well as discuss the future direction of the tier.

Can we ban Quiver Dance now? We gain Oricorios as foggers #NoJoke

 

[I am New]

Can we ban Quiver Dance now? We gain Oricorios as foggers #NoJoke

There is masqurain too :|

 

[Swagodile]

Tier Changes

We lost:

Articuno to NU

We gained:

Chansey
Haunter
Klawf
Sliggoo-Hisui
Spiritomb
Wyrdeer

 

[LettuceLeaf07]

Wooo time to have opinions!

Best boi of the shifts. Regen, SR, Rock typing, and Knock are all amazing traits, and Klawf has even more to work with. I don't know its best set yet, but it can be defensive, SR + SD, SD + Trailblaze Edge'Quake', something with Crabhammer, and more.

I am not excited for this thing to be back. It was not easy to break before, and I don't think it'll be easy to break now. I feel like Taunt + Steel would destroy this thing, but then Sliggoo would adapt, probably.

& With the loss of one annoying special wall, we gain an annoying special wall. As much as I love Cuno, I'm glad to see it go because I want to pretend it was the only thing holding my boy Golduck back. It also was nice having a real ice type. On the other hand, we get Chansey. I had no idea how this happened. at first, but it lost Wishport and Toxic, so I guess it kinda makes sense. I actually think Carbink is more annoying rn than Chansey will be, but I'm fully expecting this idea to age poorly.

We have ghost options!! Despite Missy's new competition, I think it'll still be very useful. Sure, Spiritomb has the same wisp, hex, and pain split that a defensive missy had and Haunter is probably gonna be better than most offensive sets, but Misdreavus is fast, bulky, and capable of set diversity, which makes me think it's not going anywhere.

I've vaguely noticed that Leafeon stocks are on the rise through PUPL and Swiss usage stats, and now it's actually PU. If Gogoat proves anything, grass is very useful. Leafeon is also fast. Leafeon may also be able to answer all the rock types we have. Idk that's all I got on it, i've never used it.

Serious question, what does Flapple do? I think I've seen it once in 3 months, and it didn't do anything (because I had a cuno). I guess uturn + sucker punch are cool, but in my head it's still only cool 80% of the time.

I have no idea what this does.

Overall, fun shifts. Every rock-type is now twice as scary and I feel like the meta is gonna revolve around them. Excited for an Avalugg to drop next month.

 

[Morge]

Oh boy its tier shifts discussion time

Rises:

Welp guess I'm going back to using lumineon as my specially defensive pivot. Good day to be whiscash.

Drops:

Been a while since this guy was in the tier huh. A lot has changed since haunter was last in the tier and I doubt it will be quite the menace it was back then but its for sure still great. High special attack good speed tier and strong stab combo make this a great offensive mon with a lot of potential sets. It is easier to answer offensively now since the tier is overall faster but its still a nightmare to take on defensively.


I trust you all remember what this does. Its still the same annoyingly bulky setup sweeper that it was before, and outside of taunt alolan persian stopping it from setting up I don't think its got much worse.


It clicks stealth rock and knock off while tanking physical hits and switches out and regenerates off the damage. Not a particularly complicated mon but I would probably call this our best knock off user which is a pretty big deal in a tier where everything runs boots. Rock is a somewhat unfortunate typing for a physically defensive mon to have since it loses to a lot of top physical threats like basculin or alolan dugtrio but a solid mon overall. Offensive sets could be decent but I haven't really played around with those yet.


With the loss of cuno comes another annoying special wall, but instead of being a pivot with u-turn this ones a complete momentum sink. Heal bell is nice to have in a meta with misdreavus throwing wisps around constantly and just blanking most special attackers is obviously very nice but the passivity makes this very exploitable, so long as you don't mind the paralysis. Can't wait for the DLC to give it toxic and teleport back so we have to put up with that for a week.


The typing is cool but other than that I don't really know when I'd run this over misdreavus, the loss of speed really sucks and the movepool is quite a bit worse (And it also feels less bulky but I might just be using it wrong). The typing is nice and its probably decent but it feels usually worse than misdreavus.


Weird mon. Its probably decent I just don't really know what it wants to do. Its got a nice movepool interesting signature move and 2 strong abilities but the stats and typing are pretty awkward. I've tried AV sets and double dance stored power sets but neither of them felt that great and I don't know if its because I was using it wrong or if its just bad. I'm sure this mon has potential to be good once it finds its niche but I'm sure as hell not gonna be the one to find it.

Alright drops overall, I'm not exactly thrilled to get sliggoo-H back and very happy to see haunter back. We're probably gonna get Avalugg-H next tier shifts so, get excited for that I guess.

 

[gum]

hi, day 1 thoughts so take these with a grain of salt x


this thing's okay, i've been a bit underwhelmed with it so far as it feels like it wants 6 moves (soft boiled, stoss, twave, sball, heal bell, cm) at once. i like what it adds to the tier; we were really in need of some good blanket wall to special attackers and heal bell + natural cure is a godsend in a metagame that was becoming more and more status heavy. being forced into using boots is pretty unfortunate, as its bulk takes quite a hit, but oh well. dropping alongside the crab and spiritomb hurts it as well, but all in all it's a decent pokemon


haunter is probably broken, it feels even better than when we first had it. it has more chances to come in and start clicking moves now, and its access to trick feels even more annoying in a metagame where boots are nigh-mandatory. skuntank also fell off and is nowhere as common. its ability to use 3-4 different sets very successfully makes it hard to reliably answer, and also gives it more opportunities to break; using tect on whiscash could easily backfire if it's nasty plot, or any set with sub. on the other hand, going into chansey and getting tricked is not fun!! in my experience it forces a lot of similar scenarios that often give the haunter user an advantage, which i don't really like. very frail though, and its speed tier isnt that great anymore when the tier keeps getting faster so it might end up being balanced, but i think it's worth keeping an eye on


the crab is very, very good. not useless defensively, has regen, knock off, and can do a lot of things depending on what you need it to. it usually does a ton every game, and i find it pretty annoying from a building perspective; nothing appreciates switching into a decently strong knock off in a metagame where hazards removal sucks, and its coverage allows it to beat pretty much anything it wants. still though, it's usually not as good in practice, as its speed holds it back and it has to pick between being strong or being "bulky". it's a pretty free addition to most teams, just wouldn't be surprised if it became too much down the line


spikes have never been better this gen, which makes a pokemon that relies on eviolite + resttalk automatically not very good. i guess it's still a steel, but it doesn't really check a lot reliably outside of like, gogoat (which can outlive you anyway). also, a lot of what was once needed of it defensively is done better by newer options like chansey and carbink, while a lot of recent additions like alolan dugtrio and spiritomb give it a hard time. probably not terrible? just can't really find a reason to use it, idk


i've seen people talk about how spiritomb is broken and i don't see it, it's kinda hard to get going and we have plenty of attackers that can force it out. also i think that like, adapting for this pokemon won't be very hard really. pokemon like crabominable have already been seeing more usage recently, and dachsbun is still good! while gogoat just boosts alongside it and ends up winning the 1v1. more offensive sets like nasty plot are good, and i'm interested to see how it settles into the tier. fun mon!!


i guess it's usable, most likely won't break the metagame unless some stupid set pops up but it just doesn't seem to be a very reliable wincon / breaker. trading decent bulk and good attacks for an awkward typing and poor speed just isn't very good. cb and specs don't look terrible on it, so maybe it'll surprise me

---

i'm overall very pleased with these shifts. losing cuno kinda sucks, and we might have to ban / suspect something, but i'd say the tier keeps getting better with each shifts, with us getting more and more options. klawf in particular is great to have, so i hope it doesn't end up being stupid. previous concerns like alolan persian and rotom-frost don't seem to be as oppressive anymore, though i don't think they're worth taking off the list of "potential brokens" just yet. council will most likely be voting on the drops this weekend, so if you have any concerns / thoughts now would be the time to share them!!

 

[Bella]

Day 2 thoughts on the Drops!

Rises:

Whiscash is now A+ tier good job NU

Drops:

oh how the mighty have fallen. Heal Bell is nice and its so easy to spread Para with this thing but its so passive otherwise. Boots is 100% the better set imo with how much of a pain hazards are in this meta. Could be interesting when Spritomb gets banned.


This shit is still ridiculous. The problem i find with it is that Skunk is the only for sure check, everything else can get ruined by Sub sets, NP, or choice scarf trick. Maybe overtime we will find better checks but meh.


This mon is probably bad now with Taunt Alolan Persian, Chansey, Carbink, Alolan Dugtrio, Spritomb, and Knock off being more common with Klawf now. Might still be nice though since its still a fatfuck.


This thing might be broken. It has alot of options, tanks aton of Physical attacks and has knock and 2 pretty useful abilities. The coverage is pretty great and theres not alot of really solid Knock Off absorbers right now. Being a Rock-type is kinda bad though.


Will-o-wisp hex + sucker sets are pretty nice. CM sets can be a fucking pain if Carbink / Dachsbun / Gogoat on the opposing team goes down. Not sure if i would consider it broken yet. Pretty cool mon tho.


???????? This is literally all i can say about this mon lol. I have 0 idea what it does well. I guess Stored Power sets on Grassy Terrain are cute? Intimidate is cool? Decent coverage i guess, def the least broken of the drops and could be cool if we can figure out what exactly it does.

also, to LettuceLeaf07

Serious question, what does Flapple do? I think I've seen it on in 3 months, and it didn't do anything (because I had a cuno). I guess uturn + sucker punch are cool, but in my head it's still only cool 80% of the time.

Flapple is an incredible mon in the tier imo. I love Dragon Dance Ripen Sets. After a boost, your really just break through the entire unboosted metagame that isnt a Tinkatuff or a Perrserker. CB sets are absolutely nuclear and Scarf sets are good as a surprise factor to people expecting DD sets. Realistically Flapple is strong enough where you dont need to run Hustle. Ive never really ran Specs but im sure it has a place in the meta.

 

[Hera]

finally out of swiss and not even touching pult, so i can post thoughts on some mons without exposing myself

i think haunter is absurd and should be first in line for a suspect test, even with the limited amount of time we have until dlc. between aoa, specs, scarf, and np, there isn't a ton of consistent counterplay outside of, like, quilladin or something, which isn't super good rn due to gogoat being the best grass. i've been spamming specs both on ladder and in test games and i'm constantly surprised by how few ghosts resists there are. it's basically skuntank, chansey, wyrdeer, and persian, most of which die to coverage or don't want to get tricked. it's a bit slower than it wants to be and not super splashable, but it's super good at making mincemeat of most defensive cores, especially since there's an abundance of fast pivots going around.

klawf is great but it feels very...underwhelming. like a lot of the breakers in the meta can take advantage of it through stabs or tera, and expending tera on your klawf doesn't ensure you'll actually beat what's in front of you. it's a mon that kinda sucks when you don't have momentum, but with momentum it's a pretty good knock spammer/rockers. i think sd sets should be explored more as well; apparently this thing gets trailblaze for some reason??? like how the hell is a crab blazing a trail? if klawf does end up going it might be because sd sets are too good of a wincon, but again that needs to be explored more.

hot take but spiritomb is probably the worst of the drops. wyrdeer is slowly finding a niche within the tier as a specs breaker/double dance wincon, and sliggoo is a solid spdef steel that beats up gogoat, although it hates spikes. i can't think of anything spiritomb does better over its competition, missy and haunter are just so much better at practically everything. crotomb sets are too slow and passsive to actually do anything for multiple turns, and it doesn't have the resistances/initial bulk to find setup opportunities in the first place. uhhh i guess it's a cool psychic immunity, that's something right? at best it might see some niche use on teams as role compression, but outside of that idk.

tier's in a pretty good place, tera's still as annoying as ever but as the tier got more options it got more managable, although sometimes you still get those 50/50s when revenging something like zard or duggy with electrode, and generally i think the healthy aspects of tera are worth keeping around now. teams have started to stack checks to bulky setup sweepers like goat and bink along with general offensive pressure to punish their most popular tera types, and while that created a kinda stale meta, it's much better than when cm tera fairy missy could 6-0 teams. lot more options in general is a good thing, and it doesn't feel overwhelming to handle the breakers in this meta due to a wide amount of defensive/offensive counterplay. hope dlc and home drops don't screw the balance over.

 

[ishtar]

Ok, so let's talk about Haunter a little.

I am not of the opinion that Haunter is broken rn but I can see why it might be considered problematic in the long run. This post is mostly gonna discuss different mainstray options I've seen used for Haunter and to sort of analyze its different attributes, checks and overall just how the versatility of this Pokemon affects the rest of the meta.

Haunter is able to run a plethora of options as previously mentioned, so pardon me for missing the epic gamer sets: Scarf, Specs, Nasty Plot, Trick Black Sludge, Sub (with options such as Plot, Disable, Will-O, Hex, Toxic).

Now looking at most of Haunter's defensive checks,

• Normal-types such as Chansey can effectively be played around if it lacks Shadow Ball and faces Substitute sets, it also gets crippled by pretty much all of these sets due to Trick.
• Whiscash stands out as one of the more solid defensive checks to Haunter, but can easily get weakened and naturally fears Energy Ball.
• Skuntank is another solid check, but isn't very bulky so it's gotta be weary of Focus Blast or other options that cripple it.
• Persian-A outspeeds Haunter naturally but does not like switching in, same goes for Pyroar, as they both fear Focus Blast and Sludge Bomb.
• Tinkatuff, Perrserker and Sliggoo-H get crippled in the same way as the other defensive Pokes, they care less about being tricked Black Sludge and naturally fear offensive coverage less.

Now I wanna discuss one of the main points I've heard regarding Haunter's defensive attributes. It is often said that Haunter dies to pretty much everything. I personally find that Haunter's immunity to Fighting and Ground-type moves grants it plenty of chances to switch in offensively on things. A choice locked Duggy-A is the perfect example of this, but despite Haunter's awful bulk it's still able to switch in on weaker threats such as Whiscash, unboosted Gogoat, Carbink, Swalot. Tera is another tool that Haunter can utilize to deal mainly with its huge amount of offensive checks. I've seen Tera Dark and Fairy to play around opposing Ghost and Dark-type moves for example.

In my opinion the breaker prior to the drop of Haunter that most similarly plays like it is Rotom-Frost. I think comparing the two is worth analyzing. Rotom-Frost was often considered broken or unhealthy by parts of the playerbase. It is also a possible Scarf user has Trick and can naturally utilize Nasty Plot to break through checks, and also utilizes defensive Tera often to survive hits. There are a few differences in how these two mons operate and I'll try to be as fair as I can be regarding these differences:

Rotom-Frost is able to pivot with Volt Switch, has an arguable better defensive typing and stronger STAB options. Unfortunately one of these is Blizzard. Unlike Haunter, Rotom-Frost is fairly reliant on Heavy Duty Boots, while Haunter can run choiced sets without worrying about Rocks as well as recovery items such as Leftovers and Black Sludge. Despite having unresisted coverage, Haunter is able to hit most of the meta for super effective damage, while Rotom often has to settle for neutral hits. Haunter is also faster than Rotom-F, allowing Haunter to speed tie with opposing Haunter, Houndoom, offensive Leafeon and Sawsbuck. Rotom-Frost isn't weak to somewhat common priority moves such as Sucker Punch. Haunter's many more sets makes it way more unpredictable on team preview.

I believe the general consesus in the current meta is that Rotom-Frost is at least more balanced than it was prior to drops though I was never of the opinion that Rotom was broken, so I'd love to be corrected on this if part of the playerbase disagrees. I also wanna make it clear that I did not make the comparison between the two mons to imply that they compete with each other, they're both amazing at what they do and can easily fit into the same teams. Rotom-F isn't going anywhere but my main question regarding these two is if these attributes that Haunter has over Rotom-F push it over the edge in the current meta for those who originally wanted the Fridge gone?

This was just meant to highlight Haunter's strengths and weaknesses which are are plenty on both ends. I believe that this mon rewards the builder a lot, since its such a versatile breaker with a plethora of options, but it's also a pain to face in practice, the sets it can potentially run aren't easy to guess, and it's got something for pretty much every would-be-counter in the tier. Despite this, I feel like its often easier to play around than you might expect since its unboosted damage can be quite pitiful, though I could definitely see my mind changing on this once I get cheesed by like Sub Trick Encore Energy Ball with Tera Bug or something like that. Let's keep the conversation going on this mon and ty for reading!

 

[justdrew]

Okay, so… let’s talk about Wyrdeer. Sub Calm Mind and Grassy Seed sets are scary late game and it’s not really a difficult method of winning the game. I honestly don’t think a deer suspect would be absurd but I don’t know if it’s something council is considering. Deer has definitely seen plenty of high level usage in PULT, PUPL, and even Grand Slam by Giannis.

This post is meant to spark discussion!

Editing in some thoughts about Wyrdeer: there isn’t a lot of variance in its sets since choice band scarf and specs all haven’t seen a lot of usage and physical sets in general aren’t very good. So it’s a relatively one dimensional mon. I think it’s not good per se but is slightly constraining on team building because it’s certainly something you need to keep in mind. Curious to see people’s thoughts.

 

[LettuceLeaf07]

As a low-mid ladder player who hasn't played that much recently, I haven't struggled agaisnt Wyrdeer. Wyrdeer is weak to dark type attacks, and I'm already running knock on Klawf (and Dartrix technically), sucker punch on Dug-A, and sucker punch + tspikes + taunt on Skuntank. The same dark-type counterplay I use against Haunter works against Wyrdeer.

If Wyrdeer is broken, I don't see it yet. Sure, it takes games, but you need to dedicate 2 team slots for Thwackey and Wyrdeer for it to work, and more to avoid common counterplay. It's not that hard to poison, taunt, or spam sucker punch against. I feel like tera can be brought up since Wyrdeer is probably one of the best mons to use tera blast on, but when the only instance of a tera wyrdeer I remember just got one-shot because it tera-d ground in front of a crabominable, I can't think of it as broken.

Also, the calcs say that crab is not a wyrdeer check, but if it doesn't click CM when your crab switches in, max hp av isn't ohko-d.


On another note, I've been liking Dartrix a lot lately. It has leaf storm to threaten Whiscash and rock types, enough physical/special bulk to not be KO'd if you miss the leaf storm KO, and knock + roost + defog. At full health, it can survive a Whiscash ice beam and ohko back 31.3% of the time. The biggest downsides it has are wanting to be at full health all the time, wanting rocks or chip to secure KOs, taking 25% from rocks, and being overly passive if your facing a grass resist/immunity that has already been knocked. Overall, it's not too impressive with all those flaws, but it's miles better than Quaxwell as removal and is way more likely to put in work than Quax.

Here are some sets and calcs where Leaf Storm puts in work:

Dartrix Sets + Calcs

Max Def:
Dartrix @ Eviolite
Ability: Long Reach
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Knock Off
- Leaf Storm
- Defog
- Roost

Neutral Whiscash creep:
Dartrix @ Eviolite
Ability: Long Reach
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 192 Def / 68 Spe
Bold Nature
- Knock Off
- Leaf Storm
- Defog
- Roost

0 SpA Dartrix Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Whiscash: 372-444 (87.7 - 104.7%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Whiscash Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Eviolite Dartrix: 184-220 (51.2 - 61.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Dartrix Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Lycanroc-Midnight: 264-312 (84.8 - 100.3%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Lycanroc-Midnight Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 192+ Def Eviolite Dartrix: 186-218 (51.8 - 60.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Dartrix Leaf Storm vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Klawf: 332-392 (96.7 - 114.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Klawf Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 192+ Def Eviolite Dartrix: 186-218 (51.8 - 60.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Basculin Head Smash vs. 248 HP / 192+ Def Eviolite Dartrix: 238-280 (66.2 - 77.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Dartrix Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Basculin: 338-398 (120.2 - 141.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Melt Gibson]

Okay, so… let’s talk about Wyrdeer. Sub Calm Mind and Grassy Seed sets are scary late game and it’s not really a difficult method of winning the game. I honestly don’t think a deer suspect would be absurd but I don’t know if it’s something council is considering. Deer has definitely seen plenty of high level usage in PULT, PUPL, and even Grand Slam by Giannis.

This post is meant to spark discussion!

Deer's fine. Point blank, period, full stop.

Now, that's obviously very uninteresting to read and also could be interpreted in bad faith, so lemme explain! Firstly, I'd like to comment on some points that others have brought up.

Editing in some thoughts about Wyrdeer: there isn’t a lot of variance in its sets since choice band scarf and specs all haven’t seen a lot of usage and physical sets in general aren’t very good. So it’s a relatively one dimensional mon. I think it’s not good per se but is slightly constraining on team building because it’s certainly something you need to keep in mind. Curious to see people’s thoughts.

I quite honestly think that you're kidding yourself if you use any version of Wyrdeer that isn't double dance. Physical sets are, as drew says, pretty lackluster since you're likely going to be clicking a coverage move most of the time, lose out on the adaptable STAB that Tera Blast provides to special sets, and don't have access to the bonkers power that Stored Power gets after several boosts. It's just overall less effective and the job is done better by other mons. I think choice items specifically are very, very bad on Wyrdeer. Normal being ineffective against Ghosts and Psychic being ineffective against Darks create very awkward situations, especially when we have very strong, relevant examples of both in the tier, as well as Ghost being a popular Tera typing thanks to Carbink. Indeedee has extremely similar problems, but these are somewhat helped due to Indeedee being faster, setting Psychic Terrain to make Sucker Punch ineffective, and also boosting its power significantly. Wyrdeer does not get any of these benefits. So, yes, Wyrdeer is extremely one-dimensional. Not only is double dance really the only good set, but you will also know its ability as soon as it enters, since Intimidate and Frisk announce themselves on entry and if it isn't one of those two it has to be Sap Sipper. Also, Intimidate is really the only good one! Sap Sipper has some cool uses, but Intimidate is generally much better at creating setup opportunities. Also, all of the Grass-types in the tier, especially Leafeon and Flapple, have other moves that they would rather be hitting you with anyway OR are just getting bulldozed.

Wyrdeer is weak to dark type attacks, and I'm already running knock on Klawf (and Dartrix technically), sucker punch on Dug-A, and sucker punch + tspikes + taunt on Skuntank. The same dark-type counterplay I use against Haunter works against Wyrdeer.

If Wyrdeer is broken, I don't see it yet. Sure, it takes games, but you need to dedicate 2 team slots for Thwackey and Wyrdeer for it to work, and more to avoid common counterplay. It's not that hard to poison, taunt, or spam sucker punch against. I feel like tera can be brought up since Wyrdeer is probably one of the best mons to use tera blast on, but when the only instance of a tera wyrdeer I remember just got one-shot because it tera-d ground in front of a crabominable, I can't think of it as broken.

This post also has some excellent insights. Dark moves are incredibly common and very good in the tier right now. Sucker Punch, Dark Pulse, and Knock Off all give Wyrdeer a very tough time doing what it wants to do. As Lettuce brings up, a lot of this counterplay that is used as insurance against things like Haunter also happens to be very effective at stopping the deer. While I disagree that Thwackey is required (although it is an excellent teammate), it does also help me segway nicely into my next point: the item conundrum that Wyrdeer faces.

Double dance Wyrdeer has three realistic options for items: Heavy-Duty Boots, Grassy Seed, and Leftovers. Heavy-Duty Boots protects you from hazards, and in a tier where the removal is extremely poor, that's a very good thing to have. A mon like Wyrdeer especially appreciates this when its goal is to start setting up and run away with the game, since it needs to remain healthy to do so. Grassy Seed, when paired with support from Thwackey, gives Wyrdeer a defense boost that both boosts Stored Power and helps it to create more setup opportunities, but makes it vulnerable to hazards and unable to heal off any chip damage it may receive. And lastly, Leftovers provides a small amount of passive recovery, but no additional bulk and no protection from hazards.

My point is this: Wyrdeer is constantly forced into a rock-paper-scissors scenario on the item it wants to run, and since there are overlapping solutions amongst all three, it's not enough of a variable to stop any sort of reasonable counterplay. In addition, the presence or absence of Thwackey narrows this down even further, either confirming or denying that Wyrdeer is, in fact, holding a Grassy Seed.

And Lettuce is right, it's not that hard to afflict it with status effects (Skuntank is already a decent check and can set TSpikes, which Wyrdeer hates), Taunt it (All of the Taunt users are faster than Wyrdeer and not particularly scared of it, especially Alolan Persian), or Sucker Punch it. Encore is also excellent counterplay, and exists on a variety of already viable choices.

However, I think that most of all, my biggest point in the defense of Wyrdeer is this: It is not, at all, immediately threatening. It requires significant setup and investment to start blowing through things, and sometimes even needs help from Tera to muscle through things such as Alolan Persian that would otherwise check it handily. You realistically have to spend two turns before Stored Power is doing any actual ridiculous damage, and there are plenty of Dark-types and special walls that still aren't scared of you. Tera Fairy alleviates some of this, but requires you to save your Tera for Wyrdeer, which can make creating the needed opportunities to set up difficult. So, yes, Wyrdeer is capable of running away with games, but it only does so as a reward to proper play and positioning, much differently from past threats like Lilligant, Vivillon, or Oricorio.

Deer's cool, definitely not banworthy, and should stick around. Thanks for reading :)

 

[third bonnie]

I think choice items specifically are very, very bad on Wyrdeer. Normal being ineffective against Ghosts and Psychic being ineffective against Darks create very awkward situations, especially when we have very strong, relevant examples of both in the tier, as well as Ghost being a popular Tera typing thanks to Carbink.

i'm not that sold on them being terrible. if you expect a switch into one of the immunities, you have options - a prediction that ends up dealing significant damage if gotten right or... trick. my specs set has psyshock, tera blast, earth power and trick so pretty much no matter what team i face there's bound to be some immunity. However, getting to know your opponent during the match helps make things not awkward.

still against the ban, just to clarify, as dumb as double dance is

 

[Melt Gibson]

i'm not that sold on them being terrible. if you expect a switch into one of the immunities, you have options - a prediction that ends up dealing significant damage if gotten right or... trick. my specs set has psyshock, tera blast, earth power and trick so pretty much no matter what team i face there's bound to be some immunity. However, getting to know your opponent during the match helps make things not awkward.

still against the ban, just to clarify, as dumb as double dance is

ngl i really do not see the appeal this has over indeedee except for the ground coverage, but like, ???

i do see your point that you can reasonably predict but it's much less consistent compared to double dance since choiced deer has to guess right every single time to be effective, especially since it's so fucking slow

 

[third bonnie]

ngl i really do not see the appeal this has over indeedee except for the ground coverage, but like, ???

more bulk, more universal abilities - most notably not colliding with thwackey - and in general more potential versatility. There's lots of things you can do with Wyrdeer because both attacks are the same, very solid 105. You can catch opponents by surprise by not running double dance as well, and tricking choice is really nice. Hell, I've seen someone run weakness policy while fishing for knocks and turns.

 

[gum]

tier shifts are in!

Avalugg-Hisui moved from NU to PU
Cacturne moved from NU to PU
Komala moved from NU to PU
Raichu-Alola moved from NU to PU
Tauros-Paldea-Combat moved from NU to PU
Veluza moved from NU to PU

overall pretty excited for these tier shifts, getting two new removal options that don't look terrible is something we've been needing for a while now. cacturne's an old face, it was a nice option back then and it'll probably still be good now. i think the bottom 3 drops have the potential to be stupid, especially tauros and veluza, so it'll be interesting to see how they'll settle into the tier in the next couple of days

 

[Melt Gibson]

she melt on my gibson until i post abt the tier shifts


Probably not amazing? The typing and statline are pretty underwhelming to me, even though that Defense is fucking massive by PU standards. Spin is probably enough to make this valuable for at least a little bit though, and it does hit decently hard if nothing else. Once we get better removal I could see it becoming almost like a Crabominable alternative if it doesn't fall into obscurity before then.


The other spinner! I think this one is just generally a lot better, Comatose in a status spam meta is absurdly cracked and being able to abuse more passive variants of things like Missy and Spiritomb is super cool, a spinner that can deal with common blockers is exactly what this tier has been needing. Very excited to not have to run Boots all the time on everything.


Probably not okay LOL, this is just Raichu but better in almost every regard, Surge Surfer seems like it's going to make Sucker Punch the only real counterplay. Pair this with a solid Ground and just watch it go, would not be surprised if this ended up in PUBL before the month's end. To be entirely fair to it, Sucker Punch is plentiful enough and we do have enough Lightning Rod mons that dealing with it could be possible? I'm still not optimistic about this thing's place in the tier though.


I missed this one :) Having a strong check to all the Waters and a good Sucker Punch spam clicker is always welcome here, very glad to be able to run Specs Cacturne again. If anything, I just see this checking some of the stupid shit that dropped with it and from there kind of settling into the same role it had before it rose to NU. Also would not be surprised to see Leafeon stocks go down a bit now that Cacturne is back.


A Fighting that isn't Crabominable? And an offensive mon with Intimidate? Shit, I'm down. I can see this getting a little silly, especially since it's not strapped into running Life Orb like its cousin and has a handy resistance to Stealth Rock, but that cut in speed is pretty significant when you're no longer hitting the benchmark to tie things like Raichu and Alolan Dugtrio. Probably still good though, has a lot of setup options and insane coverage with potential to fill out the spread on just about any team you need it to. I think this one should be alright to stay but I wouldn't be surprised or upset at a suspect.


Don't trust this motherfucker for a single minute. My only concern in terms of viability is if it can reasonably find the chance to set up, but I also get the idea that it might not even need to? Sharpness boosted Psycho Cut and Aqua Cutter are already pretty nice in terms of damage. Stored Power sets also seem pretty good, and I feel like if you could optimize a spread to make it have physical Tera Blast Fighting to deal with things like Chansey then you'd be golden. Definitely have my eye on this one for now.